Finding a job can either be one of the most exciting moments of your life or it can feel like one of the hardest tasks to take on. No matter where you fall on the spectrum, it’s important you take the right steps to ensure your job hunt is seamless and painless.
Continue reading below to learn some ways you can have a successful mission by leveraging some of the many resources created with you in mind.
Prepare yourself for a transitioning career
When you decide to make the leap to retire from active duty or make a major career change, it’s important to know where to start. ClearanceJobs has several resources, articles, and podcasts dedicated to help you navigate these waters. To get started, check out some of our recommended must-reads: Knowing Your Why: Career Advice for Transitioning Careers, How to Successfully Navigate a Career Transition – and Avoid the Mid-Career Slump, and Master Your Career Transition with Mission: Career Transition.
Create Eye-Catching Resumes
Your resume is one of the most important tools in your arsenal when seeking a new position. It serves as an important resource that allows potential employers to gain a high level insights of your top skills and qualities in one to two pages. However, resumes also help employers make hiring decisions and help you get your first interview. It’s why many believe that a resume has the power to open doors.
To stand out, you’ll need to ensure that your resume communicates your roles and skill sets clearly, avoids grammatical and spelling mistakes, and is tailored to the job posting. You also need to ensure your resume is correctly formatted and you use the right keywords.
The key is to not start from scratch. Resumes samples for military-to-civilian transition to defense and intelligence jobs ranging from an aerospace engineer job to a missile system testing position are available on sites like ClearanceJobs. Once you have the bones, research articles on how to add the meat. Some of our favorite articles on resume tips include Resume Tips for Veterans and Is Your Resume Still Relevant? Check if it’s Time to Refresh.
Allow yourself to be noticed
If you’re active on the job hunt, it’s important to use the tools that’ll get you noticed by perspective employers. One of the simplest ways to do it is by creating a profile on ClearanceJobs. By uploading a resume, listing out your skills and certifications, and refreshing your profile consistently, you allow yourself to be noticed by recruiters. And with good timing, you might receive a life-changing opportunity by simply being active.
To get started, watch our candidate training webinar to learn how to best use ClearanceJobs to your advantage. Also, check out one of many ClearanceJobs success stories including stories like Katrina, an Army veteran with Secret security clearance and from Marcia Villavicencio, a U.S. Navy veteran.
Attend Virtual Career Fairs
Career fairs have traditionally been a way for job candidates and employers to meet in-person to connect and talk about open roles. Virtual career fairs have exploded over the last couple of years and their popularity is only growing. Not only is it convenient to join, but it also allows employers to expand their potential job pool by meeting candidates from all across the country. As a job candidate, it allows you to bolster your job seeking efforts, enabling you to meet recruiters and hiring managers from companies and organizations actively looking to fill immediate jobs.
If you’re looking to attend a career event specifically catered to security-cleared professionals, ClearanceJobs has you covered. With over 20 career events held each year throughout the country, ClearanceJobs is the leading producer of career events catering to you in mind. Find your next fit by registering for one of our online or in-person events today and while you wait for the big day, check out our virtual career fair job seekers guide.
Know Your Worth
When looking for a new role, it’s important to make sure you’re being paid fairly. One way to do that is to figure out your market value. This is an estimation of how much you should earn based on your clearance level, location, and/or industry. Doing research ahead of time prior to a salary negotiation can help you secure the income you want.
One of the easiest and most efficient ways to find your worth is through our salary calculator. This tool uses regularly updated data to determine the current and desired salaries for security-cleared professions. The guide allows you to explore a specific job category alongside your level of clearance and the state you reside. Once you add the data specific to you, our guide will show you salaries based on percentiles and the average salary based on experience.
Join the conversation
As a security-cleared professional, you probably have a lot of questions but may not know who to ask for advice. Our discussion board helps to remove that barrier by allowing you to submit anonymous security clearance questions to our community and to network with others. With thousands of threads to-date ranging from questions about the security clearance process to sharing breaking news and resources, you’ll be certain to find the answer you’re looking for or find a topic that interests you. Even if your question doesn’t exist yet, you’re able to start the conversation simply by creating an account.
No matter the type of job seeking resources you’re looking for, we got you covered. Take advantage of our News and Career Advice section to stay in the know and to sharpen your skill sets as you start your mission towards finding your next career.
