I get letters like this all the time from individuals who devoted a big chunk of their lives to serving our country, but end up in a job abyss when they try to get work once they leave the military behind:

“I am a retired veteran with twenty two years military experience. I have two Bachelors degrees, however I cannot find a decent job. I send in my resume, but I do not get many call backs. If and when I do they are to say thanks for your interest in our company.”

This letter was from John, who left the military in 2005. He sounds like a hard-working, smart guy, but he can’t get a break when it comes to finding a job. It’s probably even gotten worse for ex-military folks with the tough economy, but too often employers don’t give enough weight to a job seeker’s military background.

I addressed this topic in a column a year ago, and I offered advice to veterans on how they could revamp their resumes and their approaches to interviews to help them out.

But, the bottom line is all of us should start to realize how much great experience veterans have. If we’re hiring managers, employees, CEOs, we all need to think, “hey, this guy or gal was in the military. They probably have the kind of training most job prospects will never have.”

Many have incredible leadership skills, and talk about pressure under fire. Many soldiers also have to be on top of the latest technology, as all the armed services use systems that would make most techies heads spin.

Military folks also have to do a bit of repackaging of themselves. One of the reasons employers are worried about hiring former soldiers is they believe they just can’t leave the Army, Navy, or Air Force behind. They want to know you can easily assimilate into the corporate culture. So, leave the “Yes, Sir!”, “Yes, Ma’ma!” at the interview door. And leave the military jargon off your resume. Make it as simplistic as possible so HR will not just toss your resume in the bin.

And I promise, I mean no disrespect by this. When I wrote similar things in my MSNBC.com column I got a lot of angry emails for people in the military that thought I was putting what they do and who they are down.

I’m not. I respect with all my heart what soldiers do. All I’m doing is trying to help you all with some reality-check career advice because there are people out there who will brush aside your military background, or even use it against you. Don’t let this happen. Be proud of your service and let them know you can adapt to any battlefield, even the corporate one.

When I first started looking for a job as a reporter out of college I hit the big, no-response wall when I sent out my resume.

I sent out endless resumes, to endless publications and got nothing. And I wasn’t picky back then. I just wanted to get a job reporting. I didn’t care about what.

Well, I decided it was my boring resume that was holding my career back. So, being a fine-arts minor, I decided to use color to get my resume noticed. I printed 50 of my resumes on red paper. Not light red paper. Blood red paper. I’m not kidding folks. The printer had to use a very dark ink to make the text readable.

What did I get for the 50 red resumes I sent out. Just one response. That didn’t lead to a job. But hey, I got a response damn it.

Why am I telling you this? I don’t know.

Only kidding.

I’m telling you this because it’s okay to get a bit creative with your resume. I’ve talked to hundreds of hiring managers in my job as a career writer and many of them have told me they don’t mind a unique resume if it’s done with taste and it works for the job or company the applicant is applying to.

But hold back on the scratch and sniff resume paper for now. Wacky gimmicks won’t help you in the job hut.

Think smart!

I got an email last week from a reader who did his resume in a Power Point presentation. What a great idea.

“I’m so much more than a flat piece of paper!,” the reader wrote.

I love this guy!

Anyway, it got his foot in the door at the employer he wanted to work for.

So, should you Power Point? Should you go out and make a video resume? Should you send an electronic resume that’s colored red?

The Power Point resume is a great idea, says Michael Neece, Chief Strategy Officer of resume building resource PongoResume. But he suggests sending along a regular resume as well to tweak the interest of the hiring manager so they’re more apt to open the presentation.

And don’t do the Power Point presentation yourself unless you can do a good job at it, he adds. You don’t want a sloppy document to screw up your chances.

Keep it short and sweet, Neece adds, three pages tops. And focus what you want to include as far as your accomplishments. He offered a great guide. STAR: describe the Situation; spell out the Tactics used; talk about the Actions you took; and details your Results.

As for video resumes, Neece says forget them. A recent survey his firm did found that 83 percent of recruiters never even open the video package up. Yikes.

Do things that are memorable and not over the top. What about small icon at the top of the resume page, he suggests. “You send a resume in and the recruiter gets it and suddenly the resume is not ‘Eve’ but the women with the apple on the left hand corner of the resume,” he says.

Alas, I never did the little simple icon. What a great idea. What about a small chef hat for an aspiring chef, or a computer for a tech wannabe?

Anyway, I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask Neece what he would have thought of a blood red resume crossing his desk back in his recruiter days:

“I would have thought, ‘Oh my god, what the hell is this?’”

DOH!

How many times do I have to say it…network, network, network.

Networking is how you find a job today folks. You’re in trouble if you’re just sending out resumes and waiting for a reply. (OK, maybe a tiny group of you out there have landed a job recently by doing this, but it’s not the norm.)

