Should transitioning veterans pursue education or certifications before entering the civilian workforce?

Hint - this career advice applies to everyone, not just vets

Before we hop into the latest edition, I want to say my heart goes out to all my friends at Flexport impacted by the recent layoffs. My team and surrounding stakeholders were hit hard. This has made this week extremely bittersweet, as it’s also the week that I started my new role at Anduril. I most certainly would have been laid off as well were it not for the timing of my switching jobs. Life is weird like that.

Does this impact this newsletter? Nope. While I’ve written a lot about Supply Chain Visibility, that was never the point of Rough Terrain. The point of Rough Terrain is to be a mechanism for getting thoughts that spin around in my head down in writing in order to better articulate them and run them through critical analysis. By doing so, I increase my “surface area of luck” or my “serendipity engine”, attracting others who engage with me on the subject, challenging my thinking, and helping me grow. Supply Chain Visibility is what I’ve done for the past 3 years, it’s not who I am. Rough Terrain is a window into who I am.

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Should transitioning veterans pursue education or certifications before entering the civilian workforce?

No, they shouldn’t.

The best way to learn is by doing.

So go, do.

The idea that you need to have a period of time to first study and earn some sort of certificate is over-emphasized.

When have you learned more in an academic setting vs. doing the actual activity? My guess is never.

Getting your hands dirty is the surest way to learn.

That’s it.

That’s the whole article. The rest is just me refuting common “what about” questions.

But what if the job I want to do requires a certain certificate/degree?

My question back to you is, do they really?

Really?

Lots of jobs give a list of requirements to get hired. Having hired many folks myself, the job descriptions I’ve written have been for the “perfect candidate”. The people I actually hire rarely match all the requirements written out because (a) I don’t always know exactly what I’m looking for and (b) I don’t need perfect, I need pretty good + right now. There’s lots of leeway between pretty good + right now and perfect. A highly motivated veteran candidate can overcome a lot of the reservations the hiring manager has about any lack of certification/degree.

Often the degree/certification requirement is used as a filter. It’s an easy (aka lazy) way for the hiring manager to try and control the quality of the candidate that gets through to the next steps in the hiring process.

I always take the “needs MBA” or “needs undergraduate degree” requirements out of my job descriptions. Because I’ve never actually needed someone with those degrees.

I’ve needed people who are super data literate, capable of modeling and exploring complicated domains.

I’ve needed people who refuse to quit and run through walls (metaphorically, of course, this isn’t the Ranger Regiment).

There’s no correlation between having a degree from Harvard, Duke, UCLA, or whoever, and having those skills.

Plenty of graduates of those schools have those skills. And plenty do NOT. I worked with some of them. They intimidated me at first, with their fancy pedigrees like MBA from Wharton and years at McKinsey. Then I saw them incapable of making decisions, slow to react to changes in business priorities, and crack under pressure when the going got tough.

Trust me - the presence of a degree/certificate doesn’t mean that person is any smarter or better at the job than someone without it.

Okay, but what if the job REALLY needs a specific certificate/degree?

Alright, if you’re currently in the infantry but want to become a theoretical astrophysicist, you’re correct, you should go to school. Or if you are a submariner who wants to become a master sommelier.

But if you’re not 100% dead set on a specific job with unwavering certainty that this is what you want to do with your life AND that job absolutely requires specific certifications with no wiggle room, there’s a much better way to approach this.

Go find people doing the job you’re interested in that “mandates” some sort of degree/certificate. Confirm that you must have that certificate by asking if they all had it and that they had to have it to get started.

Does everyone say yes?

My guess is that not everyone does. There are plenty of sommeliers who first got to work in the wine industry without an impressive certificate that signaled their superior wine-tasting capability. I’m betting there was some sort of apprenticeship or on-the-job training program or something like that which let some of them get the job. Or that they had a different job that was in proximity to the sommelier job and they transferred after proving themselves.

There’s almost always another way in. You just gotta find it.

The world is almost never as black and white as it appears.

But if I have a certificate/degree, won’t the company that hires me pay me more?

Possibly. But how long will it take you to get that certificate?

Most of my peers went and got an MBA after leaving the military whereas I went straight into the workforce. When they got hired, they typically came in at one level higher than I got in at because they had the additional qualification on their resume, which yes, was recognized by employers as being a valuable thing.

They also took on $100-$150K in student loan debt while I had accrued 2 years of salary, equity, benefits, earning a promotion to the same level they joined at, and built relationships and social capital along the way.

So who made the better call?

Okay, I know the degree/certificate is bullshit, but it’s a part of the game I have to play, right? I need this merit badge on my resume so I can get my foot in the door.

Sigh.

I hate that there’s some truth to this.

I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t acknowledge that when I scan all the resumes that come across my desk when I’m hiring for a job, I look for things that stand out to help me sort out who I should have a call with vs. who I can pass on.

Schools and certificates are one way to quickly stand out. “Oh, she went to MIT? Alright, let’s make sure we move her to the phone screen”.

This is because hiring managers and recruiters typically spend 9 seconds reviewing a resume. So they need fast signals to help them sort wheat from the chaff.

But you know what else is a fast signal? Be a fucking VETERAN.

Here’s another fast signal - relevant job experience you’ve gained after, I don’t know, maybe getting a job that is in close proximity to the one you’re applying to because you got a job rather than fucking off for a year or two at school after getting out.

There are plenty of good ways to get the recruiter and hiring manager’s attention and some of them include earning money rather than spending it.

But I’ve got the Post-9/11 GI Bill, I can go to school for free!

It’s not free, because even if all your costs are covered (which isn’t always the case), you’re not calculating the opportunity cost.

I had 2 additional years of compensation and expertise than my peers by going straight to work after getting out.

2 more years of figuring out what I liked and didn’t like through on-the-job experience while getting compensated instead of me paying someone else.

But I really need a break, going into a chill academic setting will be a good way for me to reset and “take a knee”.

If you need a break, take a break. A REAL one.

Go hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Do Ayusasycha in the Amazon under the guidance of a shaman. Go back to your home town and spend a lot of time with your family.

There are plenty of better ways to take a true recuperative break than going into some course which, if it’s worth a shit, will tax you mentally if not physically. This isn’t a break, this is just a way to keep yourself busy because if you’re honest, you’re not sure what you’re going to do next so you’re stalling by filling your calendar.

Except you’re spending a lot to keep that calendar filled up.

And no, the cocaine-fueled trip to Southeast Asia with your MBA peers isn’t a “break”. It’s a surefire way to catch a nasty case of syphilis.