Tag: career

All These Transition Experts, So Little Expertise

The beauty of the internet and social media is that it has given us a medium to connect millions of people instantly, where all our voices can be heard.  We freely share our experiences and knowledge with each other and even though we’re strangers, we connect and learn from each other.  The problem for the transitioning veteran is identifying what’s good or bad advise for leaving the service. Often times the worst offenders for giving out bad advice are the well-meaning veterans who are self-proclaimed experts that start dangerously doling out advice on things they know very little about.

We’ve noticed a trend, particularly on LinkedIn, where there are thousands of transition experts all giving advice on how to navigate the difficult process.  Some give good advice having been out of the military for a while, learned the ropes of civilian life and offer their transitional experience for the betterment of their fellow veterans.  Then there are those who more often that not miss the target of offering value-adding information. Let’s just put them in categories:

  • The veterans who retired and immediately went to work for the government
  • The veteran who got out of the military 6 days ago, but because he found a job, now he thinks he knows how to “successfully transition”
  • The veteran who sees transition advice as a ticket to making a lot of money
  • The veteran who wants to be a motivational speaker and tells you “everything is awesome!”

 

The Lack of Experience & Expertise

There is a well-known pillar of how wisdom is accumulated known as the DIKW pyramid. Wisdom is achieved by first collecting data, turning it into bits of information, then compiling it into knowledge. Enough knowledge produces wisdom. Reaching the wisdom phase is not something you can take a course on and POOF, you’re certified; you have to EARN it.  Veterans who lack the time commitments necessary to develop experience and expertise in the civilian world, also lack the qualifications of claiming to be competent sources of knowledge and wisdom for other transitioning veterans.  Basically, they don’t know enough to give you advice.

Transitioning out of the service isn’t easy; it is a never ending process and a constant review of your adjustment in the non-military world. Though it’s not easy, it doesn’t have to be hard.  Lots of folks out there think that civilian hiring managers are dying to hire veterans. With all those organizations out there and transitions assistance resources available, it appears as if there are thousands and thousands of jobs JUST FOR YOU!

Yeah…that’s all bull.

It’s a great marketing technique for a company to say they’re going to hire a thousand veterans. What they’re actually doing is looking for veterans with a few years of civilian experience that served four years in the early 2000’s; not a newly minted veteran who just left the military this morning and is firmly wrapping themselves up in their DD-214 blanket.

Why?

Because the veteran getting out today doesn’t know anything about business. From a hiring managers perspective a veteran doesn’t understand my business, my customers, my product, how to make my product, how to sell my product, my organizational structure, etc.

To put it a different way.  Imagine you had a CEO of some company who decide to join the military. They have no military experience; they’ve never even fired a gun. They were in charge of a multi-million dollar company though.  Would you put that person in charge of a brigade of paratroopers in Afghanistan or, a Regiment of Marines or, a fleet of Navy ships?  HELL NO!  No way whatsoever!  Why?  This CEO obviously has great leadership; they were in charge of an entire commercial business company.  Yeah, but he knows fuck-all about combat and he’s going to get people killed.  Best I’d do is make him a low level Captain working for a seasoned staff officer in the command center so he can learn how we fight. This is exactly the type of job you’re going to get when you transition away from uniformed service and that’s a BEST case scenario.

Unfortunately there are assholes that don’t know any better (or realize it but don’t care) and are feeding inexperienced veterans bad information about how to step right into an executive or managerial leadership role. Or worse, the inexperienced “transition assistant” stepped into a company as an “executive” who’s sole purpose is to help other veterans find jobs. The funny but sad thing is Duffel Blog made a satire story about this very phenomenon. These transition assistants purport to know all the answers, have all the inside hiring scoops and, know the path veterans should take to transition successfully into corporate America.

Comforting Lies

Those people outlined above won’t tell you any of this.  They don’t have the experience to know right from wrong. They haven’t actually been promoted in the civilian world. They don’t understand how civilian hiring managers make decisions because they’ve never been one or around one. They’ve never had to justify the additional headcount of another employee. They’ve never done an analysis on the cost of adding a person and the added revenue that person will bring in; whether it is sustainable for the long term because you don’t want to have to fire them 6 months from now. They simply don’t know.

Comforting lies are…well…comforting. Yelling “everything is awesome!” is disingenuous at best, dangerous at worst.

Besides that, getting a job is only the very FIRST step.   Did you know that 44% of veterans leave their first job in the first year?  Did you know that number jumps to 65% by year two?  Why do you think that is?  It happens partly because they haven’t been told what corporate life is like.  No one told them to consider corporate cultures.  No one told them to consider the product, the environment, their own personal desires, where they wanted to live, what is important to their family, what kind of work life balance they are looking for, why they got out and how this job works into that plan, I can go on – I wrote an entire book on the subject and regularly post here about it.  Finding the right fitting job is more important that just finding any job.

