Tag: salary

Why the headhunter won’t work with you

I can’t stress enough the importance of having a headhunter in order to get a job.  Unless you already know someone in the company you’re applying with, as much as they like to tell you otherwise, monster.com isn’t going to get you the job.  You have to get a headhunter, more on that here.

I spoke to a friend of mine, Eddie, that works as a headhunter for Lucas Group.  I’m not getting paid to say this, I just honestly believe they are the best firm out there. If you’re talking to someone else, I recommend you give Lucas Group a call, they’ll work with Officers and NCO’s alike, but there are some people they won’t work with.  So here’s an hour long conversation about a candidate they won’t work with given to you in 700 words…

“You must have the right attitude”

I’ve said this before, and I discuss it in great detail in the book, but you are starting a new career and you need to realize that.  Look, I don’t care if you were a Brigade Commander in the military, you don’t know anything about my business.  If you think that you’re better than my team because you wore a uniform, then you don’t belong on my team.

You need to come out of the military with some humility.  You can be proud of what you did, and you should be, but if that pride makes you look down on others that didn’t, then you’re going to have a tough time and i’m not going to hire you.  Tell me instead that you don’t have a problem starting at the bottom.  Say, “It’s an opportunity to learn about the business and I’m confident my skills will get me promoted quickly.”  Bam!  That’s what I want on my team!

 

The right combination of “shuns”

“You have to have the right combination of the 3 ‘shuns’: Location, compensation, occupation.  If you tell me ‘I want to be a program manager in west chicago and make $120k a year,’ I’m going to say ‘good luck.'”  

You need to have realistic expectations of what kind of job you can find when you get out.  There was a boot shop in Fort Bragg that had a sign that read, “we do 3 types of work: Good, fast, and cheap.  Pick any two.”  That saying is very similar to what you need to consider in your job hunt.

Location

“I can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard, ‘I need to stay in Dallas, my girlfriend is from there.’ Then I have to take my recruiter hat off and put on my life coach hat…”

Location is the 3rd question of the big 4 questions, go read more about that here.  Although there are occasionally good reasons to limit yourself geographically like a special needs child or a sick family member, generally you should consider a wider net.

Compensation

“I had a guy tell me, ‘well with BAH, Flight Pay, and Jump Pay i’m making about $130k a year, so I expect to make something commensurate to that.’ With a history degree? There’s no way.”

You need to be realistic about what you’re going to make.  That’s one of the reasons why finances are the 1st of the big 4 questions. You are going to take a pay cut, just wrap your mind around that.  Plan to live off your base pay and understand what that means to your budget.  This way, if you get a job higher than your base pay, you’ll have extra spending money.  Don’t worry, I have the utmost confidence that if you want it, you’ll be able to get promoted quickly above and beyond your peers. More on finances here and here.

Occupation

“I have guys tell me that they only want to do program manager jobs.  Dude, you don’t even know what’s out there and what you’re qualified for.”

The 4th big question is to understand what you want to do, and i’ve explicitly said “lead people” is an acceptable answer.  It is important for you to want to do something that you find interesting, but you should keep your mind open to possibilities that you might not have considered.

“If the alarm goes off in the morning and your feet don’t immediately hit the floor, you have a job not a career and there’s very little compensation or location that is going to make up for you being miserable 40, 50, or 60 hours a week.”

So basically if you’ve read the book or follow the blog, chances are you’re going to get a headhunter to work with you because you’re not going to make those mistakes right?  I’ll close with one final quote:

“The biggest obstacle in these guys’ career is themselves.”

-LJF




What is an E6 Pay worth really?

Here at CONUS Battle Drills I keep telling you about the Big Four Questions every veteran absolutely must answer before getting out.  Despite Chad’s very eloquent and convincing reasoning for asking “Why” first, I maintain that if you are not financially ready, or don’t understand the financial ramifications of your decision, it doesn’t matter if you have the best reason in the world; you can’t get out yet.

So what is your pay actually worth?

I asked an E6 friend of mine to send me an LES so I could show what the equivalent pay would be in the civilian world.  I did some analysis to make the take home bi-weekly pay as close as I could get them while still being a near apples to apples comparison.  In the civilian world, you have to pay for healthcare and retirement, so I included those in the civilian column, but only the dental in the military column.

Here is how it shakes out:

pay comparison

So this E6 is making the equivalent of almost $7,500 a month even though his base pay is only $3,719!

Here is the mistake that I made when I got out: I thought a “comparable” salary meant making the same as my base pay and I was WAY wrong about that.  For some reason, I didn’t take into account the additional expenses in health care and retirement and the loss of BAH, that’s why I’m telling you about it now.

