Landing an interview...

[Fahrenschnell]

Hello,

I have applied to quite a few AO/NLO positions over the past year, and I am not getting any feedback, calls, or interviews.  I know there are a lot of people applying right now, but I haven't been picky about location and have applied all over.  I interview well and have a strong employment background including being a Navy Nuke.  I don't know if it is my resume or if I am failing to follow through as I should on these positions.

Please advise me on how I should move forward, as I can see that I am obviously missing some crucial components.  Thank you for your help and advice.

[JustinHEMI05]

Probably a resume issue.

What is your background?

[Fahrenschnell]

I was a Navy Nuke MM for 6 years on a fast attack sub, and have been managing a 40 person national service group for the last 9 years.  During those years I have also been heavily involved in new machine development and beta testing on fluid dispensing equipment. 

 

[HydroDave63]

Most utilities don't like paying for moves, hence hire within a close radius. What plant(s) are you near?

[Fahrenschnell]

I am in MI, but able to relocate.  Near Fermi.

[JustinHEMI05]

Hmmm, I think it is a combination of things, but primarily your resume. I am not trying to sound like a douche, but frankly, 6 and out Navy nukes are a dime a dozen. Although you have a leg up on someone with no industry experience, you are competing with Navy nukes that are getting out at 8-10 years with more advanced quals and 4 year technical degrees.

However, perhaps your resume isn't saying the right things, as you should at least be getting calls, I think.

If you would like, you can send me your resume at jecrocker@gmail.com and I will have a look.

It will take a little while as I have a line ahead of you.

Justin

[Cycoticpenguin]

edit: typed on my phone.


I am willing to bet employers would prefer local talent, but I dont believe that couple grand to hire a nuke with good experience over a college kid would be a breaking factor... I was offered interviews at 5 different plants out of state, some fairly far away. While, no, not gaurenteeing myself a job at said plants, but Im sure I had a decent shot. Shoot, half of my class, and half the class before me was out of state.

That said, I think you should definitely let justin have a look at your resume. If its multiple pages, you need to condense that a LOT. Theres no need to have several pages scripted together for your amount of experience. Also, if you have an objectives section, delete it. Will give you more room to make yourself look better, while maintaining a neat, orderly resume. Think about it, EVERYONE is going for that position... they know your objective... there's ZERO reason to put that in there. It just eats up space, and gives room for error. Also, make darn sure you have everything spelled properly. My spellcheck function missed "qaulfied" on my resume until I gave it to my grandmother who pointed it out randomly. (I had MANY eyes on my resume, and ironically she was the one that found it).
 

[Fahrenschnell]

Thank you Justin for the offer.  I have sent it over and hopefully you can help me get it sorted.

Thanks again.

Seth

[JustinHEMI05]

Thank you Justin for the offer.  I have sent it over and hopefully you can help me get it sorted.

Thanks again.

Seth

Got it. I will get to it ASAP. This week sucks because we just started an outage and my GFES exam is weds.

Ignore CM's advice above, except for the spelling part.

[Fermi2]

Agreed ignore CMs advice except for grammar, spelling, and capitalization. Do what Justin says, he knows what he's talking about.

[HydroDave63]

Agreed ignore CMs advice except for grammar, spelling, and capitalization. Do what Justin says, he knows what he's talking about.

And that, my friends, is all the endorsement one needs in life!

[Cycoticpenguin]

Agreed ignore CMs advice except for grammar, spelling, and capitalization. Do what Justin says, he knows what he's talking about.

Please explain to me why a third of our candidates are from other corners of the country? This is an honest question. Why would a fortune 500 company care about the couple grand to move more highly qualified operators then "local talent". Would you honestly hire a firestone plant worker over a navy nuke because you had to move that person???

 Also, since you are management, please explain to me what good the "Objective" section is on a resume?  You know good and well resume readers spend 30 seconds glancing over those things. It would seem to me to be more prudent to have more of your qualifications and glorifications then a subjective heading that everyone already knows about anyway. How am I wrong here?

[JustinHEMI05]

Please explain to me why a third of our candidates are from other corners of the country? This is an honest question. Why would a fortune 500 company care about the couple grand to move more highly qualified operators then "local talent". Would you honestly hire a firestone plant worker over a navy nuke because you had to move that person???

