OTS Applicant Profile
I review a lot of OTS Applicant Profiles and the “Work Experience” section is an area a lot of people struggle with (in my opinion.) I think a lot of people think this section doesn’t really matter but as I have written about before, I think ALL aspects of the app profile are important. I think of this document like a resume. It shouldn’t be an all-encompassing 2,000 word essay about you, it should capture and highlight what you want the board to know about you in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. If you have giant blocks of white space or huge blocks of text, it can be an eyesore and the board member may have to force themselves to read your resume. In contrast, a properly formatted resume can draw the reader in. They may have to force themselves to stop reading it because your story is so compelling.
Work Experience
For this part of the applicant profile I put my most recent job first, and listed my previous jobs in reverse order. This made sense to me because the board could see what job I was currently employed in, and work backwards as far as they wanted to go. At the very bottom was my first job in the Air Force so it may have the least amount of relevance to my OTS application, but it is there if the board wants to see it. On that note “relevance” is a crucial aspect of writing resumes. EVERYTHING on a resume should be relevant. My first job WAS relevant to my OTS application because it showed that from a young age I produced excellent work and was recognized by my leadership. If my first job wasn’t relevant, in my opinion it shouldn’t be on my resume.
Combined Experience
At the point of my application I had been in the Air Force for 11 years, and I listed six jobs. Technically if you count all of my job titles from my EPRs over the 11 years I had eight jobs. I combined a few of the jobs because I didn’t think they were relevant. For example my first official duty title in the Air Force was “Security Response Team (SRT) Leader,” but I only did that job for a month or two before I became a “Flight Security Controller (FSC).” Was there anything I did as a SRT Leader that contributed to my application to become an officer? Not really. I did some awesome things, but it had a very minor impact on the overall mission and it was a very short period of time. The jobs are very closely related as well. As a FSC I dispatched the SRTs to security situations so I was responsible for multiple SRTs. I had to not only know how to do the job of a SRT, I was responsible for ensuring they did the job well while managing the bigger picture. With all of this in mind, it made sense to drop SRT off of my app profile and just list FSC. For a few positions later in my career I did the same thing. One job was “Systems Operator,” and the other job was “Senior Systems Operator.” There isn’t much difference between the two, so I used the best bullets from both under the one title of “Senior Controller.”
So why did this matter to me? Why did I think it was necessary to cut these two jobs off of my application? Is there a page limit to the app profile? For me, it all goes back to communicating an effective message. If I added two more jobs to my applicant profile it would have translated to two more headings with three more bullets. Each job would have added approximately 80 words each, and it would lengthen the section by 33%. What does the additional 160 words/33% gain me? Absolutely nothing. It would takes up valuable space and would distract the board from receiving my intended message about my work experience.
Intended Message
Now let’s talk about what my intended message was. At the micro level I wanted to show that I was good at every job I did. If a board zoned in on any of the six jobs I listed, I wanted them to get a feel for what it was that I did and how I impacted the squadron, group, or wing mission. At the macro level I wanted to show career progression. I wanted to highlight how as I moved from one job to the next, each job was related but diverse, and my responsibilities continued to increase in scope. This is why I thought adding two jobs could have detracted from that message. Although they would have showed progression, they would have been baby steps vs. the larger steps of the rest of my positions. To give you a feel for my macro message, here are similar job titles to what I listed:
- Security Controller (3 years)
- Security Operations Staff (1 year)
- Weapons Storage Area Supervisor (2 years)
- NCOIC, Security Forces Training (2 years)
- Systems Operator (2 years)
- NCOIC, Standardization and Evaluations (1 year)
Making it Happen
After I determined what duty positions I was going to list, I needed to populate each position with content. My general rule was to list 3-4 bullets for each position. To start this process I asked myself, “What are 3-4 sentences describe what I did during that job?” I stuck with three bullets for each position except the one job that I did for slightly longer than two years, that was my only job with four bullets. After I had my 3-4 sentences, I scanned my military Enlisted Performance Reports (EPRs) for the bullets which best described those accomplishments. I copy/pasted those bullets from my EPR onto my app profile, then I converted the bullet to plain English. Instead of this bullet:
- Demonstrated expert C2 during 55 alarms on PL 1-3 resources; ensured security of DoD assets valued at $50B*
Here is what that means in English:
- Demonstrated expert Command and Control (C2) means that person was in charge of the overall response to these alarm situations. They were either the on-scene commander or the security controller.
