Ask Slashdot: Exploiting 'Engineering And ...' On a Resume?

An anonymous reader writes "In my younger years, I was briefly employed as an Electrical Engineer. Since 9/11 I have been flying combat missions for the military. Since I now have just a little over a year before becoming a civilian again, I was wondering if any Slashdotters had any applicable advice/anecdotes. How does one effectively combine engineering/development with another professional skill-set? (Being a jet pilot in this example.) For those of you who do hiring, what is the best way to sell this type of background?"

Comments

The resume is written for the job and type of job

[raymorris]

The point of the resume is to show how you are qualified for the job you are applying for. If you apply for several similar jobs, you might submit similar versions of the resume, of course.
Therefore, how you should present X on your resume depends entirely on what job you're seeking. Since you gave no clue what job you're trying to qualify yourself for, there's no way to answer.

For example, if you were applying for a job where they are looking for someone who is obsessive about getting every detail exactly precise 100% of the time, such as "nuclear powerplant _____", your resume would indicate that you operated a $30 million plane precisely, delivering your payload with pinpoint precision, where the consequences of error were literally life and death. You'd point to similar aspects of your engineering work - blah blah 6 nanometers blah.

If you're going for a position where the big deal is leadership and chain of command, tat would be a completely different presentation of your experience.

Re:Accept the difficulty ahead

[sconeu]

Except that his current experience will be of even more use.

To the submitter: Consider working as a systems engineer for a defense contractor. Seriously. You have a metric crapload of relevant domain knowledge, along with a EE background. I wouldn't be surprised if you could write your own ticket.

Re:Accept the difficulty ahead

[sconeu]

Quick follow up.

Systems engineers in this domain don't really do the "building" or even designing per se. Rather, they are the guys who set the requirements. And people like Boeing, Raytheon, LockMart and the rest all love former military because of the domain knowledge. The EE will allow you to inject a dose of reality into whatever specifications get written.

Re:engineers with combat experience

[abirdman]

The only tricky part is finding a job you will like.

I believe there's a rule in the US, wherein if someone likes their job that indicates a management mistake. Whenever my job starts to not suck, management messes with it so it sucks again.