It goes without saying that you should always proofread important documents. And what document is more important in your career search than your resume? Yet, unfortunately, we see resumes submitted to us or on job boards that are riddled with basic errors that could have easily been caught if only good proofreading had been done. Don’t […]
Resumes
Our 10 Favorite Resume Words
Not long ago, we posted a list of problematic words that are often misused on resumes. We thought it would be a good idea to follow it up with a list of those words that we love to see used on resumes. To make our list more focused, we decided to only consider action verbs. […]
Eyes Right!
Today our topic is about the importance of eye contact. Think about a time when you were having a serious conversation with another person, perhaps a junior member of your team, and that person had difficulty making eye contact with you. Do you remember what you were thinking at the time? Could it be that […]
White Space
Today our topic covers a simple yet important point related to resumes: White Space. Your resume serves a pretty simple purpose: to convince a hiring authority that you are worth interviewing. Generally, that means your resume needs to provide a hiring manager a clear sense of your education, work experience, and accomplishments. But just because someone sees your […]
Three Resume Dilemmas and How to Deal with Them
We’ve got resumes on our minds here at Alliance since we are deep into providing resume feedback to candidates slated to attend our November hiring conference. After having coached thousands of military candidates over the years, we thought it would be a good idea to mention three common dilemmas that many have asked us about, […]
3 Things You Don’t Need on Your Resume
Having spent the last 15+ years in the recruiting sector, I’ve seen countless variations to the resume. When I think back to my own transition from the Army, I believe I worried about my resume more than any other single thing. I was so accustomed to the Army’s way of dictating precisely how things must […]
Stratify Yourself
One of the items we encourage our military candidates to put on a resume is a stratification of their ranking among their peer group. We know that may not be possible if a ranking is not mentioned in a performance report (we would highly discourage you from doing so if it couldn’t be documented). Including […]
Reflections from an Alliance Alum
Today we’d like to highlight a recent conversation we had with Dylan Allen, USMA 2018. Dylan is a former Army Engineer officer that came through the Alliance program and secured a project management position with Vulcraft. He took time to meet with Ryan Wilde to discuss his transition experience.
Approximation vs. Precision on Your Resume
This week’s message focuses on some best practices for reporting numbers in your resume. My experience is that most candidates realize the importance of using numbers to describe their responsibilities and achievements. As a leader, it’s probably been beaten into your head: you gotta hit your numbers, you gotta hit your numbers. It’s generally understood that using numbers […]
Wasted Space
When teaching resume classes, I like to say that you should treat your resume like a valuable piece of real estate. But here’s the thing: it’s also a very tiny piece of real estate measuring at a mere 93.5 square inches! That’s assuming it’s a one-page resume, which we require at Alliance. So given this valuable real estate, you […]