Transitioning From a Military Career to a Civilian Career
Congratulations!
You made it through boot camp, training pipelines, your first duty station, a deployment (or 10), and now you’re ready to make the leap into the great unknown of civilian life! How can you prepare yourself effectively to make the transition?
Plan it!
You don’t want to enter into your new life without a plan. The military has taught you how to take control of your professional trajectory, and why stop that now? Start first with getting a copy of your VMET (Verification of Military Experience and Training). This will list out in plain English your skills, knowledge, and experience, and will also suggest civilian career options for you to consider looking into with a transition.
Once you have your VMET in hand, you can start looking at what you really want to be when you grow up. Sitting down with a transition assistance office can help, but so can connecting with a recruiter that specializes in your background (shoot us a message if you’re a technical background type!). Career assessments/resume reviews are often free of charge, and they can help you to identify where you are lacking in terms of relatable skills or certifications needed to be successful. You can also utilize the CareerOneStop website, which is sponsored by the Department of Labor. They offer free skills assessments, career exploration tools, and much more!
Assess Yourself!
Here comes the tough reality for a lot of service members; you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake (but you are always special to us and your loved ones), and you aren’t guaranteed 100k+ when you first get out of the military (with some exceptions). How can we say something so controversial and yet so true?
It’s also worth knowing that you make more in active duty service than you realize, which you need to have in your head with transitioning into the civilian workforce to understand that you’re likely taking a pay cut.
Married E-5 over 6 years of service, accounting for non-taxable income conversion to taxable and benefits that are not normally considered for active duty members
The truth behind the military is that you may be making more than you think that you actually are. For instance, an E-5 over 6, married, taking in Basic Allowance for Housing and Sustenance (BAH and BAS) in Bremerton, WA, has a TAXABLE equivalent income of around $90-100k per year when you take into account healthcare, dental, vision, and non-taxable income converting to taxable income.
Your civilian counterparts are also going to be years ahead of you in terms of relatable experience and education. There are ways to stay competitive and to best position yourself to succeed, however!
Earn a Certification!
The military is great at offering certifications at no cost to you as a service member! These certifications go a long way to bolstering your resume and can give you more professional consideration than a standard applicant. Army COOL, Navy COOL, Air Force COOL, and Marine COOL are all available, and we HIGHLY recommend taking advantage of their programs as much as you can before you have to pay for these services as a civilian!
Great certifications that you can earn include Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP), Project Management Professional (PMP), Professional in Human Resources (PHR), and Uniformed Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Earn a Degree! (or work towards one)
According to Indeed, a professional with a bachelor’s degree earns approximately 43% more than someone with an associate degree, and over a 100% increase over someone with a high school degree only. An associate degree can, on average, will net you 7% more than someone with just some college under their belt and 47% over someone with just a high school degree.
By these numbers, you would stand to have an earning potential (as in not promised, but a probability increase) of about 40% higher if you were to just have college work towards a degree. It is in your absolute best interest to work towards higher education if you want to be competitive in the civilian work force!
There are plenty of military-friendly colleges that you can apply to and attend, most of which that also offer virtual options for enrollment and attendance. Western Governor’s University is one of our favorites being that they are a not for-profit university that allows you to complete your program on your time, and they don’t cost an arm and a leg to attend! They are internationally recognized for their programs and approach to higher education, and are definitely worth a look to see if they are right for your career goals.
Get Out and Meet People!
Look, at some point in your professional career, you’re going to need to network. It’s often-times not what you know, but who you know, that can land you the job of your dreams. Creating an online presence that shows off your knowledge and skills can also be incredibly helpful! Here are a few tips:
Create a LinkedIn profile, and fill it out targeting the type of work or industry that you are wanting to get into. Connect with people with similar backgrounds and hiring managers in the field that you want to be in. It doesn’t hurt to reach out with the connection request with a simple “Hey! I am a transitioning service member and I’m really interested in your field/company. Would you be willing to connect with me and offer me some advise on how to best break into your field?”. 90% of the time, you’ll not only get a new connection, but you’ll also get a good look at you before you apply to any roles that they may be trying to fill.
LinkedIn also has a year of free Premium for veterans (that may or may not still be able to be claimed more than once. Your mileage may vary).
Join Facebook groups that are centered around veteran hiring, career resources, and mentorship. For Navy Nuclear veterans, we always highly recommend Navy Nuke Job Finder (both on Facebook and LinkedIn). These groups can help you to network, ask questions and get first-hand knowledge, see what kinds of jobs are out there, and connect with recruiters that are wanting to secure your talents for their companies/clients.
Attend job fairs and networking conferences! Job fairs aren’t glamorous, but they help you to get in front of hiring managers and decision makers. Networking conferences will also allow you to network with industry professionals that may one day become colleagues for you, or maybe even hiring managers that would remember you favorably from a talk you had at one of these events!
Even after you find the job of your dreams, never stop networking! You never know when you may one day need to look for new work, or when you may be looking to fill a team with people that you’ve met and have the skills that you’re looking for.
What’s next?
In our next articles, we’ll discuss job hunting, interviewing, and negotiating, which are critical steps in finding that career of your dreams.
About the Author
Donald Hible, MBA, CMRP
Don Hible, MBA, CMRP, is a Navy Veteran from the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program. He served from 2004 until 2016, and has held positions post-service in the federal government, food manufacturing, field service, maintenance and reliability, cannabis, textiling, and recruiting fields. He currently owns DH Staffing, LLC, which focuses on finding the right talent for the right fit with the right clients. He currently resides in Texarkana, Arkansas, and is a part of the local veteran community. He enjoys helping people achieve there career goals and seeing people flourish in their career fields.