You need more power. When you are getting ready to find your first civilian job, you need more than the otherworldly skills you have already mastered in the military. You could use some power from artificial intelligence (AI) to make things a whole lot easier. AI weaponizes your post-military job hunt in some most remarkable ways.
As
the transition master coach for Military.com's Veteran Employment Project, I
like to think of all of you in military transition like Jedi masters, blasting
out into the unknown. (Stay with me here.)
Jedis
never seemed to go out into the vast unknown without their R2-D2, C-3PO, or R5-D4.
They need that droid to navigate, translate, and open doors. For them, having
their own droid is perfectly normal. Like owning a blender.
That
is how AI should be when it comes to your post-military job hunt -- an
advanced, skilled, somewhat limited helper. While there are pros and cons to
using AI on the job hunt, and I have some reservations about how much it can
help when writing a resume for the defense industry, these tools can help you
an amazing amount -- especially when you kinda hate spelling and grammar.
You
don't have to be particularly tech-savvy to use these tools. They do not take a
lot of time to learn. And even in the early stages of adoption, they boost your
results and lower your angst. Here are five ways AI droids can help veterans
get a job:
1.
Identify Your Career Options
At
first, active-duty service members usually do not know what kind of job they
want to do after the military. More importantly, they do not know where to
begin the search for their next career, outside of trolling the job boards.
Shoot, most of the time, they do not know the names of the jobs or departments
in the civilian world.
This
is where your AI can get you started. You can't ask it about specific job
listings in your area, because the tool cannot cross over into another app and
it will tell you so.
Start
by asking ChatGPT, HIX Chat, YouChat, or any of the other recommended AI tools,
a simple question like: What kind of job can I get with this kind of
experience? Then copy and paste your resume or your LinkedIn profile into the
chat box.
Based
on that information, it will generate a response that gives you a list of jobs
at your career level. Most of these tools produce very similar results, but it
is a real start. Here is one from ChatGPT:
You
can also use the bots on LinkedIn to help you find out what jobs other veterans
with your experience were hired to do. Find out how in our Stealth LinkedIn Master
Class. The past hiring behavior of the employer is the best predictor of future
hiring behavior.
2.
Generate Interview Responses to Practice
One
of the biggest mistakes I see veterans, military, and spouses make on the job
hunt is failing to prepare for the interview. And by "prepare," I
mean generating responses to interview questions and saying them out loud in
front of another person until they feel natural, personal, and inviting.
1.
Prepper
That
is why I like AI to be your little helper. You can find AI tools like Prepper
that are designed exclusively for the interview. They help by offering
responses specific to certain jobs, certain companies, and certain kinds of
interviewers.
The
free version of Prepper allows you to input the job title, job description, and
company, as well as how hard you expect the interview to be: easy, hard, or
"pirate." Then it generates five free questions. You can look at the
suggested answer, or put your own answer in and have it scored. It looks like
this:
ChatGPT
Tell
a chat tool like ChatGPT: I am interviewing for a job as a (job title). What do
I say when they ask (insert an interview question)? Here is the job listing.
Then paste the whole job listing.
The
bot will give you a response. It will probably be a lot longer than human
beings really want to listen to. Bots don't know that, which is why you would
want to shape the response yourself.
The
advantage here is that they give you the response a hiring manager is going to
expect. It is so much easier to adapt this kind of response to your personal
experience when you know what the answer should be. Then you can follow up with
the next interview question on your list.
LinkedIn
If
you have started your free LinkedIn Premium subscription for the military, you
can also use the LinkedIn interview bot to practice your responses and get
real-time feedback. If R2-D2 was listening to this article, he would be
whistling and beeping and telling you not to skip this step. It is a terrible
feeling to know you talked yourself right out of the job in the interview because you failed to train.
3.
Slap Together a Cover Letter
I
am a writer by profession, so I don't really approve of most things that are
written by bots. I think they are boring. I especially hate the suggestions
that AI should be used to network. My rule is that if the message is intended
to go from one real person to another real person, you should have the respect
to write it yourself -- flaws and all.
Except
for cover letters. I think cover letters are a monumental waste of time in the
veteran job hunt. Most veterans agonize over getting them right. Most hiring
managers never, ever read them. So I think it is perfectly acceptable for a bot
to slap together a cover letter for another bot to read.
4.
Auto-Apply to Jobs
I
have a Gen Z colleague who is always telling me that applying to jobs en masse
is the key to getting all the interviews you want. I'm not crazy about this
suggestion, but he might be right for job seekers under 30. This could be good
for those who do not have much of a professional network and are looking for an
early career job.
Although
employers are not crazy about being flooded with resumes and will probably
figure out a way to thwart this effort, sometimes a new tool offers a
competitive advantage. For the young, AI tools like Simplify Jobs, LazyApply, or
Massive allow you to apply to hundreds -- even thousands -- of jobs
automatically based on your profile. It can help you get in first before the
job is closed.
If
you are over 30 or looking for a job in leadership or management, skip this
suggestion because the research says that the "weak ties" in your
network are what you need to get that job.
5.
Tea and Sympathy
Looking
for a job is one of the loneliest, most disheartening things you can do.
Because AI tools scour the internet for the most common advice, they can
sometimes come up with a little wisdom when you need it.
If
you are feeling discouraged or perplexed, you can ask the chat for a little
advice, such as I have submitted 120 applications and only received one
invitation for an interview. What am I doing wrong?
The
bot responds with the electronic version of tea and sympathy and uses advice
you have heard a thousand times before. It is both equally annoying and
reassuring. And it might be just enough to get you to reach out to a real
person for the kind of ideas and empathy only humans can produce.
Jacey
Eckhart is Military.com's transition master coach. She is a certified
professional career coach and military sociologist who helps military members
get their first civilian job by offering career-level Master Classes through
our Veteran Employment Project and on her website, SeniorMilitaryTransition.com.
Reach her at Jacey.Eckhart@Monster.com.
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Your Next Job Fast
Transitioning
military, veterans and spouses may be qualified for the job, but they are
missing the secrets of civilian hiring. Find out everything you need to know
with our free master class series, including our next class. You can view
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