So, youÕre thinking of leaving active duty?
Thank you for your service. Our country needs and appreciates people like you who uproot their civilian lives to put themselves in harmÕs way to defend our liberties.
Whether you enlisted right out of school or left civilian employment to go into harms way, there are many decisions for you to make now in preparing yourself to get back in the action of business and family. Above all, you should start your planning to prepare yourself mentally and to design the tools which will get you back into the swing of civilian life as early as possible after youÕve made the decision to leave.
If you enlisted after school and never really had a civilian job, the in-service experience you have had will be most beneficial. There wonÕt be many businesses which will use your experience in arms and armaments. Should one of the munitions manufacturing companies have facilities where you wish to relocate, however, by all means make application there; your experience will certainly be weighed in consideration of employment in the industry.
But, properly presented, other experiences you gained in your years in the service may also be the road to finding a civilian job in general business. Facility you may have gained with computers, skills developed in operating and maintaining autos and machinery, in maintaining records for your unit, or as military policeman all count.
If you attained rank and had positive experience in planning for and directing the activities of a group, this kind of background may be especially interesting to a prospective employer looking for a budding manager.
Key to success in this, after your positive attitude, will be a well-prepared resume putting these skills before a prospective employer. It should be pointed out that, to be effective, the resume must present you as a sharpshooter would take aim at a target; one resume, like a special round for each talent, aimed only at the target employer who you think will be interested in that talent.
If you present all your experiences in your resume to all prospects, it may be taken as a grenade would to a group in the battlefield Š everyone takes cover!
Once you have made your decision to leave, get letters of recommendation from your unit commander and search out the office in your military organization which will help you to make a meaningful resume, or get help on the internet to prepare one.
As an example of how important this is and how it can work for you, I give you the experience of my son, just out of school years ago, who was sent by an employment agency with six other applicants to Ōstuff envelopesÕ at a major firm in New York City - a menial job designed to make them a little money in the short term while waiting for a real opportunity. Most of his confreres went to this activity in jeans and tee shirts; he went in a suit and tie with his resume in his pocket. When they broke for lunch he asked for the humanities department and presented his resume. He was hired on the spot and is still with the industry in a management position.
Many others of you will have had civilian employment which was terminated by you enlisting or having been in a reserve unit and called up for service. The law requires your employer to take you back in the same job.
Sounds good? It may not be as easy as it sounds.
Think of it in the eyes of the employer: if you had been any good in your job and made the position important, after you left the boss certainly has had to hire and train someone to replace you. In a small firm, this may pose a real hardship to add you back without firing the new hire he has just trained and worked with. Even in a larger firm, you yourself may find that the old job doesnÕt have the ŌzingÕ for you as it did before you left. And certainly there will be some strain in the relationship between you and the boss to make it different working there now.
If it works out for you, fine. It may not, however, so I suggest you take all the preparatory steps IÕve given above to the youngsters in preparing yourself mentally and with a good resume before you leave your outfit. Stress the military or previous employment experience as you see fit to make you most desirable.
Here I have another example, this from personal experience:
I left for active duty in the navy in 1951 expecting to find my old job waiting for me when I returned. Before being called up, I was working as estimator for a structural steel company with a small office on 42nd Street in Manhattan. I had been hired when I turned up right out of school looking for a job with their sister company in the Shipbuilding Industry listed at the same address with a yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. I had a license in the merchant marine from my school but the merchant fleet in 1948 was a shadow of its WWII strength and there were few seagoing billets to be had, and lots of guys like me on the beach. The Shipbuilding Industry was an option for me, but the shipbuilding division in New York had only one representative and was not hiring.
So, even though the Structural Steel Industry was not one I would have chosen given the chance, I knuckled down to find out what it was about.
I had been with them for three years and was working toward a position which would allow me to show my strengths Š direct work with customers and prospects when I was called up. They said the job would be there when I returned. The law called specifically for that and when I left I was not worried about my future when my Korean War service ended.
But what met me on my return to civilian life was a complete surprise.
The company had saved a slot for me alright, but someone else was doing the work I had been before leaving. As I said, I had recognized that my strength was in direct sales and had been working toward a job with direct customer contact. But the job they offered when I returned was in the office, writing letters to prospects in other cities ~ not at all what I had been working toward. I was being paid though, so I started answering Ōwant adsÕ in the New York Times.
I saw an ad which promised to train me for starting my own business as a manufacturerÕs representative. I wasnÕt sure my wife would go along with a move to the Midwest or somewhere else. But I would be paid in training and there would be lots of time to shift gears if it didnÕt work out with this company.
It was in the heating, ventilating and air conditioning industry (HVAC), a technology I was familiar with from my training as a marine engineer. The plant and offices were in New Jersey, a two hour trip each way every day, but jobs were scarce.
My resume featured my successful experience operating a department on a ship, and handling groups of men in service under trying circumstances, my engineering training and experience, as well as my three years with the steel company. I interviewed with the company, was accepted and decided to take the job. I gave notice and was assured a positive letter of recommendation.
I took the training and waited for an assignment.
Then it was announced that the company had been sold! I held my breath, waiting for the information as to whom it had been sold. If the buyer was an industry company, there would be no need for tyros like me. But it turned out that the buyers knew little about the industry; their interest was that there was lots of profit and the purchase price for the company was right.
Now, fully trained in the industry, young and looking for a challenge, I was primed to move up. I remained with the company for twenty years, moving from trainee to managing the New York Office; becoming the first field sales manager traveling to train sales agents throughout the country; to Vice President. When an opportunity came to turn around a bankrupt for another company in the industry, I took the task on as President and in six years successfully re-established them as a public company on the American Exchange.
This by no means was the end of my business adventures ~ and mis-adventures ~ but I learned that the very personal drives which had brought me through a gun duel in Wonsan Harbor and a mine hit in the Korean War on our destroyer could be used to keep an even keel in civilian life as well.
You, too, can be successful in finding employment if you keep a positive attitude and plan in advance to put yourself in a positive light to a company.
Best wishes and, again, thank you for your service.
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