When you have set up a short-timer's calendar, every day you mark off another day. Anticipation is building. The time has come to leave the service and face the realities of the civilian job market.
For most people leaving the service, it's time to do some serious thinking about the future and to determine what you have to offer a civilian employer. For many veterans, this may be the first time you have ever had to look for a job.
The process can be scary, but there's no reason it can't be successful. The time to make decisions about your job search begins long before you start the actual search. For most veterans, the process should begin as long as a year before separation or retirement. Above all, this decision-making process should include a heavy dose of reality.
To begin the thought process, let's start with some philosophy. It's important to understand that you are a product for sale. You have some skills and you are willing to provide some services, but you expect to get paid for those services. Your future employer is buying the product-your skills and your services. But don't think employers are in business to do you a favor.
No business opens its doors in America unless it plans on making a profit. Even nonprofit corporations must make a "profit" to stay in business: somebody has to pay the overhead, and somebody has to pay wages and expenses. A company can't open its door without some sort of income potential. That may sound cold and hard to you, but don't forget that you have spent your adult life serving your country in order to preserve capitalism. It's okay in America to make a buck! Now it's your turn.
Initial Marketing Strategy
If you want to survive and prosper in the civilian job market, you have to begin to understand the basic rule of the employment process: If you are not part of the profit picture, you will not be part of the picture for long.
How do you market yourself effectively? The best way is to see yourself as a product, and then adjust all of your job-search efforts to ensuring that potential employers understand how they can make money from hiring you. To do that, you have to understand some basic marketing strategy.
In sales, there is a rule that states, "Don't sell the features, sell the benefits." Features and benefits provide the basis of all sales. People don't buy a product because it is attractive (features), they buy the product for what they will get out of it (benefits). For example, you won't buy a sports car because it has a T-Top roof, 800 horsepower engine, thirty-four speakers in the radio, seventeen gears on the floor, or a bright red paint job. What you really buy is the ability to sit at a stop light and pick up girls (or guys). People don't buy a candy bar because it has an attractive wrapper, creamy caramel center, or nuts and chocolate. They buy because of the satisfaction they get from eating the candy bar.
You, as a job seeker, have certain features that will make you attractive to a potential employer. Your job is to find out what those features are and then have a plan to show potential employers how they will benefit from hiring you. That may not be an easy task.
Rally around the Flag?
We in the military community become comfortable with the instant recognition and respect we receive as a result of our accomplishments in the service. The longer we spend on active duty, the more things get hung on our uniforms. The military is great at handing out hats, whistles, and balloons in the form of chevrons, stars, bars, oak leaves, badges, awards, and decorations. It's easy to become accustomed to the instant credibility received as a result of awards, rank, and decorations. When you walk into any situation in uniform, the visible accoutrements of rank give you expert power. It's easy to assume that, because you were so respected while in uniform, there are lines of employers waiting outside the gate of your base or installation to hire you today. Maybe those employers are there, but they're not waiting to hire you because you are a master sergeant, a captain, a colonel, or an airman. They want you because you have something they see that will make them money.
Take Off Those Combat Boots
But in order to do so, you must first complete an inventory of your assets. You must look at yourself as a product for sale and then develop an effective marketing strategy to show potential employers your features and then explain how they will benefit from hiring you.
The most critical part of the process is to remove your uniform and your combat boots. Take them off, physically and mentally, when you go out the gate for the last time. Your first name is no longer Chief, Major, Private, or Commander. That part of your life is coming to a close, and your uniform can no longer stand as your credibility. Now you will become Bob or Mary, John or Joan, and your credibility will come from your new record of professional accomplishments.
Put on some wing tips, loafers, or pumps. You've served your country and gained some highly valuable skills, abilities, and traits in the process. Now it's your turn. And leave your combat boots behind.
