This
article is aimed at the frustrated veteran who has years of leadership
experience but just can’t seem to leverage his or her leadership experience
into a good leadership job. Hopefully this will help change your
perspective of the civilian job market and set you on the path to getting a
good job.
I
want to echo what Peter Gudmundsson said in a recent U.S. News magazine
article. Peter said that veterans after they leave the military
really only have three career choices and those are: making stuff, selling
stuff, or counting stuff. Notice I didn’t mention leading people which so
many veterans would count as their strong suit and would hope for job
opportunities to lead people. While in the end you might wind up
leading some people that won’t be your primary responsibility for the new job. Your
primary responsibility will be making, selling or counting stuff and the
leading will come in second. Don’t get me wrong the new employer
will appreciate that fact that the veteran can lead people and that might get
them promoted ahead of pears who cannot lead well but first and foremost they
expect the veteran to make, sell, or count.
My
former boss from Fort Knox is now an employee at GE where he has done well in
the manufacture of refrigerators at GE’s Louisville, Kentucky plant. He
has been promoted but his job is still primarily that of making stuff…in his
case he started with the right hand door of refrigerators. My last
job was that of selling stuff…I sold cars in Louisville. Ever since
my retirement in 2012 I have misunderstood why employees didn’t hire me to
lead. I have fantastic leadership credentials from my 23 years in
the Army. However, as Peter points out, that is not what civilian
employers are looking for. I thought getting my MBA would change
that…but it didn’t.
Don’t
get me wrong, leadership skills are essential and necessary but they are
assumed. They will assume that if you rise through the ranks of
making refrigerators or selling cars to the point that you are responsible for
people that you can then lead. It might prove to be a false
assumption but it is the nature of the civilian job market never the less.
So
when you find yourself transitioning from the military whether after one
enlistment or a long career you need to start thinking which of the three
primary functions you’d like to perform for the next phase of your working
career…making, selling, or counting stuff. This should be one of the
first things Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are told when they begin
the transition process and start working on a resume. That they need
to build a resume to target one of those three functions and they will have more
job hunting success.
Here
is a link to the U.S. News article.
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