Join me on linkedin live on June 19th at 12 pm et to learn "How to Identify Your Ideal Career Role"

[00:00:00] Wendi: Hey sis, welcome to Beyond the Military Podcast, where faith led military women overcome burnout and create more balance. Just imagine having enough time to focus on your faith, family, and have more fun while still serving as a woman leader. In this podcast, you will walk away with the tools to help you navigate the busy life of a military woman, organize your mind, overcome overwhelm, create a prioritization playbook, and a balanced blueprint for integrating faith, family, and career.

[00:00:28] Wendi: Yeses in that order. Hi, I’m Wendi Wray woman of God, wife, mama of two, army veteran, and certified life coach. And I’m here to help you create a life of meaning outside of the military, a life of laughter, joy, and intentional free time. If you are ready to overcome burnout and create balance as a faith led military woman, sis, this podcast is for you.

[00:00:50] Wendi: So loosen up your laces and grab your coffee because it’s time to step into freedom and peace.

[00:00:55] Wendi: Hello and welcome to episode 222. I am [00:01:00] so happy that you’re tuning in today. And if this is your first time tuning in, I want to welcome you. And if you’ve been tuning in with me for the last 220 ish episodes, I want to say thank you for your continued support. I am so happy about today’s topic today. We are talking all about your transferable skills.

[00:01:18] Wendi: So if you are possibly thinking about the transition or you’re like, I have no idea what I’m going to do with my career. First, I want to invite you to join me to my LinkedIn live event that I’ll be hosting on June 19th, which is a Wednesday at 12 p. m. Eastern standard time. And what we’ll be doing is going over how you can start to identify your career after the moment.

[00:01:43] Wendi: Terry. And I want to emphasize that this is something that you don’t have to have perfectly. I know a lot of you, especially speaking about myself here, I wanted to have a clear [00:02:00] blueprint plan of what I was going to do when I was going to transition. Here is the beauty of Figuring it out along the way, especially if you start early, if you’re a year out, this is a beautiful time for you to start and it’s okay.

[00:02:13] Wendi: If you have 6 months out, I think this is another great area or place for you to begin to explore those opportunities because you don’t know what you don’t know. You sometimes forget that are there’s so much experience that you’ve gained. And also your interests possibly have changed. So maybe you have a degree in criminal justice and now you’re like, I absolutely don’t want to go into law or anything to do with criminal justice.

[00:02:38] Wendi: Now I want to go to the business sector. What exactly is out there for me, right? Maybe you’ve been in for 10 years, or maybe you have only done that, you know, MBA. Or maybe you got in a position or a duty station that has nothing to do with your MOS, your military occupation. And [00:03:00] so now you have this opportunity to look at.

[00:03:03] Wendi: You know, the opportunity that are in civilian sector, right? You could start your own business, you could do so many other things. And this is why I want to not only provide you a little snapshot of what that could look like for you based on your specific needs. Desires and your specific goals, career goals after the military, but also to help you with your career search, to help you and give you that initial step so that you can begin to explore other opportunities while you’re still in, because you have six months out.

[00:03:35] Wendi: And if you’re three months out, it’s okay too. We can start to not only look, but also apply. And so again, I want to invite you June 19th on a Wednesday, 12 p. m. Eastern Standard Time, come join me live, ask some questions, or if there’s anything on your mind regarding the transition, that time is perfect for you to kind of understand where you stand so that you can continue to plan the rest of the time that you do [00:04:00] have, or even if you’re thinking about the transition, what the opportunities could be.

[00:04:04] Wendi: So come and identify your future career role after the military, because ladies, there’s so many things out there that I am still learning along the way and have been out for like the last seven years. And so, again, this is going to be key for you to begin and start your career search outside of the military.

[00:04:23] Wendi: And with that, I want to go over today on What the, um, the most or the top transferable skills are for you, especially if you’re like, I want to do anything similar or nothing like what I was doing in the military, right? You may be, um, an aircraft controller, you may be a mechanic. Um, you may be in, I need to go for in the food service industry, or you may be HR.

