Career:
Are you unsure of your career objective?
A model resume would have towards the top of the page your career objective. The rest of the resume – your experience, your skills, all aspects of your career would revolve around that objective. What happens when you find yourself in the middle of a dilemma where you cannot make up your mind about what career objective you should take on?
You need to know your objective in order to get the right match between yourself and the dream job you want to land. In other words, if you don’t get a clear picture of what you want to do in life, there is no way you can pursue a suitable and definite path for yourself in your working life. Therefore, it is necessary and important in the long run to know where you are going; otherwise you won’t know if you are making the right job choices with each career step you take.
I am going to give Millennials a break here, and give them a little space to be young and undecided. You can still have a short-term objective instead of one that is long term. Your short-term objective should be anything except money (even thought that might be high on the list for many people it looks shallow on a resume). Therefore, it quite acceptable to say that you want to gain experience in a particular field, or understand a particular business function to see if you are a good fit in that area.
You should pick jobs to apply/interview for which help you meet your career objective, or at least move you a little closer. Quite the opposite, some people will tell you to change your objective to align with the job you are currently applying for – don’t listen to them. Do not under any circumstance state your objective as undecided. If you give this type of answer it will be viewed as immaturity and if you survive the first cut it will be a strike against you to go further.
Your resume and cover letter should reflect that you are in control. If you catch the meaning of this suggestion, you can understand why it is valuable to have a career objective.
Otherwise, you will appear to be sitting there in your bright-shinny Honda graduation present from the folks, with a full tank of gas, but the GPS is turned off and you have no destination in mind.
Employers will feel reluctant to hire someone when there is no guarantee that they will be satisfied and/or will stick with the job for a reasonable period of time.
There are probably very few people who have the career objective of being a sales clerk at Hot Topics, and the company realizes this and expects turnover. In what I am calling a “real job” the employer has spent a lot of money opening and conducting the recruitment, and will spend money and time bringing a new hire into the organization and getting them up to speed to produce.
If you have had several jobs in a career field and the job you are seeking can be seen as a career ladder move up, then there won’t be any question as to your immediate objective. But, if you have not had a job or a string of unrelated positions, an employer may not want to gamble on you.
Remember, state an objective when you have totally internalized it; state a short-term objective when you do not have long-term objectives; anbe prepared in an interview to discuss how the position being sought fits with your employment objective.
TIP: An employer is looking for the candidate to demonstrate that they want the job and to be a part of the organization, just as much as you want the employer to be enthusiastic about hiring you.
How do you explain a right turn in career direction?
When you want a career change, it is of course, your prerogative. However, you will still have to satisfy the curiosity of the would-be employer because he/she will be evaluating you in terms of anticipated performance in the new field, how long you might stay in the job, and other capabilities.
Therefore, you will owe an explanation to the employer as to what prompted you to want to change careers. While speaking to an interviewer (with adequate preparation), it is fairly straight forward to objectively describe why a career change is appropriate - however, in writing it is somewhat more difficult to explain so it comes out clearly.
What you need to do to make your point clear enough so that you would be called for an interview:
- Write as concisely as possible about your educational qualifications and skills set; most people will concentrate on highlighting their skills sets as the best reason for switching careers; however your past experience also could be a good direction pointer at times (for example you are an excellent secretary/ administrative assistant supporting a technical field, with a Master's degree in English and are good at communicating with people at all levels - you could make an very good public communications specialist in that technical field based on your academic qualifications and excellent skills set).
- Highlight your career objectives so the career move would look obvious (in the above example if you have a career objective to become an effective communicator and provide administrative support for a technical field, public relations wouldn’t look like that big of a leap).
- Highlight certain experiences in the past (during or outside the last job) when you had experienced extreme satisfaction taking up different responsibilities, which actually had opened your eyes to your new talents - and these experiences motivated you to seek out jobs like the present one.
You want the message to be assuring and to come across as confident that you will perform well in the new area of work and that a change in career based on the described reasons will actually help you grow professionally and personally, which in turn will make you a valuable addition to the organization.
The above can be highlighted in your cover letter better than in the resume, at the same time you can draw the employer’s attention to your positive attitudinal and technical skills set.
The cover letter can also help you prepare the would-be employer for the difference in your experience and work history. Briefly explain in the cover letter why you think that a change in career would be good for you and why such a change would make you a valuable asset to the organization.
As the last thought on this subject, remember to highlight only those skills that make you look like a good match for the subject job. Don’t dilute the fit, by adding all the irrelevant (to the present job) responsibilities and duties carried out at the previous job, because this would actually show as a misfit. Highlight only what you need to make sure you look closely matched as a candidate with the job you want.
Moving from a Military to a Civilian Career.
Your military career is coming to an end and you have started looking for a job in the civilian world. In your military career you have achieved more accomplishments than you might realize. A lot of skills are directly transferable into the civilian world.
The following are some tips on how to change your military resume to a civilian resume:
What do you want to do as a civilian? Before you boot up the computer to start writing a resume do some research on what type job you would like to do. Your regional Workforce Development Center can help you out with this, along with other resource that might be available to transitioning service members.
The next step would be to define the requirements of the job you see yourself doing. What are the skills needed to perform the tasks in this job. There are a lot of ways of doing research; news papers and internet job boards for example. Electronic and paper Job announcements will have a list of requirements, scan the job positions you are interested in over a period of time. Make a list of all the skills associated with the career you have chosen. This will be a good reference when writing your resume.
Your military achievements and awards are all a sign of determination and self sacrifice these should be included but should not be focal point in your civilian resume. While a medal of honor or purple heart is worth mentioning, your tank driving skills should not be mentioned (unless you would like to be a driver). You should concentrate on the skills list you have created. Make sure that the most relevant information is at the top of your resume.
The important thing you want to communicate in your resume is that you have the appropriate skills and are cable of performing the tasks associated with a particular job.
Hope you find these suggestions helpful… Murrel