Everyone else needs to take out their socialization hat and start shaking some hands, real and virtual hands.

A recent study adds fuel to the Internet social/professional networking fire for job seekers.

Staffing company Robert Half International surveyed 150 top dogs at large companies and found 62 percent of those polled believe sites like LinkedIn will be a useful tool for them in the next three years, and 35 percent said social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace will also be a resource for them.

Executives were asked, “Which of the following technology tools do you believe will be most useful in your firm’s recruiting efforts in the next three years?”:

· Professional networking sites: 62%
· Social networking sites: 35%
· Video resumes: 20%
· Second Life: 7%
· None of these: 15%
· Other/don’t know: 10%

“Maintaining and developing professional contacts has always been a vital job search strategy, and networking websites are another vehicle for doing so,” said Max Messmer, Robert Half International’s CEO and author of Job Hunting For Dummies®, 2nd Edition. “Networking sites can be used to identify new career opportunities, create online profiles that highlight one’s skills and experience, and build a roster of business contacts over time.”

I know quite a few people that have yet to join any of these sites and I always tell them, “do it now!”

I know, there are some issues with these sites. They have technological glitches, and often you get tons off useless emails, or dumb trivia games your friends want you to play. But it’s time to join the cyber networking party already.

I’ve written before about how hiring managers want a known entity these days, especially during tough economic times. They want a recommendation, or at least some sort of connection to you. What better way that finding someone they know in your LinkedIn or Facebook contact list?

UPDATE I’m reading an advanced copy of “A Foot in the Door” by Katherine Hansen and she does a great job explaining how the job search has and has not changed.

There’s a whole chapter on where you should network for job leads and I love it because she mentions cocktail parties as one of the great networking “hot spots”. I LOVE PARTIES! Any reason to celebrate is fine with me, especially if it will enhance your career or land you a job.

One of the points she makes which I believe is key — “the best and most meaningful networking often takes place in venues that are earmarked for other purposes.”

Here are some of those venues she offers:

1. Professional organizations.
2. Volunteer organizations.
3. Charity and fundraising events.
4. Civic and community groups.
5. Religious community.

She describes these in detail in her book which is out this May, and offers another 45 networking channels you may not have thought of. Hello, the YMCAs! Great idea.

UPDATE:
I asked Hansen to offer some additional information for us when it comes to networking in a tough economy.
Here’s what she offered –

What I would say about networking in a tough economy is that it’s more important than ever. Study after study shows networking to be the most effective way to get a job. For example, in the just released CareerXroads 7th Annual Source of Hire Study By Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler both sets of figures I’m quoting from the report have implications for networking; people find out about internal transfer/promotion opportunities by networking. And they are referred for external openings through networking:

“Internal Transfers and Promotions constitute 30.0% of all the positions a company fills. 15 firms are at or approaching 50%….

Referrals(employee, alumni, vendor, etc.) make up 28.7% of all external hires and are arguably the number one external source.(Employee referrals make up between 80-90% of
the hires attributed to this category. Alumni and other types of referrals appear to be growing rapidly). The efficiency of referrals i.e. “every third referral turns into a hire” is one of the single most important characteristics of US hiring practicesŠ”

Another emerging practice with implications for the current economy is social media; however, it takes time to grow and benefit from an online
social network, so face-to-face methods are best in the short term. But see here for a discussion of social media.

OK, career writers are always telling people to target their resumes, really focus what you’ve accomplished and your background on the particular job that’s being advertised.

But folks, this may not be enough in today’s economy.

Today, I write about the growing resume abyss in my MSNBC.com column and there’s some shocking information in there. Turns out you could be the perfect candidate for a job and still no one will ever call you for an interview.

A job search executive did an informal experiment where he sent out a bunch of perfect resumes to job postings he knew the companies were desperate to fill and only one in five even got a call back.

Those are crummy odds for the rest of us out there that might be not exactly the perfect candidates.

So what the heck should you do?

Send a stink-bomb letter to a prospective employer. That will get you noticed.

You guys know I’m kidding right?

But, the tactics you do adopt should have a similar impact — make you stick out from the crowd.

When I was a young reporter trying to break into the big time, or at least the little time, I printed my resume on bright red paper, and I would stop by newspaper or magazine offices to present my resume in person.

I didn’t make it to the big time because of the red resume, but I did get some calls back and some of the editors I spoke with actually gave me invaluable advice that eventually helped me get to the big time.

Bottom line, be creative. My column offers some advice, including using networking sites. These sites are a godsend. How else would you be able to find out the names of a hiring managers friends, or find groups of workers from a particular company all part of a networking group at Linkedin, or Facebook?

