Jack is the Deputy Operations Manager at Leidos, an American defense and information technology services company. With government clients out of Fort Meade, Jack helps oversee the execution of programs as well as client relations for both the Cyber and SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) division of Leidos. Listen to his advice on how to find your first job after your time in the service.
Transcript
Get your job based on your technical skill set, not necessarily your management skill set, it's just not the model, we don't have a heavy management organization in any of the defense contractors, so it's not the model that we kind of grow our organization based on, but, if you have a sustained technical skill get your position with that skill and then underpin that with the management, and if you do that, you're gonna move up pretty quickly. But to just base your resume on your management skills and assume that you'll land in a position equivalent to the one that you had in the military, it's tough to do, because a lot of folks that have been in the service for 20, 25 years, they stopped doing technical work about 10 years ago, so it's tough for them to translate skills that they have now into applicable, equal positions. Now, what I've found out is, a lot of folks, they'll choose to take a step back, or maybe two steps back, they'll go back into the analysis world, they'll go back into those tools that they've used in the past because they have those niche skills. They become an analyst, and they become a really good analyst because they've been doing it for quite some time, and they start to mentor others, and that positions them into leadership positions both within the company or on the program.
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