[00:04:48] Wendi: And you’re like, I no longer want to go HR. I want to do something completely different. And I want to invite you to have an open mind when it comes to identifying the top transferable skills, which today [00:05:00] I want to give you two ways that you can begin to explore, like where You can find these transferable skills because that’s one of the things that I get asked whenever I’m having a consultation with someone when they come to me and they’re like, Hey, I would like to kind of learn more about what’s going to help me with my transition because this is what I want to pursue.

[00:05:19] Wendi: And so first I ask them, well, what are the skills that you’ve identified or what exactly do you think you’re going to be doing in this opportunity, in this position? And so most of the time they don’t know, or also they’re like, well, I have no idea. What top transferable skills, you know, I bring to the table, what value I bring and I want you to start there and I want you to begin with your evaluations, either your non commissioned your evaluations or your officer evaluation reports.

[00:05:51] Wendi: And the reason this is so important for you to start here is because you get to see not only what other leaders have said about your supervisors [00:06:00] said and identified within each category from your performance evaluation, but also for you to really, um. Recognize and identify, you know, what positions you enjoy the most, right?

[00:06:15] Wendi: Because if, like, let’s say you were 1st sergeant or a commander and you’re like, I completely hate that position. I want to do something that’s more along the lines of just being more specific and more of an individual contributor as a leader, then maybe that’s not something that we want to highlight and continue to explore in the civilian sector, because it might not be helpful for you and the people that you’re leading.

[00:06:39] Wendi: And so I want you to start there. Again, this is more specific to the Army. So if you’re like Air Force Marine Corps, I’m sure there’s another fancy name that you guys have for your evaluations. But essentially look at your performance evaluation. And the other thing is, you know, if you, let’s say you only did four and you’re an E four, um, or you didn’t get [00:07:00] an opportunity to get an actual N-C-O-E-R or a non-commission, non-commissioned.

[00:07:06] Wendi: Evaluation report, non commissioned officer evaluation report, and that’s completely okay. What I want you to do then is to ask your mentor or your supervisors, previous supervisors, your immediate leadership. For their take on what the top skills that you possessed while you were in those jobs. And so I want to go over to help you a little bit of what common or the top transferable skills are that are going to help you regardless of what.

[00:07:41] Wendi: Background you have, or, you know, what job you did in the military, because in the civilian sector, here are the five ones, or the five common skills that are not only needed, but also they are looking for, um, with specific roles. [00:08:00] And I also want to mention too that there are, um, hard skills, also known as technical skills.

[00:08:06] Wendi: These are the skills that are needed, required, um, like knowledge or even just training a certification. For that specific job role. And so I’m not going to go too much into that more. So the soft skills, a lot of the soft skills are being overlooked by us military because we’re like, Oh, this is common, right?

[00:08:28] Wendi: Like this is what we need to do in the military in order to succeed. But you’d be surprised of how some of these skills don’t come naturally or not ingrained early on in the corporate sector. And it’s not because of, you know, they, they obviously are great at what they do with their work, but the teamwork and collaboration sometimes is not as needed as it is in the military, right?

[00:08:54] Wendi: Like, we’re all about teamwork. We’re all about. You know, doing things as teams and collaborating [00:09:00] and encouraging one another, motivating your team and just getting after it. Right? We have this competitive nature of we want to do the best. We’re going to do our best to bring our team along. Right? And we build this trust.

[00:09:13] Wendi: We build this community. And that’s just the nature of our environment of the military. And so when it comes to these five effective communication. Teamwork, adaptability, problem solving, and leadership. We sometimes forget, especially as women, that we have so much experience in this. We have not only led teams that, um, you know, range from a five, you know, squad leader.

[00:09:43] Wendi: I mean, squad, um, you’ve been a squad leader from a platoon, a company equivalent number. So we’re talking about 200 individuals that we’ve led. And not only that, but just the physical and mental, um, [00:10:00] capacity that we have when it comes to being adaptive, right? Adapting to any environment, to any team, because let’s face it, we are a diverse group of people.

[00:10:11] Wendi: I mean, we have people come from all over the world over the country. And so when we have that experience and have been in a group of, you know, such a diverse with such diverse backgrounds, it’s a lot easier for us to forget and oversee that this isn’t something that is typically known outside of the military.

