FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Your resume and its meaningless words. Editor Lindy Kyzer explains, “It’s a sad fact – recruiters often sift through hundreds of resumes in a given day and if yours is filled with the same boring puffery as everyone else’s, there’s no way to get noticed. Whether it’s your traditional resume or online career profile, every word matters. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to fall into a rut and find yourself using phrases and terms that look like they were copied and pasted from an online resume database. . . . Wondering what, specifically, to leave off? Here are the top ten buzzwords that are over-used on defense industry resumes.
2. Networking—writing your way to a job. Contributor Tranette Ledford explains, “Sharing your own perspectives and experiences in a published article can serve as a powerful tool to boost your online presence from cleared job candidate to thought leader. . . . Recruiters and hiring managers spend huge amounts of time looking for online profiles that match the positions they’re trying to fill. If they come up with a few dozen resumes for any given job, they have to pare that list down to a reasonable number with the best chance of filling the bill. This is where your professional posts and thought leadership can put you at the top of the resume pile.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Kurds hold strong; ISIS eyes Baghdad. Reuters’ Ayla Jean Yackley and Saif Sameer report from Mursitpinar and Baghdad, “Kurdish defenders held off Islamic State militants in Syria’s border town of Kobani on Sunday, but the fighters struck with deadly bombings in Iraq, killing dozens of Kurds in the north and assassinating a provincial police commander in the west. . . . The jihadists have laid siege to the town for nearly four weeks and fought their way into it in recent days, taking control of almost half of the town. A U.N. envoy has said thousands of people could be massacred if Kobani falls. . . . In neighboring Iraq, Sunday saw a second straight day of bomb attacks that killed dozens of people. . . . The United States used army Apache attack helicopters for the first time this past week to provide close air support to Iraqi forces in Anbar west of Baghdad.”
2. Merkel’s extremist problem. LongWarJournal.Org’s Benjamin Weinthal reports, “There is a growing sense among leading German politicians that the Federal Republic’s preoccupation with the NSA surveillance scandal should not overshadow the pressing need to confront the Islamic State. . . . According to German authorities, an estimated 450 German Muslims have gone to fight against the Syrian regime. Most of the 450 sought membership with Islamic State. Roughly 40 women and a 13-year-old boy are among those who have departed for Syria.”
3. Russia—it’s the economy, stupid. Slate.Com’s Joshua Keating explains, “You wouldn’t know it from the Chanel boutiques and Maserati dealerships lining the boulevards inside Moscow’s Garden Ring, but economic conditions in Russia are becoming dire. The ruble has weakened to record lows not seen since the 1990s, capital is bleeding out of the country for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, and the economy is projected to grow a piddling 0.5 percent this year. You wouldn’t realize any of this from the statements of Russia’s president. At a forum last week, Vladimir Putin ensured investors that the country has enough reserves to implement all of its budget proposals, including an $80 billion increase in military spending next year.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Smaller is better during drawdown. DefenseOne.Com’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “The Army had scaled back or canceled major weapons programs in an effort to keep the remaining force properly trained and prepared to fight should a conflict arise. A smaller budget, combined with fewer soldiers, meant fewer acquisition projects and scaling back of ones on the books. These cuts . . . still could change the landscape of the defense companies—many which have vastly expanded during more than decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq—who heavily rely on Army business. Firms that can build smaller quantities of items more efficiently will be successful down the road . . . .”
2. VA’s $22 billion contract. FederalTimes.Com’s Aaron Boyd reports, “The ‘next generation’ of the Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Program (T4NG)—the Department of Veterans Affairs’ contract to manage its IT systems—will almost double in scope from the current T4 contract, with the projected value rising from a ceiling of $12 billion to $22.3 billion. The T4NG contract is focused mainly on management of the VA’s IT systems, health IT and telecoms, however the chosen vendors will also have some discretion to purchase new software and hardware, as needed, to modernize the department’s systems.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. MUM-T: Apache’s un-manned wing-man. AviationWeek.Com’s Amy Butler reports, “Despite more than $1 trillion spent by Washington on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, debate continues at the Pentagon about what tactics—and technologies—from those battles will endure. . . . [M]omentum is solidly behind fielding manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) technologies for Army aviation platforms. Combining video feeds and weapons from manned and unmanned platforms provides significantly improved situational awareness to troops on the ground and dramatically improved efficiency in focusing weapons to support ground elements. This combination also could make Army ground units less reliant on aircraft from other services for overwatch and air support.”
2. Isaac Asimov sees the future. The Atlantic’s Rebecca J. Rosen writes, “He got some things wrong and some things right, as is common for those who engage in the sport of prediction-making. Keeping score is of little interest to me. What is of interest: what Asimov understood about the entangled relationships among humans, technological development, and the planet—and the implications of those ideas for us today, knowing what we know now.”
3. Flying car—it’s here (for real). Christian Science Monitor’s Bryan Cronan reports, “Flying car prototypes are a dime a dozen. But this month a production-ready flying car is being unveiled to the public. . . . The Aeromobil has a 27-foot wingspan when in airplane mode. The vehicle uses a Rotax 912 aircraft engine. The car has a top speed of 100 m.p.h. on the ground, and can reach 124 m.p.h. in the air. The Aeromobil’s cruising range is 430 miles. The Flying Roadster can hold two people and weights almost 1,000 lbs.” Watch it soar.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Quick wit: “Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in San Diego on Sunday talking about the importance of teaching children how to read at an early age, but her speech was rudely interrupted by a heckler. The heckler sounded a bullhorn and then began shouting at Clinton during her speech. Security immediately rushed over to grab the man and escort him out of the building. Clinton seemed a bit startled but continued on with a joke about the man’s developmental care. ‘You know, there are some people who miss important developmental stages,’ she said.”
2. Mid-term distraction: “The Clinton Presidential Library on Friday released 10,000 pages of previously undisclosed documents that involved a series of touchy subjects from the 42nd president’s time in the White House. They cover the gamut of scandals – some big, some small – that dogged former President Bill Clinton’s presidency: from Monica Lewinsky to Whitewater, from the death of former White House Counsel Vince Foster to the pardon of financier Marc Rich, and the controversy over staffing of the White House Travel Office, known as Travelgate, as well.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. GOOD READ: “A New Army Drawdown: This Time Is Far Worse.” DefenseOne.Com contributor and 32nd Chief of Staff of the Army argues, “We know we cannot predict the future, but we know our Army – active, Guard Reserve, civilians and contractors – will be needed again and again as we move forward. The key to future success is to keep all units in the Army trained to the highest possible standard for a broad range of missions while maintaining our readiness to deploy and employ those units anywhere in the world. That’s a tall order.”
2. “The Secret History of the Middle East.” USNews.Com contributor Stephanie Mulder explains, “In the West, prevailing assumptions of Islam suggest the religion is an intolerant faith, and the Middle East is a region of eternal conflict, a place where people have been fighting since the beginning of time. As is often the case with assumptions, these, too, are wrong.”
3. “Prepare for post-Ebola recovery in Africa.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “Ebola will likely not slow Africa’s progress by much—unless the world clings to the wrong perceptions about this outbreak. One way to correct those perceptions: Start planning for the Ebola-hit nations to rally back.”
