Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You

Cracking the Civilian Job Code: Stories to Help Your Transition

• Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You • Season 2

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0:00 | 19:44

If you’ve ever stared at a blank resume, wondered how your MOS actually translates, felt lost in a sea of civilian job titles, or struggled to stand out at job fairs and interviews, this episode is for you.

In this special Exit Buddy episode, we pull together powerful moments from six veterans who’ve already walked the path from military service into civilian careers. You’ll hear honest stories about finding direction through networking, realizing your skills transfer more than expected, tailoring resumes, networking on LinkedIn, starting over with humility, leaning on mentors, and introducing yourself in a way that sticks.

These aren’t cookie-cutter tips. They’re real experiences and practical lessons to help guide your own transition.

Featured Guests:

  • Bryson Bort (Army Veteran) on why resumes feel impossible until you know what you’re aiming for, and how networking helps you find direction
  • Stephanie West (Navy Veteran) on how logistics skills transferred directly into a corporate operations role at Starbucks, plus the importance of staying open-minded
  • Shanon Raab (Navy Veteran) on tailoring your resume, beating AI screening, and using LinkedIn to create real opportunities
  • Jacki Davenport (Air Force Veteran) on starting at the bottom again, learning the new corporate language, and never self-selecting out of opportunities
  • Tom Eston (Marine Veteran) on seeking mentorship and the military life experiences that set you apart in the corporate world
  • William “Jax” Jackson (Navy & Air Force Veteran) on how a clear, value-driven introduction can make all the difference when speaking to employers

Key Takeaways:

  • You need some direction before a strong resume is possible—networking conversations can help you discover what’s possible
  • Military skills often transfer more directly than you think
  • Tailor your resume and LinkedIn to the specific role; keywords matter
  • Be willing to start over, stay humble, and learn the new language
  • Your network and mentors can open doors that applications alone cannot
  • Know how to introduce yourself so people remember the value you bring

Links to the Full Featured Episodes:

If this episode resonated, share it with a fellow service member or veteran who’s figuring out their next chapter. Thanks for listening to Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You. Take care of yourself and keep going.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Exit Buddy: Veteran Voices, to stay updated and connect with other listeners and guests.

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Visit us at https://exitbuddy.buzzsprout.com to learn more about the show.

Have feedback or questions for us? Email us at ashleyjones.creative@gmail.com.

Ashley Jones 00:00 
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Exit Buddy. We’ve got a special episode for you today on cracking the civilian job code. I’m Ashley Jones, producer of Exit Buddy. Across our first two seasons, one of the biggest challenges that many of our guests have discussed was figuring out how to move from military life into a civilian career—how do you translate what you’ve done, how to find direction, how to stand out in this weird job search world where everything feels so new in the midst of your transition. Today we’re pulling together some powerful moments from six different veterans who’ve been guests on our show, who’ve walked this path that you’re curious about. Today you’re going to hear some real stories about the fear of leaving the military bubble and stepping into the civilian workforce, how networking helps you figure out everything that’s possible, how your military skills transfer, how you craft a resume or network on LinkedIn, how to introduce yourself, or even just the unique edge that comes from your military service experience. These are not cookie-cutter job search tips. These are honest stories from previous Exit Buddy guests—veterans who’ve already walked this path—sharing their guidance with you to help your own transition. Let’s start it off with Army veteran and West Point grad Bryson Bort on why so many veterans struggle with resumes and how networking can help you find direction.

Bryson Bort 01:32 
I took the first civilian job I was offered. I was so afraid. Between West Point and the Army, I felt institutionalized. I felt like it’s like leaving jail, and you’re like, I don’t know what the real world is like because you’re in this bubble. Folks struggle with the resume, and part of the reason they struggle with the resume is because they don’t know what they’re going for. Because why would you? I don’t know the civilian jobs. I know my MOS. That’s easy. I was given an MOS. Done. I don’t have to think about it. Now there’s all these options. What is the MOS equivalent for me? I’m sure there’s probably something where you can look up MOS to civilian job titles, but that may not even be what you want. You might be like, you know what? I’ve had enough of this. The Army educated me. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go do something else, right? So that’s again where networking can help. You don’t have to have it all figured out. And I think a lot of folks hold back from engaging or asking for help or questions because they’re like, “Well, I don’t know enough. I don’t want to look stupid.” That’s okay. This is the same way we do intelligence. You have a little bit of an idea, and you talk to somebody about it. They’re like, “Oh, well,” and they might add and give you a little more context. You’re like, well, now I understand a bit more. And even better, they’re going to know somebody you don’t know. You’re like, oh, okay, and they’re going to introduce you to that person. And so you iterate these conversations from starting from nothing to a little to suddenly you have a better idea of what’s possible and what you can do and what those jobs are. And now back to those awful resumes that every vet creates to start with. This is where Kathleen and Rachel are laughing because they know they’ve seen them, and mine started too. Right now you know what to look for. It’s easier to tailor your resume appropriately to that because you have the goal and you have the direction that’s driving you, and you earned it naturally, organically, by networking that way.

