Seize Your Superpower
Military-related students enter UCSB with valuable skills that employers and graduate schools seek, including discipline, dedication, resilience, responsibility, leadership, multicultural awareness, and foreign language skills, in addition to various technical skills.
No matter your career path, Career Services can help you discover and hone in on your skills and experience, as well as assist you with developing new tools to advance your career trajectory. We support you in reaching your professional goals and encourage you to use this page as a starting point to move forward.
Key Campus Resources @ UCSB
Get Hired: Military-Related Students
For complete information on job search strategies, resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn, interviews, and more, review our starter tips to Get Hired in all careers as well as the specialized tips on this page.
Strategies
In order to make the most of your professional journey, it is important that you pursue the opportunities that interest you. If you find a job or internship that you meet most of the qualifications for, apply. Entry-level positions are the gateway to acquiring higher-level positions in the workforce after you acquire your degree. Review this section to gain tips on applying for and landing positions of interest.
Military-Friendly Job Boards
To support your search in finding and landing a position, there are a number of job boards dedicated to veterans.
Here are some specialized job boards to consider:
- FedsHireVets: Provides federal employment information for veterans, transitioning military service members, their families, and federal hiring officials.
- Hire Our Heroes: Offers a service to bring veteran job seekers and employers together. Job Seekers and Employers can register, create profiles/job posts and search for jobs and resumes.
- Hire Veterans: Helps you find jobs within the US and abroad.
- Recruit Military: Connects employers with high-quality veteran talent.
Learn More
When researching jobs, make sure to utilize Handshake and adjust your settings to filter to jobs within your desired industry and experience level. Visit our Job Search Strategies page for complete tips.
Resumes and Cover Letters
With your military-related background, you have an opportunity to make your resume and cover letter stand out by incorporating your experience. When doing so, keep in mind that employers want to see what results you have achieved through performance of previous tasks.
Here are some questions to consider as you compile your resume:
- Did you increase, decrease, save, or improve something?
- If you were in charge, how many people were under your oversight?
- What type of pressure were you under?
- Did you work your way up in rankings?
- What awards have you earned and how do they relate to your strengths?
All of these considerations can be valuable to mention along with elaboration of any new responsibilities you have undertaken. As you develop your resume, tailor your experiences to the position to which you are applying. When doing so, you can create new sections with relevant titles. For example, if you are applying to a management position, name one section “Leadership Experience” and showcase your managerial skills through the teamwork, leadership, and communicative abilities you developed in each ranking.
When you compile your resume, quantify as many meaningful statistics as you can. How many people did you work with and how many were you in charge of? How many tasks were achieved? What volume of results did you obtain?
If you are applying for a position within the military, make sure to include relevant jargon. This will help you demonstrate your knowledge and experience.
If the position is outside of the military, run your resume and cover letter by a friend, and ask for them to point out places where the terminology used can be rephrased for better understanding. Many civilian recruiters search resume databases through use of keywords, therefore it is important to pay close attention to keywords in your resume, and revise them depending on the position to which you are applying.
Learn More
Review our Resumes page and Cover Letters page for more details about these application materials.
Transition Resources
There are a variety of resources to help you with your transition into civilian life, which can double as useful resources to transition into the civilian workplace.
Here are a few resources to know about:
- CareerOneStop Veteran and Military Transition Center: Provides employment, training, and financial help after military service.
- GI Jobs: Distributes transition resources for active duty and veterans, covering topics from how to build your resume to interviewing skills that will set you up for success.
- Military.com: Connects service members, military families and veterans to service benefits, including: government benefits, scholarships, discounts, lifelong friends, mentors, great stories of military life or missions, and much more.
- Transition Assistance Online: Assists matching employers and veterans to military-friendly companies through career information, online tools, and business partners.
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation: Gives aid and resources in a step-to-step context to transitioning and joining the workforce.
- U.S. Veterans Magazine: Provides business and employment opportunities for veteran and military-related careers.
- VA Transition Assistance Program (TAP): Offers comprehensive support through TAP to help you transition to civilian life, in coordination with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Labor.
- Veterans Transition Support: Serves as a volunteer-based nonprofit organization in Orange County and San Diego which helps transitioning service members and veterans bridge the gap from military into civilian life.
Also, remember that UCSB Veterans and Military Services and the UCSB Veterans Resource Center are dedicated to helping you in whatever you need.
