Getting a better job...

[Aeson]

I recommend removing the black boxes. How are they supposed to contact you when all personal information is blacked out?

[Al B. Sure!]

P.S. Your cover letter is way to long. Make it, at most two paragraphs. Lastly, ditch the fitness report because they don't give a ****. They want an analyst not a physical trainer.

Your P.S. really makes me question your post. I don't include the fitness reports in any application. That wouldn't make much sense to do. I posted that for your benefit to assess strengths that I am not mentioning in the resume/cover letter.

And your last sentence is completely unintelligible. 'They want an analyst not a physical trainer'. You do realize that the fitness in fitness report has nothing to do with physical fitness, right? Even a quick look at my reports would have made this clear. It's a periodic evaluation of performance, equivalent to the Army's Officer Evaluation Report.


The military is the only thing setting me apart from other applicants, is the place where I greatly exceeded expectations and accomplished notable things with a large scope. Whistle-blowing and saving the Marine Corps $1.4M from a major contractor defrauding the government is an accomplishment I should be screaming off of rooftops. Without the military, or downplaying it, I'm an accountant at a sleepy bank with no experience and no indication that I am a better candidate than anyone else. In my mind, I don't understand why it would make sense to follow your idea. You're saying to take the one thing that will catch attention out of the rest of the pile of applicants, the one thing which demonstrates my leadership, attention to detail, work ethic, etc. and downplay it? Why?

A company can teach me what I need to know in the field. They can't teach those things my Marine Corps bullets proves I already have. Isn't that how they separate the wheat from the chaff going through these resumes?

As I browse LinkedIn profiles of Marine officers turned Goldman Sachs associates, the bulk of their background are the large sections about their Marine Corps accomplishments. It evidently worked for them?

[pchang]

You are known for being stubborn. Don't be stubborn. Do what Dinner says. Skills for the job first. Shorten cover letter. My HR people go through a lot of applications and are a bit lazy. I have a lot of other things to do besides look at applicants. Conciseness helps me and is a skill I value. On the other hand, stick with what you have if you like the results you have gotten so far.

[rah]

Dinner made some good points.


A wording change.
Improved operational efficiency by using excel to develop
to
Improved operational efficiency by developing.

The focus should be on what you did, not that you used a simple spreadsheet. And Excel is kinda old school these days.

Glad to hear you don't include the fitness report.

Tone down the military aspect just a touch.


The best cheat to meet people is to buy or scam a subscription to some industry rags and list yourself as a much higher position. Within weeks that subscription list will be sold to marketers and you'll be getting many emails inviting you to industry events. While most of them are glorified marketing events, if the freebies are good enough they do attract people in the industry. Once there, don't pretend to be the higher position but just mingle and get to know people. They will assume you're more important than you really are and you might get some bites.

And your cover letter should be customized for every different position. Do a little research on the company and include some tidbits in your letter. Make them think you actually give a **** about the company that you're sending apps too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You are known for being stubborn. Don't be stubborn. Do what Dinner says.

Yes to all this. And so now you have pchang, rah, and myself agreeing. We have all been successful in our working lives (pchang and rah more than myself). Listen to us if you want to change your situation.

[regexcellent]

Don't emphasize the reserve duty. What your employer sees is "here's a guy who's going to be away doing military things as much as humanly possible and not at his job." Discriminating against reservists is illegal, but good luck proving it.

The military sets you apart from other applicants--negatively, in some ways. Employers do like seeing leadership experience. But they don't like it when their employees have big outside obligations that may interfere with work.

[rah]

Most of my peers like to see military experience. It shows that they're able to put up with the worst **** and still follows directions.
Much preferred to the younger 'entitled' generation.
The only downside is that some think you can't be that smart because you signed up for it. You have to prove it was the only way you were going to be edgukated.

[regexcellent]

All other things being equal I think it'd be hard to claim that military experience is bad, but the problem is he still has ongoing commitments which he probably doesn't want to advertise too much.

Of course, he should still have stuff about his military service in there.

[rah]

It all depends. Some companies like trotting out the statistics on how many employees they have that are actively serving. Especially foreign owned companies that want to look a little less foreign.
Most American companies are big on it also.

And aren't there some potential tax saving for companies that do? Or do they to be injured vets?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Being a vet will definitely get you a boost if you applying for a government job. I'm sure Philly has a bunch of those.

[rah]

Yeah, there's that too.

[Dinner]

I'm not really in a great situation (not going to give details since this is a hostile environment) so I'm not in a position to offer much advice. But one thing you could try is developing more skills like programming or learning a language.

What is your degree in?

[Dinner]

You are known for being stubborn. Don't be stubborn. Do what Dinner says. Skills for the job first. Shorten cover letter. My HR people go through a lot of applications and are a bit lazy. I have a lot of other things to do besides look at applicants. Conciseness helps me and is a skill I value. On the other hand, stick with what you have if you like the results you have gotten so far.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

You'd think he might listen to what some of us who are in charge of hiring and firing have to say but it is his life and he can do what he wants.

[Dinner]

All other things being equal I think it'd be hard to claim that military experience is bad, but the problem is he still has ongoing commitments which he probably doesn't want to advertise too much.

Of course, he should still have stuff about his military service in there.

This was an issue which came up with serval of my peers when I was in the reserves. Albert may want to consider a career change if an accountant onlyales around $40K as those are low wages which will be harder and harder to live on the older he gets. Honestly, I would recommend he spend time browsing USAJOBS.Com as he will get paid more, will get a pension plan, as long as he has a degree he can move into a number of fields, and they will even give him a 5 point preference for being a vet (10 if he was ever deployed to a war zone and 15 if he is rated 10% disabled service related). It should be fairly simple for him to get a government job making $60k-$80k a year.

Oh, and with government jobs he can double dip during military deployment. Meaning they will keep paying him the difference between his military pay and civilian pay while he is on deployment.

[Dinner]

Alternatively if you want to stay in finance I would recommend getting an MBA from a good school and seeing if you could move into investment banking, venture capital, or M&A. I have two friends who went that route and they are both making around $400k per year but they went to top schools.