Bari Wald, military spouse and Air Force Reservist
As military spouses, we routinely find ourselves applying for jobs every few years as we move around from duty station to duty station.
There’s been a lot of dialogue in the media recently about the challenges military spouses face when it comes to employability, and even some legislation to finally help make career progression smoother for those with professional licenses (about time huh?)
We’re a diverse bunch, extremely adaptable, with attributes that usually far outpace our civilian counterparts. So, it’s time that your resume reflects these attributes because guess what? Interviews get you the job, but your resume will get you a ticket into the interview!
Over the past six years I’ve parlayed my military public affairs experience and training (i.e. professional communicator), into an effective way to apply to, interview for, and land the job. Using this communication technique has ensured I’ve had steady, fulfilling employment, wherever the military sent us. I want to share this technique with the milspouse world to help others continue their career endeavors wherever they go. In part one of a three-part series, I will lay out my strategy for resume success, in an easy-to-follow format, so you too can learn to effectively communicate and get that golden ticket — the interview.
Also, as someone who has sat on countless interview panels, been a hiring manager, and read through dozens of resumes, I can tell you that what I looked for was quantifications and impact. It wasn’t good enough to have a generic description of what someone did, I wanted to see exactly what someone did, and how that impacted the company they worked for. Anything less got put in the “no interview,” pile. If you don’t want to be thrown in the “no” pile, you need to communicate effectively and fill your resume with numbers and impact with this simple resume equation: Action word (AW) + Quantifiable action (QA) = Impact/Result (IR), or AW + QA = IR.
Let me illustrate this for you. Which sounds better?
Example #1
A) “Led major event for community outreach at XYZ Company.”
B) “Spearheaded team of 10 people for major event resulting in 1,000 attendees and increased public awareness of XYZ Company’s community outreach initiatives.”
Example #2
A) “Served coffee during busy morning shift.”
B) “Expedited daily service to 300 customers and utilized up-selling to increase revenue by 10% during morning shift.”
Example #3
A) “Teacher for preschool-aged children at XYZ School.”
B) “Instructed 10 preschool-aged children with zero safety incidents over 16-month period resulting in school receiving XYZ award for excellence.”
If you said “B” sounds better for all answers, then you are already on your way to a more effective resume. The bullet points for the “B” examples demonstrate the AW + QA = IR resume equation.
So, how can I make my resume look like this? I’m glad you asked. Let’s break it down even further.
The QA part of your bullet consists of two parts, the “what,” and “how many.” You’ll first start thinking about the “what.” What exactly did you do? Think of this in terms of the tangible part of your job.
To figure out the “what,” ask yourself these style of questions:
What events did I help with?
What projects did I create or help with?
What trainings did I conduct?
What assets did I manage?
What daily duties did I complete?
What products did I sell?
What services did I improve?
What services did I render?
What cases did I help with?
What type of care did I provide?
Once you’ve outlined “what,” it’s time to figure out the “how many,” portion of the QA. How many people, places, or things were affected by the “what?” This is an actual number, and the total sum of the “what,” over the duration of your employment with that company.
To figure out the “how many,” ask yourself these style of questions:
How many people were there?
How many people did you lead or supervise?
How many places did you coordinate with?
How many trainings did you create?
How many events did you plan?
How many coffees did you make?
How many babies did you take care of?
How many patients did you see?
How many volunteers did you recruit?
How many accounts did you manage?
Once you have the “what and how many,” put them together to form your QA.
For example, let’s say you were a college enrollment advisor at your last job. Your QA may look something like this:
(What) Enrolled students into college
(How Many) 500
(QA) Enrolled 500 students into college level programs
Next, to get your action word (AW), you need to think about your role as it pertains to the QA. Did you create or improve something? Then use words such as “Developed, Initiated, or Modified.” Did you manage a project or people? Then use words such as “Presided, Chaired, or Led.” An internet search of “action words for resumes,” will give you a plethora of choices and respective categories to choose from.
Expanding on the previous example of enrolling students, this person helped a bunch of students get into college right? So, a good action word (AW), for this quantifiable action (QA), would be “facilitated.” Now we have two of the three parts to the resume equation.
