Argonne hosts resume writing workshop for veterans

For America's veterans, transitioning from military life to civilian careers often requires making adjustments. When applying for jobs, for instance, some experience gained during military service may not readily translate into terms employers and recruiters can easily understand.

To help veterans in their job search, the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, in partnership with the Argonne Veteran Employee Resource Group (Veterans ERG) held a resume writing workshop on Oct. 6. Thirty-two veterans attended the event, which consisted of a bus tour of Argonne, a refresher on building a strong LinkedIn profile and one-on-one pairings with Argonne staff who volunteered to help refine veterans' resumes.

"A lot of the skills that you learn in the military could prepare you to work at a place like Argonne, like project management and technical skills," said Argonne Physical Therapist Assistant JoAnn (Joni) Garcia, a member of the Veterans ERG. "But," she said, "you might not know how to translate your military skills into civilian terms."

Garcia said that the purpose of the event was two-fold. "We wanted to help make these veterans more competitive for jobs they want to apply to, and we want them to apply to jobs at Argonne," she explained.

"We wanted veterans to walk away from this event knowing that our Argonne employees care about them and their success in the civilian job market. We also saw this as a kind of recruiting event, and hope that more veterans decide to apply to the open positions here at the lab," Garcia said.

According to Garcia, the considerable participation from the Argonne community coupled with the positive response from the veterans speaks to the lab's efforts to continue to sustain an inclusive workplace. "The outpouring of support from the Argonne staff has been great to see," Garcia said. "By attracting more veterans to Argonne, we can continue to enrich the lab's diversity and continue to build a world-class community of talent."

Provided by Argonne National Laboratory