“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.”
Larry Bossidy, fomer CEO of Allied Signal (Honeywell) and GE executive
Before you begin researching, selecting and applying to your first job in the business world, it’s important to step back and understand the entire process. This process of hiring new employees, called recruitment, is unlike anything you have experienced in the military.
Moving positions in the military is a controlled and structured process. As a lieutenant and captain I had a defined career path in front of me at the platoon, battery and battalion levels. I wasn’t recruited to these positions nor did I have to sell myself. In the business world it’s much different. Here is an overview of the entire process and what it means for you.
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“In recent months, which radical, tree-hugging group has upped the volume on pushing for action on climate change? I bet you wouldn’t have guessed American military leaders.”
-Andrew Winston, co-author of Green to Gold
As you begin researching the world of business, you want to align business opportunities and trends with your skills, strengths and passions. This is a key component of my system to accelerate your military transition success. See Part 2 of the Heroic Journey Series for more details. When I made my transition in the mid 1990s, I focused on the opportunities of globalization and the emerging trend of the Internet to secure a position as an international marketing manager for a US IT company based in Europe. For those of you making your transition now, you may seriously want to focus on the new emerging business imperative for the 21st century – sustainability.
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“Without exception, the CEOs interviewed emphasize that the military offers an early opportunity to acquire hands-on leadership experience that cannot be found in the corporate world or at a similarly early stage in people’s careers.”
-Korn/Ferry International
Does Military Service Help an Executive Become More Successful in Running a Corporation?
This is the question Korn/Ferry International, in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit, sought out to find in a 2005 report called: Military Experience & CEOs: Is There a Link?. Korn/Ferry International is one of the leading executive recruiters in the world, while the Economist Intelligence Unit is a leading research organization focusing on country, industry and management analysis. When these two prestigious organizations come together to discover the relationship between military service and executive effectiveness, you better get your highlighter out.
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