How do I Translate my Federal Resume to a Corporate Resume?

Maybe you’ve been impacted by recent layoffs in the federal government. I know I have been personally affected by these arbitrary contract cancellations. I had a leadership coaching contract with the GSA that was eliminated by DOGE without any review whatsoever, and I have lots of experience working with people in the federal government’s management ranks.

My goal today is to talk to you about a federal resume and what changes you might need to make to make it more appropriate for applying for similar types of roles in the private sector, specifically corporate jobs in any kind of large corporation, whether it is technology, government adjacent, or otherwise.

Purpose of Your Resume

Your resume is a marketing vehicle presented to recruiters seeking specific skills. While many federal employees have strong general administrative skills, private-sector employers typically hire specialists first. Your resume should highlight specific skills or management abilities that match the job description.

Many clients come to me and share that they’re “generalists.” There’s lots of general administrative work that gets done inside the federal government, and I like to share this adage with my clients: “Every company loves a generalist after they’ve hired them as a specialist.” So, your resume needs to hone in on specific skills, tools, and management abilities that match what’s going on inside the job description.

In their initial review of your resume, the company wants to determine a few things right away, all clearly stated in the job description:

  • Do you meet (or exceed) the years of experience they require?
  • Do you have the industry knowledge they are requesting?
  • Do you have knowledge of the specific tools they are using?
  • Do you have the relevant and required level of education (and in the right field of study)?

There are many ways to modify your federal resume effectively. For more detailed guidance, consider scheduling a complimentary call to learn how we can help you create a winning resume that gets results.

One Federal-to-Corporate career client we worked with in March 2025 got an interview with a major employer the same week they applied, and they told us the hiring manager complimented the client on their resume.

What is in a Federal Resume?

Anyone who’s looked at a federal resume knows that it tends to be lengthy and has many features that generally don’t exist in private sector resumes, such as listing prior managers and their phone numbers. Some things, like GS levels, are also difficult to translate to the private sector.

A typical federal resume is more of a curriculum vitae, which is something we often refer to as a CV. Occasionally, people talk about CVs and resumes interchangeably, but they’re completely different types of documents, and they serve different purposes. I’ve done dozens of resume conversions over the years. I once had to take a private sector resume and turn it into a CV for a role for someone who was going to go to work for USAID. So, I’ve worked this in both directions, going from resume to CV and, of course, from a federal CV to a corporate resume. For the purposes of this article, though, I am calling it a “federal resume.”

Part of putting together a resume that will be effective for you and that will help you get an interview with a company is knowing a couple of really basic things that might not seem immediately obvious.

First of all, the federal government is one of the only entities that I know of that actually follows federal labor law, and you shouldn’t expect close compliance with those laws with any kind of private company or corporation. And because of the recent attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, other factors that were previously supportive of your candidacy are currently being scrutinized, including giving any preference to your veteran status, your age, your ethnicity, or even your sexual orientation. It’s the Wild West out there, and it’s different from being in the Federal government and looking for promotions inside that system.

Target Job Titles

A massive challenge for federal workers is determining how their job titles and GS levels equate to the private sector. This can be difficult to do alone, but it is something we do in our practice when we start with a new client: We lean into our experience to find job titles for you, the client, to research the right job titles and where to find those job listings.

Additionally, many job titles are unique to the federal government and quite a bit different from what we see in the private sector. You’ll need to find ways to map your job titles to the types of private sector roles that will help a recruiter understand your responsibilities and equate them to the types of jobs they are trying to fill.

How to Create a Corporate Resume

So here are some things that you need to know to present yourself as a marketable, action-oriented potential employee. The first step, of course, is to aim to get your content within two pages (although going to three can be okay in some circumstances). It’s important to list your jobs in chronological order and be able to summarize the job scope and responsibilities you have. If you have been a people leader, it’s particularly important to share the size of teams you managed, how big the budget or other cost-tracking responsibility is, and limit the bullets explaining what you did in your job to seven or so.

The bullets that you have are best served if you focus on examples of the business impact you’ve had and the means by which you achieved each of them. So, for example, here is some language, modified for privacy, from a federal resume that focuses on maintaining a steady state and keeping the processes running:

“Collaborate with agency components to provide guidance and support with the development of executive assurance statements, as required by [a specific Federal law]. Each component is required to provide an assurance statement annually. This process enables the Commissioner to provide reasonable assurance that agency internal controls and systems conform to government-wide guidance. This guidance also includes the GAO’s [listing out the specific statutory guidance]. In my role, I serve as a liaison, respond to inquiries, and review component submissions for adequacy, completeness, and appropriateness, and offer insight and direction.”

