Career Series: Finding a Career 1

Identify your career path by getting to know yourself

It sounds stupid and cheesy. You’ve probably heard it a thousand times “Do what you love, and love what you do.” As overused as it, there are still thousands of people who don’t listen to it. When working with military students, I see it all the time. My first correspondence with a new student usually goes something like this:

Me: “So, what are you wanting to study?”

Student: “I don’t know... nursing”

Me: “Why nursing?”

Student: “Because they make a lot of money.”

Me: “Who told you that?”

Student: “… … …”

Me: “Let’s take a look at some starting salaries in nursing and some starting salaries in plumbing.”

This happens at least once a week. I’m not sure what the deal is, but it seems that this generation is obsessed with the healthcare industry. Don’t get me wrong, the healthcare industry is important. There is also a shortage of healthcare staff, at least that’s what we hear. However, the next time you hear that pay close attention to the words. No one said there is a large number of vacant positions in healthcare waiting to be filled by the millions of healthcare students. They are just telling you there is a shortage of staff. Just because there is a high need for more positions doesn’t mean there are available positions. 

I pick on healthcare quite often, because it is, as I like to say, “The largest romanticized industry.” Romanticized industries are those that everyone dreams about. We all want to be doctors, lawyers, or CEOs. No one dreams about plumbing, carpentry, or mechanic. I found that interesting considering an entry level plumber makes significantly more than an entry level nurse. Don't take my word for it though, look it up.

When it comes to finding a career you need to be able to tell the difference between a job and a career. A lot of veterans jump into the civilian world and try to make careers out of jobs. You are going to fail. A job is a means to make some money. A career is a means to build your desired lifestyle. Trying to make a job into a career is like trying to shoot 40mm out of an M16, in the scenario that you could make it fire you don’t want to be anywhere near it.

Think about what industry you want to work in, and don’t think about the money. If you pick a field for the money you are taking a high risk. There's a good chance that you are going to be terrible at that career. Remember that a successful diesel mechanic will always make more money than a mediocre nurse jumping from hospital to hospital.

If you can’t find a field that you want to work in, then you are probably over thinking it. Figure out what you would be doing for fun. Ask yourself, “What do I do when I can do whatever I want?” Find a career that is related to those things, and be creative. Even if all you can think of is “I drink, play video games, and workout.” Then look into breweries, nightlife, Microsoft or Sony, and the gym industry. One of those areas is more than a job, one is your career. GIJOBS is a great magazine for getting ideas and seeing what's happening for service members after the military.If you can find any let me know, I am literally buried in them and wouldn't mind sending you some issues. 

If you are still coming at a loss with your career path don’t panic. You can always jump into one those “I don’t know who I am” programs on the internet. Watch out for SPAM monsters though they are every where. Try something like this one from the VA, CareerScope.

There are some other things you can do to help realize who you are as a person and what kind of career you might be successful in. This is more about how other people view you, instead of how you might view yourself. Like hearing yourself talking in a recording for the first time, sometimes we are strangers to ourselves. I recommend the assessment tool at www.iVETx.com. It will tell you some of you personality strengths, and some things you should probably work on. I was absolutely blown away at how accurate mine was when I took it. When you get the right industry you could fall out if you are stuck in the wrong department. Find out what your civilian pros and cons are and exploit them to your advantage to make sure that when you do get the career you position yourself to fly up the ladder.

Know what you are up against

In June 2012, CNAS released a report by Margaret C. Harrell and Nancy Berglass Employing America’s Veterans Perspectives from Businesses. Finally! Some insight to what’s going on when the application is thrown in the trash, and the generic “thanks, but no thanks” letters are sent out by potential employers. The report discloses CNAS’ findings after interviewing 69 companies on why they hire veterans and why they don’t. In the end the summary comes out with some recommendations about what Congress, DOD, DOL and DVA should do to assist veterans looking for a career. These recommendations are pretty good, but what about now? What do we do while we are waiting for government intervention? Let’s take a look at what we can do to use this information to our advantage:

Skills Translation

The number one reason the door never opens, is miscommunication. From my previous blog, Day 1 in the 1^st CivDiv, I mentioned that you are going to have to learn to talk civilian to make an easy transition. Well, according to these statistics over 60% of employers interviewed said that translation was why they would pass over a veteran applicant. Civilian Talk is important, it’s really important. Use websites like www.vaforvets.com or www.nrd.gov to find an effective way to translate your military training into something that an HR manager can understand. When you send them a resume full of military jargon, you might as well get some crayons and draw a picture that shows you doing the job instead. They aren’t going to take the time try and decipher LANDNAV instructor, CQB2, and E-4 RTO, so you need to do it for them. 

The Stereotypes

This one is tough, you are going to have to deal with these in a much more creative way. There are several misconceptions that the civilian world has when they hear the word “veteran.” Some people have been brainwashed by the media so that as soon as they hear “veteran” they immediately think PTSD. Former President Bush addressed this well  at the Dallas Summit on Feb 19 2014. Whether you have PTSD or not, there isn’t much you can do from your end to fight this stereotype. Being mindful of body language and word choice in an interview, is about the full extent of breaking down this stereotype. Be professional, don't lose your bearing even over something that is legitimately upsetting. If you do everyone around you, immediately transforms into a licensed psychiatrist and you become their first patient. The "it must be the PTSD" whispers will follow you right out of the interview. As long as mega-media outlets pop out PTSD stories every other day, this will be a stereotype with which you will have to contend. 

The second largest stereotype is left over from the Vietnam Era. In the civilian world, more so in the younger generation, exists this little assumption that to join the military is to admit you aren't capable of college. I have several former high school friends, who decided when I joined. They will quickly forget about the HIMARS, Drones, large scale coordination in assaults, and state-of-the-art communication systems of today’s military. The good news here is that this one is easy to debunk, just use portfolio. You can build an impressive one based on your accomplishments in the military. Take your MarineOnline, AKO Correspondence or equivalent certificates and build a what I call a “look at how awesome I am" book and take it with you when you get called to an interview. Marines, you will be surprised at how far you can stretch the “personal financial management” certificate.

Skills Mismatch

Skills mismatch falls in hand with Skills Translation. However, if you still cannot land the career after you translate your skills, it may be time to look into going back to school. But before you do make sure to at least land a job, doesn't have to be $20/hr but at least something. I will get more into this in the education series. I’m sorry if I’m the first one to tell you this but just in case you haven’t heard, the Gi Bill isn’t a panacea for college financial matters. Not even close. Standby for more on this in the education blogs.

Acclimation

I skipped deployments, because the USERRA has your back there. If you don't them then look them up. I’m going to skip "Finding Veterans" as well because at this point you can find the employer.

Onward to Acclimation, the report describes this as employers avoiding veterans their first few months out because they haven’t been properly “acclimated” to the civilian world yet. To me, I find this offensive, and it probably belongs in negative stereotypes category, but that would put the negative stereotype category somewhere way into the 80-90% range, and we can't have that can we? So what can you do to battle this stereotype? Everything mentioned above. Learn to talk the talk, put together a portfolio, and present yourself in a professional manner no one can say that you haven't “acclimated” to the civilian world, because by then you have pretty much become an expert.