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How to complete TQ in Accenture
Additional Posts in Veteran Bowl
Any Navy Nukes in this bowl?
Pro
McKinsey & Company Anyone at McKinsey & Company willing to refer a Marine veteran (OIF, I swear I will not eat all the crayons. "Crayons" are for art is what my wife tells me to tell myself)
5yrs Marines (Sgt, Comm maint tech w infantry Bn)
8yrs in Oil & Gas (engr coordinator, qty surveying and proj ctrl)
CM undergrad
MBA (professional program, graduated May 2022)
I'm looking for a role in McK serving O&G, industrial, capital projects clients. Open to generalist roles as well. Can review for vetting.
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Depends greatly on context. It's on my resume so people can ask if they want to. People who respect military service will often bring it up so you don't have to force it.
I do hate the, "What's the most stressful situation you've ever been in?" kind of questions. Like, how am I supposed to answer that with a straight face?
Ugh! I hate that question too. But I agree, people that care about it will ask for it.
Pro
One example I will always use in an interview is when my unit returned from Afghanistan, we needed to figure out a way to get our weapons home. My unit was reserves so we returned to Camp Pendleton to wind down from the deployment. There are very specific rules on shipping weapons and we had absolutely no shipping containers that were legally compliant. I had to figure out a solution. Know what that solution was? Wooden boxes lol. But not just any wooden box, they had to be built to a certain specification. I had to coordinate with the 1st Marines wood shop to build them for us. Then guess what? We had to get the boxes delivered to our unit's temporary location on CP. I had to coordinate with 1st Marines logistics shop for that to happen. Finally, had to coordinate with our logistics and weapons guys for when and where the boxes needed to be loaded with the weapons and ready to load into trailers for actually getting 600 weapons across the country on a truck. Fun times, but it relates to problem solving 1,000%. I was 24 lol.
Pro
VP 1 one of the things I remember about weapons turn: it was the chow line reversal effect. SNCOs, NCOs went first lol. One of the best perks of becoming a Sgt. Worst was waiting an hour for food during battalion field exercises lol.
I fell like they should. Sometimes it feels like I had more responsibilities as a 22 year old E5 than I do now at 32
That is a good tip! Thanks for the recommendation!
Military service with a proper translation of your MOS should be highlighted.
Thanks! I will start tailoring some good messages!
Civilian employers generally have no clue what you do or did. So yeah. Make shit up.
Let me tell you a story about a buddy of mine in the guard. He had like 10 years in and they stood up a new EMIB in our state and he switched MOSs to imagery analyst. Mind you, he was infantry with three infantry deployments. Anyway, the second he switched MOSs and got the school done and the clearance in, he simply put on his resume all of that GeoInt stuff. So it looked like he was a stud Intel guy with 11-12 years of GeoInt experience with three years of combat deployments.
He got picked up instantly as a senior analyst for some Lockheed or whoever contracting with some three letter agency for WELL over six figures.
Find the job you want. Put the words in your resume and roll with it.
If you get nervous in the interview just call a tactical pause, pull out a tin, pack an absolute monster, and get a couple of spits in before telling your interviewer that they can continue. They will be so impressed and intimidated by you, you will get the job.
You’re welcome.
Here’s the other thing, many of the services have the word integrity within their mission or pillars of the branch. That may not look too good in your career with the company that you’re employed by when they find out that you really weren’t in the military.
I was Army. My client is Army. I count that time.
Got it! It is good to know that it counts!
I hire technicians, and have on and off for the last 20 years. Skills learned in the military are huge assets that can be brought to any team. Depending on your job while you were in there are many skills that can be used as a great springboard into a civilian career. Hoorah!
Thanks! I was unsure of mentioning it, but I'm glad many people are telling me the opposite!
Like anything else, a person either respects your time in the service or it's ignored. The key here is to highlight what you learned in the military and explain how it will enable you to be an asset to the new organization you want to be a part of.
That is a good point! I need to make sure to deliver the message in the right way!
Don't oversell or people will see right through it. If it's relavent experience make sure it's properly translated. If it's not relavent set your own expectations for an entry level position (not the end of the world if you want something new).
What job are you applying for and what did you do in the military
Yes of course. Lean into it casually. I didn’t graduate from college. So a big part of my interview technique is to speak articulately to being promoted to sergeant and leading troops in combat in my early twenties, when my contemporaries were ‘still hanging around the frat house.’ I kind of make it a joke, and it has always worked.
When you start speaking to mitigating risks in a combat theater, or having had to critically think through situations where peoples lives and millions of dollars of equipment were potentially at risk, it catches people off guard. It’s a distinguisher that I feel like sets us apart. Have a quick, preferably humorous story to illustrate that experience.
I accentuate my time at Accenture 😉
1. Is this your first civilian job? If so you don’t have a choice. You shouldn’t embellish your service but you should think long and hard about how what you did does translate to a civilian role. Leadership is only one part. You also solved problems, reported to executives, etc. you should highlight all these things. Also it helps to talk to military specific recruiters/ military hiring programs. These are a huge advantage in the hiring process.
2. If this is not your first civilian job then yes, I would try to talk about the military as little as possible.
Thanks! Yes, sometimes I find translating experience on the field with the first civilian job hard. I guess I need some practice.
So, I have never "accentuated" my service. But, it took me several rounds of applications and interviews over the years to truly understand how to appropriately and truthfully describe how my two decades of military experience add tremendous value to a future employer.
Sorry... yesterday was super busy at work.
Reach out to me via the sites PM/chat and I can coordinate with you to assist. I do this for two special operations veterans organizations as a coach, and the content is too lengthy for me to type on here.
Yes, especially because it shows the progression of your career and responsibilities. I'm in GovCon so we want to see it all.
You don't have to flesh out each rank, but you can list them. If your career was very long, you can just show the last 10 years.
Military skills and experience translate but it takes work to unpack high level terms like leadership into tangible skills, capabilities and experience. An example of a leadership quality/skill: Translating Strategic Objectives into tangible team activities, that are prioritized for execution to ensure objected are met. Communication has similar examples. Most resumes don’t unpack the skill/capability to define whatnot means to you. In the interview align examples