At the risk of oversimplifying, here is the hiring process illustrated.

 

It’s from the perspective of the folks in an organization in Corporate America looking for a candidate to hire, the functional manager and their HR partner.

 

And it’s for the veteran hiring candidate’s benefit to understand its phase gates, i.e., “stations”, so you can get a “Go!” at each station.

 

First station?  Resume.  There’s lots of ways to format one, and populate one, but I’ll use the one we use at Vets2PM for the 12+K folks we’ve helped place into careers with.  It’s only one way, but it’s a proven way, and we have a course that teaches you to build one this way.  The point is though, you have to have a resume, and it should convey what you can do based on what you have done.  It should be in the language of business, using terms familiar to the hiring manager and HR person, like “P&L”, “JIT”, “OJT”, and “KPIs”.  If you don’t know what those mean, pick up your free autographed digital copy of my book How To Speak Civilian Fluently! and give it one read.  Then you will know.  Use the STAR format, here was the situation my team and I were in, or the challenge we faced (don’t forget you!  We’re interviewing you, not your team), here’s what I contributed to the team to get the team to devise and implement the solution, the tasks and actions, and here’s how it turned out, in terms of helping the organization.  We’re looking for your capability to solve complex problems in complex environments with tight deadlines and competing interests through others to standards, norms, customs, etc.  Sound familiar?

 

Second station?  LinkedIn.  Make your resume, written in third person, your abbreviated LinkedIn Profile in first person.  We know you wrote it.  You sound like Jimmy from Seinfeld when you talk about yourself in third person…”Jimmy made a great pass” and “Jimmy made a great shot”.  Have a conversation with the hiring manager and/or HR person ensuring that what your resume says is what your LinkedIn Profile says, they’re congruent.  And professional.  Have a picture.  With your sunglasses off.  With a big, bright Duschenne smile.  While not doing tequila poppers!

 

Key secret: Understand that the entire singular purpose of stations one and two is to make a large stack of resumes a short one, a short one that represents the dozen or so folks I am going to interview.  I start with credentials and criteria.  If you don’t have them, your resume doesn’t move to the “interview” stack because others do.  Dozens and dozens of others do.  Fair?  Inclusive?  Equitable?  I don’t know, and everyone can have their own opinions, but realistic?  Yes.  100 percent!  It’s the way the game plays.  Play it or loose before you start.

 

Third station?  Interview.  Hold two to three examples you’re excited about in your head and answer questions in real-time with real-world examples imbuing real-world excitement!  Second secret!  Hiring managers ask open-ended questions and expect you to expound.  They’re being fair and inclusive.  They want to know about you and your experience to evaluate if it helps solve problems in their environments after they hire you.  “When they ask what did you do?” and you leave it at “I drove a truck”, they won’t intuitively understand that as the convey commander that you had responsibility for health, safety, medical evacuation, inventory control, logistics, planning, resourcing, training, and execution responsibility.  The first answer leaves them thinking “Under qualified” and the second thinking “Wow!  What a ton of relevant management and leadership experience applied to solve real-world complex problems in real-time!”.  See the difference?

 

And that’s station four, a “Go!” at the end of the interview or interviews.  “Congratulations!  You’re hired!”.

 

Process we’ve illustrated, use the resume to produce your LinkedIn Profile to secure an interview, then use the interview to impress upon the interviewer or panel that you have the capability to solve their problems in concert with them, and leverage the interview to land the gig.

 

Good luck.  www.vets2pm.com/training to get the free resources to teach you how to do all of this.

 

Cheers!