How to Successfully Readjust to Civilian Life with a Career in Tech

You volunteered, you served, and now you’re mustering out. What happens next? Returning to civilian life sounds easy on paper, but the reality of leaving the highly-structured, highly-disciplined military environment for one that’s completely open can be frustrating, discouraging and disorienting. Worse is the discovery that all of your practiced military tactics for addressing adversity may not get you anywhere.
In fact, your attention to detail, commitment to teamwork and willingness to go all-in may be received as off-putting, aggressive and overwhelming. What the heck? Add to this the age-old challenge that is finding a job. Or better yet, starting a career. The military promised career skills, and you built many good ones. But how do you apply them to the boggling ecosystem that is the civilian workforce? Where do you start? How do you get your foot in the door?
Funny how that info isn’t readily available.
HOLISTIC HELP FOR TRANSITIONING VETERANS
This is a dilemma that over 200,000 Veterans face every year. It adds enormous stress to their transition process and compounds traumas like PTSD, depression and anxiety. There are myriad U.S.-based organizations dedicated to helping Veterans through this process, but that creates another anxiety-inducing question: Which one to use?
Maurice Wilson, Navy Master Chief Officer (retired), identified this critical conundrum and, in 2010, created a solution: The REBOOT Workshop offered by NVTSI. REBOOT fills a gap that the military’s Transition Assistance Program isn’t designed to address: how to fully prepare exiting military personnel to find meaningful employment and a satisfactory lifestyle in the civilian workforce.
Best known for its three-week REBOOT workshop, NVTSI delivers an insightful and personalized program that equips Veterans with the emotional, psychological, social and professional skills they need to restructure and redefine their lives. The program includes three focus areas: Personal Identity, Lifestyle Transition and Career Transition. It addresses the personal and social aspects of transitioning to civilian life via research-based, outcome-driven methods drawn from career planning best practices and cognitive behavior techniques. NVTSI has a cadre of alumna who have used the REBOOT tools and techniques to craft successful civilian lives for themselves and their families.
A VETERAN-FOCUSED PARTNERSHIP
Even with the soft skills help that NVTSI provides, there’s still the question of getting hired. How do you overcome that hurdle? Every Veteran-focused organization (including NVTSI) has a list of Vet-friendly employers on their website. It’s also easy to find help creating resumes, tips on the interview process and a plethora of Vet-specific job fairs. All this information is helpful, but again, how does it get you in the door?
This problem found a perfect solution in the partnership between NVTSI and CCS Global Tech. NVTSI and CCS Global Tech give Veterans a solid path into the work world: NVTSI focuses on helping Veterans create a holistic vision for their future, while CCS Global Tech offers job placement in the tech sector for Veterans at varying experience levels.
Maybe you don’t know anything about technology or what you need to get into it. Or, maybe you’ve been in the tech industry for several years already and want to move up. How do you make that happen?
PUTTING VETERANS IN TECH JOBS
The ultimate goal of both NVTSI and CCS Global Tech is to help Veterans transition successfully out of the military and into civilian life. For all Veterans, securing a good job is a critical piece of the puzzle.
CCS Global Tech is a staffing company that makes the path to a new technology career more direct via their Veteran placement services. Their dedicated team connects qualified Veterans to positions that CCS Global Tech’s clients – companies like Microsoft, Facebook, the City of San Francisco, and others – need filled.
In other words, CCS Global Tech has the work, and they need people to fill the positions. It’s a matter of matching the right Veteran candidate to the right role.
The strong leadership skills, self-motivation and dedication to teamwork that helped Veterans succeed in the military also make them prime candidates for filling many tech roles, such as system administrators, network technicians and data conversion experts.
Veterans with security clearances are particularly well-positioned for cybersecurity roles, which are in high demand in today’s business environment.
HELPING VETERANS SUCCEED
But what if you don’t know anything about the tech sector? How do you get started? Or, what if you’re in an IT job and want to move up? CCS Global Tech has those contingencies covered. Its affiliate company, CCS Learning Academy (CCSLA), offers hands-on IT training that leverages military experience to equip individuals with a knowledge base and skillset that today’s top employers are looking for.
CCSLA was born out of what CCS Global Tech professionals were seeing in the marketplace, i.e., the growing need for well-trained, fully prepared technology professionals in the current workforce. Created by tech professionals for tech professionals, CCSLA carefully curates its course catalog to reflect current technology trends, in-demand applications and cornerstone IT know-how. The CCSLA team offers Veterans career advice and real-world information on how to map out successful career paths, what employers are looking for and how to position themselves for vibrant, lucrative, forward-focused employment.
The CCSLA team also keeps abreast of DoD Directives as well as other learning trends that help Veterans leverage their military backgrounds. They know how to help you leverage your military-specific experience to transition into today’s most in-demand tech careers. From cybersecurity and system administration to business intelligence and cloud computing, CCSLA’s focus is developing hire-worthy IT experts.
Both CCS Global Tech and CCSLA recognize the wealth of talent that transitioning Veterans can bring to the table. Many Vets hold security clearances and classifications required by city, state and federal entities, as well as big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others. CCS Global Tech and CCSLA connect you to them.
CONTACT US!
After serving your country, taking off the uniform and returning to civilian life shouldn’t be a harrowing experience. NVTSI, CCS Global Tech, and CCSLA recognize the difficulties associated with this life change and its unique challenges. All three organizations are committed to helping Veterans maximize the skills, training and knowledge to create a forward-focused career that will carry them into the future. We want to see you succeed. We want to see you thrive.
CBS GLOBAL
If you’re looking for work in the technology sector, contact CCS Global Tech’s Veteran Placement team at veterans@ccsglobaltech.com. We’ll get to work finding your perfect position! If you need help mapping out your learning pathway in tech, email us or check out ccslearningacademy.com to get started.