Ashley Jones 03:25 
Hey everyone, it’s Ashley again. That was our first clip featuring Bryson Bort. I just thought that was a great one to start with because it really lays the foundation—the point that it’s hard to take steps to achieve your post-military goal if you don’t know what that is yet. So moving on to another piece of the pie: you have your military experience. Maybe you did something in the military that you do want to continue to pursue outside of the military. Let’s listen in now with Stephanie West, and she’s going to talk about how her Supply Corps background in the military did directly carry into her corporate role with Starbucks. Here’s Stephanie.

Stephanie West 04:02 
I am the lead planner and forecaster for all parts for all the machines that do all of our brewing in North America. Similarly, in the military, I was a Supply Corps officer, so I did all of the logistics—making sure we fed the troops and ran the ship store, did all of the parts for aircraft and the ship, and then also managing budgets and financial aspects of it. So it all kind of is aligned with what an MBA sort of entails, and so that’s exactly what I did in the Navy and exactly what I’m doing now. Coming out of the military, I think a lot of times we have imposter syndrome. We can’t make that transition because we don’t give ourselves the time to assimilate into the company. That can be really hard and scary. And one piece of advice I would give is to just be open-minded. Sometimes in the military we get so regimented and so routine that we take that with us when we transition, and we lose a lot of opportunities because we’re not open-minded. Sometimes it’s not going to look like what you think it’s going to look like. You really have to be flexible. You have to be willing to take something that might not look exactly like you thought it would look like, and then take the time to learn it, and then move up or move out if you need to, if it’s not a good fit for you. And not to be afraid to stay and give it a try, but also not to be afraid to move on to something else if it’s not what you thought it was going to be—but give it a chance.

Ashley Jones 05:53 
To hear more about Stephanie’s story and how she really set herself up for success by landing a dream career at a company that she felt very passionate about, go ahead and listen back to her full episode. Next up, we’ve got a clip queued up for you all. This one is from Shanon Raab, and he has some great advice on tailoring your resume and also using LinkedIn to network and find opportunities, which has worked really well for him in the past. Let’s listen.

Shanon Raab 06:22 
One time I had gotten all the way through, got in front of the hiring manager, and she’s sitting across the desk from me, and she finally looked at me and she said, “Shanon, I can’t hire you. You’re overqualified.” She’s like, “I’m afraid you’re going to end up taking my position.” She really made me open my eyes and think about the kind of jobs I was applying for, and really look at the company, look at the job description better, and kind of make sure I tailored the resume more towards that versus just giving my blanket resume that has all the qualifications and things like that in there, because you got to tailor it to the position you’re looking for. But it brings me to another story. My friend hit me up the other day, and he’s like, “Shanon, I’ve applied for 60 roles, and I can’t get a callback or anything.” And I was like, “Look, brother, you have to tailor this to the position you’re applying for. Out of those 60 positions, did you adjust your resume at all?” No. And you’re wondering why you’re not getting a callback, especially in today’s environment. So much of talent acquisition is going AI. If you don’t have those keywords, that algorithm is not going to pick up your resume. If it’s not going to pick up your resume, you’re not going to get a callback. You’re just going to go in the trash. Read the job description, tailor your resume, then send it, and you’ll get some calls back.

Kathleen Smith 07:41 
So, as a follow-up to that, you landed your current role by sharing someone’s job posting. So can you tell us how networking led to that job opportunity?

