Seth Lynch ⋅ Plano, TX Hewlett Packard ⋅ 15 years experience

Frank,

You are overlooking the most important recruiting/ hiring tool out there today, LinkedIn. I did a very quick search on your name and location and found you with the headline of Emergency Management Specialist. Even more unfortunate, there were no previous jobs listed, no personal branding, and no mention of IT Project Management plans, specialties, desires, or experience. 90%+ of recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates. 100% of recruiting managers and hiring managers use LinkedIn to review a candidate before calling for a screening or hiring interview today.

If you are looking for a position in IT Project Management, you'll only be found in searches by the information in your LinkedIn profile. It's your personal marketing page. Make it work for you. Sending out resumes and applying at online job sites is like screaming in space.

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

Ooh rah Bulldog.

The key is understanding the demand of the market then acquiring the specialized skill the market demands.

Being a generalist is where your downfall is now, in my opinion. MBAs, PMPs, are all common place, dime-a-dozen. You need to specialize in a specific area.

If you want to manage infrastructure projects for example, you should specialize in Cyber-security. If you want to manage software development projects, then you should specialize in Artificial Intelligence. Do your market research to find out which specialties are applicable for your interests.

https://www.roberthalf.com/workplace-research/salary-guides
http://www.umuc.edu/academic-programs/cyber-security/index.cfm

Getting your PMP is not a silver bullet. Talking classes means very little. Get an advanced degree in a demanded specialization.

Good luck !

Scott Abrino ⋅ Evans City, PA U.S. Army, Sergeant ⋅ 8 years served

I browse and rarely post. I have been in this Marine's shoes on many occasions. I am now halfway through an MBA program. while working full time. I am doing MY part to ensure that I am well qualified for the job market.

www.GIJobs.com

Military to Civilian Pay Calculator. Go there! Know what you are worth. You will be surprised as I was. Remember it.

If you are thinking about getting into Project Management Contact Cathy at

https://www.vets2pm.com/

They may be able to help lower the cost of PMP training.

Good Luck Marine.

The waters are murky out there but we have to figure a way through them. '

I have a great job now and earning the money I feel I deserve and gaining experience that I feel is valuable. Even though my job is temporary, which is why I am working on my MBA.

My goal is to be a department head or VP with a good company where I can retire from who understands and respects my value.

Semper Fi

PS you are an NCO you ARE NOT ENTRY LEVEL. Any company that thinks that you are does not deserve you working for them. Run the other way.

I almost forgot. Recruitment Firms such as Orion, Bradley Morris are geared more towards "entry level" non management roles. They recruit more for the traveling service tech for 18 an hour. Which is quite a bit lower than yours or even my salaries as NCO's. I learned the hard way after having to figure it out for myself that those companies were just not equipped to help a Veteran with my level of education and experience.

Also my local unemployment office has a Veterans office and a retired Gunnery Sergeant leading it. Unfortunately I had to figure out that this office also was not equipped to assist me. That office was geared more towards helping homeless vets get back into the workforce and lower enlisted vets find minimum wage work who have no experience nor education.

This has also been my experience with Veterans Organizations such as Hire Hero's, Wounded Warrior Project. These instituations are not geared to help Mid career Veterans such as you and me find suitable work. They are more geared towards helping the Veterans recovering from substance abuse, homeless, recently separated with only 2 - 4 years active duty and was not an NCO find minimum wage work. I know because i get emails from them all of the time and I see the jobs that come through. temp $8 an hour work, technician for $15... Even with all of these resources at my disposal I still have had to find all of my own jobs. None of them were able to help me. I was even on the phone with an Orion recruiter yesterday. And she flat out told me that I exceed the level of the majority of the positions they fill for and she was unsure that she would be able to help me.

If anything in my response helps you then my work is done here. I hopped on to reply to share the hard truth from someone who has the experience to back it up and is a Veteran and ex NCO.

Only we can help ourselves. I hired a professional resume writer in my city who has an excellent track record to write my resume. A couple months later i landed a job with a significant raise. I had to get over my own pride with writing my own resume. Yes I am quite capable of writing my own resume, what i did not understand that in my opinion, I have found that writing our own resumes can be harmful. When I received my resume after the lady wrote mine I was blown away and completely on board. It took seeing it to believe it. Having a 3rd party write your resume from the outside looking in is what did the trick for me. The lady I hired does this full time, she writes resumes everyday it is her job. She also has a BS degree and a Masters degree, owns her own business writing resumes. And she is very good.

Just some friendly advice my friend best of luck.

Phil Marcoux ⋅ Mountain View, CA PPM Associates ⋅ 40 years experience

Frank - hiring is complicated for many reasons and you're right that shotgunning resumes only adds to your frustration.

