Military & Veteran Students:
Executing Your Search

Preparing your personal marketing assets for an internship or job search

MODULE 3: EXECUTING YOUR SEARCH
Draft a resume, translate your experience and prepare for interviews

Military veterans come to Carlson with strong career backgrounds and leadership experience. The first hurdle for many is how to talk about military roles in a way that civilian employers will understand. There’s no substitute for this translation process; it will require iteration and support from our Career Coaches, but here’s some guidance on how to begin.

This section will help you:

Create a draft resume.
Translate your military experiences to tell your career story in a way that recruiters will understand.
Prepare for networking conversations and interviews.

STEP 1: Watch these resource videos

Learn how to translate your military experience into a high-impact resume by watching the short Resume Development video and the full High Impact Resume webinar.

STEP 2: Draft a resume!

Start with your most recent resume, wherever it’s at. Think of this rough draft as a data dump - brainstorm as much as you think could be relevant for talking about your prior experiences.

SUBSTITUTE ACRONYMS with the full name - better yet, translate them into clear, simple operational language. Did you handle logistics? Contracts? Set up computer systems? Manage development or deployment for 30 direct reports? Say so! Use this table from Directional Motivation and the examples below as a resource.

Tips for translating military experience into civilian resume language with clear examples.

From Resume Writing for Veterans, UMN Career & Internship Services office.

EXPLAIN SCALE: For any leadership experience, give the reader an understanding of scale. How big was the team? What impact did your leadership have? (financial, mission clarity, morale, promotions for direct reports, awards, etc.)
INCLUDE TRANSFERABLE SKILLS: Think especially about those experiences you brainstormed earlier and add anything related to the core transferable skills listed here.

A graphic with eight red boxes containing white text, each representing a professional skill: 1) Leadership – direct reports or indirect influence of peers, 2) Building strategies and recommendations, 3) Data analysis or gathering, 4) Project management, 5) Communicating complex information, 6) Problem-solving, 7) Operations management – process improvements and coordinating multiple teams, 8) Budgets or financial management.

Hear other veterans discuss their skills in this Get Hired: Transferable Military Skills video from the UMN CandidCareer page.

TRANSLATION TOOLS: The Crosswalk tool from O*Net Online and Career OneStop Veteran Job Matcher allows candidates with military backgrounds to enter their prior roles for translation into related civilian functions or job titles. Use it to find out how your military experience roughly translates, and read through the civilian role descriptions to see what tasks, skills and abilities are associated with those roles. As you build a vocabulary around the activities, projects, and teams that you worked with, incorporate that language into your resume. View more translation tools below.
REVISE: Remember that any candidate’s process of creating a resume, telling their story, and preparing for interviews is iterative. This exercise will build a foundation for your business school resume, help you understand the kinds of roles that will be similar to your past experiences, as well as how to talk about them in civilian terms. You’ll select the most relevant points for the roles you decide to pursue--but it’s always helpful to keep a master version with the full list in your files!

Step 3: The Next Draft

CHECK IN: Once you’ve completed the brainstorming and translation processes, ask a family member or friend without a military background to read through your resume. Adjust any areas that are confusing or still sound technical.
CBCC CAREER GUIDE: The Carlson BCC Career Exploration section on Resume Development is a helpful resource for selecting key experiences and developing high-impact resume language to convey them. Pause here to read through it.
WATCH: “Creating Your Resume for the Carlson School of Management” video on our Resumes page.
COACHING APPOINTMENT: Once you’ve worked on translating your experiences, selecting the most relevant ones for your one-page document, and input them into the Carlson standard resume format, it’s a great time to visit APlus to make an appointment with a Graduate Career Coach to continue fine-tuning the points and talk about strategies for showcasing your experiences during recruitment.

Translation Resources:

Military-Focused Translation Tools:

Military Resume Help

This page from Directional Motivation includes solutions for common resume challenges (acronyms, jargon) and a table of Military Vocabulary with corresponding civilian terms.

Veterans Job Matcher

The U.S. Dept. of Labor's Career OneStop Veteran Job Matcher lists civilian careers that might be a good fit for your military skills. Search your occupation code(s) to see related civilian role titles and descriptions.

O*Net Online Crosswalk

Enter a code or keyword into the Crosswalk search tool to see related position titles and descriptions from civilian business areas.

Military Skills Translator

Enter your military service and job title to find a list of comparable civilian roles from the Military.com team.

Translation Support:

Eagle Group of MN

Career Track group: weekly sessions led by veterans and civilian allies who provide coaching, search tips, networking and more. Use this in tandem with the CBCC’s coaching and interview prep resources!Gain an Edge Webinar: ID and Communicate Transferable Skills

CBCC Resources

Graduate Career Coaches: Our team is here for you! Make an appointment in Handshake if you’re stuck or have questions.CBCC Career Guide: For general resume guidance on formatting and revising for impactful language.

Step 4: Networking and Interview Prep

The CBCC has a variety of resources to help you prepare for networking and interview conversations. As you prepare for "Tell me about yourself/Walk me through your resume" and behavioral interview questions, come back to these translation resources to make sure you're using clear language to share your experiences.

LINKEDIN: Once you've updated your profile, make an appointment with a Career Coach to review it. Remember to limit military jargon and abbreviations. Watch Eagle Group of MN's LinkedIn for Veteran's Job Search.
INTERVIEWING: Leverage the CBCC resources below as you prepare. We also have military Contract Coaches available; once you've practiced with peers and a Career Coach, consider making an appointment with a Contract Coach to get feedback on telling your story and translating your experiences.