Making the Most of Military Contacts
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If there’s one thing that’s true about the military, men and women in the military like to help out their own. It’s what military training is all about: discipline and looking out for your brethren. This same ethic applies when you leave the military and start looking into a post-military career. You should look into using your military contacts to help enter the job market.
Contacting Familiar and Unfamiliar Military ContactsYou don’t even necessarily need to rely on people in the military you served with personally, though this is certainly where you should start. In any location across the U.S., or even overseas, you’ll find that former military personnel are willing to help out those who have been in the service. First, contact those men and women you served with. Next, contact people via local veteran’s agencies, job fairs , and social meetups to start networking with veterans who could potentially help you in the future.
If you know someone who works in a management capacity, all the better, but even having a contact in an industry who doesn’t necessarily have hiring-power can be helpful. At the very least, the person can give you a sense of what a particular job entails, and at best he or she can act as a reference or recommendation to the company’s recruiters.
Networking to Find a Postmilitary Job If you are at all undecided about which career to enter into, these contacts can help steer you in a certain direction. You can learn about different industries via your contacts and narrow down your career path. If you know your career path and you have military contacts in that industry, then you should think no further about contacting them. As mentioned, military personnel like to help out their own, so the process of networking will be that much either. Of course, nothing is guaranteed, but if you mention your military experience upfront, this can be very helpful when setting up network contacts.
Keep in Touch with Military PersonnelAll this is a major reason why you should stay in touch with people once you leave the service. By no means is it the only reason, but it’s a big one. You’ve got to take the initiative: pick up the phone, send out emails, visit your local Veterans Administration, join local veterans’ groups, and generally network with people you meet in everyday life. Once a person is in the military, they’re military for life, even if their years serving are well behind them, so you can use this to your advantage and give yourself a leg up when entering the increasingly competitive job market.
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