Did you know that veteran suicide rates for GWOT veterans are highest in the first 3 years after they get out?

Are you starting to see the picture yet?

Veterans are getting out, hate their jobs,  get in financial trouble, which results in marriage trouble, which leads to substance abuse, and that to suicide.  I’ve talked about this plenty with “break the chain“, and it’s the whole reason I started CONUS Battle Drills.

It does no one any good to talk about finding a job and calling that “transition”.  The equivalent would be to give someone “marriage advice” but only talk about how to plan a wedding.  Then some asshole gets up and starts talking about how you too can have a successful marriage the day he gets back from his honeymoon.  The wedding (or job hunt) is the easiest part of the whole ordeal, but 90% of the “transition” advice I see out there focuses on this small element of transition.  Don’t get me wrong, finding a job is critical, and there are plenty of organizations out there to help you do that, but it is NOT transition.

 

A Successful Transition…..?

This article is more about helping you, the veteran, identify potential pitfalls in your journey of moving into the civilian sector – your transition.

SO…how does a veteran judge themselves as having successfully transitioned? Is there a manual that has standard metrics, benchmarks or specific goals to achieve? One veteran’s perspective of success is wildly different from another. Some veterans want to get out and land a federal job while others want to be managers and executives in corporate America, still others want to work in civil service (police, fireman, teachers, etc.). Some just want to get out and hang out on camp couch under the 1st parents division for a while – however we highly advise that this not be your definition of success. Success is ultimately measured by the individual, not by other veterans or transition assistance “experts” metrics of success. There is no such thing a “successful” transition because success is measured differently from one person to the next.

Furthermore, a veteran never transitions out of the military, they learn how to meld their military and civilian lives together. NOBODY, not even the veteran themselves can ignore their military past. A transition by definition is process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another. A veteran isn’t changing from military to civilian; they blend and harmonize the two.

As noted earlier, it is a never ending process and a constant review of your adjustment in the non-military world. The question you should always be asking yourself is “How am I leveraging my experiences in the military to advance my post-military journey.” There is a process that business’ across the spectrum use to analyze themselves to plot their grow – it’s called the Deming Cycle.

  • Plan: Forward moving steps to include points of reference to measure your success (i.e completing a class, earning a degree, getting hired, getting a promotion, etc.) – be it short term, long term, or some where in the middle
  • Do: Implement the plan you developed
  • Check: The progress of your plan to see if your meeting the measurement points – it’s alright if you fall short; the key is you made some goals to achieve.
  • Act: On the review of the plan, identify what went well and what didn’t and, take the lessons learned back into the planning phase.

This cycle is a never ending, always repeating process of improvement. Some times the iteration is short and sometimes it is long. Either way the idea is to make goals and points of reference to measure yourself by so that you can adjust and steer your own personal ship (i.e your post-military journey).

I say again, Transition isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking that it’s over once you get a job.

Finally, for those of you struggling out there: you’re not alone.  The majority of veterans have gone through this as well.  You can do this.

-LJF & BY

 

For more information on transition, get the highly rated book on Amazon:

How to Fix Your Terrible Resume

Recently I received an email from a reader (we’ll call him Max) asking if I would review his resume.  When I first glanced at the document, I was on my way somewhere with the family and only had a few seconds to take a look.  I didn’t see anything exceptional and as I walked away I tried to recall anything about the person in the resume I just read.  I remember thinking, “wait…was that guy a battalion commander?!”  Here is a copy of that resume, although you can’t fully read my comments, you can see that I had a lot of them (2 pages):

bad max

 

 

Later, when I had more time, I printed it out, marked it up, then prepared to send a very blunt email.  I noticed that Max was a West Point and CGSC grad, had two master’s degrees, and was a battalion commander, so I suspected that this Resume was not his best work.  I sent him some stuff I’ve written on resumes in the past, and I explained the following:

  • Your resume is not the place to be humble
  • Tell me about YOUR accomplishments- focus on the back of your OER not the front
  • Use the STAR format
  • Include KPIs or Key Performance Indicators- numbers, values, objective results
  • Highlight your degree not where you went to school
  • Your society/memberships and military schools (like Basic training) really aren’t as important

With some trepidation, I hit send and waited.

