“If I’m selling to you, then I speak your language. If I’m buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen [then you have to speak German].
Willy Brandt, former German Chancellor
At the recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) annual conference in June a unique two day program called “Military Veterans: Transitioning Skills to the New Economy” was held. One of the key take a ways was the importance of translating your military skills to the business world. The title of the summary article says it all: Translating Talent from Military to Civilian Jobs.
This is a brutal fact that’s really difficult for military service members and veterans to deal with. In the military there wasn’t a need to translate your skill set. Each soldier, sailor, airman and marine wore their resume on their uniform. Your rank, military specialty, unit and awards were all on display for your fellow service members to see.
“If I’m selling to you I speak your language’’
In your military transition and job search there’s an important but difficult mindset shift that needs to occur. You need to realize that it’s a necessity to translate your military expertise explicitly for your future employer. You can’t assume that the person interviewing you will be able to figure and interpret what you are saying. If the person reading your resume or interviewing doesn’t understand how you fit you will be rejected. Harsh but true.
But how do you translate this great work experience you’ve accumulated in the military? It doesn’t start by reviewing your military skills but by understanding the language of your customer – your future employer. It requires an outside –in perspective.
As the former German Chancellor Willy Brandt stated in the introduction quote – “If I’m selling to you I speak your language.’’ I love this quote because it gets to the heart of the matter – if you are selling something (including yourself) in a *foreign* context than you better speak the language of the customer. And to your hiring manager and their HR staff the military is a *foreign* language.
Conversational in the language of business not necessarily fluent
Now you don’t need to be fluent just conversational in the language of business. How well do you need to speak? It depends. Enough to be able to interpret a company’s business, their challenges and environment and make the connections to your military skills and experience. In my experience it’s best to have a basic understanding of the different levels of business from a macro-economic level down to the individual employee. Think of it as a funnel from a wide global perspective to the role of the individual:
- Macro-economic / global developments – think of globalization, the huge increase in the global middle class and sustainability as examples.
- Industry and strategy trends – what are the specific trends in the major industry sectors and what kind of strategies are used to adjust. For example, much of the global manufacturers have reacted to decreasing profit and rising labor costs by outsourcing much of their work to Asia.
- Basic understanding of a business’ financial model – you don’t need to be an account but you do need to understand the basic company profit model. Financial indicators such as profit and assets are important measures of value for a company.
- Overview of the organizational structure – get a feel for the different functions and departments in a company. What is their purpose? How do they interact with other departments? Is there a similar role in the military?
- Cross function company-wide initiatives & projects - there are a number of continuous company -wide initiative happening at most companies to include quality, safety & compliance, new product development, expansion to new markets, etc. Many of these have similar counterparts to the military.
- Individual and team trends – and finally at the individual and team level there are a number of developments in terms of how work is done. One of the most important ones, for example, is the move to knowledge workers and how this affects managers and individual employees.
You don’t need to be an expert at any one area but you do need to be familiar with these concepts. Speaking conversational business will allow you to make the connection between what’s happening with your customer and how your skills and experience can be relevant to their business.
Two ways to learn: self taught vs. formal education
Now that you have a feeling about what you need to learn the next logical question is how do you acquire this knowledge. There are really only two ways to learn about business – teaching yourself or obtaining a formal education.
Self Taught
- DIY (do it yourself) – For certain positions a military service member can teach themselves enough about business to translate their skills and win the position. A company that is military-friendly and has a formal military training program (such as one for Junior Military Officers) may not require any formal business degree.
One could read business books, daily financial news papers ( Wall Street Journal, Financial Times ), business magazines (think Business Week , Fortune , The Economist and Fast Company, to name a few) and a number of business blogs (too many to list here) and get enough knowledge to succeed. Again, it depends on the position and the skill level of the military veteran.
- Structured learning – another type of learning yourself is what I called structured learning. You are learning by yourself but you are following a methodology, guidance or a reading list from someone else. A good example here is Personal MBA . This is a great website that provides a reading list and community about educating yourself on business.
Formal Education
- Individual university or college classes – In addition to teaching yourself you can take formal business courses at a university or college. This can be at a school or virtually through an online training program.
- Graduate degree: MBA – The highest level of business education is a Masters of Business Administration or MBA. The name of the degree can be misleading. You are studying administration but general management. Programs can be anywhere from 1 to 2 years long and be university based or online. This is an important but complex topic which I’ll cover separately in other posts.
All good marketers speak the language of their customers and you need to do this as well. Before you begin translating your skills make sure you learn the language of business. Consider business a *foreign* language where you need to be conversational. Not only will this mindset help you translate your skills but it will help you really understand the type of work and environment you will be getting into in your first post-military position.
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