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How to Get Your Resume Government-Ready

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There’s no shortage of government resume tips out there. Whether it’s a federal or state and local position, it’s important to understand how to strengthen your overall resume for government. GovLoop has a number of resources to help you government-ize your resume. Hiring freezes may make it seem hard enough already to get into government, but what if you are a millennial who barely has any job experience as it is?

For millennials who have yet to attain government experience, fear not! You can still break into public service. The key is to find your golden ticket into a government volunteer position, tailor your experiences to fit the vacancy and make sure your resume doesn’t have some easy-to-avoid-mistakes.

Find Your Golden Ticket
You have academic experience from college, you’ve held some leadership positions on campus and you have had some private sector experience here and there, but maybe you haven’t even encountered government-related work yet.

The first step is to find your golden ticket. And no, I don’t mean buy a bunch of chocolate bars to find that lucky one. I mean find any government-related volunteer position and use it to help you get into public service. It can be as easy as volunteering at a public shelter, a political campaign or applying to a local Congressman’s office.

My golden ticket was an unpaid internship at my Congressman’s district office near my hometown in Oregon. Prior to that, the only job experience I had was a waitressing position and leadership positions I had assumed in college.

Attaining the internship was as simple as a phone call. A friend of mine formerly interned at the same office and told me about it, so I called to see if they had availabilities, and – sure enough – they did. I was fortunate to be the only intern in the office with two supervisors who were the field officers. I gained a wealth of exposure to government and attained great experience at the local level.

Looking back, I definitely don’t think I would be where I am in my professional journey had it not been for that internship. Find your golden ticket into government and use it as your catalyst into public service. Pay attention, no matter how small the position may seem, as future potential employers will ask what you learned from those first experiences.

Remember, you don’t necessarily need to work in Washington to have a career in government. Be flexible and open-minded about volunteering. Even if it’s not the agency of your dreams, there’s a lot of experience and knowledge out there to gain.

Apply Your Experiences
Now, how do you assemble a government resume when you have virtually zero government experience?

Tailor your experiences and apply them to government. Whether you were a football team captain, or president of your school journal in college, think of how your educational and leadership experiences would apply. Maybe you learned about teamwork, management or delegation – all of these are applicable. Even waitressing can be applied to government (i.e., provided customer service, designated tasks to team of waiters, etc.).

When writing resumes for government, keep these tips in mind:

The Vacancy listed: Serves as liaison with the Secretary and other top Department officials in the resolution of controversial problems that influence the image of the department.

Think about positions you’ve held in school or in the private world where you had to problem-solve or address a conflict. Make sure to draw from professional experience. Now, was there a time when you served as a representative of other interests or people in some capacity? Maybe you were a vice president of the student union, which means you acted as a liaison between the President, the students and the university. You may think your positions don’t relate, but in many ways they can. Use this as an exercise to practice tailoring your resume for a government position.

Resume Don’ts
Finally, it’s important to know what not to do for a government resume. Don’t make these mistakes:

 

This blog post was originally posted in September, 2015.

For more reading about millennials in public service, check out this weekly GovLoop series, First 5: Advice from millennial to millennial

 

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