To his credit, Max took the advice and sounded totally energized.  He had plenty of questions and got to work.  He basically scrapped his entire resume, created an outline, and started over.  In one of his emails, he sent me a STAR chart which was a great invention, and something I will be sending out in the future for resume outlines.  It allows you to put a job, your rater and senior rater comments, then several accomplishments in the position.  See the examples below (2 pages):

Star Chart

 

After he filled this out for every job in his 23 year career, a very enthusiastic Max sent me his updated resume which you can see below (2 pages):

good max

It’s clear that Max is a true top 1% performer that is probably ready for executive level leadership positions in the civilian world, but his initial resume didn’t convey that.  As a recruiter, I would have completely dismissed him with that first resume, but that second one puts me in a position where I HAVE to talk to Max further.

Recruiters are only going to spend a few seconds on your resume.  Give them no option to dismiss you.

-LJF

 

For more information on transition, get the highly rated book on Amazon:

Five Reasons to stop and find another headhunter Immediately!

I’ve made it no secret that attempting to get out and find a job without a headhunter is a moronic move.  It’s already incredibly tough when you’re in the marketplace, your resume mirrors job requirements, and you’ve made contacts in the industry (plus you still have a job).  Try and find a job with a military resume, no market knowledge or contacts, and a drop dead date when you will no longer have employment without a recruiter and you are setting yourself up for failure.  That begs another question, however, how do I know my recruiter is any good?  Well, here are 5 things that if your recruiter does, you should probably start looking around for someone else.

1. Requires Exclusivity

If your recruiter is adamant that you cannot work with any other agency and asks you to sign an exclusivity contract, go somewhere else.  A good headhunter knows they are going to find you the best jobs and by allowing you to work with another headhunter, it makes YOU the commodity to be bargained for.  This will push them to listen to YOUR needs and make sure they are delivering what you want so you don’t go with someone else.  These companies that require you to sign exclusively with them for 6 months, when you’re 7 months away from getting out, know that as your ETS date approaches, you’re going to be more willing to accept whatever they throw at you.  They get their commission and you get screwed.  Don’t do it.

2.  Ask You to Pay

Recruiting services should be free to you.  Companies have a need to be met and they are willing to pay for someone to go out there, sift through the tens of thousands of candidates, and return with who will be the best fit.  It saves them thousands of dollars in infrastructure and Human Resource employees to simply outsource the candidate search to a headhunter agency.  I’ve seen offers out there, and even people emailing me about these companies that “help” veterans write resumes, update their LinkedIn, and find them jobs for a price.  Don’t pay for that crap.  Some of the resumes I’ve seen lately coming out of TAPS are decent and your recruiter knows exactly what the industry standard is at the time of your application.  They also know the jobs you’re going to be applying for, so they can guide you through that process.  Save the money and go out on a date with your spouse instead.

3. They don’t care what’s important to you

At the beginning of your relationship with a headhunter, you should have a long phone conversation where the recruiter gets to know you better.  They should have reviewed your resume and provided some feedback, then they are going to take some time to get to know you and what your needs/wants are.  How much do you want to make, where do you want to live, what do you want to do…sound familiar?  Yeah, it’s a lot like the four big questions.  Generally, you all think that when you get out you’re going to double your salary, which you aren’t, so I expect your recruiter is going to tell you that your expectations there are unrealistic.  The rest of those questions, however, are your personal preferences, and if the recruiter is marginalizing what you want or pressuring you to interview for jobs you don’t want, drop them…they don’t have your best interests in mind.

4. They are critical of your background

This one seemed unbelievable to me, but I have heard guys get told they have the wrong MOS/Rate for the civilian world, or their degree is no good.  If your recruiter is trying to talk you into hiding the fact that you were a grunt because of some civilian perception about infantry, drop them.  They won’t be a good advocate for you.

5. They weren’t in the military

There might be a case where using a recruiter that has never been in the military can be beneficial, like someone who specializes in hiring for a field where you have a degree, but generally civilians don’t understand what you have done and therefore can’t translate your skills effectively.  Because I was an Intelligence officer, I can tell you that the job is very similar to Marketing.  The intel analyst has to put himself in the mind of someone from another culture and look at the world through their eyes to make an assessment about what they are going to do.  Marketing is the exact same thing, except instead of making an assessment about the enemy, you’re looking at a product the same way a customer would and determining what actions that customer is going to take.  A civilian will never put those dots together for you, and that means fewer interviews and a lower salary for you.  A civilian also isn’t going to understand that there’s a vast personality difference between a guy that served in Ranger Battalion and another who was a quartermaster.  One isn’t better than the other, it just means that you come from different cultures and may not fit into the same role.

Stay vigilant and keep an eye out for any of these warning signs.  Good luck and God Bless!

-LJF

 

Click the image below to find out what we’re doing here at CONUS Battle Drills!