[00:10:35] Wendi: And the other big one is the problem solving, right? Like, we sometimes forget that. We have to solve even, you know, the little things, right? Like, where is this one individual? Why isn’t this individual here on time? Or, you know, why isn’t this individual able to come to training, um, or this field training exercise, right?

[00:10:57] Wendi: Maybe this person is injured. And so, again, we [00:11:00] are, we know everything about our team. There isn’t any individual You know, anything that we do not know, we know that they are medically hurt or are physically hurt or, you know, they’re going through a medical obstacle family. Um, maybe they’re having like a family issue and we know that, right?

[00:11:17] Wendi: Like, that’s just something that is, this is what we do in the military. We take care of our soldiers. We take care of one another, and we know what is happening in each other’s lives. And so again, when we can, Um, not only expose this and communicate this in a way that’s going to help us, right? Maybe you’re looking to be an operations manager.

[00:11:38] Wendi: Maybe you’re looking to be a plant manager, a supervisor in, um, in an environment where you are needed, you know, 24 7. Or you are on a call 24 seven, let’s just say, and it’s a very demanding opportunity where you’re constantly being called in, you know, no matter what time of the day [00:12:00] that’s normal for us, right?

[00:12:01] Wendi: Like we are constantly, you know, in a space where we’re going to get a phone call, you know, one of our soldiers, there’s something, you know, that was not supposed to be done, or one of our soldiers got injured, or, you know, this is happening real time at our unit because we’re functioning. 24 seven. So this is normal to us.

[00:12:18] Wendi: It’s not something that is out of the ordinary because we’re so used to this. And so being able to identify that is key. And so I want you to start there, right? Like, how do I identify these top transferable skills? And the fact that I gave you, I want you to go over these, like, am I an effective communicator?

[00:12:36] Wendi: Communication, right? Teamwork. Where have I shown How many times have I shown teamwork, adaptability, problem solving, leadership. And an example that I’m gonna give you right now is, again, based off an N-C-O-E-R or an OER. And so when you go down each category, you know we have achieves professionalism, um, [00:13:00] pretty much your military bearing, right?

[00:13:01] Wendi: Like I want you to really take a moment and identify with one that you think. You and your civilian sector, which all of them will, but which one are you going to value the most based on where you want to go, right? Based on what your future career goals are. I’m going to give you my example, right? I’m a project manager, um, and if you’re going into operations or anything similar, project management, project coordinator, you know that you need to have obviously communication skills, right?

[00:13:28] Wendi: You need to be able to communicate. You need to be able to work effective, um, um, Effectively with other teams and these will be teams that are global. You need to be able to adapt, right? When things change, you know, maybe your budget changes or your timeline, you know, gets cut in half and you know, you’d be able to need to be able to adapt to that problem solver.

[00:13:47] Wendi: How are you going to solve something without having to, um, not only indulge in everything that comes along with it, right? All the emotions, but also how are you able to actually bring a solution [00:14:00] to the table? Um, you know, in a manner where he’s not only professional, but also helpful for everyone on the team.

[00:14:06] Wendi: And, you know, how are we going to show that leadership skill? Right? And so I also want to provide you with other things that may be coming up, um, where a lot of the times we forget about the intelligence that we bring to the table too. Right? So negotiated. We negotiated before. Of course we have. We probably haven’t negotiated, you know, um, money that we, that we actually have, but we have negotiated, you know, timeline.

[00:14:34] Wendi: We’ve negotiated, um, different types of, um, amounts when it comes to, you know, Um, a field exercise, right? Something that like a large magnitude when it comes to how much we actually are able to spend, right? Because most of the time we’re worried about spending more than, um, saving because the military gives us a budget.

[00:14:56] Wendi: The military says here is your fiscal. Um, [00:15:00] budget and you need to spend it, right? So we’re not focused on saving. We’re focused on spending, but how are we spending that? Or how spent that in a way that serves a unit, the organization, your team and everyone else around us. And so how can we then bring the emotional intelligence into that?

