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You appear to have some of the classic symptoms of what experts are now referring to as the Quarterlife Crisis, an infliction that hits folks in their twenties. The Quarterlife Crisis is marked by high anxiety about your career - and finding your "true" career, multiple job and/or career changes, fears and self-doubt about achieving career and personal goals, depression, and feeling lost or adrift.

Experts say that the crisis hits folks in their twenties, because after years of learning the system of how to succeed in school, college grads are thrown into the world of work with no real understanding of how to succeed in it. Others blame how pop culture has portrayed work, giving younger workers unrealistic expectations.

For you older readers, it’s a play on the midlife crisis, where people in their 50s start to question their career and life choices, sometimes making radical changes.

I think there are two things you need to start doing immediately.

First, stop worrying about what society and others think about who you are, where you are in your career, and what you should be doing. It’s your life; take control of it.

Second, take a weekend or part of a vacation and spend some alone time conducting some serious self-assessment. What are your passions? What are the types of activities you love accomplishing? What do you dislike? What first inspired you about political science? Where do you want to see yourself in five years? Spending this time should allow you to begin getting clarity about your next steps in terms of career and education.

For more help and advice, read my article published on Quintessential Careers: Navigating the Quarterlife Crisis to Career and Personal Success: Five Strategies for Fulfilling Your Dreams.

I feel the resume needs to combine both functional and chronological aspects of his career and expertise, however, the same problem arises - it ALL seems relevant.

How should I target/focus this resume? What could be deemed unnecessary, if anything? How can I condense a 20 year work history and list of achievements into 1-2 pages?

If your friend truly has a varied work experience, you could categorize those experiences within the resume – but why not just do a standard chronological resume? (A side note for inexperienced job-seekers: everything goes in reverse chronological order, with the most recent information first.)

Also, the rule-of-thumb is that you do not want to list work experience that is more than 15 years old, partly because you do not want to give away information about age, and partly because technologies in most fields have changed greatly in the last 20 years.

As for page length, you can certainly go to two pages for someone who has that much experience, and some resume writing experts say you can make an executive resume as long as it needs to be.

As you are writing the resume, remember to focus on quantifiable accomplishments. Other key resume rules: make it perfect/avoid all errors; use traditional fonts/sizes; avoid graphics and excess colors; provide detailed contact information; do not include salary information, names of supervisors, or references.

One other tip for someone who has a lot of experience. If you have done a number of projects or consulting work, you might consider an addendum to your resume that focuses on them specifically.

Bottomeline? This resume sounds like it may be too much for an amateur to tackle. I would probably recommend that your friend make the investment in a professional resume writer.

Your husband has three things working for him right now. First, many employers are actively seek transitioning military veterans because of the extensive experience and training they receive while in the service. Second, engineering is an occupation back in demand. Third, he is close to completing his degree.

Here’s how you address his situation on these key documents.

On the resume. The goal of a resume is to secure a job interview. I would start with a summary of qualifications section, outlining his three or four key qualities that make him the perfect candidate for the job he is seeking. One of those bullets should be his college education, the others should focus on his experience. Since he is actively working on his education, I would list education next, and when you list the degree he is receiving, put the date you expect him to be done with it. Then list his experience. I would also have a section on his advancement from enlisted personnel to officer.

On the cover letter. Remember the key task of the cover letter is to sell the hiring manager just enough so that he or she will review the resume. You want to start of strongly identifying the key strengths – and ideally tie those directly to what the employer is looking for in a job candidate. In the second paragraph, I would highlight some of the specific accomplishments of the work experience, along with the number of years in the field. In the third paragraph, I would mention the near-completed degree, and the specific date when it’s expected to be completed.

Note: some employers will substitute years of experience for an incomplete education. For example, college grad and five years experience, or some college and eight years of experience.

Learn more both in the resume resources and the military transition sections of Quintessential Careers.

Thanks so much for all your help!

So, how do you email folks, some of whom you have met only once at a networking event where you exchanged email addresses?

Well, you don't want to leave the message line blank... and you don't want to say something that sounds like spam...

So, I would go with either just your name in the subject line or your name and a qualifier.... like Stetson Marketing Grad Jackie Olson ... or something along those lines.

Or... if you know of them from some specific affiliation with a professional organization, you can put something like: Daytona Beach Advertising Federation -- Jackie Olson....

I think as long as you have a couple of identifiers in the subject, you should be fine.

And just as important: Use the first paragraph of the email to remind the person you are emailing of the connection the two of you share before you launch into the rest of your email.

Looking for more advice about the power of networking - and why you should be doing it all the time and not just when you are job-hunting? Go to this section of Quintessential Careers: The Art of Networking.

Dr. Randall S. Hansen is currently Webmaster of Quintessential Careers.

Dr. Hansen is an associate professor of marketing at the School of Business Administration, Stetson University. He has been a published career expert for the last 10 years and an employer and consultant with hiring/firing decisions for the past 15 years.

Through his experience as a professor of marketing, Dr. Hansen uses proven marketing techniques and applies them to job-hunting. He is currently working on such a book. Some of his work can be seen at his personal Web site.

He and Katharine Hansen co-wrote the very successful job-hunting book, Dynamic Cover Letters, published by Ten Speed Press. You can order copies from Barnes and Noble of this cover letter bible. He is also author of several career-related magazine and journal articles.

Finally, Dr. Hansen has been an employer and has firsthand experience in the hiring process. He also stays active in the field by reading magazine and journal articles and by talking with employers on a regular basis.