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You hired a veteran, but how do you keep him?

According to a survey by VetAdvisor and Syracuse university, a full 65% of veterans leave their first civilian job within two years.  Usually at CONUS Battle Drills we focus on how the veteran can improve their position, but in this case, I want to send a shout out to folks out there hiring veterans and give them some tips.

At first glance, that statistic can deter you from even considering hiring a vet because of the costs of turnover, but there are some significant benefits that these people bring that make them excellent employees.  They are disciplined, on time, courageous, leaders with integrity and incredible work ethic.  They will accomplish tasks at what seems like impossible timelines, and they aren’t afraid to give you bad news, two qualities that are exceptionally rare in the civilian world.  They are fiercely loyal and if they have a problem you can be sure they will tell you about it…and bring a solution as well. I strongly believe you should always look at the veteran community when making hiring decisions for all these reasons, but you have to control that turnover rate.

Make a Career Plan

Before I had even pinned on my Lieutenant bars, I knew what my career would look like from my first platoon leader time all the way to retirement and the key jobs in between.  I could set career goals early on and work to achieve those goals.  Every move I made was calculated towards achieving those goals.  This is something that is greatly lacking in the civilian workplace.  For years I asked my superiors and mentors to no avail, all they ever said is “there is no real path”.  Turns out this wasn’t exactly true.   By picking up little bits of information as I went along, I was able to determine some key jobs titles that I would need to move forward.  So if you have hired a veteran, you need to have a career path of some sorts planned out for them, or be ready to give them some tips and key positions in their advancement.  The job they are in can’t look like a dead end and they need to know that there are future challenges ahead, this will keep them excited.

It also helps to know salary ranges with responsibilities.  For some reason human resources departments try and keep this information top secret which I have never understood.  The lowest private can see what his commander makes every month, and he can look at those salaries and make a determination where he wants his career to go. We come from a place where everyone wears their pay grade and qualifications on their chest, and we can all see how much the other guy makes.  The secrecy with which civilians deal with pay grades and salaries makes no sense, but I don’t want to fight for a promotion or a position if the pay isn’t worth the sacrifice in my opinion, and it’s better to know that before getting the job.

Training

The dismal on-boarding process that I have observed in many civilian companies is incredibly frustrating.  When the military takes someone on, they spend months training them to be a soldier, then more months training them in their initial entry job, then as they get promoted, there are other schools and training they have to go through in order to pin on the next rank.  When they aren’t deployed, they are training, train, train, train, train, train.  Civilians are terrible at training.  If you want to get the most out of the veteran you just hired and experience all the benefits I outlined early on, you have to train them how to do the job; a week of safety presentations and powerpoints is not it.

One way to develop a training plan is to list out the qualities that you are looking for in the job that you are hiring for.  What skills does this person need to have?  What programs do they need to know?  Who do they need to meet?  List those things out and give them to your veteran with a plan on how to have them “certified” in every item within the first 3 months.  This will provide a goal and help you work with them as they integrate.

Establish a Veteran Community

Hopefully this isn’t your first veteran hire, so there should be other folks in your company that have successfully made this transition.  We don’t usually shout from the rafters about our service, so you typically have to get to know us to find out that we have worn the uniform.  As a hiring manager, I assume you know the people around you and can introduce your new veteran hire to some senior veterans in your organization.  I can’t tell you how important this is.  There are questions that your veteran has about the differences between civilian life and the military that you are not prepared to answer.  Meeting someone else also establishes a support network of like-minded individuals.  Many of the questions your veteran has, someone else in your organization has already struggled through.

During our entire time in service, we always had a buddy.  One other man who had our back and we were accountable to each other.  We looked after each other’s gear and health.  We grew up in that world, and entering a different world where our jokes don’t make sense and we don’t have anyone out there looking out for us can feel very lonely.  This is going to decrease job satisfaction, and if there doesn’t seem to be a good career path and we have no idea what we’re doing because we haven’t been trained, then we’re going to find another job.  So establish a veteran community and some way of putting these veterans in contact with each other.

Even after you do all these things, you might still lose some veterans, don’t take it personal.  One of the four big questions I am always telling folks getting out is, “Do you know what you want to do?”  Too many folks get out without answering that question and some honestly don’t know.  Maybe they think they can leave the adrenaline junky job behind but find out after a year or two behind a desk that they can’t find joy in their life without chasing bad guys.  That’s on them, but if you want to take that 65% turnover rate and drop it into the single digits, you need to Have a Career Path, Make a Training Plan, and Establish a Veteran Community.

-LJF

 

Click the image below to find out what we’re doing here at CONUS Battle Drills!

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