It’s hard to make that first step and email a friend of a friend of a hiring manager you want to get your resume to. But people, what do you have to lose? If you don’t do this someone else will.

If you’re going to lie on your resume why not lie big?

That’s what Food Network star of the show “Dinner: Impossible” Robert Irvine did.

He claimed he worked on Princess Di’s wedding cake and he even claimed he cooked up a storm for President Bush.

A story in the St. Petersburg Times, my former employer, exposed his resume embellishments last week.

Well, turns out he’s getting canned for his tall tales.

Here’s a statement from the Network:

We rely on the trust that our viewers have in the accuracy of the information we present, and Robert challenged that trust. We appreciate Robert’s remorse about his actions, and we can revisit this decision at the end of the production cycle, but for now we will be looking for a replacement host.

And here’s the fibbing chef’s take:

I was wrong to exaggerate in statements related to my experiences regarding the Royal Family. I am proud of my work while serving in the Royal Navy and on board the Royal Yacht Britannia , also as part of the Guest Chef program in the White House with the United States Navy, in addition to my culinary accomplishments. I should have stood on those accomplishments alone, without embellishment.

Ah yes, our accomplishments. Accomplishments and personality, that’s what get you a job.

It seems this guy’s resume was pretty good. And I’ve seen the show, he definitely has some serious personality. But he just couldn’t resist pumping himself up, beyond his pecs.

What is it about us? We want to look better than we are even though we look pretty damn good on paper.

As far as resumes go, I advise people to get a bit creative, but that doesn’t mean lying. If you were out of the workforce for a few years for whatever reason, I usually tell people to leave the dates off your resume. It’s not lying, but it does mitigate the problems you might face if a hiring manager sees a gap from 1990 to 2007, for example. You can explain yourself, and your reasons for taking time off, once you’re in the interview.

I also have no problem with leaving jobs off your resume that maybe you got fired from. You don’t want hiring managers calling those employers as a reference.

But folks, do not lie. From wacky chefs, to big wig CEOs, the untruths almost always come back to bite you on your mythical resume ass.

Princess Di’s cake….come on.

A story in Business Week contends you do indeed need a headhunter. And they’ve compiled a list of the most influential headhunters in the world to help all of you out there who are climbing the corporate ladder. (I know, hearing “the most influential in the world” anything sounds a bit far reaching, but hey everyone is going global today.)

We’re talking the top positions here. Not typically low-to-mid level manager type posts.

There is something to be said about having a headhunter as your go-between when you’re going for those big gigs, but I have found many of the leaders I’ve interviewed in my book got to where they are by making connections, connections with high level managers at a variety of companies.

In some ways this structure of connections has kept a lot of minorities and women from getting in on the top jobs, so I’m hopeful that the premise of this article is correct. If it’s true that you need these headhunters to move up then that must bode well for the individuals who have traditionally been kept out of the senior manager party. Why? Because a newcomer might have a chance.

Here’s a bit of the Business Week story:

You can’t get to the top without the headhunters. That’s as true for businesses as it is for established and emerging leaders. The world’s top headhunters control access to the lion’s share of C-suite succession and leader-replacement searches for the world’s largest corporations. Their influence also extends to the top ranks of the most ambitious smaller companies, which understand how crucial top talent is and are willing to pay for it.

OK, check out the story and the list of top recruiters. If you are a mid- or upper-level manager and you’re ready to move to a different company and move up, just call these people. What do you have to lose?

My favorite Super Bowl moment last night, well favorite after the Giant’s win, was the CareerBuilder ad with the heart that rips out of a woman’s chest while she sits like a zombie at her office desk. The heart then makes its way to her boss’ office and holds up a sign that says “I quit.” Her heart just wasn’t in it anymore.

It was priceless, morbid and funny. The ad also made me sad. You don’t know how many people I meet and get emails from that are just like that women — stuck in a job that has slowly zombified them.It’s a horrible thing when we wake up in the morning and head for a job we can’t stand, or are totally indifferent to.

So many of you ask me how you can find your career bliss. Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy answer.

I will tell you there is one common denominator I see among people who are happy with their jobs: Passion. They followed their career paths with passion. Passion for what they thought they’d be doing in their jobs, or passion for the money they’d be receiving. Here’s an MSNBC.com column I wrote about an accountant who left his job, for a big cut in pay, to become head of a youth center. The interesting part of this story was the guy ended up going back to accounting, in part for the money, but he still kept his dream job.

We all need something to motivate us. While I’m not sure money should be your only driving force, find something damn it! Go out in the world, talk to people, read books, remember what you loved as a child. Go on a journey to find your bliss already! Why? Motivation is the only thing that will keep your heart beating and keep it inside your chest cavity.