beis77

I'm getting out in a little less than a year and just finished the TAP classes on resume building/ interviewing. I searched on here for sample airline resumes and downloaded the sample mil- airline resume.

My question for those of you mil types that have successfully made the transition... how did you go about showcasing your military experience? The example resume on this site mentions military time, but really doesn't highlight any of the qualities we bring to the table.

I'm just wondering if an airline only wants to see the simple "hours and qualifications" breakdown as is posted in the example, or if they wouldn't mind a few bullets highlighting our true "military" experience, i.e. highly adaptable under pressure (cite combat sorties, etc.), leadership, teambuilding, etc.

I know we can highlight these in an interview; my concern is getting the interview, as some of us will have 1/2 to 1/3 of the hours of our civilian counterparts when we get out.

I'm just looking for ways to make a resume stand out amongst the crowd; especially in light of where the industry is headed. Any inputs on your resume building experience would be greatly appreciated! thanks, and fly safe;

-Sheimer

TBoneF15

I made up a resume, but none of the places I applied asked for one so I never gave it out.

On all the leadership, teambuilding stuff, etc...they pretty much assume all of those traits you listed based on your background as an officer/PIC/IP in the military. It's pretty tough to briefly quantify that on a resume.

I started with all the numbers (hours, PIC, etc) and quals (ATP, class 1 medical, etc) at the top. Then for past jobs, I put down a brief synopsis of all my duties/responsibilities for each military job title (ADO, Flt CC, etc), but it's tough to "stand out" since most of the other military dudes have held the same/similar types of jobs/responsibilities when they get out. Almost everyone has combat time of some sort or another these days, so not sure if you'll stand out too far on paper with that. If you've got some real great "under pressure" or "war story" kind of background, that would work great in story time during the interview, but it's tough to effectively get across in a one page resume without making the font microscopic.

From what I know (which is probably minimal), they will generally call/not call based on the total hours you have, PIC you have, and the squares you have filled (IP, SEFE, etc, help). I don't know how many places have an actual human being trolling through piles of resumes and reading/evaluating them individually (if they aren't walked in). I think the big places generally rely heavily upon your electronic application and some big computer in the sky pulls out the dudes they should look at based on some sort if criteria they have set. I don't know if there's a different min hour threshold criteria everywhere for military dudes, but if you didn't know, lots of places allow a "military conversion" of some sort or another since we log our time wheels up to land+5 min, versus the civilian way...that will help your times. Some (rare) places it's something like 1.2 times your hours. More places you might add .2 or .3 of time per individual sortie depending on the company. Makes it a huge a$$pain to do all the math for your apps since the places you might apply to might all do it differently.


Not sure that's too helpful, but it worked for me. Of course, places were actually hiring last summer when I put my apps in. Hope it changes in time for you. Good luck.

beis77

Thanks for the info, that does help! Regarding the mil info, I know you're right that we (coming from the military) all have similar experiences. I was not as much thinking about including these bullets for competing against the mil folks, but rather against the civilian folks (who only flew civilian)who may significantly out number my hours by 2 or 3 (maybe more) times over.

I'll be leaving the service with approx. 2000 TT (not converted). I'm thinking that's about average for mil separatee's at about the 10 year mark; maybe a little light, but competitive at least. I'm more worried about how I'd stack up against a civilian guy (all civil time) with say 4000-5000 + hours TT, i.e. would I even get looked at? Hence, the idea about including a few brief bullets highlighting some Mil accomplishments, combat sorties, awards etc. keeping it brief obviously, but above and beyond the run of the mill "hours, quals" etc. Of course if the resumes are filtered out by computers by hours as you mentioned, than it may not matter as you suggested.

Thanks for the advice on the mil conversion. I'll be sure to add the mil time conversion depending on the company and how much they factor. Thanks for the response!