 Also, since you are management, please explain to me what good the "Objective" section is on a resume?  You know good and well resume readers spend 30 seconds glancing over those things. It would seem to me to be more prudent to have more of your qualifications and glorifications then a subjective heading that everyone already knows about anyway. How am I wrong here?

Because no one gives sh*t that you got a nam for scraping bilges.

[Cycoticpenguin]

Because no one gives sh*t that you got a nam for scraping bilges.

How about an "award for outstanding superior performance". Its all in the vernacular justin...

do you really "give a sh*t" about "My goal is to become a Nuclear Auxilliary Operator.... blah blah blah"

 

[JustinHEMI05]

Yes.

[Pman52]

do you really "give a sh*t" about "My goal is to become a Nuclear Auxilliary Operator.... blah blah blah"

 

A good resume that is prepared by a driven individual preparing to become a professional is going to have an objective section that states alot more than just this...  If you don't believe that you need to read a few more resumes.

[Cycoticpenguin]

A good resume that is prepared by a driven individual preparing to become a professional is going to have an objective section that states alot more than just this...  If you don't believe that you need to read a few more resumes.

I've spent countless hours reviewing resumes of various types, not just for an operator. Most of what I saw seemed useless for an entry level position resume. For future resume writers, and myself, can you explain to me why this statement matters?

"Objective:
My goal is to pursue an exciting and challenging position of Boiler Operator where I can utilize my huge knowledge and experience to maintain efficient as well as safe operation of boilers. "

Im asking to learn, not to spite or argue with hiring managers who have been in the business for longer then I've been alive, not my goal or intention.

[Fermi2]

no caps, bad shoulder day. my intent was not to downgrade cm as he has successfully transitioned to being able to get a job in the commercial industry at pretty much the only level he could start at. he's also been very open about what he wished he would have done in the past and how he plans to negotiate the future. so my apologies if i put him on the pedestal of ridicule. he and i have exchanged pm here at times, he seems ok and wants to move up.

saying that, my opinion as someone who has screened resumes is the individual does perform some research as to the various job titles and positions. if they simply put their goal is to obtain a job as an nlo i rarely take a second glance at the resume. now if they put objective is to enter the company as an nlo in order to eventually enter the reactor operator and supervision positions i take a second long look at the resume.

you put you got a nam on a resume i deduct a point i could care less if someone made the all star team in t ball. same as listing any medals you earned. we don't give medals in the commercial world. i do pay attention to class ranking to an extent. i also pay attention to spelling, punctuation, grammar, caps and the like. i deduct a point for mistakes in each. once you get to 95 i chunk the resume because you obviously didn't care about the job. i believe a 5% margin starting from 100 is sufficient as the plant gives zero percent margin.

tell me how your efforts improved something or someone and i might give a point. make it measurable. i could care less if you were the lpo or the div officer of king shit mountain. they're a dime a dozen. a guy who worked as a boss at burger king and can relate to me how he improved productivity and was able to train his staff has far more worth to me than someone who says as the lpo of such and such division i implemented the pm program with a 100% pm rate. who cares? the program is laid out by the navy and if you just follow the program you should achieve 100% it's the minimum standard.

i would take justins advice over cm on this simply because the path he took into the industry is far tougher and more importantly he's done it twice. that tells me something about him especially since he's cross pollinating and i know how tough that is. given the industry is slowly gearing to interviewing nlo on an sro level his advice carries more worth. i simply want guys coming into my plant that can learn to think like sro's and can display it during an interview. seeing a well written resume with goals and accomplishments that can sell me on that goes a long way

btw, show me a resume that is over 1 page and it's an immediate failure.

[Cycoticpenguin]

Ah, I get your point Mike. And thank you!

edit : at what point is 2 pages allowed for you?  I had it grilled into me to get it down to one page (my first resume was three pages long haha), and did all kinds of things to get that truncated, that included smiting my objectives section. I DID make it painfully clear during my interview I wasnt going to waste time getting my license, though.

[JustinHEMI05]

That is all I tried to tell you in PM. 

