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BY Joel Junker

The Value of Military Transition Coaches: August ’23 Career Conference

We are days away from our August 2023 Conference. We have a great group of junior military officers ready to explore their options in business and fully realize the value of military transition coaches.

Before I jump in with an update on the types of positions and companies attending the Conference, I would like to share one Conference attendee’s story before partnering with Cameron-Brooks.

Doing the Job Search Alone

This JMO is a former Marine Corps Officer who started his career search in the spring of 2023.  He decided to pursue options independently versus partnering with any type of transition organization. He felt confident in his ability to interview and communicate what he had done in the military. He had heard many companies hire veterans, and they would be eager to meet with him.

He successfully set up four interviews over several months. However, none of them turned into employment offers. He could not figure out what he was doing wrong as he felt they went well, and the interviewers expressed interest. Yet, a few days later, he received word they were not moving forward.

Without success on his own, he researched options to help with his search and did an assessment with Cameron-Brooks. He has been in the Cameron-Brooks Development Program for two months, preparing for his upcoming Conference.

Missteps

He told me that the Cameron-Brooks coaching showed his interview strategy was wrong. He made the following mistakes:

• He never understood that the recruiters’ main problem was the open position, so he needed to demonstrate how he could succeed in the role.
• He exclusively focused his research on the company and industry, never learning more about the position limiting his ability to converse with recruiters about the role.
• Asked questions about compensation, benefits, and future career options that came across as selfish instead of asking questions that demonstrated interest in succeeding in the position.
• Not prepared to discuss business topics like agile, Lean, Six Sigma, employee engagement, and risk mitigation. This was a result of limited business reading before the interviews.

The Value of a Coach Along the Way

In my conversation with him today, he explained he was over his head in these interviews. He explained that he is much more confident in his ability to succeed and clearly understands the value of military transition guides by having us in his corner. By working through the Cameron-Brooks Development Program, he learned:

• How to break down a job description and connect it to his resume.
• Ask questions about the nature of work to demonstrate his interest in solving the recruiters’ problem of filling the open position.
• Deliver answers that recruiters easily understand and can relate to business.
• Develop business knowledge to engage in conversational interviews with recruiters confidently.

At Cameron-Brooks, we view ourselves as the guide to help the JMO along the way, point out the choices, likely outcomes, and best practices, and be a sounding board. This guidance and coaching starts on day one in the relationship and continues throughout our Alumni’s career.

The August candidates will experience this focused coaching over the next several weeks as they navigate the Conference and complete follow-up interviews to launch their careers.  And as a result, will completely experience the value of military-to-business transition coaches.

Here is a quick sampling of what we have in store for the August candidates: 

Sample Industries Include:

Medical Devices; Healthcare; Consumer Package Goods (CPG); Oil & Gas; Alternative Energy; Facilities Services; Industrial Gases; Professional Services; Packaging; Robotics; Building Materials; Communications; Specialty Vehicles; and many more.

Sample Positions Include:

Supplier Quality Engineer; Field Clinical Specialist; Production Manager; Sales Analyst; Technical Services Engineer; Director of Special Projects; Six Sigma Black Belt; Senior Financial Analyst; Development Manager; Business Analyst/Project Management; Aftermarket Project Manager; Recruiting Program Manager; Associate Manager, Strategic Customer Insights; Project Engineer; Application Sales Engineer; Automation General Manager; and many more.

If you’d like to learn more about the Cameron-Brooks transition firm advantage, more JMO transition insight for 2023, and how it’s impacted the 2023 Career Conference Candidates, click here.  Additionally, if you are interested in exploring your options with Cameron-Brooks or are curious about how to make a successful transition, I encourage you to call us at 210-874-1500! You can also check out our website and YouTube Channel and follow us on LinkedIn.

As always, stay tuned until next week. We will be back to post the Cameron-Brooks August 2023 Career Conference results. Our JMO candidates will have exciting stories about how mindset brings opportunities.

Joel Junker