Search more articles

5 Tips to Make Job Hunting Easier for Military Veterans

Job hunting can be tough for anyone, and military veterans often find it more difficult than civilians. After being exposed to specific working practices for so long, coming to grips with the job market and trying to navigate it is bound to be a challenge.
5 Tips to Make Job Hunting Easier for Military Veterans

If you want to make it easier to find a job, it is important that you take proactive steps. In that regard these five tips can help make job hunting a whole lot easier for veterans:

  • Organize your credentials
Before you start to look for a job – get your credentials in order. Make sure you’ve gathered and filed anything related to your education, training and experience. If your records aren’t complete you may want to replace them through Veterans Affairs.

As you organize your credentials, you may also want to look into whether or not you need to translate any of them into civilian equivalents. For example you may need to translate your qualifications if you want to fly aircraft, treat patients, or operate heavy machinery.

  • Research careers you’re interested in
Do you already have a specific career that you’re interested in? Most veterans don’t, and that leads their job hunt to be unfocused.

Ideally you should try to look at various career paths and research each one to figure out what you want to head into. After you decide on a career, you can then research it more thoroughly, and figure out the best starting point and any qualifications that you may need.

  • Translate military skills into civilian applications in your resume
It goes without saying that the bulk of your skills and experience are military in nature – so to land a civilian job you will need to translate them when you put them on your resume. In some fields such as medicine that is relatively easy, but for many others it is not.

The key is to focus on the relevance of your military skills and experience to the jobs that you intend to apply for. For example instead of just listing a military title, you should explain briefly what your role entailed – such as managing inventory, leading a team, and so on.

  • Start to network
One of the best ways to land a job quickly is by starting to network. For veterans it can be a slightly unfamiliar experience that goes outside the chain of command – but it is key to getting a civilian job.

As a starting point you should talk to your family and friends, connect with civic organizations, or even look into church groups. Needless to say veteran networking groups are a good option as well, and will definitely be able to help you out.

  • Practice for the interview
Eventually you’re likely to be called for an in person interview, and you should start to practice. After your time in the military it is natural that you’ll have lots of ingrained habits that may work against you during a civilian interview.

By starting to prepare and practice early, when you eventually are called up for an interview it should go a whole lot smoother.

The impact that these five tips can have on your job hunt should become clear very quickly. Not only will they make it easier for you to find jobs, but you’ll be more likely to end up in a role that is a good fit.

Make no mistake although it will be an uphill challenge, it is by no means insurmountable. All you need to do is grit your teeth and soldier on – and you’ll definitely get where you want to go.

Featured post

How to Write Effective Literature Review

A literature review is an essential component of any research project or academic paper. It involves identifying, evaluating, and summarizin...