by Mr. Jay L.

Created on: May 14, 2008

I spent six years in the Army as a 74B, or Information Systems Analyst/Operator. When I was discharged I received little to no help from the Trasition program in resume preparation or guidance on how to convert a military skill-set into a civilian equivelent. I conducted my own research and drafted several resumes, and sent them out.

For more than six months, the only sound I received was the call of distant crickets.

Everyone was raging about Monster.com, so I posted my resume there and sent out hundreds of replies to posted jobs. I received a few responses, but no offers for an interview. I posted questions on the message boards. I received hostile replies stating things like, "Soldiers are mindless sheep," "Joining the military was the biggest mistake you could have made," and other less polite comments.

Then I stumbled, completely by accident, across Military.com. For a while I was able to research various useful topics about resume writing, skills conversion, interview tips, and more. I posted several drafts of my resume on the site, and started getting the occasional request for an interview.

Then, suddenly, everything useful on the site seemed to vanish. Monster.com had purchased Military.com. I went from maybe three or four interview requests a month to zero. No longer could I find jobs that paid a living wage; instead, poor paying retail positions and menial jobs that paid barely above federal minimum wage started to fill my inbox.

I'm sorry, but I am a professional in the IT industry, with strong writing and administrative skills. Don't insult me by saying that these positions were all I was qualified to handle. I started doing my job searches on both Monster.com and Military.com for positions I was actually qualified for, but these positions had mostly disappeared.

The few I was able to find I forwarded my resume to, but never heard anything back from. What happened? Do employers post a position and never bother to check if they got a response?

It also seems that Monster.com has acquired the job search features of other staffing sites as well, especially the other veteran-oriented sites I have been able to find. As a result, I spent the first two years I was back in the civilian world completely unemployed.

The job I have now I got through my college as an internship, and it pays below a living wage; in fact, I made more than a thousand dollars a month more as a junior enlisted soldier than I do as a civilian IT professional.

And still there is not a successful lead on Monster.com/Military.com.

Monster.com does not work. I have yet to hear a single success story from anyone I have met, either veteran or civilian, regarding finding a good job.

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