Paying it Forward: Lessons Learned from my Military Transition

A year ago, I hung up my uniform for the last time.

Well, that's hyperbole. I had been on terminal leave for months, so in reality my transition from Army captain to civilian was a regular Friday in Nashville as I sported a beard, shaggy hair, and gym shorts. I'm confident I changed into jeans and a button-down to go get something to eat that night.

I had been planning my departure from the Army since the spring of the year prior. I first went to the May '18 "Service Academy Career Conference," or SACC, in Washington, D.C. I was there to "test the waters," which was another way of saying I was there to meet a hiring manager named serendipity from Facebook, McKinsey, Amazon, or Lockheed Martin and get my dream job over drinks at the hotel bar. I see you noticed Goldman Sachs wasn't on that list. We'll get there. The lesson from the SACC is if your elevator pitch to recruiters is "I think I would be the right fit in a project manager role," you better be an engineer with a PMP. Otherwise you just told Google, "I have no idea how to be of value to you, I just want a job." The recruiter from Google told me that.

I came back to Fort Campbell with a handful of business cards and a few "Stay in touches" that grew stale with time. But I was still very much in the Army, and very much a time-strapped company commander (Best job ever. If you're a 1st Lieutenant reading this article, delete your LinkedIn and go to the Career Course now). With a GMAT score on the bubble, I applied to business schools all arguably in the top ten and was invited to interview with two of them. Jackpot. I was an extrovert - gregarious and confident in my interpersonal skills. I had been saying over and over again to those close to me that if I could just get an interview, I could take care of the rest.

I was not as great an interviewer as I thought - in hindsight. Terrible in fact. I treated a business school interview like a social conversation with my battalion commander when I should have treated it like a structured discussion with my brigade commander. To use a Ranger school metaphor, I led my platoon eight clicks through the Dagobah System that is the swamps of Florida, straight to the objective, just to have the machine guns fail at the initiation of the ambush. For all the work I put into chasing a dream, I self-selected out with the whimper that is the email which starts with "There has been a change to your application status."

At the same time I was applying to business school, I was applying to Goldman Sachs' Veterans Integration Program. It was essentially a two month paid internship for transitioning veterans with the possibility of earning a job offer. In 2019, the spring program lined up well with entering business school in the fall, so it was an opportunity that had infinite upside and no downside. So how did I, who came up short in business school interviews, at virtually the same time succeed in interviewing at Goldman Sachs?

The lesson here is simple but often forgotten - know your audience. Always. My business school interviews were with professional admissions directors who approach interviews through the macro lens of, what is best for the school this year? And they have hundreds, if not thousands, of interviews under their belts to easily quantify an interviewee along a rubric. At Goldman Sachs, I interviewed with the people who did the job I wanted to do. I was having a conversation with my battalion commander again, not that I knew it at the time. The Goldman Sachs format for that particular set of interviews was my luck. Don't let it be luck or misfortune for you - control risk by knowing your audience.

Why Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs? Veterans have multiple versions of themselves, and I am no different. One version of me is the warrior who applied to be the head of security at Gillette Stadium. Another version is the foreign affairs specialist who applied to be an East Asia Analyst at U.S. Army Pacific Command in Hawaii. Yet another is the company commander who nearly became an Amazon fulfillment center manager. Ultimately, the part of my military identity I valued most was being a servant leader, so I opted for a career serving families and leading talented teams.

Everyone needs to figure out, on their own, what version of themselves they wish to be. Employers will attempt to tell you what version is best for you -- we are normalized to this from military careers where every three years we are told what our next assignment is. When an employer tells you "You would fit in here doing x," recognize the good feeling in your brain as a replication of the 360 feedback you received and gave as a professional in combat arms.

Whether you pursue higher education, enter the workforce, or start a business (or some hybrid of those), time (not money) is your most important resource during your transition. I had 18 months and in the beginning I ran to each new opportunity like a newborn deer. 18 months was barely enough time to make mistakes, learn from mistakes, and discover the opportunity that was right for me. Give yourself enough time and through the good, bad, and the ugly, you will be in the driver seat of your transition.