One of the most difficult parts of shifting from a military to civilian workforce is creating a suitable resume.  It’s not a question of whether or not your previous experience is useful, but rather how to translate it into an effective resume.  Turning military experience into civilian skills can be extremely difficult, but it doesn’t have to be.  There are some simple steps that can go a long way in getting your resume into shape and crafted effectively for a civilian employment opportunity.  Here are a few tips that can ease the transition and boost your odds of landing the job that you want.

Use What You Already Know and Have Already Done

For some reason, a lot of people end up ignoring what they learned in the military because they don’t know how to turn their military experience into civilian skills.  This is a huge setback and should be avoided.  The first step needs to be identifying all of the skills that you learned in the military.  If you can’t identify exactly what skills you have, then it won’t matter how you translate them on your resume.

Shifting to General Language

Once you have all of your military experience identified and organized, the next step is altering the language so that it is more understandable by a civilian.  The first part of this process is to simply strip out all of the military specific language.  This includes any abbreviation and acronyms.  If it isn’t a skill that exists in the civilian workforce, then you will need to change it.  The next part of this process is actually changing the way that you phrase things.  You are essentially demilitarizing your entire work history.

Connecting Your Skills to a Purpose

Now that you have the descriptive aspect of your skills in order, the next step is to connect them with a specific purpose.  You need to take a close look at your skills and find a direct connection to a job function that you will be asked to do.  The more closely you can manage this, the better your resume will do.  To be fair, this step is true of all resume writing, however it is consistently a weakness for people who are turning their military experience into civilian skills.  The three types of skills that you want to give special attention to are technical skills, interpersonal skills, and leadership skills.  No position in the military exists that won’t give you at least a handful of skills in each of these categories, so play them up whenever possible.

The biggest fact to keep in mind is that all you are really doing is changing the way that you state your experience.  When turning military experience into civilian skills, it is really just a name-game.  You are finding a way to relate military phrasing and descriptions to the average person.  Once you are able to do this, there is no reason that you can’t create a relevant and effective resume for any position in the civilian workforce.

If you need help, you can hire a resume writing service help you create  your civilian resume.