Right Time to Hang your boots :A Career Perspective-I
Military officers lead a well planned and
organised life during their active service in defence forces. From planning a routine sortie in Air
force and discharging duty
officer’s responsibility while the ship is on board in Navy to leading
a patrol in Army, Military officers carry out meticulous planning keeping the
minutest of details in mind. However, They
find themselves at crossroads when it comes to decide the ideal time for them to
hang their boots. If one decides to leave too early , he or She won’t be able
to gain the exposure and military skills that are relevant in the corporate world and if one
retires too late, it would be difficult to invite a good career opportunity at senior management level .
Exceptions can always be there, however, being exceptions, they are only a few
percentage of the whole bunch ,so here we will focus on the general part of the
whole issue.
Before we dig deep about the right time to
retire with career perspective in mind, let us first see what all are the
challenges involved in finding a job at the time of retirement:-
(a)
Finding a suitable job that matches the skills and other requirements, such as finances, education of children, and place of residence, generally remains the
biggest challenge while entering in the corporate world .
(b) Lack of awareness about which all soft skills they have, how to transfer military skills to corporate terminology,which is the right career path, whether to do an MBA or some other professional certification, how to
prepare job grabbing resumes, how to
search for job opportunities and many other similar career related issues.
(c )
Fear of unknown in terms of corporate culture and whether they will be
able to fit from formal military culture to less formal corporate culture.
(d)
Inability to let go the ‘rank’ syndrome; Some are unable to dust off the
rigid approach.
(e)
Some more face health challenges and physical disability and thus need
time to attend to their health and hence transition becomes more challenging for them.
(f)
Lack of quality assistance from the Indian Govt and no benefits
for veterans in terms of funding for MBA and
related studies and tax exemptions to employers if they recruit veterans especially disabled ones. The six months management course being run for long is a decent platform but yet to mark their presence among the HR recruiters. Also, Lack if interest on part of govt to include the career needs of veterans as part of CSR ( Corporate Social Responsibility).
(g)
Lack of awareness on part of HR recruiters about the military skills and
their corresponding translation(relevance) in the corporate world.
(j)
Current economic situation.
(k)
Competition for job with civilian work force who
have been in the corporate street longer than them.
(m)
Lack of technical education( hard skills or work content skills).
(o)
Limited funds to pursue a new venture of own.
Some other challenges are listed here, click here . While these are the various challenges
faced by the military officers in their job search, there are many other
personnel challenges that add to the complexity at the time of transition.Some of them are:-
(a)
Inability to visualize beyond military life; lack of vision for civil
life.
(b)
Not feeling ready for transition especially among those serving/served in combat arms as compared to
those who serving/served in technical arms; a pattern attributable to lack of technical expertise of a specific field and hence lack of self-confidence.
(c)
Challenges in relating to family life and civil people or in re-accustom to civilian culture
and social life.
(e)
Lack of administration support.
(f)
Relocation and other family related issues/Misc issues.
To know more about career transition, click here
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