Top "8 Things" Tip #2: If Location is Important, Work For It

This topic is near and dear to my heart, since I've spent a signficant amount of time in my career attempting to solve for my location preference. After West Point, my first duty station was Ft. Lewis outside Tacoma, WA.  During my 3 1/2 years at Lewis, I fell in love with the Northwest....literally.  Of course the landscape here is beautiful, but I also met and married my wife. (She grew up in Western Washington and was attending the University of Washington at the time.)  Ultimately the Army took us other places, but we always had a preference to settle down in the Northwest to raise a family. It's taken a lot of hard work and some tough decisions to finally get back to the Seattle area, but it was important to us; Here is my advice on for location.

Determine how important living where YOU want to live is to you (and your family). Is it something that you need to solve for now or can you be happy just working toward a particular location over the course of your career...OR...do you not care at all? If you don't care at all, that is great....you will certainly give yourself more opportunity for employment having true geographical flexbility...and the JMO recruiters will love you(we'll talk about them in my next post); however, if you do truly have a location preference, plan on working harder and taking more time to find a job that will take you to your preferred location.  Most JMO recruiters will "coach" you to tell all employers that you are geographically flexible, because they want you to get the most exposure possible to all possible job opportunities. (This also gives them a better chance of placing you in a job...and getting paid.)

Only you can determine how important location is for you and your family. There are 2 specific actions I recommend if you are focused on a particular geography:

1) Network, network, network. This topic will be covered more in a future post because of its importance,  but there are plenty of tools on the internet that allow you to track down people living and working in the geography you likely prefer. The ISABRD and AOG sites for academy graduates), or LinkedIn, University Alumni associations are good places to start looking for someone to reach out to. Often many of you may know people in locations where you want to live....don't hesitate to drop an e-mail. Additionally, depending on where you want to live, there are sometimes career conferences and recruiters in many of these regions, and I encourage you to attend these events and connect with these organizations. It can never hurt to establish some direct contacts with people in the area you are looking to settle. There are plenty of veterans out there looking to help other veterans, so don't be shy...but always be respectful.

2) Go back to school in the area you want to settle down in. Find a school in the area you want to live and go back to school full-time for a graduate degree (MBA, Engineering, Leadership).  Of course, you will need to determine what type of program you are interested in, but you have already started to assess your interests, which is a good place to start. Going to school will give you more time to figure out exactly what you want to do, and will give you great access to internship and networking opportunities through the university's career office. If I would've figured this out when I was leaving the Army, I would've been in Seattle a long time ago...guaranteed.  Full-time school may not seem like the easiest decision, but for the most part you will likely never be more detached from large financial obligations than you are when first leaving the military. I will discuss this more in another post, but trust me, if you can swing it financially, do it!

Top "8 Things" Tip #1: Get to Know Yourself....WELL!

This may sound silly to you, but if you don't read any other post on my blog, this is the most important thought I can share with you. Your biggest challenge during your transition period should be making sure you UNDERSTAND YOURSELF...what you like to do and what you don't like to do. As a leader in the military, you probably have a better sense of yourself than most, BUT you really only know yourself in the military environment. You need to get to know your true-self again....outside of the military filters.

Take some time to just think about and ponder what you love to do and what

types of  tasks you are naturally prone to enjoying. At this point, don't even 

start to think about specific jobs, careers, companies. At this point, just do a 

little dreaming about what you think the ideal type of tasks you might enjoy 

doing are. (The typical temptation at this point is to jump right into jobs and 

thinking about how you will make money....do not go there yet.  At some 

point, I will suggest that you to do some realistic assessments of which 

direction seems most reasonable given your situation, but there will be plenty 

of time later to immerse yourself in reality. For now, just do some 

self-introspection.)

Ask yourself a few of the following questions to get your brainwaves moving:

- What types of things do I enjoy doing in my free time?

- What types of jobs/tasks did I enjoy doing as a child?

- What is my dream job (one that I would do for free)?

- What did I enjoy about the military? What did I not enjoy?

- What subjects did I like studying in high school/college?

- What am I good at? What skills do I have? 

- What am I not good at?

- What sort of environment do I do my best work in?

- What type of environment would I hate to work in?

- What motivates me?

It can be helpful to start notebook or some document to capture your initial thoughts and 

reactions to these questions.

These questions are only the beginning of determining what might be the right career for

you...because this is an individual journey, this should be an individual exploration. If you 

don't spend time doing this you will likely find it difficult to find the right direction for your

life and career. Again, we will get to a point where I suggest that you do some research on 

industries, companies, etc, but for now just focus on understanding the most

important person in your life...YOU.

Here are a few tools, sites, books that I have found helpful in learning more 

about myself,my strengths, my interests. There are many out there....these 

are just tools and resources I have come across over the last 10 years that I 

have found personally useful. You are welcome to find your own and post 

them on the blog in the comments section. (please include a brief explanation

of what you liked about the tool, site, resource.)

Enjoy Exploring....your search has begun!

Resources: 

Internet sites

http://www.humanmetrics.com/--free Jungian Type/Myers-Briggs test on this 

site.  Gives you a 4 letter identifier for your personality that will open up lots 

of resources. Once you know your type, use your favorite engine to find a 

wealth of info.

http://www.personalitypathways.com/ -----site which provides lots of info on 

Myers Briggs, which is a great starting ensuring you know yourself.

http://www.personalitypage.com/html/careers.html --provides more Myers-

Briggs info,including potential career fields.

http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-StrengthsFinder-20.aspx

Strengthsfinder 2.0 --is a book which you can purchase that gives you a code 

to take their test.  This can help you determine what your strengths are and 

how to understand and leverage them for success.

Books (available on amazon)

"Do What You Are", Tieger & Barron.

"What's Your Type of Career", Dunning.

"Well, what are you going to do?"

So you've had a successful career in the military, but have decided that you'd like to take your life in a new direction.

In 2002, I was facing this exact same challenge.  I came home from work and told my wife that I was going to leave the Army...and her response was "well, what are you going to do?" After pausing for a moment to consider her question, my response was also succinctly, simple, "I am going to get a job, just like everyone else does."

This simple answer set me on the traditional transition path of working with JMO headhunters and finding a job.  I then proceeded to spend the next 10 years of my professional life "trying on" jobs and companies, while STILL trying to determine exactly where I was supposed to fit in the civilian world. Over those 10 years, I've had the opportunity to work for large public corporations, US and European-based, as well as smaller private companies. I've worked in manufacturing and operations, the retail industry, in market research and marketing...I've worked closely with sales people.  I've gotten a really good sense of what theses types of roles and companies offer to JMOs coming from the military.

I wrote this JMOHelp blog, with the intention of helping JMOs find their own career direction BEFORE entering the workforce and avoiding the most common pitfalls of transitioning into the civilian world. I am not a recruiter...I simply want to help JMOs find their career direction and provide any coaching I can that will enable them to find the right job...not just any job.

I look forward to sharing my experiences with you on this blog.  The first posts I will share with you are entitled "10 Things Every JMO Should Know When Leaving the Military."

I compiled this list of  "8 Things" over the last 10 years from 100s of hours of conversations with classmates, peers, colleagues and friends who have struggled with finding the right career and company for them after successful careers in the military. It is by no means inclusive of everything you will need to think about, but taking some time to consider these 10 simple things will put you in a much better position to find your way more easily than 99% of your peers who will simply take the path of least resistance. I've tried to limit suggestions to the most critical issues and concerns I think JMOs should be thinking about when determining what they want to do with the rest of their life. I hope you enjoy this blog and my suggestions and wish you the best of luck in your search.