Mike Davies ⋅ Georgetown, TX IBM ⋅ 33 years experience

Hi Natalie - It is not necessarily clear from your question why you think this pivot would be natural in your situation, though it is not necessary to clarify in this thread. If I were in this situation, I would develop my own personal story about why I see this as a natural progression, setup my resume accordingly. Best of Luck.

Mike Davies ⋅ Georgetown, TX IBM ⋅ 33 years experience

Hi Natalie - It is not necessarily clear from your question why you think this pivot would be natural in your situation, though it is not necessary to clarify in this thread. If I were in this situation, I would develop my own personal story about why I see this as a natural progression, setup my resume accordingly. Best of Luck.

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

Natalie,
I would suggest spending some time on Indeed or other job boards looking at openings in the career field you are interested in. 1) The 5-10 year positions may be "managers" "directors" when you might find acceptable positions requiring 3-5 years in the "supervisor" "asst. manager" "asst. director" positions. Make sure you are clearly laying out your skills and experience that lines up with those position openings. Many times you may need to spend some time conducting informational interviews to learn the civilian side of a career. Remember service members only make up 0.5% of the population, they may be very respectful of you, but do not understand how professional the military has become. One big hurtle is the language and the metrics, how you are measured in the military is different than civilians, once you translate that it becomes easier.
You own your transition, there is a lot of help hands up, no one hands out positions. Learning the civilian translation to your new career will be a lot of work, but once you are in the civilian market, you network and learn more. You can do a lot of this now via LinkedIn and Facebook professional groups. Thanks for your service and God Bless.

Jeff Martin ⋅ Ashburn, VA The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ⋅ 25 years experience

I’d suggest that you network at the target company or industry. Use LinkedIn to find people already working there and reach out to them. Ask them the process they used to get hired and ask them to help you navigate the hiring process and if they are willing, ask them to submit you as a referral. These activities require much more time on your part but in my opinion would greatly increase your chances for success. Good luck!

Christopher Gelvin ⋅ Stamford, CT UBS ⋅ 24 years experience

This is a great question. When I am interviewing candidates for a job, I always look for the following thee core skills:

1) Organizational skills - Can the person effectively organize their work and juggle several different topics at once. This is an absolutely critical skill as every day has unexpected twists and turns.
2) Communication skills - Does the person actively listen, do they show empathy, and can they understand different point of view. This too is an absolutely critical skill as complex organizations and teams generate lots of different views, so understanding these differences and finding a common way forward is very important.
3) A "Can Do" Attitude - A fulfilling career may go in all sorts of different directions, so having the courage to jump into any situation and putting the time in to learn is extremely valuable.

Most employers do look for some technical skills, but if you can sell the above three skills, I think you will find someone who is interested.

Samuel Rueben ⋅ Hoboken, NJ UBS ⋅ 2 years experience

Hi Natalie,

This is an extremely common problem - one that is important to address. When making a resume, applying to jobs, or interviewing, one thing that people often forget is that no matter what you were doing previously in your life, what you are doing has transferable skills. For example, if a Sergeant in the Army wanted to transition into a project management role, one should consider the experience she has had with leadership, conflict resolution, quality control, and professional temperament. And to take this one step further, realizing that having these qualities are a genuine marketable skill that would add value to any team. Be confident in yourself because confidence speaks volumes. These companies want good people just as much as people want a good job!

I would be happy to discuss further as thinking this way can help improve interviewing skills as well as a resume.

Best,

Sam Rueben