Information Technology at Nestlé North America values an inclusive culture and a diverse set of backgrounds. Talent from every branch of the military service complements our agile and innovative environment in many ways. Military service members offer skills such as the ability to adapt, work well under pressure, lead through integrity, and enable others to learn and grow. The unique assets gained from an inclusive and diverse culture help us better serve our customers.
Writing Your Résumé for Civilian Readers
As civilians, there is one thing we are certain of regarding your military background—a résumé doesn't do your experience enough justice. However, it's your ticket into the recruiting process, whether it be at Nestlé or someplace else, so we hope these insights will help you craft your military/professional story.
- Résumé Length
- A Clear Objective Statement
- Your Audience
- Before You Apply
Résumé Length
A long-time theory and written rule exists that one-page résumés are a best practice, but times have changed. The real rule to effective résumé writing is about being strategic with what you include, not how much.
If you have several years of military or civilian experience behind you, we expect that will come with a longer, more detailed résumé. In fact, it is perfectly acceptable, if not suggested, to have different versions of your résumé—each tailored to the civilian jobs in which you apply for.
In other words, you may qualify for different types of jobs, like an IS/IT Project Manager and also a Systems Analyst, but that doesn't mean you would share details about your experience or skills in the same way for each of these roles. For the jobs in which you choose to apply for, read the job posting carefully to fully understand the responsibilities and skills needed. Read between the lines when viewing a job posting—what are the different listed responsibilities suggesting you need in terms of aptitude and skill set? This will also help you think through how to detail examples and key wins within your résumé that relate directly to the posting.
A Clear Objective Statement
Your vast military experience gives you a uniquely diverse background that we're excited to learn more about. However, your ranking and responsibilities may not clearly indicate what your civilian career aspirations are. Including a concise objective statement can help summarize what you hope to do next, how your skills might make you a strong fit for the job, and suggest where (geographically) you plan to work. As a large percentage of transitioning service members consider moving geographies to begin a civilian lifestyle, it is important to consider ways in which you can show localization. For example, list your intention within the objective statement to relocate cities/states by a particular date so recruiters and hiring managers have a better understanding of your availability and proximity.
Your Audience
As recruiters and talent sourcers, we do our homework so we're prepared to review résumés with military experience and conduct interviews with service members/veterans like you. It's important to us that we can understand and relate to you. However, we certainly won't know everything. Without compromising the content of your résumé, think about how you can translate military vocabulary into civilian-speak so we can further discover how your accomplishments can translate to the job. Skills translators, like Résumé Engine, can serve as an effective tool to assist in this process.
Before You Apply
You would never think to enter combat without making sure you have all of your equipment, and that everything functions how it should. While not nearly as risky, this is no different. Double-check your résumé for these key components before submitting it with an online job application:
- Is your contact information up to date?
- Is the content formatted in a consistent way throughout?
- Have you spell checked?
- Are all dates and timeframes accurate?
- Are your experiences, skills, and accomplishments listed in a way that relates to the job posting?
- Are all acronyms spelled out as a first reference?
- Do the contents of your résumé match what is listed on your LinkedIn profile (if applicable)?
How to Succeed in Our Behavior-Based Interviews
Behavior-based interviewing has been around for over 25 years and has begun to shed light on research showing that past performance is a strong predictor of future performance. Both our phone interview and face-to-face interview processes (which may be virtual at times) are behavior based. In this type of interview, questions are structured to extract specific examples and experiences from you—as the interviewee—to help determine how you may react or behave in similar situations you might face within your new civilian role.
Here's the tricky part. As a military service member, no civilian interviewer can quite understand or relate to the stresses and experiences you've endured while in uniform. However, we have all the confidence in the world you may have what it takes to exceed expectations on the job here at Nestlé.
How to Prepare for the Interview
- Think about the desired behaviors Nestlé (or another employer) is seeking based on what you see in the job posting (e.g. teamwork, ability to influence, initiative, work ethic, problem solving, etc.).
- Also think of specific examples from previous experiences (in the military or otherwise) that highlight your individual skills. You may wonder how infantry or artillery expertise can transfer to the corporate world—don’t focus so much on the hard military skills, but what skills or traits did you gain from acquiring that knowledge and experience? And how can that transfer over?
- Write your examples and notes down and review them before the interview—often times, seeing it visually can help. In fact, you can bring those notes with you to the interview if you choose to. Our interview process is not a test, so there’s no harm in jogging your memory with a few notes.
- Be prepared for the interviewer to ask follow-up questions to probe deeper into each of your examples to help further understand your technical knowledge or how you approached specific issues.
*Remember, our knowledge of processes and technologies used in the military may be very limited. We don’t expect to fully understand the details, but we will need to be able to gauge if the behavior/actions you exhibited were appropriate for the situation.
How to Answer Behavior-Based Questions
- Think of behavior-based interviewing as storytelling. Explain the situation, behavior, and outcome for each example you provide. Explaining the situation should be brief—give us some concise context to set the scene. The majority of your storytelling will be about the specific behaviors you exhibited.
- Focus on most recent examples from the military or other jobs. What do we mean by “examples”? Situations in which you solved a technical problem, developed a solution, or overcame adversity that led to an effective outcome.
- Be confident and proud of what you've accomplished, whether it be while serving in the military or someplace else. Stick to the facts and practice articulating your specific actions (behaviors) within each situation. Practicing this with a friend or family member may help this process feel more realistic.
During the Interview
- Take your time. It's better to take a moment to breathe and think of a good example than to answer too quickly with a poor one.
- Err on the side of giving more details than you think you need to describe each situation and behaviors. Especially when it comes to explaining military terminology or processes.
- Don't be afraid to take credit—define your role in the group/combat team/battalion (or otherwise) when explaining a situation. Use “I”, not “we” when you’re able.
After the Interview
We expect you’ll have some questions for us, too. But, don’t ask questions just to ask questions. Bring to us your curiosity so we can help confirm if we’re the right fit for you.
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