By Daniel Collins

In this phase, you have decided what you would like to do most, so you need to devise a strategy to achieve your objective. Writing the different tasks down on paper or saving them to a computer document.  By putting them in order, this will help you focus on the next most important step in your transition journey. 

One way to further this job pursuit exercise is to print them out and place them onto a bathroom mirror.  When you brush your teeth, shave or add makeup, you can review these when you wake up to internalize those future goals. 

Focus. When seeking employment, the shotgun or spray and pray approaches just are not going to cut it!   The following are techniques to bring your job search into focus: 

• Choose a location. If you say, “I am willing to work anywhere!” Then, I will tell you, “You are willing to work nowhere!” To prove this point, just type “anywhere” in your employment search engine and see what comes back. Either everything or nothing. Either way, you will not have something that you can work with. The truth is, not every industry, company, and/or position type are located in every geolocation. Here are some questions to help you with this choice:
• Do you want/need to be near family members?
• Do you want the four seasons?
• Do you need a warmer climate?
• Do you need a military friendly community?

If these questions do apply to you, you can make the location choice after choosing an industry. 

• Choose an Industry. Once you have chosen a location, you can learn what the prevailing industries in that location are. If location is not a driving factor, then choosing an industry would be the next best thing to do. Like, maybe, you know already that you would like to stay in the defense and aerospace industry or the Intelligence Community. Since the government is highly involved in either industry, you will have to decide whether you would like to work as a Federal Employee or Federal Contractor.
• Choose a Company. Once you have settled on your Industry and location, then you can research the companies in that area and focus on the ones in your chosen industry. The number of companies will be much more manageable this way.
• Choose a position. At this point, you should be down to 10 to 20 companies you can focus on with your networking efforts. Review their job boards to see if there are positions you are interested in. Connect with employees of the company at the site you are focusing on. Strike up a conversation with any of these employees so you can find out about the culture and see if they enjoy working there. You may be able to determine if there is a high turnover rate and why that is happening. If they are happy, you can see if they will help you with a referral for a position you are interested in. Referrals are important as they increase your chances at an interview.

I would use LinkedIn to reach out to industry leaders.  Deon Myers, a super military networker, created some customized connection notes to connect with industry leaders he had never met, except by observing their content on LinkedIn.   In this Coffee Bunker video, you can find inspiration to connect with others who work in your chosen area of interest. 

Continue Networking. I cannot stress enough how important it is to start connecting with people in your target industries and establishing meaningful dialogs with these people. Numerous people in your network know people who know people.    

Once someone gets a job, it’s important to continue networking through trade shows, industry conferences and through LinkedIn.   Doing so will help you with your research and personalized networking. 

Resume. The best resume is one that is written by you. Nobody knows yourself better than you do. If someone asks you a question about something on your resume, if you wrote it yourself, the question should trigger an immediate passionate response about how you accomplished that item on your resume. Don’t overthink the resume as it is just a calling card. It is interviews, and how you interact with the employer, that get you the job, not the resume. 

It’s best to find that nuclear grammar cop to review your resume for misspellings.  I would doublecheck your phone number, email and those connections listed in your reference. I’d also add my LinkedIn URL right under your name, email and phone number. 

Tailored Applications. Each job announcement provides a recipe for how to get the interview. On a private company announcement, it is called the mandatory skills section. On a Federal job announcement, they are called the required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs). The trick here is to address what is required in a cover letter to the hiring official. While you know you have done something, you cannot assume a company recruit ter will read your entire resume and find the exact bullet that you can do the job. 

Referrals. You can increase your odds of getting an interview if you know someone in the company you are applying to and can get them to make a referral through their company’s referral process. When I make a referral in my company, I am owed feedback on how my referral is going and I can in turn, share that feedback with the person I am referring. This is so much better than your application going into the black hole and not hearing anything. 

(Editor’s note:MilTRAC is offering a complimentary PDF copy of “LinkedIn For Military” to anyone who uses this link and subscribes to our website.0