John Green ⋅ Cary, NC Information Technology ⋅ 40 years experience

1. Have a summary paragraph at the top that clearly calls out your strengths and points the reader to your destination.

2. The three second rule applies : you get three seconds to buy the next five. The first half of sentence needs to compel the reader to continue.

3. After the summary paragraph, list your assignments in chronological order in table format. (no description; use to/from month/year, not day.)

4. For each entry in your table, now list them again but this time with a paragraph of accomplishments. Focus on achievements. Begin each sentence with an impactful verb and tie a measurable metric to each sentence.

For an example resume, look at mine :

Also build a web presence (ie. your own website). Pick a template at template monster.

Once you have proofed your resume well, upload it to all the popular job boards. It may take you six months to proof it. Grammar/spelling.

Katie Tamarelli ⋅ Newport, KY Strategy& ⋅ 8 years experience

Hi Samuel,

Thank you very much for your service. I am happy to review your resume to provide feedback. Please feel free to send it to me offline with a job description.

Best,
Katie

Jerry Welsh ⋅ Middleville, MI Master Military Transition Advisor/HPS GPO ⋅ 30 years experience

1st have you taken your VMET through a FAA certification officer? The FAA recognizes military training and in many instances will provide you with FAA certification for your career. I would also recommend when you are comfortable to build a good profile on LinkedIn, I did not find you. 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn. Get out on Twitter or Indeed and down a ton of job postings that match the position you want. Look at them from what skills they want to what are the major areas of value. Go through your Master Resume and pull down your NCOer quantifiable statements, take out the military terms and hit them with your experience, value. I would stay away from "retired" and "20" years of experience. Civilians think of a cushy government pension and 20 years with your degrees will "over qualify" you and they will think you want big bucks. If you pull down 30 job postings and see the average years they want is 7, then you have 8 or 9+. If you put together a LinkedIn profile, connect with me and I will assist you target that to what career you wish. Thanks for your service and sacrifice. God Bless

Jeremy Serwer ⋅ Woodstock, CT The Serwer Company, LLC ⋅ 30 years experience

Hello Micah --

One additional thought to the very good advice before mine: when listing your positions and chronology, it's best to make it in "accomplishment" form. That means, instead of (and I'm making up the wording) "Aviation Officer, etc., etc., etc., 2000 to 2010", you might consider "Aviation Officer with perfect record of advancement, or 10 years of error free performance -- i.e., something of measurable accomplishment, instead of simply describing the position.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

JS

Drew Schildwächter ⋅ Wilmington, NC Salesforce ⋅ 8 years experience

Micah: there is a common tendency to equate the words Marine and leader among those with no military experience (and the rank of Gunnery Sergeant has its own weight, too). You can capitalize upon this by carefully curating the bullets you include on your résumé to suggest more manager than mechanic.

Everyone has strong opinions about how to write these bullets, so my example is not gospel. Here's a general example of what I am suggesting: the management aspect of this accomplishment leads the bullet.

e.g. Developed new procedures for team of five mechanics which improved aircraft maintenance readiness by 33% across the organization.

John's advice is all spot on; I had the same good advice when I made my first résumé and it paid off. You have basically six months. Make a plan now for how you will allocate that time for writing/reviewing/getting feedback on your résumé, networking, submitting applications, etc.

Best of luck.