Kevin Bemel ·
How to Get a Job Without Being an Egomaniac
3 minutes to read
After your tenth call goes unreturned or the 50th time you’re overlooked for an interview, it’s easy to think civilians don’t care. It’s demoralizing when a non-veteran gets a job that fits you perfectly. A few months of such striking out makes maintaining a positive attitude tough. You start thinking HR people and hiring managers just talk a good game about hiring vets. They don’t come through when it counts. You’re committing job search sin #3: Treating civilians as liars when they say they support veterans.
The Path to Egomania
A veteran I’ll call Steve (not his real name) told me about his search. He’d been trying to get a job for almost a year. One HR person told him he didn’t have the right qualifications. Another for a similar job said he was overqualified. Time after time he got passed over. In the end, he concluded that civilians were liars. “They don’t want to help us. They just say that to make themselves feel good.”
I asked, “Do you think you’ve successfully hidden your attitude toward civilians?” He admitted they likely picked up on it. “What do you think about a civilian who considers all service members are PTSD time bombs? Would you want to work with such a person?” He told me no. “Why would civilians want to work with you when you have such a bad attitude toward them?”
Steve’s response explained why he hadn’t gotten a job. “Because I’m right and they’re wrong.”
You may think Steve is an extreme example. But replace the word liar with dishonest, lazy, or another derogatory term. Can you honestly say that you’ve never thought or said such a thing about civilians? The military held you to a high standard of conduct. Appalling cases of civilian misconduct make the news. But don’t get fooled into thinking this reflects on the typical non-veteran.
Once you let your ego convince you to scorn the people you’ll have to work with you’re doomed.
Put Your Self-Confidence in the Right Place
You need to gain perspective to solve this issue. Step back and look at the broader picture. Veterans haven’t been as well respected and treated since the end of World War II. And maybe not even then. Plenty of people in the late 1940s complained about service members coming home and stealing their jobs and girls. Have you heard such complaints?
Think about it this way. Suppose you go to China to get a job. No matter how clearly you speak English, the Chinese hiring manager person won’t understand you (unless he does too). If he hasn’t spent any time in the military how can he know how to evaluate your skills and experience?
Americans want to help veterans. But since so few have served in the military they don’t understand what you did. Most of what they know comes from movies and television. How realistic is that?
Instead of complaining about civilians, consider having empathy for them. Help them help you.
- When a civilian thanks you for your service, thank him back for being supportive. Taxpayers paid your salary and for your equipment. What were you fighting for if not the wellbeing of your fellow citizens?
- Take the time to tell civilians about your experiences. Okay, not the bonehead who asks you if you killed anyone. Tell them about something they never saw on TV, like the flight deck of your ship freezing over. Or what it was like providing humanitarian assistance after a disaster.
- Drop the military jargon, or explain it. When you’re meeting with someone about a job, don’t expect the person to understand what a NCO. Most people your age in civilian life don’t have the opportunity to shoulder the level of responsibility you did. You need to explain the value of the equipment you looked after and/or the lives for whom you were responsible. Some civilians love to learn military terminology. Share a couple of your (clean) favorites.
Instead of letting your self-confidence turn into non-productive egotism, use it to your advantage. Project self-assurance when you talk about your knowledge, skills, and leadership ability. When you show a civilian the image of what he thinks a service member ought to be you’ll get the job you want.
What can you do to convey the right attitude during your job search? Please comment below.
