Posted on Sep 17, 2013
For the people that have transition from the military to civilian, what would you do differently if you had the chance?
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What do you think are the most important things to accomplish before exiting the military, that would contribute to a successful transition?
Civilian Career
Transition
Medical Board
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 33
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The real challenge for an effective transition is to have a broad transition strategy. A resume is merely a tool to have an effective strategy. A transition strategy is finding WHO you want to be employed with, WHAT you want to do, WHEN you want to do it, WHERE you want the career to be, and WHY you want to leave the military for a new career or educational pursuit. As part of your strategy too many veterans only look at 1-3 companies. To be effective you need to network with hundred's of executives, look at 8 to 12 different companies, and 3-4 seperate geographic locations. Hiring today is a buyer's market for companies. Finally, veterans must look at how they can translate and apply their military skills to their future careers.
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SOME RESOURCES: http://www.combattocorporate.com/free-resources/
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SSG Laureano Pabon
Sir this was the information I needed when I was discharged back in 1986. Even though I'm currently employed with whom I want to work for and doing what I want to do, in the location I preferred being in; many jobs are not 100 % guarantied that they will remain for 20 years to retire on, however I am going to adapt your tactics for myself should I end up looking for work again. Thank you Sir.
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LTC Chad Storlie
Laureano, happy to help. Look at my LinkedIn profile for more of my articles. All my best! Chad
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SPC Mikki Ekanger
Well the first thing to consider is the word "Transition". The overall thought about "Transitioning from military to civilian" often is presumed just employment. There's more to it than that. Knowing what I know now, I would have had my happy ass in a counselor's office right from the start. It's common to think that as troops we're tough and maybe we are in uniform, but is it appropriate to be tough in the civilian world? Comparing both worlds is like comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruits, both have peels but each has different nutritional value. The same can be said in the military vs civilian lives. The military life teaches you to be on alert, to be prepared to react to contact. It teaches values. In the civilian world we may not need these skills with such intensity. Knowing when to turn on and turn off our training is important. Knowing which battles we can fight and which ones we can't is also important. Knowing which situations we can control and which we cant is critical in transition. We run into civilians who hate us and there's nothing that we can do to change that.
Getting a physical, and getting into counseling or a support group will be beneficial whether you think you need it or not. First if you do need it and you don't get it, you can find yourself in a whole mess of trouble. Trust me it's not worth it. If you get it and don't need it, you've better equipped yourself to aid other vets during their transition. This will help your vet brother or sister in realizing they're not alone and that they have a "wing man" or "Battle Buddy" or whichever term you choose to use. Also I would spend time talking to people about civilian terminology. It might be okay in your unit to say certain things or tell certain jokes or even make certain references, but the civilian population might not agree with our humor.
The other most important thing I can say is this.
There are many armchair generals that want to try to "School" you on warfare. They obviously haven't walked where we walked or been to where we've been. They have different ideas because they have different life experiences. They ask the questions that we don't want to answer or make us uncomfortable. So what do we do? Use these issues as teaching opportunities. Often times these opportunities can be beneficial to both sides and they'll allow you to maintain your individual boundaries.
After my second tour in Iraq I had learned some lessons from my first tour, and while I was facing a huge amount of stress from other things when I got home, I managed it fairly well. In saying that I had an encounter in college where I perceived a threat where one doesn't exist simply over the way someone said something. He used the words "I think I want to fight about it."
You can imagine that words like that for many vets can be interpreted as a threat. This guy didn't recognize my change in stance to a "low ready" and had no idea that I'd already thought through how I was going to "Defend myself". About a week later I spoke with him and explained that we have different perspectives and certain terms can be easily interpreted as "threats". Our conversation ended with a handshake and new found respect for one another. Me and this guy have different world views and different perspectives, but we were both able to learn something.
Transitioning back MUST include our individual relationships with people. If it doesn't a stellar resume may not be enough to get hired for any job.
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Great question. I would've started resume writing much earlier and taken private classes to get all of my bullets translated into a civilianized format.
If RallyPoint was around, I would've started networking a lot earlier with vets that made the successful jump. Easy to locate and connect with these guys that work for companies you might like. Explore the RPU.
If RallyPoint was around, I would've started networking a lot earlier with vets that made the successful jump. Easy to locate and connect with these guys that work for companies you might like. Explore the RPU.
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SSgt (Join to see)
Oh yes and to the extent our leadership skills can be used in helping with veteran's issues as well. Things we see after we got out and that make sense to us now. If we could back.
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I am not transitioning currently, but for the past 2 years I have been working with transitioning Soldiers. I get the opportunity to see some of the Soldiers who chose to stay in the area and they ALL say, they would have begun ACAP processes 2-5 years in advance, that all the financial classes, business classes they would've taken complete advantage of. That they would've definitely been more proactive with college classes. I even had one of the old transitioning Soldiers come back and provide this wealth of info to the current Soldiers.
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SSgt (Join to see)
When I was getting in, it was the end of the Vietnam-era and also near the end of the Cold War. At that time, very few leaders were stressing coping skills, whether they were financial, but also medically and job-wise also.
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