Shanon Raab 07:50 
Yeah. I was sitting there and I was going through LinkedIn and I saw something from my current employer, and he’s a retired Navy captain, and I saw that he had a need for a recruiter. And I was like, “Hey, Dan, is this a remote position? Because I was going to post it on my LinkedIn for you.” And he goes, “Well, Chief, why are you interested?” And I was like, “Well, I wasn’t looking, but I always listen to something that you’re pitching.” So I got on a call with him, and he started talking to me, and then we just kind of went down the road, and I was like, you know what? This sounds like something I could do. It worked out. I didn’t understand that it was going to happen that way, but again, LinkedIn got me a second position. Maybe I need to get sponsored by them because I’m a two-time hero. But I can’t say it enough. Keeping that thing updated and building your network—it’s important. It really does help.

Ashley Jones 08:41 
So again, that was Shanon Raab, and I’m just personally so excited that he joined us on the show because I’ve known Shanon for years now, and I know sometimes he doesn’t necessarily want to participate in these fun projects that Kathleen and all of us have come up with over the years, but he put himself out there. He self-selected into that opportunity, which is a great transition for our next guest that we’re going to listen to, Jacki Davenport. She’s going to talk about the new language that you’re going to be getting used to in the civilian world, how to bring value in different ways, and why you should never self-select out of opportunities.

Jacki Davenport 09:20 
It’s funny because I had already realized when I hit my special operations assignment, and we didn’t wear uniforms, that nobody really cared what your rank was, what position you had. They really just cared about the value that you brought to the team. And then I realized when I became a reservist initially that no one cared about anything that you had done before. So those things were already apparent to me. And then what I think I really sat down and did was, hey, I don’t know what any of these jobs really mean. Do you really know what a project manager means? I had no idea what anything revenue-generating meant because we just don’t do that in uniform. So I just had to sit back and be really humble and remember that it didn’t matter where I started. I was going to have to start at the bottom. I was going to have to get my reps and sets in. I was going to have to establish my own credibility. Maybe a little bit based off of how I operated in the military, maybe even a few things about what I did, but really it was going to be about how do I bring value in this different way, and being prepared to go from the person at the top of the food chain to the person who has to write down acronyms in every meeting and go look them up afterwards. And be willing to learn that and be willing to say, look, I have to be the one that says all my questions might sound dumb, but I have 20 of them, so who wants to answer them for me? But I think if you can’t humble yourself to that level, then you don’t get to do the new best thing.

Rachel Bozeman 11:04 
I love it. Is there any other advice that you would give to our listeners who are transitioning?

Jacki Davenport 11:09 
Don’t self-select out of anything. If you can say yes, say yes. You can always leave later. This is the corporate space. You can be loyal, but do not be loyal to a fault and find the next thing that’s good for you. I think the other piece, which kind of drove my transition, especially into my first job, was I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn’t want to do, and most of those constraints and guardrails were wrapped around preserving that life balance, which is hard to preserve when you’re in uniform, but it’s not when you’re in the private sector. And so that’s what I started with. Like, hey, I want to be remote because my husband’s going to start flying all the time because it’s his turn. I want to be flexible because I have little humans and I want to spend time with them. I want to be able to learn. I need somewhere where I can grow. I don’t want to be stagnant. Whatever your five or six things are, you need to go into any interview knowing what your no-gos are. So as soon as one or two of them are hit, you can say, you know what, this probably isn’t for me, because you want to be in a place, even if you’re only there for a couple of years, where you’re not miserable every day for a couple of years, and you’re learning something, and you’re feeling like you’re progressing, because you already know you started at the bottom again, so you can keep going.

Ashley Jones 12:41 
All right, Exit Buddies. We’ve got another one coming up in just a moment. We just heard from Jacki, and I really loved when she talked about the fact that that time she felt like the person in the room who had 20 dumb questions. Well, guess what? If you’re transitioning to the civilian world and you have what feels like dumb questions, who better to ask than a mentor? So let’s hear now from Marine veteran Tom Eston on the value of seeking mentorship. Here’s Tom.