From my experience I've found that unless companies need to do mass hiring to fill hoards of openings you as a perspective hire are stopped by two issues.

Hiring folks are measured by the quality of the people they hire. Their quality elements include your ability to fit into the job and whether you and the company stay happy together. In some companies the company applies these measures, in others the hiring team does this among themselves. In many cases they are risk adverse and would rather recommend a candidate with connections from "safe" sources than a higher and personally riskier blind resume. The higher the management level of the opening the more the tendency for candidates with safer, known connections. In other words it's a "who you know" and do you have an "in" mentality.

This is why networking is so important. Even a 10 sec meet, greet, smile at a job fair gives you more of an "in" then a gold plated filled with chocolate blindly submitted resume.

Phil

Heather Lofquist ⋅ Erie, CO U.S. Air Force, Captain ⋅ 11 years served

As an FYI, you can also take a plethora of courses online to prepare for PMP or other certs (like cybersecurity, ITIL, etc) at FedVTE. They're free to federal employees, military members, and veterans! https://fedvte.usalearning.gov/

Paul Trejo ⋅ Austin, TX University of Texas at Austin ⋅ 40 years experience

Frank,

First, thanks for your years of service. Secondly, let me briefly offer my opinion on changes in the job market over the past 35 years.

Because of the meteoric rise of computers, the average HR and hiring manager HAS NO CLUE how to hire people anymore. They don't recognize the technical language which are not buzzwords, but actual, working vocabulary.

Many just outsource the hiring to Headhunters. That's a viable way to go, by the way, because headhunters, while they charge the company a lot of money, are worth their salt because they study the technical vocabulary.

With a headhunter, you get jobs you rarely see in the usual places. It's a contract -- usually a contract to hire. Think of it as a high-paying internship. You get good money for short-term work. But you get to look inside the company. That's golden all by itself.

In fact, taking that job in-house often means a drop in income -- but a rise in benefits and security.

Think about headhunters, Frank. They have worked wonders for me in the past.

Best wishes,
--Paul

Sarah Bates ⋅ Fallbrook, CA Palomar Community College ⋅ 25 years experience

Frank, maybe my advice will help. Reading it is worth a shot. My former career in advertising involved doing the job I was hired for and training new hires–MBA grads, a sort of indoctrination into the real business, as opposed to what they learned in college. Each person was academically qualified to work at the agency. These people were smart, faster learners and certain they would be offered a management job. Big let-down for them however. To make sure these young people were trained, the men started in the company mail room, the women as receptionists. To make sure they could "manage" they needed to learn 'what' and 'who' they would manage. Within a year, most of these new MBAs were integral to the company productivity. Lesson? Entry level isn't so bad. Second story: my first ad agency job occurred because I called the department head who interviewed me every day until he finally relented and said, "Okay! Come on in, we've promoted someone leaving a job open. We need people who want to work for us, not just take home a paycheck." Hmmm? Persistence!
Third story: Well into my career a big job opened up with one of our clients. I wanted it bad. To show that I was prepared to start immediately I brought a yellow legal pad full of questions to the interview. It took two days to research that company, but I needed to show them they needed me because I could hit the ground running. The stunned look on the face of the VP who interviewed me still resonates. I got the job. I can't tell you what to do, my advice is purely anecdotal, but to be the cream who rises to the top of the milk, you have to do more than anyone else and find that niche which only you can fill. Good luck!

Christine Cox ⋅ Chatham, MA Interim CFO Services ⋅ 30 years experience

Hi Frank,

Thank you for your service! Job hunting is difficult and seemingly endless, especially when you are not presently in a job. It is impossible to convey all your skills and aptitudes in a cover letter or even an interview, compounded by the fact that few folks put in the role of interviewer do an adequate job of learning about the candidate. So they tend to focus on the years of experience and titles. There was a paradoxical saying I heard a lot during my career which was "look for a new job before you need one". The underlying truth to that is that we have a lot more confidence when we are not desperate to find a job. I know someone is desperate for a job when I receive a resume that doesn't fit the job description.
No matter how frustrated or desperate you are to find that next role, it's important not to show it - channel it into positive energy the best you can. You have experience most of us could never duplicate; most of us could never have performed your job without failing miserably. Carry that confidence with you and remember that just because you're not finding a fit doesn't mean you're unemployable - you just haven't found your fit yet. In my experience, the best thing you can do is make personal connections, and start building a network. Start with the people you know, and ask if they know anyone whose company might need your skills. Get names and contact info, reach out to those people and get a short face-to-face over coffee. Even if it's not an exact fit, meet with them anyway. If they can't help you, ask THEM for a name or two, and do the same with those people. Don't leave the table without the contact info for a few people. Yes, it's a lot of work, but as you develop this network, a lot of people will become familiar with you, you will hone your pitch, and many of them will be able to offer further advice and insight into your search. Even if they cannot think of an opportunity for you now, at some future point a job may open up and they will remember you. It also gives you a purpose, gets you dressed and out each day with a destination and an objective, and sometimes those kind of actions keep us motivated. Take a small job in the interim if you have to, one that will help pay the bills and take some of the stress off. The reality is that it doesn't happen fast, only when we are very lucky (and that is true for those with the most extensive resumes as well). But remember: it only takes one.

