Navigating the end of the longest bull market for transitioning veterans
About 250,000 service members transition to civilian life each year. I transitioned from active duty to the “civilian” job market over a decade ago. Since then, I’ve been involved with veteran hiring initiatives across many companies: Ernst & Young, Riot Games, Amazon, and more. At Amazon, I helped ten transitioning service members receive offers as a product or program manager.
Over the past few years, transitioning service members have read and been excited about the unprecedented increases in compensation, perks, and mobility, especially in Big Tech. And these companies are hiring veterans. Amazon alone is committed to hiring 100,000 U.S. Veterans and Military Spouses by 2024. However, the combination of the recession, hiring freezes, and layoffs — 120K layoffs in tech companies alone (layoffs.fyi) — has forced everyone to reevaluate their game plan.
Transitioning veterans must now adopt a “security first” mindset. Security first means many things, but it is most commonly drilled into soldiers during the end of training exercises when soldiers most wanted to eat and sleep. New soldiers quickly learn that eating and sleeping comes after security is established, a withdraw plan is created, communications with headquarters is established, mission preparation and planning is complete, weapons and equipment maintenance, water resupply, and more.
Applied to a civilian career switch, that means gaining the right skills, the right network, and the right mindset before thinking about compensation, titles, and perks.
Skills
Without a doubt, the best thing you can do to level yourself up is to take a coding bootcamp, whether you want to get into a technical role like engineer/product manager or not. Technology is a part of every company now so knowing how to code gives you an advantage over “non-technical” colleagues. Many veterans think being technical requires some innate attribute that only some people have. Also, they want to avoid coding bootcamps because of the time commitment and cost. The Veteran Employment Through Technology Education Courses (VET TEC) program (check eligibility through the link) takes care of the cost and should be considered for every transitioning service member. I just completed a coding bootcamp through VET TEC and vouch for this program.Network
It’s hard to find a Fortune 500 company that doesn’t have an active veteran hiring program or at least a veteran affinity group. While these are great starting points, they are often saturated because everyone focuses their attention there. Most hiring managers are not veterans and don’t have any exposure to veterans and their skill sets. Local industry meetups are a great way to learn and I’ve found many attendees very willing to help. Don’t underestimate your existing network as well — I’ve heard of so many stories that goes something like this, “My brother was in the Navy and did X, is that what you did as well?” I find that many people who have not served are very interested in learning about the heritage of units/branches, even though they may have only heard of the popular units from movies, e.g. 82nd Airborne Division and 101st Airborne Division. You’re job is to hunt for those small discussion starters and connection points.Mindset
Most veterans are given the advice “translate your experiences into something civilians can understand.” I agree to some degree, but I’m pretty sick of hearing veterans contort their interview answers to fit some template and company commanders calling themselves “program managers” on LinkedIn. Leading a 120-person infantry company in combat is not “program management” and we don’t need to force it into “civilian” language. There is no civilian equivalent job and that’s okay.
Those who have served in combat arms and/or combat are also given the advice of “don’t be so aggressive.” To me, being aggressive means ruthlessly pursuing goals in a business context. Business schools and CEOs often promote reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as required business reading. The word strategy itself derives from the Greek word “strategos,” which means “general.” The Romans used the phrase “ars imperatoria” — which means the art of generals — to describe strategy.
You’ll find that most of the meaningful contributions and impact you deliver in your work and industry will be difficult and requires an aggressive, not passive, mindset. Don’t dull that edge, lean into it.