Section 10: Your Resume
When it comes to your resume, there are a few best practices and tips to keep in mind.
If it’s been a while since you were on the job hunt, some things may have changed. To ensure your resume adheres to norms of the job market, we’ve included some best practices and tips to follow.
Outdated Practices
For non-governmental jobs, your resume does not need to include your full home address. City and state are fine for your location.
References do not need to be included unless explicitly requested in the job description. These are more common for city, state, and federal jobs. Private sector roles may still ask for them, but it is often later in the interview process.
Listing Military Awards
Do not include a standalone full list of military ribbons, medals, and awards. You’re creating a professional resume, not an imitation DD-214.
Civilian recruiters do not know what an Army Achievement Medal is. They don't have time to decipher a full list of military awards.
If you really want to include them, a better option is to incorporate them in your bullet points (Accomplished x, by doing y, earning the Army Achievement Medal). Highlight what you did to earn the particular award.
Military Terms & Lingo
Before submitting your resume, review it for military-specific terms and acronyms.
Information included on your resume should be generalized enough that anyone, particularly those unfamiliar with the military, are able to understand it.
A good litmus test is to ask yourself, “If a college student read my resume, would they fully understand my military experience?”
Employment History
It's common practice to keep your resume limited to work experience within the past 7-10 years.
Exceptions would be if you're:
Creating a federal resume to apply to a government job.
Applying to a senior/executive-level role requiring 10+ years of experience.
Applying to any job that requests additional work experience in the job description.
10+ Years of Experience
If you have 10+ years of experience and want to include accomplishments from that time in your resume, add it to the "Additional Information" section of "Key Skills."
If these are highly relevant to the role, an alternative is adding them in your optional "Career Highlights" section.