Translating military experience for your CV
How to sell yourself effectively and land the job you want in the civilian workforce.
A key challenge faced by veterans when they first step into the civilian workforce is translating their military experience to civilian terms. And yet, this is vital if you are to convince the civilian employer that you are the person for the job.
When it comes to putting together your CV for a job application, you’ll need to clearly and concisely convey your experience and skills in language that can be easily understood. The best way to do this is to consult an expert, like the career coaches at the RSL Veterans’ Employment Program. It’s a free service for current and ex-ADF personnel, their partners and their working age children. Register now for free CV and career services.
Remember, an employer trying to fill a position may have tens or even hundreds of applications to sift through. If they feel confused by military jargon in your CV, they may simply flick to the next applicant. Here’s how to avoid that happening.
translating military experience for your cv? first, write a list
When considering what skills and experiences you can add to your CV from your time in service, it helps to write a list breaking down each task. Forget about what the task was called in the ADF and think about what the task actually was. What can you extract from that as a takeaway skill or experience?
This exercise will not only help you begin to write your CV, but may also help you to understand what exactly you have to offer the civilian workforce, so you can effectively sell yourself. More on that here.
Hard skills gained in the military
Hard skills are technical, hands-on skills, that is to say, what you actually did on any given day during your service. This might include things like welding, aircraft repair, data management, speaking a foreign language, cooking for x-number of people, and so on. Hard skills are the things you’ll need to demonstrate you can do, as relevant to the role you’re applying for.
Soft skills gained in the military
You’ll also want to think about what soft skills you have gained through your military experience. Soft skills are less tangible, but still very important and often some of a veteran’s best assets as a civilian employee. They include things like persuasion, leadership, communication, negotiation, integrity, teamwork, adaptability. Read more about what makes veterans exceptional civilian employees.
Academic skills gained in the military
Now it’s time to consider what academic skills you gained during your time in service. This includes anything from university degrees to licences and tickets. What training and certifications did you receive?
You should now have a list of hard, soft and academic skills you gained through performing your ADF duties. Add these to your CV as relevant to the particular job you are applying for. Remember, you’ll want to customise your CV for each job application.
Resources for translating military experience
The RSL Veterans Employment Program
The RSL Veterans’ Employment Program is a free service for serving and ex-ADF personnel, their partners and their immediate family members.
The Program’s expert career coaches understand the unique challenges faced by veterans when it comes to translating their military experience, and can work with you to identify what skills and experiences you have gained and how to compile those into a strong CV.
Public Service Rank to Grade Guides
Rank to grade guides are resources designed to approximate your ADF rank against public service levels or grades. This can give you some idea of the types of public service positions you may be qualified for.
You can find the ADF Rank/ACT Public Service Classification Guide, as well as lots of other ACT-specific information for veterans, here.
The NSW Government equivalent, the Rank Grade Guide, can be found here.
For Federal Government public service employment information, check out Cracking the Code.
Need a human touch to help you work out how your ADF rank compares against public service grading? The RSL Veterans’ Employment Program can help. We invite you to reach out to us today.