Good luck and please keep us posted...
Christine

Scott Fruchter ⋅ San Bernardino, CA Attorney at Law ⋅ 18 years experience

RANT ON! It is frustrating to search for a job when you don't have one.

It takes time and focus to get the right job. Remember that it took a while and a lot of focus to become a competent Marine. Rant periodically (but privately), then gather your strength and get back to job hunting Job hunting is a numbers and luck game. You can do a few things to improve your luck. I needed almost a hundred interviews before I got my most wonderful job. That meant sending out almost 2500 resumes. researching about 400 job openings, hundreds of hours of networking, and a lot of reinforcement from friends.

Good luck.

George Wilhelmsen ⋅ Rochelle, IL Sargent & Lundy ⋅ 38 years experience

Hi Frank,

Looks like you're getting frustrated in the job hunt. Given what you have described, I can see why.

I agree that networking opens doors. I will also share that the right resume focused on the job you want is key to your job hunt. I adjust my resume for the position I want so that it will resonate with the hiring manager and help them see "this guy is just the guy I need."

With that in mind, I'm going to suggest some things that nobody else has, mostly due to my background and experience.

1. What do you want to do? What is your dream job that you are applying to? Somehow, I doubt all your submissions are for your dream job, so what do you really want to do, and where do you want to end up as far as location?
2. With that in mind, send us that information (us being those advisors who have offered advice) and your resume, and let us see if we can see a disconnect.

Lets think some more. It sounds like you are getting in the front door in some cases, getting a face to face interview, but aren't getting past that.

If you were brutally honest with yourself (and you need to be here to be successful,) how would you say you have done on your interviews? I mention this as an employee of mine, who I consider very capable and a significant contributor to my organization, doesn't interview well. I'm now working with him to improve his Interview Skills, and help him recognize his value from his actions. He is very modest, and when you combine that with weak interview skills, it's limiting his ability to reach the job he desires.

Perhaps you have the same issue? I don't know, but I am willing to work with you (as I'm sure the rest of the advisors who have responded) to help you figure this out.

Don't give up! This could be as simple as finding the right "fit" for your real desires, adjusting your resume to focus on that, and tweaking your interview skills to nail the position.

Let's solve this!

George Wilhelmsen

Roddney Hackstall ⋅ Greensboro, NC Canopy Partners ⋅ 20 years experience

Frank,

I stumbled on the below link while networking on Linkedin. I think this may help you. Its free!!

http://www.pm-prolearn.com/visitor_catalog_path/show/1553

Glen Alleman ⋅ Longmont, CO Niwot Ridge LLC ⋅ 30 years experience

Frank,
First thank you for your service.

It's my experience that company websites provide little in the way of "getting someone to pay attention. if they don't already know you." So finding an "inside" connection is the first step.

Start with the local PMI chapter meetings (if there is one). Check MeetUp sites for your area to see if they have PM, software development, or IT groups.

These are usually monthly and they have job postings as the first item of the meeting.

From there, your "inside" connection can be developed.

Drew Schildwächter ⋅ Wilmington, NC Salesforce ⋅ 8 years experience

Frank: I recommend starting via networking rather than a company's site or job posting. I mean, figure out someone you'd like to work for and reach out to them directly; make your case in the same way, sharing how you see yourself as a value to their organization. Being seen as valuable by the manager with the need is the end goal and you benefit if you can get there without having to pass the potentially disinterested HR department first because then your advocate can guide you through or obviate much of the HR stuff.

As usual, John has some great points about assessing your value proposition and the market. I would just add to those by suggesting pursuing a different audience, but the same goal.

Best,
Drew

Frank Morrison ⋅ Aurora, CO U.S. Marine Corps, Sergeant ⋅ 12 years served

Quick note of clarification:

I am only applying to jobs where I MOSTLY meet the qualifications. If I'm not at least 75-80% sure that I meet the requirements, I don't waste my, and the recruiters', time. That kind of 'shotgunning' of resumes is how the system got so convoluted in the first place.