Posted on Feb 2, 2017
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RP Members and Connection - Should Service Members and Veterans Include Military Awards in Resumes?
Do you agree or disagree? What are your thoughts and recommendations RP Members, Civilian Supporters, and Civilian Recruiters?
(I provided the entire article below for your convenience)
Published on December 5, 2016
By Abraham F. Negron
Principal Grojean & Associates, Inc.
Today I read a posting on LinkedIn from a fellow veteran asking the following question: Should I include my Purple Heart on my resume? As I read that question, I was taken back to my own journey when I was looking for employment. When I retired from the Marine Corps in 2012, I had some of the same fears and questions: Should I self-identify as a disabled veteran? Should I include my Iraqi campaign medal on my resume? What will hiring managers think of my service in combat? Will they think I’m too rigid and can’t adapt to civilian employment? Will hiring managers understand my Military Occupational skills (MOS) as it relates to the career opportunity? These are some of the questions that go through a veteran’s mind during the employment search.
From the context of the question asked on LinkedIn, I’d like to provide a general background on military awards to employers. Military awards are depicted by using ribbons, badges, and medals; all tell a story of excellence, leadership, courage, and technical expertise. Awards play a big part in the military culture because they represent the hard work and sacrifices a service member has made in a duty station, deployment, exercise, or operational training. Service members across all branches of service receive awards. The purpose of military awards is to foster morale, esprit de corps, and provide incentives. These awards tell a story of valor, excellence, heroism, values, and superior performance during a certain period of service. For private companies, these awards validate the veteran’s background, past performance and they can help your hiring managers, HR personnel and recruiters match the veteran with the job opening. These awards can also help an employer determine capabilities and talents with respect to future performance. Let’s take a moment and examine how these awards are classified. Basically, there are two types of awards, personal and service. It’s important to understand the distinction between these two types of awards. Generally, personal awards reflect individual effort while service awards recognize team efforts.
Personal awards are presented based on individual contributions. Each personal award has strict criteria that must be met before it is awarded. Personal awards are presented to the individual for going above and beyond the call of duty. As an employer, we recommend that you take time to ask the veteran candidate about the personal awards they received and to recount this experience. Questions you might ask include: How did you receive your personal award? Listen closely to the answer and find a way to connect that experience to the job opening at your company. You will find that in most cases, these awards will validate the veteran candidate’s capabilities to perform the job in your company. Remember, these awards are not given---they are earned.
In contrast to personal awards, service awards are presented based on group effort or contribution to mission success. Generally, service awards recognize an entire organization or group of individuals for outstanding service or achievement during periods of extraordinary conditions that involve national interests---whether it is combat, deployment or garrison. They are restricted to the recognition of acts of service that clearly and distinctly, by nature and magnitude place the unit’s performance significantly above that of other units performing similar missions. These awards tell you that the veteran candidate has been a part of a high-performing team and has demonstrated the ability to achieve a high level of excellence. Service awards tell a story of sacrifice and hardship. If you are a national or global organization, it will help you realize that the veteran candidate can adapt to change and overcome difficult challenges.
As a veteran, you also have skin in the game during this process. You must do your due diligence and research the company, tailor your resume to the career opportunity and anticipate questions during an interview so you can be prepared to tell your story. Most interviews include behavioral questions and this is an excellent time to say “Let me tell you what I have done as it relates to your question.” Tell your story with passion and conviction as it relates to their needs. If the question relates to an award you have received, talk about the situation or task; discuss the actions that you took towards achieving the results; and explain the results that were achieved in a situation as it relates to the award and the question from the interviewer. Practice. Practice. Practice. No one can tell the story better than you!
As companies consider and welcome veterans in their organization, look for the values that are closely aligned with your organization, these awards will tell you that story. Values are important because in the military, individuals are groomed to believe in and become part of a cause bigger than themselves. This requires that the individual demonstrates his or her core values daily in everything they do. By focusing on core values, you can rest assured that you are starting with good clay. All you have to do is shape and mold, coach and mentor, teach and train your veteran new hire on your vision, processes, goals and objectives and watch them excel.
So, should service members and veterans add the Purple Heart to the resume? As a service member, please consider this critical message – if the awards add to the story about what you can add to an organization (in terms of skills, behavior and CHARACTER) then they should be included. If they confound or confuse the message, then they should be left out. The resume really has only one purpose in my mind, to get the applicant to an interview. That is the full and total intent of the document.
Employers, as you review personal military awards, know that these awards have a meaning and significance to the veteran. Welcome the opportunity to read their award certificates as you are going to see tangible and intangible skills on display. By having a basic knowledge and understanding of awards, you can initiate a conversation about the veteran’s background during the interview process. The next time you interview a veteran, encourage him or her to show you their military award certificates. By discussing their award certificates, you will get a sense of the veteran’s personality, performance history and potential. These discussions can also give you an indication on how the candidate will perform in your company. It may even motivate you to create a position within your company that will result in increased performance, morale, teamwork and business growth.
RP Members and Connection - Should Service Members and Veterans Include Military Awards in Resumes?
Do you agree or disagree? What are your thoughts and recommendations RP Members, Civilian Supporters, and Civilian Recruiters?
(I provided the entire article below for your convenience)
Published on December 5, 2016
By Abraham F. Negron
Principal Grojean & Associates, Inc.
Today I read a posting on LinkedIn from a fellow veteran asking the following question: Should I include my Purple Heart on my resume? As I read that question, I was taken back to my own journey when I was looking for employment. When I retired from the Marine Corps in 2012, I had some of the same fears and questions: Should I self-identify as a disabled veteran? Should I include my Iraqi campaign medal on my resume? What will hiring managers think of my service in combat? Will they think I’m too rigid and can’t adapt to civilian employment? Will hiring managers understand my Military Occupational skills (MOS) as it relates to the career opportunity? These are some of the questions that go through a veteran’s mind during the employment search.
