"When in Rome"...Learn the Language!

When Saint Monica and her son Saint Augustine were wanting to visit Rome, they learned Saturday's were observed as Rome's day of fasting. However, in their home town of Milan, Saturday was not an observed fast day. After consulting with Saint Ambrose (he spent much of his professional time in both cities), he said "When I am here (in Milan) I do not fast on Saturday, when in Rome I do fast on Saturday."

Saint Ambrose was essentially saying that it is advisable to follow the conventions of the area in which you are residing or visiting. Since you'll be visiting your transition soon or educating others entering the process, think of your transition as 'Rome' and learn to speak its language. Learning a new language takes time, so the earlier you begin, the more likely (and often) you'll be successful.

STEP 1 - START NOW!

When understanding the TOP 3 CHALLENGES facing transitioning service members are (1) finding comparable post-military work, (2) matching jobs with military jobs/skills, (3) translating military jobs/skills to civilian jobs, you have to invest time in your transition process early and often. This isn't to say it should be your full-time focus, but knowing that learning a new language takes time, begin your military-to-civilian job translation studies now!

STEP 2 - TRANSLATE YOUR MILITARY JOB

Translating years of military jargon on your resume into civilian terms is challenging. Finding a mentor that's recently been through a successful transition process and picking their brain is essential. Ask for a copy of their resume for reference--it'll remove much of the resume writing stress.

"Over 250,000 service?members transition into the civilian workforce each year, and unfortunately?it's all too hard to find that first job coming out of the military," said Nick Zakrasek, product manager and co-founder of Google for Jobs.

Google launched an easy-to-use 'Jobs for Veterans' resource where service members enter their military job code and a series of translated jobs will be displayed. Watch the below short video from a former soldier-turned Google data scientist to learn more about it.

Click the link above or to the right (depending on device) and enter your military job code on the next page.

Once you find your translated jobs, use the civilian job descriptions to effectively translate military-to-civilian terminology to your resume and LinkedIn profile.

STEP 3 - MAKE LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS

Type your military job code in the search box, select the 'People' filter and begin to make 'Connections'. With over 590 million LinkedIn members, you may actually personally know a few people already--connect with them.

After you've built a small network of military people, start connecting with people (especially recruiters and talent acquisition specialists) in fields and locations you're looking to transition. You'll gain a lot of information from their posts and start seeing available job opportunities. Again, use those civilian job opportunity descriptions to update you resume and LinkedIn profile.

STEP 4 - MILITARY TRANSITION LANGUAGE FLUENCY

The Department of State's Foreign Service Institute indicates that it takes between 480 and 720 hours to reach basic fluency in new languages. The popular Rosetta Stone? language Learning software (not the stone carved during the?Hellenistic period) explains that, with their software, it takes between 120 and 200 hours to reach basic fluency in a new language. Unfortunately, 'Military Transition' is not yet one of Rosetta Stone's 28 available languages.

Either way, learning a new language will take time. If you realistically invest 1 PERCENT of your time (15 minutes per day of the daily 1,440 minutes) learning the transition language, you could be fluent in just under 3 years (1,200 days). Up that to 30 invested minutes per day and you'll cut that time in half!

Transition is a process, NOT an event and it happens to us all eventually. The earlier you take control of your transition, even in small bites, the better equipped you'll be for a successful military transition.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:?Matt Quick ?retired from the U.S. Army in January 2019 after 25 years of active service and settled between Raleigh & Fayetteville, North Carolina.?He's dedicated his professional life assisting people in taking control of their careers. Matt's a Certified Digital Networking & Career Coach, works with Project Management Institute (PMI) as a Military & Veteran focused outreach, and subsequently volunteers his time as Executive Director for?Dylan Quick Foundation and Vice President for Veteran & Retirement Programs for the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) - Braxton Bragg Chapter.