One of the hardest aspects of my transition from military service, was the difficulty in figuring out what roles to pursue. I didn’t have confidence in my understanding of the job descriptions, and didn’t know how to be sure if a role was truly a growth position. It likely prevented me from chasing some opportunities that would have been great for my development.
The difficulty didn’t vanish once I finally ‘made it’ to my idea of the tech industry. I’ve definitely had fulfilling assignments and roles, but the same doubts from my transition creep up when I work on career planning and goal-setting. For years, I’ve been considering a pivot into a more technical area of program management, and the transition is very possible given the experience I’ve collected along the way. But when an opportunity came up, I had to check myself and really make sure that it was what I wanted.
I had a bit of ‘trauma’ from my 2 year transition between Army and Google, where I took on questionable roles because I felt the need to “just get my foot in the door” or because I didn’t feel “qualified” enough for more exciting options. I let myself down because I hadn’t done enough to understand what I really wanted. This mentality crept back into my head when I realized: “Oh man, I could actually apply and complete this career pivot!”
The more important realization came later: I have a pretty good thing going in my current role. I’ve worked with my managers over the years to form it into something that is compelling, has impact, and grows the skills I need to reach my personal (and business) goals. The only true difference between my current role and my ideal role, is the specific product area; much of the daily work is the same.
While struggling with the decision of whether to pursue the new role, I explained the situation to one of my mentors. He introduced me to the “Seven signposts of high potential leaders,” a white paper on the most essential indicators to predict career performance. Put simply (at least in my opinion), it is a simple framework to evaluate yourself and career: not just about your strengths and weaknesses, but also your preferences, which are just as important!
Courtesy of Korn Ferry International.
I learned the definitions and measurements of these signposts, then began to evaluate myself for strengths and weaknesses. I assessed my current role for the ability to develop those areas, and enjoy the work. I found that my current role (now and in the future) provides great chances to work on the areas of interest; it made me realize that I’d found a lot of the type of work I wanted to do.
For those of you who don’t have the current role, this helps you understand yourself better and it helps you measure your opportunities against your preferences. It would definitely be harder to use before having true corporate experience, but I wish I had known about it during my days of bouncing around recruitment firms and technical skill courses. I’m always trying to advise veterans against a common misconception: they think they don’t have the necessary technical skills to work in the tech industry. That’s how I was, and it caused me to sell myself short when considering some applications.
Using the signposts as a guide and conversations with peers, mentors, and managers, I determined a couple of very important things. First, the ‘new’ role did not quite have the amount of strategy development I like to have on a regular basis. Second, my current role has a shorter path to direct leadership, which I really enjoy. Understanding my preferences and how they fit with the new job, made me much more confident when I decided to withdraw the candidacy.
When you are transitioning from service and trying to spot where you might fit in, self-awareness is a beautiful thing. It will help you better relate your military background to potential tech careers. It will help you choose which positions to prioritize with your limited resources. It will help you ensure that you end up in a role that actually works for you. And it just might save you valuable time and energy that you may expend seeking credentials, when all you really may need is a bit of focused research and the right networking interaction.
There are surely many frameworks that would work for this purpose, but I can at least say from experience that this one is easy to understand, and a good return on the investment. If you find this of interest, consider the more in-depth “Assessment of Leadership Potential Manual” and let me know if it helps you!