Now that we are all on the same page, my inbox is full. Good thing I have a few days off after the GFES tomorrow.

[Fermi2]

Ah, I get your point Mike. And thank you!

edit : at what point is 2 pages allowed for you?  I had it grilled into me to get it down to one page (my first resume was three pages long haha), and did all kinds of things to get that truncated, that included smiting my objectives section. I DID make it painfully clear during my interview I wasnt going to waste time getting my license, though.

anytime. in my mind a cover letter of one paragraph doesn't count as a page provided it's not more than 10 or so sentences long.

so far as resume. one page is it. single space items within a section, double space between sections. i don't care where you went to high school or any teenage jobs UNLESS you can put something in the resume that is relative to showing me what sort of worker you are. if you were a gardener at 17 and you worked with your boss or on your own to lower plant mortality rate at the said facility by figuring out a better watering schedule hell yes i want to know that. it tells me regardless of the position you think and more importantly you treat all your way stations in life as careers and not just stopping points. it's far more relevant than the pm example you gave above.

[HydroDave63]

IMHO...

1. Please explain to me why a third of our candidates are from other corners of the country? This is an honest question. 2. Why would a fortune 500 company care about the couple grand to move more highly qualified operators then "local talent". Would you honestly hire a firestone plant worker over a navy nuke because you had to move that person???

 3. Also, since you are management, please explain to me what good the "Objective" section is on a resume?  You know good and well resume readers spend 30 seconds glancing over those things. 4. It would seem to me to be more prudent to have more of your qualifications and glorifications then a subjective heading that everyone already knows about anyway. How am I wrong here?

1. It's much like the 6-factor formula; high unemployment making more total resumes available coupled with reduced SRB multiples, high operating tempo for nukes, recent controversial policies and better awareness of civvie job availability producing a screaming down-arrow on the Naval non-leakage probability.

Why 1/3 are out of staters? Most likely the Ops folks reviewing resumes saw a STRONG possibility of that applicant going through the license pipeline quickly. Some utilities are so short of RO/SRO on-shift that they risk NRC letters. Gone are the days when utilities liked having swarms of career secondary-side operators, thus keeping license pay low (who wants the hassles?) and kept corporate beancounters happy (sure, the licenses are getting overtime but I'm saving on FTE, and the SROs are salary anyways). Some utilities are scared enough to go back to instant RO classes.

2. $2000 might move a 6-and-out that only owns a couple seabags of clothes, a scratched-up Lexus and an awesome CD collection, but a professional move of a typical family cross-country runs about $15K.

2a. After seeing some of the knowledge-weak postings on NW in the past couple years from fresh off Das Boot ex-nukes and sitting some interviews, I have to check the box labeled "No longer a valid predictor of success".

3. The Objective is as much about what you don't state as what you do. Pman52 had it right, because a well-written objective already answers one of the favorite HR-type questions in an interview "What do you see yourself doing and learning in 5 years?" A one or two sentence objective conveys the answer "Not one damn thing more than it takes to get on shift." Think of it as a mini-cover letter.

4. Justin might have been a bit harsh, but correct. Unless your stellar achievements made it onto your DD-214 or a Letter of Condemnation from O-6 or above, the jaded Ops guys reading your resume will just chuckle and set it down in the other pile. If the puffery is in the resume, be sure your references can back it up.

[HydroDave63]

after the GFES tomorrow.

GFES ??!?!?

Nub !!!   

[JustinHEMI05]

Indeed.


As to your number 4, that is something vitally important that needs emphasized. EVERYTHING on the resume better be verifiable, particularly if you are going for an instant SRO class.

In the not too distant past, there was an issue of someone lying on their resume and the NRC finding out.

I know my utility now requires copies of DD214s/evals, etc.

Point is, don't over embellish. Don't round 1.5 years of EWS to 2 years.

[Cycoticpenguin]

GFES ??!?!?

Nub !!!   

man... I dont even know what GFES stands for... what does that make me... haha


Thank you for your clarification on your other post. My resume was crammed down to just listing qualifications and jobs held in the navy.  I didnt include any awards or anything, because nothing seemed substantial enough to warrant placement.

Drayer, i hope to god you are paying attention to this thread!