BAH and BAS are also not taxed, which means that even the tax burden for the civilian is higher because he’s in a much higher bracket. Some of these numbers can change depending on the number of tax deductions, the state that you live in, your election of 401k, how much your health care costs, etc. but the point remains:  Your base pay is not representative of your take home pay.

There are, however, some major considerations you need to take into account…

Just because you would need to make nearly double in the civilian world to have a similar take-home pay, does not mean that’s how much you’re worth.

Sorry to tell you this, but you’re probably going to start off making similar to your base pay because that’s what your skills will translate to in the civilian world, and for those of you in senior leader positions, expect less than your base pay (hopefully you can supplement with retirement).

I’ve told you before you need to make a budget, and in the book I discuss this in even more detail, and if you look above, you should notice why that’s even more critical when you get out.

Financial struggles are usually where troubles in marriages begin.  It’s the first snowball that can lead to so many other bad decisions.  For veterans, there are even more issues because you don’t even know what to expect from a paycheck, you’ve never paid for healthcare, and you’ve never HAD to save for retirement.

It’s not all bad news, ok, but I want you to be ready for what is coming.  I want you to fully understand the ramifications of your decision.  I want you to see all the cards on the table, that’s what CONUS Battle Drills is about.  The point is to prepare you so this transition isn’t a kick in the nuts.

-LJF

Share this post, it’s possible someone you know is about to get out and make a terrible financial decision.  Let’s look out for each other.





ETS Points of Performance

Do you know the points of performance for when you ETS?

As soon as the light turned green the anchor line cable began to hop up and down as troopers jumped from the C-130 Aircraft.  I was in the middle of the stick, so I really couldn’t see much except the parachute of the guy in front of me.  The whooshing of the cold winter air was already enveloping the plane and I could hear the distinct roar of the planes engines.  Finally we started to move forward.

I had my fist firmly in the pack of the guy in front of me as we shuffled towards the back of the plane.  Even though we were in the dead of winter, being rigged up for so long, I had beads of sweat collecting around my eyes.  I blinked furiously to keep the salty water out of my eyes since one hand held my static line and the other was on my reserve.

I was already looking past the guy in front of me at the safety when he stopped.  I tripped and bumped into him, feeling the tug of my ruck on my waist as the rhythm I had going was halted.  It had been a while since this guy jumped, and apparently he had a last minute second thought…didn’t last long though, only about a second and he jumped.

images

As I handed my static line, I shot a fleeting glance to my left as I turned to my right and jumped out the door.

“Shit.”

I jumped almost at the same time as the other door.  As soon as I buried my chin into my chest, my helmet fell forward and covered my eyes.

“Shit.”

Any of you familiar with the ACH helmet know that the pads are hard as a rock when it’s cold, then as you warm them up they get soft.  My chin strap was no longer tight, and my dumbass didn’t fix it in the plane.

“One Thousand…Two thousand…Three thous…”

I felt the opening shock and lifted up my helmet to quickly check my chute.  All I saw was canopy in my face.  I was directly on top of another guy’s parachute.

“Shit.”

I tried to stand up and run off his chute, but I couldn’t get my footing with my ruck and I began to slide off the center towards the edge of his chute.  Then his canopy began to taco around me.

hqdefault

“Shit.”

I reached frantically for the edges of his parachute and pushed myself off.  He was already pulling slip as I got under canopy again.  I looked up and realized quickly that I was drifting backwards towards him again.

“Shit.”

I spread eagled as wide as I could and bounced off of his risers.  It worked!  I bounced off and was about to be on my merry way when it felt like someone cut my chute off.  When I bounced off, I lost all my air and began to free fall again.

“Shit.”

Instantly I went from spread eagle back to tight body position and wrapped my hand around my reserve handle.  A millisecond before I pulled it I felt a second shock.  Without letting go of the reserve handle I looked up and saw I was under a good canopy.  The other guy was more than 100 feet above me vigorously pulling slip when he yelled down, “You ok?”  I responded, “Yeah, you?”  “Yeah, get the fuck away from me.”  I smiled as I looked down, the ground was already less than 50 feet away, I released my ruck and realized I was hauling ass backwards.

“Shit.”

 

When I jumped that day, a lot of shit went wrong, but I was trained and prepared for every scenario.  All of that happened in probably less than 30 seconds; I needed almost no time to react.  I can also guarantee that probably every paratrooper that read this knew exactly what to do as he read the story as well.

Being prepared is the difference between life and death.

Knowing that, you still have no fucking plan on what you are going to do when you get out?

You need to have your finances in order, know why you’re getting out, know where you want to live, and know what you want to do, and you need to do that at least six months out.

I’ve seen far too many soldiers think that getting out of the military is going to magically solve all their problems, it’s not.  You need to get yourself ready before you become another statistic…you need to be prepared for that shitty jump.

-LJF




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.

PD_0370

  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.

PD_0407

  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: