CONTACTS ……. WAIT OUT ……….

The news is once again rife with stories of the latest service personnel redundancies and how the MoD is supporting these to resettle outside of service life “Civvie Street”. During a recent contract involving team members who were very new service leavers, and also bumping into a number of others who are due to leave inthe near future; I have been reminded of my time leaving the services 7 years ago and the associated emotional roller coaster ride.

During my 22 years’ service I will admit that I grew too comfortable within the historically proven military support machine, where even the change was often planned and structured into familiar phases!

Eventually most services personnel irrespective of Service and Rank, leave and seek some form of work, either self-employed or employed. It is certainly a reality check and a leveler in my experience.

The Career Transition Partnership (CTP) is the Ministry of Defence working with Right Management. Service leavers of all ranks from the Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines can all benefit from resettlement support, career transition advice and training opportunities.

This CTP service has its work cut out as it must support a wide variety of service leavers. Not all serve the same length of time and not all are the same age. They have a range of different trades, skills, outlooks, ranks, and motivations. I remember the CTP supporting my resettlement. I specifically remember sitting for an age through briefings on housing and finances, with other sessions on Self Awareness and CV writing. Was this exactly what I needed? ……….maybe not. Essentially though, it provided me with an interim strategy and focus when the unknown world of “Civvie Street” was looming.

This individual Services leaver package for obvious commercial reasons has a finite life. My personal view is that you need the most support when the first job or new career approach doesn’t quite work out. In the absence of anything else, not all survive this to move on to the next phase, but what gets many through is the “get on with it” gene and knowing someone who knows someone.

If I had to down-select to one single element that has helped me survive in the outside world so far, it would have to be maintaining regular contact with social and business contacts since leaving.

During a service person’s service life their paths cross with many hundreds of people that they meet either at work or during social events. We all take the time to maintain our social networking connections both on and off-line; maintaining frequent contact with family and friends. .

There no longer appears to be such a thing as a job for life, so sooner or later, whether you are employed, self-employed or between jobs there might be a time when you can help or be helped by someone you know or knew. What we possibly should do is nurture the habit to devote a small amount of time to the maintenance of our work / business network both on and off-line.

Similar to family and friends contacts, Face to face contact is best, but there are only 24 hours in any day and electronic contact is better than no contact.

In Summary: 7 years ago CTP was a positive first step but not the solution to finding my next career for me. If an ex-service person asked me for one single piece of advice for sorting employment out, outside of the services, I would have to say to maintain and generate work contacts and don’t be afraid to ask for help; employment and work is simply business and you never know when your contacts may need you.

Good luck to all new and old service leavers.
Keep in touch.

Few associated links:
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/WhatWeDo/Personnel/CTP/
https://www.ctp.org.uk/
https://www.ctp.org.uk/assets/x/52802 JSP 534 The Tri-Service Resettlement Manual