Merry Vickers ⋅ Richardson, TX Dallas Police Department - City of Dallas prior to starting with Raytheon 2017 ⋅ 18 years experience

Thank you for your service. There are several suggestions that most services and internet sites recommend, and they are right.

Give your resume a format change and lead with a summary that outlines your skills and qualifications. Share generalities from past positions to translate how it will be beneficial in new roles, like skills, duties, projects or management. Use clear civilian language to describe your career objectives, but highlight key wording from job descriptions and any accomplishments you have achieved. Keep the verbiage in present tense and have others read through it for feedback. If you can pursue any volunteer opportunities, contract jobs, certifications or even CEU (Continuing Education Units) courses will show how interested you are and make recruiters take notice. Take advantage of in-house professional development and training programs available, which always shows you are willing to do and learn more.

I hope this helps you on this new journey and I wish you all the best.

Kindest regards,
Merry Vickers

Lee Woodruff ⋅ Tucson, AZ Banner University Medical Center Tucson ⋅ 8 years experience

https://www.indeed.com/q-Hospital-Supply-Chain-jobs.html

Indeed should be on your list of opportunity searches:)

Lee Woodruff ⋅ Tucson, AZ Banner University Medical Center Tucson ⋅ 8 years experience

Good afternoon Ms. Monique:) I've been out of the service a few years, worked at a few places and finally found my place in Healthcare. This is going to sound maybe a little presumptuous, but what exactly do you want to do in healthcare? With a background in logistics, the area in healthcare that would benefit most would be within an organization's supply chain. Of course, that's just one option, but every hospital, supply vendor and medical equipment/supplier utilizes logistics to run their business. If you DM me with some specifics, I would be happy to look into some options from my end? Lee

Susana Moraga ⋅ Hayward, CA California State University East Bay ⋅ 20 years experience

Monique,
I don't know what uop is regarding your degree, however, with your background in logistics, I would think you have a lot of transferable skills to make you competitive.
Yes, employers want you to have experience in healthcare but many will train the right person.
Have you contacted the resources on this site in healthcare?
What area of healthcare are you interested in pursuing? Have you done informational interviews with professionals in that field?
As Luke mentioned looking at related fields like insurance can be a way in depending on what you want to do.
Volunteering or if you just finished your degree internships are also an option.

If you have contacted the resources on this site in healthcare and still are not moving forward please contact me for additional support.

Luke Thomas Redman ⋅ Austin, TX Hospital Internists of Austin ⋅ 7 years experience

Hi Monique, healthcare can be tough to break into. Every job wants experience but how do you get your first experience, right?

Two questions for you -
1) Do you have a degree in a relevant business field like finance, management, marketing, etc?
2) What part of healthcare administration are you interested in?

In any case I would recommend either looking at entry level positions with either a health insurance company (claims, customer service, broker/agent/sales which would require a license) or a hospital (customer service, financing, admissions). These jobs will help you gain some background in healthcare then you can look at moving up.

In healthcare the key to advancement is specialization - for example, maybe you start in customer service or finance for a surgical hospital or outpatient surgery center. That experience will help position you to move up in the surgical sector. No matter what job you get try to make sure you are always mindful of what you *could* be specializing in. Then when you are ready to move up you can show that experience was helpful in your gaining specific and applicable knowledge.