As a decorated Army combat veteran, long in San Diego as a civilian, I can speak from personal experience: Civilian employers do not give a hoot about military service and experience.
All the soldiers and sailors returning battle-hardened from the war are in for a rude awakening. If they think their service to this country will earn them any favors or “brownie points,” they had better think again. In reality, quite the opposite is true. In my experience, most civilian employers feel military experience has no value.
During a war, the civilian population's support for the armed forces is at 100 percent; patriotism, service, honor and sacrifice are revered – and justifiably so. But, when the war is over or that service member leaves the military, all the “rah-rah-rah” they've become accustomed to immediately dies.
Despite the military's media blitzes that tell young men and women the leadership skills they will develop in service to their country are exactly what employers want, civilian employers are not impressed with military experience. Unless you are applying for a job with the government (city, state, federal) or a government contractor, your service background is pretty much worthless. Of course there are exceptions, but by and large the skill sets one learns and earns in service to our country are not acknowledged by the civilian population, even though many of those positions have a direct private-sector equivalent.
I know a former Navy corpsman who ran a military blood bank. When he left the Navy and applied for a similar civilian job, he was told he was unqualified (even though the position to which he applied was at a substantially lower level of responsibility) because he lacked certain civilian credentials. The last time I checked, blood is blood, military or civilian. I do not understand the difference, but perhaps I'm missing something. Is the medical training our service members undergo somehow inferior? I certainly don't think so; some of the best medical care I've ever received was under the supervision of U.S. Army medical personnel.
In yet another example of the devaluation of military experience, about a year ago I interviewed with a consumer electronics company here in San Diego. The job was for an assistant customer service manager posting. I possess both undergraduate and MBA degrees (though at the time, my MBA was still “in progress”) and had worked in customer service for years, so I wasn't exactly an unskilled applicant.
The interview went well until the hiring manager asked if I had any leadership and/or supervisory experience. I thought that with this question I was in! I told her how I'd been promoted to sergeant and squad leader at the age of 21 and supervised four junior enlisted soldiers who reported directly to me. In that role, I was also responsible for an $18 million Black Hawk helicopter – its load/cargo, passengers, maintenance, safety and defense in hostile territories. And simultaneously, I ran the Army's version of a personnel office, where I was the direct supervisor for three junior-enlisted soldiers while executing all personnel and finance transactions for a 150-member combat aviation company.
In my personnel position, at any given time at least 20 percent of our soldiers would be deployed in other countries, yet I was still required to make sure all personnel actions went off without a hitch. After all, somebody's paycheck, somebody's promotion, somebody's housing, etc., was at stake; there was zero tolerance for excuses or failure. Does that sound like a simple task? Well, toss in the “adventure” of beating a five-day deadline to get a signature/approval from someone deployed 4,000 miles away – back in the days before fax machines and e-mail. If that's not the epitome of time-management skills and the ability to “think outside the box,” I don't know what is. Aren't those the kind of skills employers value?
After I told the hiring manager all of this, she just shook her head and said, “No. Do you have any civilian supervisory experience?” I was completely insulted, though in an interview you can't let that show. Apparently, my military experience wasn't good enough for this job where I would have had the overwhelming responsibility of being part-time supervisor to a few people whose job is to answer the phone.
There needs to be a huge change of mindset for civilian employers. This will only come from education. No vet I know feels he or she should receive preferential treatment, but they all feel their service-related accomplishments should have value.
I feel very sorry for the returning troops' job-hunting prospects. I saw a report on MSNBC in February that read many civilian employers are reluctant to hire combat vets over concerns about the skill sets of veterans, worries over post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. It stated that even those combat vets who earn college degrees after their service terms end are still marginalized and stigmatized. What a sad, sad affair. Is this the best we can do for our warriors who have given us so much?
Carroll is a former Army sergeant who served in Europe, Honduras and the Middle East from 1982 to 1988. He now works in sales and marketing in San Diego.
