Tag: career

Veteran Profile: Ed Jasper

In this first installment of Veteran Profiles, listen to Ed talk about his 20 years with the Army and more than 14 years with John Deere.

Ed Jasper
Military Experience

United States Army – 1981 – 2001 – (MOS 67N/67T/67Z)

In the early years, I was a UH-1H (Huey) Crew Chief, Section Sergeant, Instructor, and Quality Control NCOIC. In the later years, I was a Production Control NCOIC, Squadron S3 NCOIC, and Retired as a 1SG of a UH-60 (Blackhawk) Troop

Current Position and Civilian Work Experience

Manager of Program Management Office, John Deere – Cary, NC

I have worked for John Deere for 14.5 year and had multiple assignments in Factory Operations, Project Management, Quality Engineering, and Program Management

 

The Big 4 Questions:

  1. Were you financially ready to get out? What steps did you take?

No, I was not financially ready to get out!

I was a 1SG with 3 kids in High School, and one kid was getting ready to start college. I was fortunate that I found a good job with a great company and literally left the Army on Thursday, drove across country and started with John Deere on Monday.

I tried to be as debt free as possible, ensured my credit report was clean and accurate, and bought a house that was below what we were approved for to help control expenses.

Stetson 4-3 ACR

  1. Why did you want to get out?

I loved the Army, but it was time.

I loved working with soldiers and spent my entire career in Army Aviation and was still crewing helicopters occasionally as a 1SG. It may sound funny, but I was not interested in becoming a CSM and what that rank would entail at that point in my career. I had been a 1SG for 3 years, and the family was ready to have me home more. In 2001, to become a CSM, I would have had to go to the academy, spend a year at Ft. Bliss, and then be subject to an assignment worldwide. I had three kids in high school, and that level of uncertainty did not seem like the right thing to drag them through. Based on what I thought my next step in the Army was, and the needs of my family, it was time to go.

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  1. Did you know where you wanted to live?

I have a funny story about where “we wanted to live”. We had lived all over the world, and our last duty station we were stationed at Ft. Carson, CO which is an awesome assignment. My wife and I were discussing the whole retirement plan, when a commercial for Colonial Williamsburg came on the TV. We had lived in the area previously for a few years when I was stationed at Ft. Eustis. We both thought going back to the Tidewater Area of Virginia would be a good choice if we did not stay in Colorado. The following day, I got a call from a previous commander of mine that said he had someone from John Deere where he was working in Williamsburg, VA that wanted to talk to me about a job! How is that for karma!

Honestly, I was willing to relocate to any location for the right job. I had seen a number of former coworkers in Army make what I thought was a mistake and limit themselves to a geographic region. This really limited the types of jobs they were getting interviews for.

I know moving is tough on families, but after John Deere made me job offer,  it was my kids that told me it was ok to change High Schools again, they would adjust and that Mom and I had to do what was right for our long term future. It was tough on them, but they have all made it through college and are working in their chosen career field.

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  1. Did you know what you wanted to do?

No, I had no idea what I really wanted to do. I did have plan, I called it the “5 finger plan” and had a resume that matched each of those paths. They ran the gamut from working for a defense contractor in aviation maintenance to working in public education. The other thing I did when I was in was to finish my degree programs – so I earned an Associate’s Degree while I was still a SPC, earned my  Bachelor’s Degree by the time I was a SFC, and finished a Masters in Education the year before I retired. The degrees did not make me any smarter, but they do open doors that might not be available without them.

I knew I wanted to have a challenging job, with a firm I could grow with, and that would offer a level of pay that would improve my standard of living. So far, John Deere continues to offer me new opportunities – I have moved 6 times in 14 years and had 7 primary jobs in that time period and number of other special projects. Not everyone has to move to advance, but they have offered interesting jobs that I wanted to pursue, so it has been a good fit so far.

 

Quick Tips for Transitioning

  • If you are enlisted – get as much school as you can to include college, certifications and other training applicable to your career path.
  • Officer, Senior NCO, or Enlisted – Be willing to take an entry level job with the right company – your experience and work ethic will lead to other opportunities for promotion.
  • Be willing to relocate to take the right job – go where the work is
  • Contact others you have served with that are already out – they are a great resource
  • Practice Interviewing and using words and language that civilians understand
  • Send your resume to people not in the military to get some feedback – Don’t be offended with the feedback
  • When you get the first job, find a mentor. Most organizations have some former military in the workforce. Find out who they are, and approach them about mentoring you. They will be invaluable to you in helping to connect the dots as you transition.

 

Listen to the full interview now, or take it with you and listen on the go!

I want it on the go: Veteran_Profile_Jasper

Listen now:

 


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.

 

The 4 Big Questions- Career

  1. Do you know what you want to do when you get out?

This is something I didn’t know, I wanted to remain open to as many career possibilities as possible, and to be frank, I really didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up; heck, I still don’t know.  I don’t want you to decide to do something that you’re comfortable with unless that really is your passion.

“Well, I’m an MP, so I guess I’ll be a cop.”

No.  Stop that shit.  Do you want to be a cop? If the answer is no, then don’t just blindly do something because it was your MOS.  Look, I was an infantryman (11A) and an MI officer (35D), since I got out I’ve been an assembly line supervisor, marketing manager, and now I’m a program manager.  Luckily this is one area that I didn’t listen to those doom sayers.  Just because I had a TS/SCI didn’t mean that the best opportunity for me was to work as a DOD civilian.  I didn’t want to sit around in a SCIF reading intel reports.

A headhunter is a great resource here.  Be honest, if you don’t know what you want to do, but you’re articulate and you know how to spell, then there’s a really good likelihood that he’s going to be able to find you a job that pays about as much as you make now.

I know you want to make more than you make now.  That’ll come, and we’ll talk about it later, but we need to manage some expectations.  You’re starting at the bottom again and no one cares that you were a first sergeant or a company commander.  What’s your first name?  That’s who you are now; I became Louis, the ex-army guy with no experience.  The truth is, you don’t know how the real world runs, but that’s ok.  You bring a special set of skills that are highly sought after and I’m going to teach you how to use them, but before we get into that, answer these four questions.

You’re about to make a major life changing decision and you need to check your static line.  By the way “lead people” is an option.

 

-LJF