- PL 1-3 resources are Air Force Protection Level 1-3 resources. Protection Level 3 is the level used for Air Force aircraft.
Given the meaning, you then have to consider why that mattered and what it contributed to the mission. If you are a cop responding to an alarm for an aircraft, it means someone could potentially be trying to damage or steal the aircraft. How would that impact the wing’s mission? If that aircraft went out of commission, it could no longer fly sorties for the wing. If the wing’s mission is to attack or defend enemies threatening U.S. airspace, the cop’s protection of that aircraft is allowing that wing’s mission to take place. Given all of this, explain that to the board.
- Directed response to 55 security situations affecting the security of Tyndall’s F-16 fleet. Prompt action prevented damage to aircraft and directly supported 1 FW air combat operations.
A quick note on aesthetics, I tried to keep each bullet two lines in length. As a military guy it was easy to be drawn into the trap of the rigid Air Force bullet format, but in my opinion it is more important to communicate your message to the board than to stick to an arbitrary rigid format. This is why I converted it to “English” and not to “Air Force bullet format.” You can see an example of this here:
*This bullet was taken from http://www.eprbullets.com/securityforces.htm
Challenge, Action, Result (CAR) Format
In my original app profile post, I talked about how I used many of the concepts I learned in Transition Assistance Program while putting together my application. One of the most influential pieces of advice for me was the concept of writing resume bullets in “Challenge, Action, Result (CAR)” format. This concept has changed my life. In my opinion it is a highly effective way of communicating what you did and why it was important. I have incorporated this advice into my OTS application, my own personal resume, applying for my masters, etc. and I am extremely happy with the finished products. Here is how the concept was taught to me.
Provided C2 for security of $350M USSTRATCOM defense assets over 9,700 sq miles; sole source of information for possible nuclear accidents/incidents involving joint inter-agency response.
Challenge
Each bullet should explain a challenge you overcame by doing the action. As a security controller I was responsible for the security of my area. If something bad happened, a bunch of cops would respond and I would tell them where to go. On paper, you could say I “managed 12 cops,” but that doesn’t articulate the challenge of what I did. The challenge of managing those 12 cops was the geographic scale of the area, and the value of the assets we protected. I articulated this by stating, “$350M USSTRATCOM defense assets over 9,700 sq miles;”
Action
The action is an explanation of what you did. Make it clear and concise, and in most cases this will be right at the beginning of the bullet. You don’t want to make it so wordy that the reader loses track of your actual accomplishment, so just make sure it is easily decipherable on first-read. In our example I articulated this with, “Provided C2 for security”
Result
The result is, in layman’s terms, why what you did mattered. You MUST write this in a way any O-6 can understand. You should probably write this in a way that ANYONE can understand. The more you dumb it down, the easier it will be for the reader to understand your message. The other thing you should keep in mind is that you should answer the question of how what you did mattered to the mission. What is the bigger picture of your accomplishment? Did you actually impact the mission, or did you just do a bunch of random things?
Now that we know we did a thing and why that thing was challenging, here is why that thing mattered to the bigger mission. This is the piece that you may need some help with because we as the “do-ers” of the mission sometimes lose sight of why that mission exists. I actually reached out to my previous commander for help on this one because he was an O-6 and I assumed he would have a perspective for why that job was important. Here is what we came up with: “sole source of information for possible nuclear accidents/incidents involving joint inter-agency response.”
Summary
As you can see, I put a ton of thought and time into developing my applicant profile. I have heard people argue that the board probably doesn’t even look at the applicant profile in depth, so putting a lot of work into it is a waste of time. This could be true because they probably don’t have a ton of time to linger for minutes and minutes on a single application, but what if they did? What if your application is the first one they see so they take their time? My goal was to make every centimeter of the application shine so if it was indeed scrutinized by the board, they would see some good stuff. Hopefully explaining my thinking behind the applicant profile has helped you put together your own.
I honestly think that the board sees the entire “app” packet of your application. It makes sense that the “source,” and “awards” portion is not readily available to the actual board, but if the board isn’t looking at your “app” packet, what are they looking at?
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