One of the biggest challenges for veterans when writing a resume and interviewing is selling their military experience to civilian managers.
If you still have your Transition Assistance Program (TAP) books, those are excellent resources for making the conversion. For example, they provide a chart for converting ranks to civilian titles:
E7 to E9 Director, Supervisor, Dept Manager, Operations Manager
E4 to E6 Asst Manager, Supervisor, Section or Team Leader
E1 to E3 Production Worker, Technician, Team Member
Even terms like “Basic Training” that most people would recognize from TV and movies need to be translated to something professional and civilian like “Introductory Military Training.”
Coaches in Career Services can help you polish the language, but you know best the skills you developed. Think beyond the tasks that you did, and think about the skills required to do that task.
An employer wants to know about your skills not what you did.