This sort of statement describes the role and puts the candidate in a passive light. It’s pretty long and cites some specific regulations that will be arcane to a private-sector recruiter. This bullet talks a lot about collaboration, cooperation, and maintaining a steady state inside the organization. This makes a lot of sense when you’re trying to keep an ongoing operation running in a predictable way for the taxpayer and any clients who are using the services. These kinds of aims are different than the aims of a private sector job. So, we need to rewrite the bullets appropriately. Here’s one approach:

“Provides reporting, insight, direction, and guidance to the Commissioner regarding the agency’s internal controls and systems to conform to the GAO’s specific statutory guidance by reviewing component submissions for adequacy, completeness, and appropriateness, and delivering reports on a recurring basis.”

Notice this bullet now has specific actions. It’s more succinct and connects the candidate to specific deliverables.

Collect your metrics

Another thing that you’ll need are metrics applied to a business impact. Metrics are extremely helpful. So, if you still have a job and can gather metrics, it’s important to do so. An example of an impact-led bullet without explaining the means of achievement would be something like this:

“Develops and manages a $1.8 million annual operating budget and serves as Senior Advisor on human capital functions and administrative services for 1200 employees.”

Ideally, our goal is to have a metric that measures the impact and the means by which it was achieved. The above bullet is good. Here are some examples from a private sector resume that follow the “impact by some means” formula, which is stronger:

“Improved overall security posture by 75% by developing and executing a company-wide security hygiene strategy.”

“Decreased patch cycle time to less than 30 days by directing security processes and technology improvements to be implemented by engineering.”

Here are some “impact by some means” bullets without the metrics:

“Achieved SOC2 type2 attestation by driving in-house development processes to enhance security.”

“Built the Global Information Security Program and matured Governance Risk and Compliance functions by collaborating with senior leadership.”

What is Relevant Work History?

Only list the jobs on your resume that are less than 10 years old through the role you had in 2015 (even if it started sooner). List each by job title and the entity that you worked for, and list the start and end dates, including the months. If you have worked multiple jobs for any particular employer, we may list the employer first and then the progression of roles working there. That is a matter of taste (and sometimes more efficient for space).

Any experience beyond 10 years is considered old and, therefore, not very relevant. Sometimes, a client will advocate for a work experience that seems relevant, but the experiences are from the early 2000s – around 20 years ago. Consider the idea that a recruiter might have been attending high school or were early in their college career 10 years ago, and their view of technology and your relevant experience is going to be quite different than yours might be.

Having a lengthy career with a lot of titles beyond 10 years lends itself to the bias of ageism. You may or may not want to list anything beyond your two or three most current positions. In some cases, when the role is very senior and looking for many years of experience, or if the job titles are helpful to the overall story, we will list those jobs in a section called “EARLIER CAREER” and keep it to just job title, company, city, state and the years without listing months or specific achievements.

Education

When you’re listing out your education, avoid including your graduation years unless you are currently enrolled in a program, then provide and expected graduation date.

List education by highest level first: Ph. D, Master’s, Bachelor’s. Only list Associate’s degrees or a High School Diploma if that is the highest level of education that a person has achieved.

Certifications

Many federal employees have had the opportunity to take many different kinds of coursework and become certified in a variety of interesting technology and business topics. It is really useful to list all the certifications that you learned while working for the federal government. Again, avoid listing the year it was completed unless it has been in the last four years or so.

Awards, Patents, Publications, and other “nice-to-share” items.

This information may be helpful depending on the nature of the achievements and the target job. We add these to a resume if it makes sense based on the target role and organization.

Wrapping Up

At Coaching Technology Group, we help clients just like you get the best materials and the personalized support they need. We share how to do the work at each step. Our goal is for you to learn how to go about the modern job search and to develop the skills to navigate the process. Our clients complement us when they share that they were able to find the next job completely on their own because the mystery of the process has been dispelled.

If you would like a trusted partner to help guide you through this process, do all the writing, and provide consulting and coaching, we’re here to help. You can schedule a complimentary call with me, Timothy Thomas, PCC, and we can discuss what you are up to and how we might help.