RECRUITMENT 113 followed by roles of increasing skill and responsibility. The reader can infer, therefore, that the first job listed--the most recent job-- represents the highest level of mastery and accomplishment in a candi- date's career. However (and here's the rub), a military career doesn't necessarily progress this way. For example, responsibility for a large staff may be viewed by civilian employers as a sign of strong leadership experience. But for a career service member, that large staff may have been three jobs ago . . . and followed by roles that were smaller in scope from a staff management perspective but much greater in scope of access to people and information, influencing leaders and strategy, etc. So a civilian recruiter could potentially read this evolution in the chrono- logical resume as a backward step in leadership ability. This explains why so many former military personnel become frus- trated in their early civilian roles. The recruiting process focuses on the most recent job on the resume, which prevents the organization from recognizing, hiring, and leveraging the full contribution of the service member. The conceptual shift we are called to make is to look at a military resume through a different lens, even if--perhaps espe- cially if--both are in chronological format. This is how we can see the full value of a military career and compare it to other candidates com- ing from civilian or academic careers. ``If you're only using the new-hire for what he did in his last job, you're going to miss out on a lot of capabilities and experiences that that individual has that could help the firm. Even in areas that are unanticipated. For example, I'm doing a job right now that was completely unanticipated. The second thing is for the individ- ual. He or she is going to be frustrated by the fact that he or she has skills that aren't being used and mostly because the organiza- tion doesn't know he or she has those skills or experiences.'' --O FFICER , USAF 1 Think of it this way: a civilian career often looks like a climb up from one position to another, better position; the military career can look American Managememt Association · www.amanet.org