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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?"
Nice thing about military experience, especially military aviation is that they, too, love consistency. Follow orders, follow your checklists, get to work on time and get your job done. I would think that an HR drone would just love that sort of experience. They could check off a half dozen boxes right off the bat and maybe get bonus points for hiring a veteran.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This guy is probably a good bet. I used to program flight simulators and getting someone "smart" who could also work as a test pilot when final testing would be hired instantly. Most test pilots I worked with were more interested in hitting the bars at the end of the day then tedious test flights, but they were still needed. If you can find who makes the simulators for what you currently fly, my bet is they would hire you on immediatly. In addition if you can do the electrical work for the hardware between testing, all the better.
BAE bought the place I used to work. They have locations all over the place.
Grab a friend who knows you well (and who doesn't run you down just for grins.) Have some food, and a couple of beers (or split a bottle of wine) and meanwhile brainstorm and jot down all the possibly applicable experience you can think of. Also, and maybe more important, talk about the things that you are really good at - not just skillswise, but what kind of person you are and what you excell at. And then think of stories that really illustrate each of those.
Have fun. Be silly. No one should try to do this stage of resume writing alone, generally speaking we're all far too trained to discount our skills and put ourself down. Aim for ten pages or so of semi-coherent scrawl. Don't try to edit, editing is easy, and it's for later. Getting enough material down in the first place is what this is about.
And then, a few days later, come back and prune. This isn't time to prune super heavily - what you're looking to create is a superset resume - more than you'd sent out for any one job, but containing most of what you'd send out for anything. Keep in mind that a resume isn't just about skills, it should be about what kind of person you are and what you're like to work with. There are a lot of formats out there, but don't be enslaved to them - while it should be tight and professional, a resume isn't a form application but a creative document that should present you in the best light. (It should go without say that lying is incredibly stupid.) I do strongly recommend looking at it in terms of narrative - whatever you want people to know about you, include a (briefly worded) story that demonstrates it.
Not only does this make resumes more informative, it makes them a heck of a lot less boring. (When I was doing hiring, reading resumes was often tortuous, because they didn't tell me most of the things that were most important, beyond some basic skills lists that weren't that reliable.) Make a resume that represents you well - because you want the manager you absolutely would hate to work for to look at it and say "I don't want this guy" just as much as you want the right folks to recognize you. Truth in advertising is a good thing.
I concur with what a lot of people are saying. I'd look at Boeing if I were you (a friend designs flight simulators for their military aircraft - I suspect you'd do well in that kind of environment). (For that matter, my former father in law - also a Boeing engineer*flew planes for the airforce for many years and eventually ended up at Boeing. I almost managed to get him over to Microsoft when I was there, on Flight Simulator.)
I'd also do what you can in the intervening time to brush up on skills that are going to support the direction you want to go in from here. Start reading up on security. Pick up a new language. Buy yourself a bunch of toys off sparkfun. What people are saying about your skills being out of date is possibly a problem... if they are, in fact, out of date. So make sure they aren't. It sounds like you have a lot going for you, especially with a little polishing and fine tuning.
* Hey, I grew up in Seattle, what can I say?