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

Thank you for your service. We have numerous openings for supply chain positions at all levels right now. Go to Raytheon.com and apply.

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.

Large companies have numerous professional development opportunities of all kinds, like Raytheon. Look at all the positions offered, not just specific jobs and you will be amazed at the possibilities. Once you find any position, take advantage of in-house professional development and training programs which always shows management that you are willing to do and learn more.

Kindest regards,
Merry Vickers

Robert Jurasek ⋅ Hollywood, FL Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ⋅ 45 years experience

Dear Jean,

In addition to the excellent comments from Advisor- Deb Yeagle, there are two more parts of the equation that you need to address: the format of the résumé, and the application, itself.

It’s true that the content of the résumé is very important and should be tailored to a specific job announcement, but it also is important that the information be presented in the correct format of a Federal résumé. USAJOBS has a résumé builder and résumé tips that might be of interest to you: https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/how-to/account/documents/resume/build/

With respect to the application, you will come to a section titled “Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA)”. To answer any given KSA, you will have several choices that generally range from having no clue to being a subject matter expert (SME). The blank space that follows the KSA is your opportunity to give examples that will support your answer.

Ideally, you will provide two examples for each KSA using the Context- Challenge- Action- Result (CCAR) method of documenting your accomplishments. Here is an over-simplified example:
• Context: In February, 2015, as the Manager of the shipping department at Some Shipping Co., Dallas, TX . . . (this sets the stage for the rest of the story)
• Challenge: The Company mandated that all departments reduce their budget by 5%.
• Action: I formed a committee to analyze our current shipping practices for costs and efficiency. And based on our analysis, we developed, implemented then trained all of the employees in the department on procedural changes that would reduce our shipping time and costs.
• Result: As a direct result of the changes that we initiated, we were able to exceed the company mandate of a 5%, and reduce our budget by 10%, or $1,500,000 per year.

The Resume Place can assist you with your résumé, as well as write your KSAs for you (for a fee.) However, their website also gives you free examples and builders for you to do it on your own. Go to www.resume-place.com > click on Resources and select Free Builders, Federal Resume Samples, or Accomplishment Samples (KSAs).

Thank you for your Service, and all the best with your Federal job hunting!

Sincerely,
Bob Jurasek

Po Wong ⋅ Orlando, FL Johnson & Johnson (retired) ⋅ 40 years experience

Hi Jean,
Thanks for your service!
If you are interest in private sector job, J&J opened a North America Share Service Center in Tampa, FL. Last year.(somewhat near you) The plan is to hire~500 people to support supply chain functions such as IT, Account payable, planning, contracts, category / supplier management…… which means there are job opportunities at Tampa.

Below is the J&J job posting site. It updates daily and you can sort by location, job functions.
https://jobs.jnj.com/jobs?page=1

You do need to decide what is your career interest? supplier management, IT, supply chain management??
Free feel to contact me if there are questions. We can also do a phone conversation (done quite a few times with others) if you feel it will add value to you.

Good luck!
Po

Liz Campanelli ⋅ East Brunswick, NJ Johnson & Johnson ⋅ 25 years experience

Hello Jean,
I have 12+ years working in Supply Chain with a major pharmaceutical. I have been writing resumes now for five years. I'm happy to review your resume at no cost. You may need a cover letter that is very tailored to the role you are applying for. Applicant tracking systems are in place at corporations now and they are programmed to look for specific key words. Without those key words, the resume gets trashed. So we want to be very careful how we target those jobs. I can review to ensure you are on right track. Hope this info helps and many thanks for your service!
Liz Campanelli

Jean Richelieu ⋅ Riverview, FL Defense Logistics Agency ⋅ 20 years experience

Andrea,

Thank you very much for your advice! I appreciate it. I will definitely work more on my resume as it is one of the keys to getting an interview.

Best regards,

Jean

Deb Yeagle ⋅ Tampa, FL Plan To Win, Inc. ⋅ 39 years experience

Hi Jean-
Thanks for your service!
If you have applied for previously advertised LOG jobs on USAJOBS, then the problem may be that your resume is not using the appropriate keywords from the job announcement, so the screener passes over your resume as unqualified.

The resume that you are using for private industry jobs is not going to work when you apply for Federal Government jobs. You will need to tailor your resume for each USAJOBS announcement that you are applying for. The key to getting a favorable screen in any USAJOBS resume is to carefully read the information in the “Requirements” section of the job announcement, and use / emphasize / highlight as many keywords as possible and as applicable from the various subsections within your work experience blocks so that the screener scores your resume high enough to be passed along to the next phase of the resume review. These subsections typically include:

Conditions of Employment
Qualifications
Experience Required
Specialized Experience
Education

If you are interested in a particular position, then feel free to send me the USAJOBS announcement and the latest version of your federal resume via private message, and I will take a look and provide you with some direct feedback on how to tailor your resume.

Thanks again-
Deb

Andrea Hannah ⋅ Nashville, TN UBS ⋅ 3 years experience

Jean,

I want to suggest that you broaden your search to not only include roles having the title of logistics management, but include quality management, distirbution services, supply chain management, and even Data management in your job search.

With 20 years of experience, you’ve bound to have cross training or interrelated work experience that touches on these functional areas in some capacity.

Next, I would advise that you honker down on the wording of your resume. Search your ideal roles and see if the job descriptions aligns with your resume wording. If so then you are on the right track. If not then edit your resume in your own words, applying the recall of your experience to the descriptions in your job search.

Lastly, on your education section of your resume, don’t forget to add any career or industry related membership and certifications to help you stand out from the crowd. If you don’t have any then get them. If you don’t attend industry conferences then plan now to attend them in 2018.

Industry Certifications: http://www.industrystarsolutions.com/blog/2016/08/5-supply-chain-certifications-every-professional-needs/

Regards,

Andrea