Tom Eston 13:12 
I’ve talked to a lot of veterans that want to get into cybersecurity, and they didn’t do cybersecurity in the military, or they didn’t even do intelligence or other types of similar roles, and they’re like, “Well, how do I get into pen testing?” And it’s like, well, first of all, find a mentor. Find someone like myself, or I can recommend other people. Go to a conference, start networking, get yourself out there so people kind of know who you are. Start a blog. Start these little things. Just don’t be afraid of sharing your knowledge. That’s one of the biggest things I get from a lot of vets is like, well, I didn’t have those experiences in the military. People are going to think I’m crazy coming trying to learn. I’m like, no. That’s what we want. We want to see people that are willing to learn. In fact, in an entry-level type of role, I’m willing to give people more of a chance because they’re showing me motivation. They’re showing me that they can learn. They’re showing me all these skills that they learned in the military. These are hugely valuable skills, even more so in a lot of ways than the technical skills. Technical skills can always be taught, but I always look at the experiences you’ve had and the things you’ve had to deal with. Take those little things and what you’ve learned, and you can apply them to the civilian world quite easily, especially the corporate world, because that’s one thing that I think military veterans have above their civilian counterparts is they’ve had these life experiences that I think are just so valuable, and companies see that. I would say one of them in particular, especially now I’ve been in a leadership role: how to have difficult conversations. That’s something I learned very early on in the military because there were situations I was in where things are life-and-death situations in the military. You’re thinking about the lives of your fellow Marines, and you’re thinking about civilians and crossfire and all these things. And so I’ve learned kind of throughout the military and then into my civilian careers, it’s been about addressing situations, especially around employee performance, or about decisions that need to be made maybe from a strategic level, and making those decisions and having the hard conversations early, and then being transparent about situations. Those are all things that I learned in the military and still prove. I use them all the time. But as I’ve gotten older, I do a lot more of that retrospect, where I want to understand, okay, who I am today is because of the things and the experiences that I had when I was younger, and a lot of that was the military experience.

Ashley Jones 16:06 
Thanks for sticking with us, everyone. We’ve got one more guest cued up for today, and this one comes from William “Jax” Jackson. Jax is going to tell us a little bit about how to stand out. For a little bit of context as well, Jax does work in talent acquisition in the GovCon community, so when he’s talking about job fairs, it’s from his experience as an employer at those events. So listen here to what his advice is when you are approaching employers about opportunities.

William Jackson 16:36 
We have all these different organizations that are reaching out to us, and they need these roles filled. So when I go to a job fair, those are the targeted roles that I’m looking to fill. So when you come up to my table and you go, “Hey, Jax, how are you? Nice to meet you. What do you have?” I’m taken aback by that because even though I have a candidate-facing side of that, where I want to get you a job, I still want to be sold. I still want you to give me that quick pitch. What makes you important? What makes you special? So your goal should be to match or provide product and value to that role, to that recruiter, and you should have already done your homework before you came to my desk. So I’m always taken aback by that question. But there was this one Army captain. I was at a recruiting fair in December. I’m ready to tear it all down. An Army captain walks up to my table, and I say, “Hey, nice to meet you. What do you do?” And he said succinctly, “I manage men, equipment, and over 20 million of property, and I bring it all back.” Literally a week prior to that, I had a meeting with one of the hiring managers who said, “Jax, I need a logistics management officer.” It snapped. And he literally just said that. I didn’t need to know anything else about him. He said it all with just that. I’m going to say 90% of veterans don’t even know what they want to do when they get out. They always say, “What can I do?” or “What do you have for me?” You’re going to be behind your peers and your civilian counterparts because they know what they want to do. So I want you to identify three priorities. You are going to execute on one of those. You have to—no excuses. You’re going to write it down the night before. You’re going to execute on that one priority. Zero excuses. And I just like to close with: lock on, execute, and win. We’re in this together.

Ashley Jones 18:21 
Well, that is a wrap for today, everyone. We heard from Bryson, Stephanie, Shanon, Jacki, Tom, and Jax, and I think hearing a piece of all of their transition stories kind of points to one central truth: that transitioning into a civilian career isn’t about having every answer on day one, but it’s important to stay curious, translate what you’ve already done, build those relationships, seek advice, stay open to all the opportunities that the civilian world has for you, and show up and present yourself professionally and with confidence, with clarity, when those moments do arrive in your job search. You don’t need a perfect plan, but you need some direction. Have those honest conversations and be willing to keep moving forward. All the episodes with all of these guests that were included in today’s episode are linked in the show notes, so you can go back, listen to their full story, hear about their time in the service, what it was like transitioning out in the beginning, what they’ve been up to all these years since, get to know them a little bit more. And if you liked today’s episode, go ahead and share it with another service member or a veteran who’s maybe still figuring out their next chapter. Thank you as always for listening to Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You. Take care of yourself and keep going. Until next time. Bye.

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Kathleen Smith

Host
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Rachel Bozeman

Host
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Ashley Jones

Producer