Write From the Heart
I review a lot of OTS applications so I’d like to think I have a good feel for ones that are strong and ones that are bland and fail to stand out. What is the difference between them? There are many answers to this question and I won’t pretend that I know them all, but the ones which resonate with me the most are the ones which are written from the heart. Part of this is probably because my personality leans more toward heart than mind, but if you think about it, what captures your reader’s attention most effectively?
One of the most common mistakes I see with a Personal Statement (PS) is that a person states their reasons and objectives for desiring a commission as a paraphrase of their OTS Applicant Profile, which is the OTS application’s version of a resume. From my perspective, each section of the application has a specific purpose. The OTS Applicant Profile should be the section which tells the board how awesome you are at work. The LOR should address your character and contribution both to work and to the community from the perspective of a credible, almost third party source. Your Personal Statement is your opportunity to tell the board who you are in your own words. All parts of the application should combine to paint a full color picture of who you are. If the board member reviews your OTS Applicant Profile, scrolls down to the PS on the last page and hears you restate what they just read, you have missed the opportunity to speak directly to the board.
Good Will Hunting
Sometime else people struggle with is making their case despite having a lack of professional experience. This is the great paradox of professionalism, in order to get the job you want you need to have experience, but in order to get experience you have to have a job. Even if you have a solid foundation of experience, how can you make yourself stand out among everyone else who has similar experience?
In the movie Good Will Hunting starring Robin Williams and Matt Damon, Damon’s character Will is an extremely intelligent young man, but his initial knowledge is limited to the knowledge that can be obtained from books. He deeply offends Robin Williams’ character Sean until Sean realizes one thing, Will is just a kid. It is easy to be offended by someone you deeply respect, but when you realize that the person who offended you didn’t have the life experience to know what that they are saying, the offense loses it’s weight.
When you are trying to make a case to the board that you would make an awesome officer candidate, the statements you make have to have weight behind them. If you don’t have the military or professional experience to back your statements and enlighten the board of your advanced understanding, what do you have left? All you have left is your own personal story, an explanation of your heartfelt desire for why you want to become an officer. Don’t tell the board what they already learned from your OTS Applicant Profile. Don’t tell the board a bland recount of your list of career accomplishments, or what you have done for yourself throughout your career. Tell the board how the events of your childhood shaped you into the person you are today. Tell the board how your accomplishments have changed you and then, let your punchline be that the person you have become is exactly the type of person we are looking for to lead tomorrow’s Air Force to victory.
The most disappointing thing that happens to me after reading a PS is if after I am finished, I still have no idea who you are. I don’t want to hear an academic account about how you define leadership, or a dictionary definition of officership. I am all ears to hear your story, to know who you are. I want to feel like I not only just met you, but I have known you for years. Then I want to hear how through your personal story, how you inherently learned and lived leadership and officership, and how becoming a commissioned officer is the next logical step in your personal journey.
You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally… I don’t give a [expletive] about all that, because you know what, I can’t learn anything from you, I can’t read in some [expletive] book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that do you sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.
-Sean, Good Will Hunting
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