The first article had a high level and potentially long term perspective of the transition process into civilian life. This article is going to lay out the framework for the actual transition process. This framework will be the scaffolding around which there will be the steps to a successful transition. This article is written with a best case (ie: most time) scenario in mind: That being a twilight tour where you. However, the timelines can be compressed to fit shorter timelines.
Step 1: Protect Your Downside
Timeline: 36 months out
I’m not sure if it’s accurate or not, but Warren Buffet allegedly has two rules of investing and they go like this: 1) Don’t lose money, 2) See rule #1. It’s very reminiscent of Fight Club, but the rules make a good point: minimize your downside, and inherent in that is the upside exposure you increase your chances of running into. By reducing your downside, you increase your likelihood of being able to play again the next day, and sometimes that is all you need. Don’t put yourself in a position where you are unable to ‘play the game’ – whatever that means to you. For this site, that is largely focused on employment. So, if you are going to be submitting a disability claim, make sure you are on top of that. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you are eligible for disability, but have a large gap between your last day and when you start getting paid because you filed late. By being on top of the claim process, you know you have some level of income that can help ease the blow of any gap in employment. If you are retiring, the concept is the same, but there isn’t as much as you need to do to make sure you get paid. If you aren’t expecting any sort of income from your military service once you are out – plan for that. You will never be upset that you saved more money. You should look at your transition process as a long heads up on getting laid off or fired. Most people aren’t given any preparation for that, and that is part of the reason it can be so jarring. You (likely) have the ability to plan for this large event, so take advantage of it.
Step 2: Chart Your Path
Timeline: ~30 months out
Your mileage may vary with this step as it is determined largely based on two things: what you did in the military and what you want to do out of the military. If there is a lot of overlap between your military occupation and desired civilian occupation, this process will be much more about fine tuning your skillset, how you market yourself, or who you talk to. If there is a large gap between the two professions, you may be casting a wider net, aiming for a less niche role, or trying to learn about more industries and roles. The purpose here though is to take a look forward at the civilian world, and begin to work backwards. Find out where your gaps are, or have a better understanding of what you need to do and learn, and move forward from there. You want to do this early in the process so that you have the most time to take advantage of the information you gather.
Step 3: Close the Gap
Timeline: 6-30 months
This step is about making progress on what you learned in step 2. Do you need to get a certification to be competitive? Are there classes you can take, or skills you can learn – the big skill I needed to work on was networking. Start talking to people in your fields of interest to try to learn more about their roles, and what they may recommend. This is where a lot of the work takes place. How much work is required is determined largely by change in occupation.
Step 4: Execute
Timeline: <6 months
This is where the hard work pays off. Simply put, this is the timeframe to land the job offer – hopefully multiple. Most businesses will tell you that they won’t really entertain a candidate outside of 2-3 months prior to availability, but this time line gives you the chance to get some more reps with the job seeking processes. Some things to keep in mind here are that defense contractors want to hire now – if they have a contract they need to fill the position, so depending on how you plan on approaching applying to a job role, you may be overlooked due to availability. Also, startups that have raised money (think venture capital (VC)) often do their planning at the end of the calendar year, and then their hiring early in the new year. So if that is an area you are interested in, keep that in mind and plan accordingly.
Button 1: Entrepreneurship
During my transition, I thought of entrepreneurship as an ‘eject’ button. Ejecting yourself from the job application process – and likely inserting yourself into another, just as hectic, process. This route isn’t for anyone, and while I don’t have experience with it myself, it should be something that you are aware of up front. The grass is likely greener no matter where you end up, but be sure to pick the path that works best for you and your situation.
Button 2: The Elevator Button
This button is to send the elevator back down. Hopefully you reached out or otherwise utilized several resources through this process, and likely many of them were veterans themselves who took time to talk with you, go over a resume, an application, or a mock interview. If that is the case, be sure to pay it forward and help the next person out. I had multiple people say to me something to the effect of “I’m doing this (ie: talking with me) because people did it for me. Make sure you pay it forward as well.” That is in part what this blog is meant to do. As you go through the transition process, hopefully you learn some things along the way, and hopefully you are able to make the path a bit smoother for the next person.
Conclusion
In future posts I’ll start diving into each step in more detail. The goal is to make this roadmap very actionable. All too often transition advice will say things like, “network”, and I at least had no idea what that meant. So hopefully later posts lay out a clear process that will help you through this process.