Military-Connected Students | Career Support

Resume Tips

Veterans acquire a wide variety of skills and experiences during their time in service. However, these experiences can sometimes be challenging to translate to the civilian workforce. 

Below you will find some tips for how you can write your resume to frame your military experience in terms that are easily understood and will stand out to employers in different industries.

Your military experience gave you several transferable skills including: 

• Collaboration: Most members of the armed forces work in teams at some point during their service. Collaboration is an essential skill in teamwork and citing specific examples of how you collaborated with others to achieve success will help employers connect with you.
• Working under pressure: The military is often cited as one of the highest-pressure career fields in the United States. The challenges you faced during your service may vary, but you can talk about how you managed those moments and what you did to overcome and/or resolve them.
• Leadership: Every service member is trained to be a leader, regardless of the level at which you lead. You developed leadership skills like assessing risk, making decisions, and delegating work. You can use specific examples to highlight these skills.
• Attention to Detail: Many military jobs require exceptional adherence to details. Whether working with regulations, firearms, or going through physical or other training, your attention to detail in the planning and execution process made the outcome better.
• Discipline: Discipline is ingrained into every service member’s daily routine. You can share your experiences and how this skill translates to other parts of your life.
• Strategic thinking: If you worked at higher levels in your organization, you may have opportunities to talk about skills including long-term planning, analyzing complex situations and making informed decisions to meet future goals.
• Multi-tasking: Odds are that you did multiple things at once during your service. The ability to balance competing priorities and complete every task to the specified standard is a highly sought-after skill and will give you a leg up on the competition.

Your Skills, Your Story

Writing your skills on a resumé is a start, but to highlight them, you need to back them up with experience. Under your job headings where you talk about your successes in previous roles, be sure to incorporate successes that come from a direct result of the skills you list. The anecdotal evidence makes it easier for your story to be understood by prospective employers.