Learn to Assess Your Skills

To find a good civilian job, you need to clarify your skills. Skills assessment helps you answer the question "What do I do best?" A skills assessment can also:

Hint:  Relate your spare-time activities to the job for which you are interviewing.

Translating military experience into civilian language is one of the most common stumbling blocks in the skills assessment process. One way to tackle this problem is to talk to friends who have already left the service. Ask them about what civilian employers want do and don’t want to hear. You should also consider attending workshops and seminars. Here’s a good approach to assessing skills:
Step 1. Assignments: List the projects you have worked on, problems you have solved, situations you have helped clarify, and challenges you have met. 
Step 2. Actions: List the actions you have taken to carry out these tasks. 
Step 3. Results: List the results that your actions helped to achieve. 
The skills that appear on these three lists should be incorporated into your resume and job interviews. 
Skill assessment for many service members and their families requires assistance. The staffs at the Transition Assistance Office and Education Center can provide that assistance.

For more assistance in skills assessment, go to Occupational Information Network the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (O*NET): This provides detailed descriptions of most occupations. Available online at: http://online.onetcenter.org/ and  http://www.military.com/skills-translator/mos-translator

The careeronestop.org website also has a resource that can help you identify potential careers using your current occupation. By selecting a career on myskillsmyfuture.org you can explore training, compare skills banks, typical job duties and technology, search employers and jobs. This site also provides information about the field and current labor market information for the career selected.

Date Last Reviewed: September 28, 2011

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