The military does a great job giving service members very clear expectations: expectations of conduct, dress, courtesy and – most importantly – success. If you get certain scores on certain tests and meet certain goals within your specialty, you would be considered successful.
The civilian world is more ambiguous. Human resources personnel don’t usually know many details about the job for which they hire you, your supervisor or manager probably doesn’t usually train new employees him or herself, and your co-workers may have little interest in mentoring you. As a veteran, you’re likely to find all this uncertainty frustrating and confusing. Here are seven common employer expectations, both positive and negative, of veteran hires.
1. Reliability.
Most popular media portrayals of the military emphasize duty and reliability. This means that your boss expects you to be reliable: always at work on time, always prepared for the day, always working hard for the entire work day, and never the one to leave your team in the lurch (say, by calling in “sick” on Monday to cover a hangover). Many employers seek veterans for just this reason, essentially to add reliability to a young workforce – especially as workers in their 20s these days have a reputation for being lazy and entitled. Your co-workers will also expect you to be consistent and reliable and will probably up their game when you start working with them.
2. Teamwork.
The military is supposed to be a team, and so you as a veteran are expected to be a team player. Civilian employers all define this differently, but it mostly boils down to the expectation that you won’t be a loner, and that you’ll somehow be able to apply your military experience to get everyone else to work together. The military connotation of being a team player (i.e., being the kind of person to take the worst jobs so that your buddies don’t have it as hard) doesn’t really apply. Basically, you’re just expected to work well with others.
3. Integrity.
Service members, by virtue of their choice to serve their country, have a reputation for being “good guys” (and girls). Therefore, employers expect veteran hires to be honest and forthright. Depending on the job, the civilian world offers many ways to cheat, from trivial behavior like using social media on company time or overdoing the smoke breaks during work to more serious transgressions like stealing company property. It is often difficult for companies to find out which workers are dishonest, and investing in monitoring systems is expensive. Employers usually expect veterans to be straight arrows who won’t tolerate fraud and have the moral courage to call out co-workers.
4. Initiative.
Any employer familiar with the military will know that service members are usually trained at a variety of jobs and have a reputation for being cool under pressure. As a result, employers often expect service members to be good at learning new skills, aggressive in doing so, and able to do the right thing in an emergency. This sort of image is good for the hiring process, because it may elevate you above candidates without military experience. But it may also cause your employer to assume you don’t need a lot of training (because you’re such a motivated self-starter) and that you will handle whatever emergencies come up – even if you don’t yet know enough about the business to do so effectively.
5. Fitness and Appearance.
Employers expect veteran hires to present well, knowing the military uniform and grooming regulations. Your boss and your co-workers will likely be surprised if you show up to work scruffy, overweight or dressed too casually. Many service members say they look forward to the transition so they don’t have to shave every day or so they can wear whatever they want, but remember: the hiring benefits of prior military experience depend on the amount of military bearing an employer can see in the civilian version of you.
6. Mental Rigidity and Lack of Personality.
This is a somewhat controversial stereotype, and was much more prevalent in previous decades. Today, most Americans have a positive view of service members. But even if an employer or co-worker admires your decision to serve, he or she may assume that the military has suppressed your creativity and personality. The results of this assumption, if it exists, are subtle: maybe you don’t get asked for input on a problem; maybe you get assigned simpler tasks; maybe your ideas get ignored; or maybe you just don’t get invited to happy hour.
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