Ways for Veterans to Highlight Skills To Match Civilian Roles

We spoke with Tara Carlidge, Recruiting Manager at Citi and former Personnel Officer in the U.S. Army, to ask her to give an example of how someone who served can directly correlate their role in the military to a role at a company like the one where she works. Here’s what we learned:

First, there are roles within the military that directly correlate to roles in civilian companies. Some are obviously, like investigation roles. Or, for example, Tara was an Adjutant General in the Army, which directly translates into Human Resources. Other examples include cybersecurity functions (in fact, Citi has lots of veterans who work in their cybersecurity department!) The point being: many military roles are not singular to the military – they exist in the civilian sector as well. Think about how your role in the military could translate into the civilian world, even if it’s only certain aspects that are in common.

Second, you can use your background experience as a foundation for the role you’re applying for. If you have a computer science background, engineering background, technology background, etc. you can incorporate these skills into assets that you can bring to the role. Additionally, if you have experience in communications and public relations, such as communicating and negotiating with locals while on deployment, you can use that experience to apply for public relations, contract negotiations and sales jobs.

The key to all of this is: translate your skills and experiences into terms that are easy for the recruiter to understand, so that you are more likely to get the job.

This article is one of nine in a 9-part series WayUp has completed in partnership with the Bob Woodruff Foundation and VOWS in an effort to help Veterans entering the civilian workforce. To sign up for WayUp and be discovered by employers, we encourage you to go here.