Customer Reviews

Military to Federal Career Guide: Ten Steps to Transforming Your Military Experience into a Competitive Federal Resume

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As a former Transition Assistance Program workshop facilitator and now as a direct placement recruiter, I have worked with hundreds of transitioning military service members. Not enough vets make use of their hiring advatage in federal government because the process is so involved and can be intimidating.

Troutman's latest book takes her abundant expertise in the federal hiring process and translates it in an easy to use and highly comprehensive workbook for ALL those who are leaving military service and want to explore a federal career.

This book includes basic federal resume construction, an overview of the federal hiring process, how to interpret a federal job posting, electronic versus paper applications, explainations of how to claim Veterans Prefence Points, how to utilize your past experience (no matter what it was!) and how to translate "military-speak" in to federal employment language. There is also a CD-DVD-Rom included that has numerous resume samples. This book is a great supplement to the TAP manual - all the things the TAP manual barely touches on (in regards to federal employment), this book delves in and fully explains.

Additionally, Troutman has done much of the research that normally takes job many frustrating hours searching the web. She includes a resource section which shares various agency websites, how to navigate them and how to apply to each individually.

I recommend this book to those leaving military service, both enlisted and officers alike. It is a valueable resource - a low price investment that will be of great help to military service member making the leap into federal employment. There is no other guidebook out there like this!

Don't wait until your terminal leave to get working on your federal package. The federal hiring process is not the swiftest. As a wise teacher once told me, and I now tell all my students, "Do It Now".

Dear Amazon.com staff;

Congratulations! You outdid yourselves by having Ms. Kathryn Troutman's latest book, "Military to Federal Career Guide," in your resource library.

After serving 24 years in the Marine Corps and ten years as a Career Development Coach for the Department of Defense at Camp Pendleton, CA, home to over 40,000 Marines and Sailors of the 1st Marine Division, I am pleased to praise the name of Ms. Kathryn Troutman for creating a tool that will aid the military person in becoming a Federal employee. The book "Military to Federal Career Guide" is that tool.

Military personnel respond well to organized information and the "Military to Federal Career Guide" is just that, organized! This fantastic book helps military personnel to identify their transferable skills that they possess that will relate to their desired goals as a Federal Government employee.

Ms. Troutman realized that since military personnel use steps and sequences to accomplish their goals, that she must create the path for the military personnel to travel to the government resume and with this book, she has done just that.

I endorse this book so much because I believe that any military person that uses this book from beginning to end, following all of the steps and examples, will have a far greater chance for a job offer from the Federal government than someone that doesn't use the "Military to Federal Career Guide" book.

Semper Fidelis to the staff of Amazon.com for your professionalism.

Fred

What I really like about this book is the easy-to-follow layout. It is clear and I know how to find an issue area I wish to learn more about. I also feel the content is solid and the examples are as good as it gets for this difficult area to write about. Kathryn takes the mystery out of understanding the Federal process and makes it easier by laying out the issue areas clearly and providing examples for each. She also devotes an appropriate amount of time to the dreaded KSA's and how to cut them down to size and present your background well enough to make it through the maze of the Federal selection processes.

Kathryn also has excellent resources listed and her abundant research on the subject shows in the material that is presented. Like my book, it comes with a CD-ROM that has just excellent color, graphs, charts and indexing. Quite a treat to view. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in working for the Federal Government. It will make the process so much easier to understand and I believe if you follow her advice, you will have a much better chance of consideration for employment in a very crowded arena.

Great book! The examples demonstrate how to translate military experience into civilian! Ms. Troutman was cited in my Army Career Alumni program and her techniques are spot on. The Federal job application process is simply different from the private sector, and it is important to understand how to present your experience, how to give the HR people what they need to see, not what you hope they will figure out. Ms. Troutman is the expert.

I was offered two positions within an hour using her guidance. I learned I was one of 263 applicants for the position I now have. I also later learned just how bad some of the applications were. Ms. Troutman will teach you how to present yourself to the Human Resources gate keepers. If you don't get past the Human Resource screeners, the selecting authority, which may understand more how your experience relates to a specific position, will never even see your application. You must present yourself in the way they Human Resource people understand "AND" that will make it easy for the selecting authority to see how qualified you are. It's about giving the Federal Human Resources professionals what they want to see, not what you think they should understand. It's about making your application stand out from the other 262 applicants. The techniques aren't hard, but they simply are not the same as the private sector.

Look at how editions of her books have been published vs. the other books out there. People purchase them because what she teaches is effective.

Ron
27 year Army Vet.

The Military to Federal Career Guide has been my Bible and roadmap as I have navigated the USAJobs.gov website, prepared a military-federal resume, written KSAs, and applied for federal jobs. I heard Kathryn speak at a career fair in Washington, DC and immediately bought her book. It has been indispensable as the federal job market is like no other. The techniques to job hunt in the federal sector are not well covered in any other career transition forum of which I am aware.

Kathryn guides the reader through a step-by-step process to create a federal resume and KSAs that stand out from the online electronic version and pack a punch. I used her techniques to get invited to interview for a high level position in the federal government doing the type of work I've always wanted to do (I'm awaiting the decision now). If you have ever considered a second career in the federal government, this is a resource you absolutely need!

Military to Federal Career Guide: Ten Steps to Transforming Your Military Experience into a Competitive Federal Resume is a no-nonsense, practical guide for enlisted and discharged personnel and officers. Chapters discuss veterans' advantages in applying for federal jobs, how to write a basic military federal resume, learning how to analyze federal vacancy announcements, write about one's knowledge/skills/abilities, interview for a federal job, and much more. An accompanying CD-ROM with ready-to-use resume templates and 150 pages of sample resumes rounds out this point-by-point, easy-to-use guide. An utterly invaluable resource for any veteran seeking a solid federal career.

If you order this book check it before putting it on the shelf. In preparation for retiring out of the military I purchased this book and shelved it for three months, WITHOUT checking that the CD was there, till I was closer to retirement. Now that I have it out to study, the lack of CD becomes a real drawback since so much of the book depends on it.