(AW) Facilitated + (QA) enrollment of 500 students into college level programs.
Next comes the final piece to the resume equation, the impact/result (IR).
The impact/result is the culmination of your achievement FOR the company. No matter how small the task, there is always an impact. If you’re having trouble identifying what that is, don’t be afraid to reach out to your current or prior managers to get some feedback. A lot of times they can see the bigger picture and help you understand how your actions positively affected the company.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Did you save them money? Make them more money? Get them more customers? Contribute to an award they received? Were you instrumental in building better relationships in the community?
To close out our enrollment advisor example, let’s say that the enrollment advisor did such a great job preparing his/her students to start class that 90% ending up starting their first class, on time. If the industry standard is only 70% that start on-time, then that person has exceeded the standard. In academia, on-time student start rates translates into dollars for the university, and a 90% on-time start rate would mean big things to a hiring manager.
The final bullet would look something like this:
- Facilitated enrollment of 500 students into college level programs with a 90% on-time start rate.
(AW) Facilitated
(QA) Enrollment of 500 students into college level programs
(IR) 90% on-time start rate
This process of updating your resume to the resume equation format will take time and effort. Analyzing and concisely communicating past accomplishments requires critical thinking, excellent wordsmithery, and patience. Don’t expect to get this done in an hour. This may take you days or weeks, and as you remember past accomplishments you will need to routinely update your resume. Also, if you’re currently employed, take the time to continuously update your resume so it remains current. I recommend giving it a once-over and making necessary updates every six months.
Finally, let’s chat a little bit about resume length, bullets, format, proofreading, and your cover letter.
Length of resume:
The old adage used to be that your resume should only be a page long. This was back in the day when people actually stayed at an employer for years and years, if not their entire career.
This doesn’t really apply in our modern workforce and surely doesn’t apply to military spouses who move and change employment every few years. Keep your resume no longer than two pages and 10 years of work history, unless you’re applying for a government (GS) position — that’s a whole other ball of wax.
The goal is not to tell your entire life story on paper, the goal is to impress the person reviewing your resume so much that you get an interview. Remember, it’s the interview that will get you the job. The resume is your ticket.
Bullet Points:
So, you have tons of bullet points. How should you organize them? Easy, your three most recent jobs should have the most bullet points. I recommend 5-7 bullet points for each. You can slim down the rest of your positions to 3 bullet points each, just make sure you are consistent.
If you do four bullet points for the remaining positions, do four for all of them so there’s continuity within your resume. Also, put your most impressive accomplishments for each job first, then descend in order of impressiveness. Big numbers and big impact should be the first thing someone reads when looking at what you did.
Format:
This is something that I don’t feel there’s a right answer to. Certain industries will dictate certain desired formats. Do your research and figure out what the standard is for your industry. I can tell you that I never discounted a resume due to format. I reviewed resume’s of all different styles and it wasn’t the format that impressed me, it was the content.
Proofread:
This is a big one! Take the time to proofread your resume and cover letter. An editing trick we use in public affairs is to read backwards. Seriously! Start from the very last punctuation mark on the last page, and read backwards. Your eyes aren’t trained to read this way, so you will easily spot extra spaces, extra letters, extra or incorrect punctuation, and misspelled words.
Also, take the time to read your resume and cover letter out loud. Sometimes the ear is better than the eye in picking up poor grammar or inconsistent sentence structure.
Cover Letter:
Some people think it won’t hurt them if they don’t include a cover letter with their application. It can. A lot of companies will automatically disqualify you if you don’t submit one, especially if the application is asking for one. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Make sure you also tailor it to the job you are applying for, don’t boilerplate and use the same one for each job application. This is a chance for you to take key items out of your resume and expound on them by tying them into key requirements for the position you want.
Don’t write your cover letter first, write it last once you’ve refreshed your resume with your updated bullet points so you can pull from the information within.
Remember, jobs are won with interviews and a resume will get you a ticket to the interview. Adding the resume equation format to your resume will ensure it stands out and impresses hiring managers while also forming the basis of your message development plan needed to ace the interview. I’ll be back next month to explain what a message development plan is, how you can make your own, and use it to get the job.
Now, get to work on your resume equations and update that resume!