[00:15:18] Wendi: And negotiating is one of them, right? Like, you have to be able to really get to somebody else’s. Um, level of how they are understanding or how you’re understanding their emotions, right? Collaboration. Have you trained or mentored somebody? And so these are just additional that I want you to, like, pay attention to when you are reading your NCOERs, your OERs.

[00:15:42] Wendi: Um, have you showed compassion, right? Have you encouraged? Have you motivated? Have you been resilient? Um, maybe during one training exercise, like, these are the things that you want to. Recognize so that it can help you to identify these top transferable skills, which again, [00:16:00] these are only five. They’re like, honestly, 20 that you could, um, think of.

[00:16:05] Wendi: And most of these skills are going to align with other opportunities. And so I’m going to give you this example here that I wrote down. And this is just a bullet from the achieve section reviewed risk assessments for all training and insured. Adherence resulting in zero training incidents that right there has given you not only, um, the transferable skills that we went over, but also.

[00:16:33] Wendi: Um, to include more so like the safety management risk assessment, right? So now what roles would you be able to do if like, let’s just say we’re going off of that one bullet that you’re like, this is the job that I loved. This is one of the bullets that really not only meant a lot, but, you know, my, it was a top evaluation.

[00:16:52] Wendi: I was rated the best. You know, you could be a risk assessment manager, you can be a compliance specialist. Looking at those [00:17:00] roles is going to help you to even communicate more on your resume on what you’ve done, what skills are actually transferable from your experience. And so again, being able to use that, being able to identify that, From your own work, from your own performance evaluations, it’s like you can start there.

[00:17:22] Wendi: You can literally take, um, an hour and just go look at all your evaluations, performance evaluations, identify the jobs that really resonated with you and you did really well and just look at those bullets and see what skills you can bring out and see what jobs would align with that. And that’s what I do with my clients.

[00:17:40] Wendi: I help them to see, okay, this is your type of evaluation. Let’s talk about this one. What did you enjoy about this? Oh, you enjoyed to report data. You enjoyed to work with other teams globally. You enjoyed to, um, you know, make sure that the team was taken care of and that they developed and that, you know, they stayed in the [00:18:00] military, right?

[00:18:00] Wendi: You helped them re enlist, whatever it may be for you. I want you to go there first. And then if you want to take a step further, like I said, in step two, or if you don’t have any evaluations, I want you to then ask your supervisors. Like, Hey, sir, ma’am, or sergeant, or sergeant, what three skills would you say are my top skills that I have brought to the table?

[00:18:27] Wendi: Oh, you’re a great communicator. Oh, you work well with others. You are, you know, proactive, you know, all of these things that you can be, um, annotating so that when you do start looking at roles and you start identifying what skills you bring to help you with that next step. Because let’s face it, not all of us are going to do what we were doing in the military or in the civilian sector, and that’s completely okay.

[00:18:54] Wendi: What we want to do is to start identifying what skills are going to be transferable [00:19:00] so that we can then start feeding in to the stories. Because that’s the next thing that comes is your interview, right? Once you’ve got the resume and your foot in the door, you want to prepare. Much as possible with stories that are going to not only resonate with the hiring managers, with maybe, you know, the panel that you interview with, but also how can we then speak about who you really are, personality, the emotional intelligence behind the skills that you bring.

[00:19:30] Wendi: All right. I hope this was helpful. Again, if you would like to learn more, come follow me on LinkedIn, send me a DM with the word career, and I’ll be happy to connect with you and not only share more about what will help you with your transition, but also any recommendations on future live events that are going to help you with your career outside of the military.

[00:19:56] Wendi: All right, ladies. I hope to see you on June 19th [00:20:00] at 12 p. m. Eastern Standard Time to help you identify your career role. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

[00:20:06] Wendi: Hey lady, if this podcast helped you, challenged you or inspired you in some way, please leave me a written review for the show on Apple Podcasts and share it with another military sister. Helping you integrate balance, prioritization and growth in your relationship with God is my ultimate calling. I’m so blessed that you are here and please join us in the faith led military women community on Facebook at bit.

[00:20:29] Wendi: ly forward slash beyond the military GRP. Again, it is. Bitly beyond the military GRP. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye