Category: Job Hunt

Why you should hire a combat veteran

Even giants like McDonald’s need combat veterans on staff, I realized that yesterday.

Before I even begin to recount this story, I want to start by saying this is in no way a bad review of McDonald’s, I fed my tribe of 5 for $21, I’m not going to complain about that.  I did, however, notice some things that I think businesses need to take note of.

Yesterday we decided to have lunch at McDonald’s because the kids love it there.  They enjoy the french fries and the play area, and I enjoy the cost of the food.  We went to the restaurant that many readers of this blog are familiar with, you know, the one on Skibo road near Fort Bragg?  I looked down at my receipt of $21 and the MBA in me marveled at how they made money, realizing that their margins must certainly be in the pennies per item.  Well, after about five minutes of pondering the profit margins of this fast food behemoth I realized that I was not going to be getting my food very quickly, several people in front of me in line were still waiting, and it wasn’t looking good for them either.

I leaned back to watch intently on the operation, switching from MBA mode where I was thinking about the supply chain, volumes, and margins, to military mode and I began analyzing the leadership in this fast food establishment.

Although there were at least 8 employees on staff, there were only three employees working.  One was making the food, one was taking orders inside, and one was taking orders for the drive through.  These three were trying diligently to keep up with the demand, but were failing to meet customer expectations. I felt like a lane grader from my ROTC days as I had the thought that any Ranger Instructor would agree with, “If I can’t tell who’s in charge, someone is getting a no-go.”

The prep station was a mess.  Someone had started to unload a box but didn’t finish, and now it sat right in the area where they prep trays and bags for customers.  That created further disorganization and chaos.  The next order came up, and as one of the employees handed it to an older gentleman next to me she commented, “I know it was for here, but we’re out of trays.”  I noticed three trays under the box in the prep station, and as I looked to my right, five more by the trash can.

One employee was standing next to the fryer watching something cook…don’t those things have timers?  I know i’ve heard that annoying alarm.

Another walked by several times, apparently looking for apple pies; don’t know if she found them.

A guy with a different shirt, maybe the manager?  Doesn’t he notice there are four employees standing around doing nothing but staring at screens?  Guess not.  Where’s he going, there’s 15 people waiting on food?

I looked at my wife, “They’re staffed appropriately, but they’re not using the personnel properly.”  She rolled her eyes, as she often does when my mind wanders this way and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek.

It was at that moment that I realized I could walk five miles onto Fort Bragg, grab any guy with Sergeant Stripes and a maroon beret, with absolutely zero training and place him in that McDonald’s and in five minutes he would have that place totally unfucked.  Everyone would be doing something…mostly cleaning (the place needs it).  No one would be standing around, and everyone would know what everyone else was doing.  Most of all, everyone would know who was in charge.

That Airborne E-5 would notice the same things that I did:  You, the prep station needs cleaned and someone needs to be stationed there, getting orders ready, nothing else.  Two people cooking, not one.  You there, stop staring at the fucking fryer, it has a loud ass alarm when the shit is ready, go clean something.  What are you doing?  Looking for apple pies?  Ok, find them, and don’t walk by trash on the ground again, you pick it up and throw it away, slob.  You, go pick up all the trays around the restaurant.  You, you’re not on break, put out the cigarette and go clean the bathroom, smells like shit in there.  That’s seven…he still has two more people to assign tasks to.

McDonald’s, the fast food giant, which clearly knows how to make money, that analyzes every single detail of the business, made one critical error:  they didn’t hire a leader.  They wasted salaries of unused labor and frustration on the part of customers, which will cost them money as myself and others will certainly be more apprehensive about going there again in the future.

What the combat veteran has is a keen understanding of how to get a team working united towards a common goal.  He has trained himself to see the battlefield and through the chaos, identify weaknesses, and move quickly to stop them.  He has been under a stress that you simply cannot imagine, and he did it with a smile on his face.  He may know nothing about your business, but he knows how to lead, and it’s not the stuff you’re going to learn from reading a John C. Maxwell book, it’s the stuff they make movies out of.

Your people are your most important asset, and they need leadership.  The US Military knows how to train leaders. Go ahead and exploit that for your gain, I know plenty of guys that would be willing to work for you.

-LJF



Do YOU Have a Headhunter?

You need a headhunter, period.  How many of you wrote your resume, posted it on monster.com and waited patiently by the phone expecting calls from potential employers?  Surprised that you didn’t get a phone call?  What if there was a surefire way to get an interview for a job that pays what you are looking for?

Let me put it in a way that you guys will understand.

nightclub[1]

You decide to go to a nightclub to look for a great woman.  When you get there, the line wraps around the block, so you know it’s going to be an awesome club right?  There are nearly a thousand people in that club tonight, but there’s a problem…only four ladies.  There are 250 dudes for each woman in this club!

You’ve got your eye on one particular hottie, her name is Jobelina, and you saw her online profile.  You know what she’s looking for in a man, and you KNOW you’re perfect for her.  The problem is that there are 250 other dudes trying to do the same thing, and you can’t even get a chance to talk to Jobelina to show her how perfect you guys are for each other.  You might get lucky, and she’ll take a look at you, but only for 6 seconds, so you get drunk and go home alone.

Now let’s imagine this scenario a different way.

Jobelina has a good friend that i’ll call Eddie, and she trusts Eddie.  Instead of going to the club and trying to get her attention somehow, you talk to my buddy Eddie, and he gets you a blind date with Jobelina!  You moved to the front of the line and got preferential treatment over all the other deuchebags out there spamming their resumes at companies.

That’s how a headhunter works.  My headhunter’s name was Eddie Commender with Lucas Group.  I never once got an inquiry from any job I applied for on monster or any other job finding site for that matter.  Eddie on the other hand got me 9 interviews in a single day with companies like John Deere (obviously), Fidelity, Diageo, Nestle, Unilever, and Rolls Royce to name a few.  He helped me write my resume (many of those tips I’ve shared with you), he  coached me through interview questions, and then was my advocate after the interviews.

Seven of the nine companies I interviewed with said “yes” and wanted a second interview.  It was then up to me to decide!  I wasn’t even out of the Army yet, but thanks to my headhunter, I had companies waiting in line for me.  It was by far the best decision I made for my career.

You absolutely must get a headhunter, you don’t have to go with Lucas Group, there are others out there, but do not go it alone.  Don’t think that there are employers out there scouring job sites looking for veterans to hire, because they’re not.  You need an advocate who literally feeds his family by getting you a job.

 

-LJF



Writing Your Resume

Alright, so you’ve answered the 4 Big questions and now your finances are in order and you know how much you need to make when you get out, you’ve decided on a location to live (fully knowing the tradeoff), you are clear on why you’re getting out, and you know what type of career you want to pursue.  The last one is the most important for this next step- Writing your resume.

There are two types of military resumes that i’ve seen.  Either the 5-10 page dissertation, or the 90 word crayon scribble with “Lorem Ipsum” still on it somewhere.  “What’s wrong with a 5 page resume,” you ask? Read on, i’ll explain.

If you’re the second type, go smoke yourself, you’re not emotionally ready to get out of the Army.  I’m sorry if the first sergeant yelled at you and now your feelings are hurt and you want to get out, but you’re not ready to be a big boy and market yourself.  You still need the structure the Army provides and it’s the only place you stand a chance of getting a good salary and a retirement.  It’s for your own good, you’ve got that brand new Camaro that still needs paid off.

Your resume is your key to a job and if you don’t take it seriously, neither will a recruiter.  It’s the document that is going to get you into an interview room and the first step in getting that job.

Researchers at theladders.com found that recruiters spend 6 seconds looking at your resume.  Six seconds. That’s how much time you have to make an impression.  Here’s what they’re looking at:

Here is some advice on how to visually organize your resume.

Alright, for those of you that are serious about getting a good job, take a look at your resume, does it have something like this on it?

“Lead and train a 35 man airborne infantry platoon…responsible for $1,000,000 worth of equipment…fight and win.”

Yeah, me too at first.  My resume was five pages that described literally every single junior military officer that had ever served in the 82nd Airborne division.  Your resume needs to be about you and your skills, not about the Army’s definition of your job title.

In the 4 big questions, you identified what career you want, and I told you that “lead people” is an option.  When I first got out, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted  leadership role, so with the help and advice of my headhunter, I revised my resume to focus on my leadership skills.  Instead of that long ass job description, I replaced that entire text with something I did, specifically.

STAR- I’ll talk about this more in a later post, but everything from your interview answers to your resume bullets need to be in a STAR format- Situation, Task, Action, Result.  Take this bullet for example

  • As my unit prepared to come home, I created the transition plan for 500 soldiers in southern Iraq to include branches and contingencies resulting in zero casualties during the most dangerous time in a deployment.

Can you find the STAR in it?  In 35 words I explained something that I actually did, and since I was applying for a program manager position that requires planning capabilities, this bullet particularly resonated.  If I was applying for a leadership position, I would say something like, “lead a team that created the plan”.  Both are true, but they are targeted at the job.  Later when I talked about that in my interview, it helped make an impression on my interviewer and they remembered me later.

So now go back and look at your resume.  Read what you have on there and ask yourself, “does this apply to me, or everyone like me?”  If it doesn’t apply to JUST YOU, delete it, you don’t need that crap.

If you’re retiring you get 2 pages for your resume, everyone else, you get one…that’s right ONE page.  Your entire career to this point needs to be in one well organized, clean, easy to read, mistake free page.

Your most recent job is first and you get 3 bullets for it, explain what YOU did.  Every other job gets two bullets max.

Job Descriptions- If your jobs say something like this:

Assistant G2 Plans and OPS 20th SUPCOM CBRNE May-2009 to May 2010, you need to change that shit.  No one in the civilian world understands what the hell that is, heck half of the guys in the military don’t know what that is.

Instead highlight the skills in the job description

Division level Intelligence Planner, Worldwide Counter WMD May 2009 to May 2010, same job, but now it tells a story. Also notice that since I was applying for a job that requires planning ability that I brought that part of the job into focus.

This isn’t an easy task, and you’re going to need several go’s at it before you have something ready to show to your headhunter…and i’ll talk about getting a headhunter later…right now you have to go work on your resume.

Comment here or contact me if you have specific questions and want honest feedback.