From the context of the question asked on LinkedIn, I’d like to provide a general background on military awards to employers. Military awards are depicted by using ribbons, badges, and medals; all tell a story of excellence, leadership, courage, and technical expertise. Awards play a big part in the military culture because they represent the hard work and sacrifices a service member has made in a duty station, deployment, exercise, or operational training. Service members across all branches of service receive awards. The purpose of military awards is to foster morale, esprit de corps, and provide incentives. These awards tell a story of valor, excellence, heroism, values, and superior performance during a certain period of service. For private companies, these awards validate the veteran’s background, past performance and they can help your hiring managers, HR personnel and recruiters match the veteran with the job opening. These awards can also help an employer determine capabilities and talents with respect to future performance. Let’s take a moment and examine how these awards are classified. Basically, there are two types of awards, personal and service. It’s important to understand the distinction between these two types of awards. Generally, personal awards reflect individual effort while service awards recognize team efforts.
Personal awards are presented based on individual contributions. Each personal award has strict criteria that must be met before it is awarded. Personal awards are presented to the individual for going above and beyond the call of duty. As an employer, we recommend that you take time to ask the veteran candidate about the personal awards they received and to recount this experience. Questions you might ask include: How did you receive your personal award? Listen closely to the answer and find a way to connect that experience to the job opening at your company. You will find that in most cases, these awards will validate the veteran candidate’s capabilities to perform the job in your company. Remember, these awards are not given---they are earned.
In contrast to personal awards, service awards are presented based on group effort or contribution to mission success. Generally, service awards recognize an entire organization or group of individuals for outstanding service or achievement during periods of extraordinary conditions that involve national interests---whether it is combat, deployment or garrison. They are restricted to the recognition of acts of service that clearly and distinctly, by nature and magnitude place the unit’s performance significantly above that of other units performing similar missions. These awards tell you that the veteran candidate has been a part of a high-performing team and has demonstrated the ability to achieve a high level of excellence. Service awards tell a story of sacrifice and hardship. If you are a national or global organization, it will help you realize that the veteran candidate can adapt to change and overcome difficult challenges.
As a veteran, you also have skin in the game during this process. You must do your due diligence and research the company, tailor your resume to the career opportunity and anticipate questions during an interview so you can be prepared to tell your story. Most interviews include behavioral questions and this is an excellent time to say “Let me tell you what I have done as it relates to your question.” Tell your story with passion and conviction as it relates to their needs. If the question relates to an award you have received, talk about the situation or task; discuss the actions that you took towards achieving the results; and explain the results that were achieved in a situation as it relates to the award and the question from the interviewer. Practice. Practice. Practice. No one can tell the story better than you!
As companies consider and welcome veterans in their organization, look for the values that are closely aligned with your organization, these awards will tell you that story. Values are important because in the military, individuals are groomed to believe in and become part of a cause bigger than themselves. This requires that the individual demonstrates his or her core values daily in everything they do. By focusing on core values, you can rest assured that you are starting with good clay. All you have to do is shape and mold, coach and mentor, teach and train your veteran new hire on your vision, processes, goals and objectives and watch them excel.
So, should service members and veterans add the Purple Heart to the resume? As a service member, please consider this critical message – if the awards add to the story about what you can add to an organization (in terms of skills, behavior and CHARACTER) then they should be included. If they confound or confuse the message, then they should be left out. The resume really has only one purpose in my mind, to get the applicant to an interview. That is the full and total intent of the document.
Employers, as you review personal military awards, know that these awards have a meaning and significance to the veteran. Welcome the opportunity to read their award certificates as you are going to see tangible and intangible skills on display. By having a basic knowledge and understanding of awards, you can initiate a conversation about the veteran’s background during the interview process. The next time you interview a veteran, encourage him or her to show you their military award certificates. By discussing their award certificates, you will get a sense of the veteran’s personality, performance history and potential. These discussions can also give you an indication on how the candidate will perform in your company. It may even motivate you to create a position within your company that will result in increased performance, morale, teamwork and business growth.
Awards
Medals
Resume
Employment
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Edited 8 y ago
Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 40
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It's been my experience most civilian employers do not understand nor do they care about military awards. I think PO1 John Crafton has hit the nail squarely on the head in his response. The companies I've applied to since retiring have been more interested in the "What can you do for us?" than they were in the "What have you already done?"
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I would recommend it on a resume (AAM, ARCCOMs, higher). The reason for that would be those are typically service quantified awards that can speak to your contributions to an organization. I have utilized it as talking points when they are mentioned. All other ancillary awards are not needed - unless you're just filling white-space.
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs. In many cases it does not make any sense to list medals for valor or service on a resume on a resume.
1. Resumes are geared to the company and position you are applying for. They are based on research into that company and position so you know what you are talking about.
2. Good resumes are one page long and perhaps part of second page. Attachments may be okay.
3. It would be appropriate to include parts of citations for valorous-awards if you are applying for a position where valor is required such as security forces, special contractors who work overseas, prisoner guards, police, etc.
4. If character needs to be verified, including good conduct awards and some service-award citations may be useful.
1. Resumes are geared to the company and position you are applying for. They are based on research into that company and position so you know what you are talking about.
2. Good resumes are one page long and perhaps part of second page. Attachments may be okay.
3. It would be appropriate to include parts of citations for valorous-awards if you are applying for a position where valor is required such as security forces, special contractors who work overseas, prisoner guards, police, etc.
4. If character needs to be verified, including good conduct awards and some service-award citations may be useful.
(11)
(0)
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