TBoneF15

yeah, but you're probably not telling them anything they don't already know. They've seen a million mil dudes go through the process and they already know what (in general) they do/don't bring to the fight, so I wouldn't worry about trying to jump through hoops to stand out against civ only dudes with more time. We all go through the exact same training and your upgrades are merit based, so we're somewhat "known quantities," although that obviously doesn't prevent idiots from getting through. Civ only dudes come from such varied background/training/experiences that I'm guessing they are more difficult to quantify looking at them on paper. They'll figure out your personality in the interview.

I personally don't think there's much you can tell them about general military stuff in a short resume to sell yourself that will be big news to them. Maybe someone else has a different take. If you've got some strong awards (i.e. not a AF commendation medal type stuff, not snacko of the quarter...more like IP of the year), that might be worth throwing on there. I found writing mine that even without trying to fluff it up, sts, it was a challenge to fit everything on one page without dropping the font or making it unreadable.

FWIW...I had roughly the same time as you, maybe just a couple hundred more, when I got hired at D. I've had lots o' short sorties, though, so mil conversion per sortie had a bigger impact.

MalteseX

I take it you want to go to a major airline. The folks there are used to seeing many, many guys that come from the military. They know the times vs. years since you got out, etc. You just need to convert terms such as ADO to Assistant Director of Operations; Stan/Eval to Check Airman etc. There are many internet/books out there to do these conversions. You will stack up very well against civilians who have 4000 hours. They will not have had the IP, ADO, Stan/Eval, Tactics, leadership crap, schools, training, emergencies, getting shot at, safety officer, investigator, publisher of regs and OIs, etc. ----all that crap you did that they didn't do while merely line flying. Very few civilian guys that have those kind of hours have done all of that. Just highlight that very briefly on your resume (each job); convert your flight hours; highlight your awards and other accomplishments; highlight instructor, academic instructor, check airmen and safety officer jobs--and you'll be right in there with 2000 hours at 10 years or so.
P.S. Throw in T.S. Clearance if you have a current one. Lets them know from a stack of 10,000 apps that you'll pass a background check......

beis77

Thats good advice, thanks! I'll be sure to include some of these accomplishment/ job bullets as you suggested.

USMCFLYR

MX -

This is great advice. Thanks. About military conversions. Do you recommend that someone still uses a conversion if htey already meet the minimums required for the company at which they are applying? I think I have read different opinions on this forum about that and I'd like to hear your 2 cents. Apply the conversion to bump up your TT or only use the conversion to achieve the TT?

USMCFLYR

BoxFlyer

2000 hrs in the military is good, don't get wrapped up about comparing your time to a civilians (apples to oranges). All companies know that civilians fly 500-1000 hrs per year.

Go get your ATP rating and FE written. Best thing to do is network, network. To get your stuff in the short stack of apps, you gotta know the right people. Be patient, things are going to be slow with the majors for 2 years.

beis77

That's good advice; thanks. I've been contacting buds in the industry that have already made the transition. I have a reserve slot lined up as well, so if nothing else, hopefully I can Reserve Bum it for awhile to weather the storm until things turn around.

MalteseX

Well I guess I killed 2 birds with one stone and did BOTH!!!

I surpassed the mins at all places when I interviewed. For every place I applied/interviewed, I brought (or sent-- depending on the instructions of the specific company) my AF flight records unedited. I also had civilian logbooks because I owned a plane for many years and had done CFI stuff etc. I brought the civ logbooks unedited as well.

But I also looked at what each company's policies were in regard to military guys' flight time adjustments. Some allowed adjustments, some did not, and some didn't address it. So, I filled out an Excel spreadsheet (that was different for each company depending on what they wanted on flight time breakout) and came up with columns that explained each entry. (ie total time mil; mil time w/ conversion; pic w/o conversion; pic w/ conversion etc.)

Basically, the interiewer or personnel dude or whoever was interested in your times had 3 things--the 2 source documents (mil and civ logbooks) and an excel spreadsheet with all the totals they wanted both converted and not converted. These excel sheets were unique to each and every place I applied to. I kept them updated while I waited for a call.

I ended up interviewing at 11 places; applied to 16. So I had 16 unique flight time breakouts.