The job market is about to be flooded with veterans looking for work.
"By the end of this year alone, more than 100,000 military personnel will leave the service," said retired Lt. Col. John Phillips, who went to work for Coca-Cola after leaving the Army. He predicted that number will skyrocket to as many as 2 million returning veterans in the next five years. Phillips said he made the transition from military to civilian life, but found it so jarring he decided to write a book about it. "The deck is stacked against you right off the bat," he warned.
Why?
Military people communicate differently, he said. There are no political niceties. People say what they mean. Orders are usually clear and direct. That, he said, is not always the case in the civilian world.
“In a civilian job, you stand a much bigger chance of hurting someone’s feelings” than in the military, he observed.
Making matters worse, Phillips said, the military’s efforts to help veterans transition into the civilian job market are not adequate to the task. That’s why he wrote “Boots to Loafers: Finding Your New True North.”
“It’s a compilation of what I wish I knew when I left the military in 1999,” he said.
"Boots to Loafers" is available through www.Amazon.com and at www.bootstoloafers.com.
