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Submitted by varichardson on
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My first "job" was in the military.  I now have enough jobs / accomplishments that it would become somewhat challenging to keep that job listed on my one page resume.

Would you put the service branch at the bottom of the page next to where college education is listed?  For example:

<Branch of Service>, 1988 -  1993

I think that having military experience listed on a resume is valuable, but I don't want my more recent jobs / accomplishments to suffer due to lack of space and I surely don't want to go to two pages. 

Thanks for any advice.

Vic

mmann's picture
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Vic,

As you gain experience each line on your resume is valuable real estate.  I think it's wise to keep the military experience and I think it's wise to reduce it to a single line if it was long, long ago.  I think you should not include it with your education.  That reduces the effectiveness of both messages. 

In your example you've actually reduced your military experience to about 25% of one line.  Find a way to elevate this experience and use up more of that real estate!  Tell me something about your military experience that raises my interest.

  Thank you for serving your country.
--Michael

varichardson's picture
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I appreciate your feedback, but I am still unclear on this.  Are you suggesting to have a one liner about my military experience that is similar to other jobs without the accomplishments listed underneath it?  That makes sense, but at some point wouldn't the military "job" still have to fall off the resume?

If you look at the Manager Tools sample resume (in terms of size not content), there are 7 different jobs listed there.  Let's say the job right above education was your job in the military and now you needed to add a new job (the 8th one).  Something has got to give because now you would go to 2 pages. 

I was thinking of having a one liner (similar to education) in order to keep the military experience listed in some way.

I realize that maybe you could remove some of the bullet points from the above jobs and reword it a little so it is shorter, but at some point you are going to hit a limit (maybe at 10 or 11 jobs) and your very first job (military experience in my example) would have to roll off.  I probably wouldn't care if it was the job after my military experience that rolled off, but military experience, to me at least, is not the same as "some other job". 

Should I just accept the fact that at some point it needs to come off the resume?

Thank you for your ideas,

Vic

SamBeroz's picture

The experience you choose to highlight on your resume shouldn't be driven simply by chronology. The needs of the position should determine what gets included. So don't worry about it having to eventually fall off and good luck. - Sam

wendii's picture
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Your resume is a chronological summary of your career. You can't miss things out, whether they were at the beginning of your career, in the middle and you don't want to mention them, or more recent.

Include your military experience as one line, with the dates and a single line of responsibilities which summarizes your experience. Include one accomplishment in order that this role looks like all the others.

If you're struggling to get it on to one page:

1) Make sure each of your accomplishments is only one line.
2) Reduce the number of accomplishments in each role by one, starting with the oldest role and including a minimum of one accomplishment for each role, until you get to one page.

Wendii