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What Are the Best Jobs for Military Veterans?

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For people with past military experience, finding a job is one of the first challenges they often face after serving. Veterans tend to have great skills that hold a lot of appeal for employers, but they have to learn how to maximize those. 

For example, if you re a veteran or have military experience, you re likely committed and disciplined.

You want to work on figuring out how to take the skills and experience that you already have and then translate that into relevance in the civilian world.  

Veterans tend to be very adaptable, which is a plus in the eyes of hiring managers. 

The following are some things to know about great jobs for people with past military experience. 

Security

Working in the security industry can be an excellent fit for someone as they transition out of the military and into their civilian life. 

The security industry requires well-trained people who can maintain a professional image and stay calm under pressure which often well-describes veterans. 

When you work in security, you need to display integrity and honesty and be someone that your clients and the public, in general, can trust. 

Along with working in security, criminal justice and law enforcement are also viable ex-military options. 

Many veterans want to keep serving their communities, and occupations that allow them to keep people safe and hold criminals accountable are a good fit for this desire. 

Within the broader field of criminal justice and law enforcement, jobs include criminal investigators, police officers, and corrections officers. 

Working for the Federal Government

Veterans may have unique opportunities and preferred status for jobs with the federal government after their service. 

Federal and government jobs come with impressive benefits, and a veteran may be able to go through special hiring processes not available to the general public. 

Small Business Ownerships

When you re a veteran, you may be someone who takes the initiative and is a problem-solver. These are characteristics that can translate well to owning a small business. 

Veterans also have a high-risk tolerance, which is important for entrepreneurs. 

If you want to own a business but not necessarily start from scratch, you can become a franchise owner. 

The International Franchise Association has the Veterans Transition Franchise Initiative that can connect you with opportunities. 

Information Technology (IT)

If you re transitioning out of the military, a job in the IT industry could be ideal right now. The industry is facing huge demand and growth, but at the same time, a lack of skilled workers. You could have a lot of opportunities and high pay and benefits if you take this path. 

Even if you don t have any experience in IT, you can start in an entry-level role, like a help-desk position, and that will allow you to get your foot in the door. 

There are also many certifications in the industry that can be the fastest way for you to break in. 

A tech degree can take four years or more to earn, while certification is something you can earn in a matter of weeks. 

A good example of an IT certification for an entry-level professional is the CompTIA A+. This is a vendor-neutral certification that provides knowledge across many general areas of IT. It shows that you have a basic level of understanding surrounding topics like hardware, networking, cloud, and mobile devices. 

Another good option is the CompTIA Security+ certification, particularly if you re interested in cybersecurity careers. The vendor-neutral certification indicates you can implement best practices in security. 

There are different options to get certified. You can study on your own and take a certification exam or go through a training program virtually or in person. 

Electrical Engineering

If your military experience includes time spent developing weapons, working with navigation systems, or creating standards for electrical systems, you could experience a seamless transition to being an electrical engineer. 

There are a lot of work environments available to electrical engineers, including government agencies, public utilities, and engineering firms. 

Management

When you re in the military, you learn to be efficient and do things effectively to ensure success. This could make you well-suited to work in different management positions. These could include things like retail or warehouse management. You could also work as a management consultant and help organizations solve their inefficiencies and problems. 

When you re choosing a career path, you want to take into consideration not only your military experience but also your general personality and things you enjoy. Remember examples where you demonstrated the ability to do certain tasks well and think about the physical environments that you feel are a good fit for you. 

The post What Are the Best Jobs for Military Veterans? appeared first on Jobacle.com.

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Creating Quality Standards For Contact Centers
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Creating Quality Standards For Contact Centers

COVID-19 had a negative effect on bricks-and-mortar businesses. However, the contact center industry is growing apace.

Where companies adopted a fully online model, contact centers are often the only way that they interact with customers.

For banking, telecommunications, travel, and other services, the “product” they offer varies little from one vendor to another.

Competition happens at the service level. Companies must define interaction standards to satisfy regulators and customers and define their brands.

This is usually done using an evaluation form. Team leaders or quality specialists use it to evaluate recorded calls.

Where Do Standards Come From?

Call center graphic

Quality standards should reflect what matters to the regulators, who can shut the business down, and what matters to the customers, who can vote with their wallets or credit cards.

How Do We Create These Standards?

Call / contact center employees

I use the following 6-stage method:

1. What happens during the call?

To answer this question, I talk to agents. They tell me what really happens on the call in 10 to 15 bullet points.

Flow diagrams showing how the workflow is structured in the CRM system are a poor substitute.

Agents frequently develop their own “workarounds” to address poorly designed workflows rather than submit enhancement requests and wait for a response that never comes.

The list doesn’t have to be meticulously detailed. If the data produced on the back of this call is important, then this also needs to be included as an event in the process.

2. What is “good enough”?

You can’t raise standards until you have defined them. Look at each stage and write down what makes that stage “good enough” for regulators and customers.

Many contact centers do this internally. The drawback here is that your standards reflect the opinions of contact center managers, not the general public.

A customer is standing on the street on a dark, cold, winter evening calling his bank to find out why the ATM won’t accept his card. He doesn’t care how many times the agent used his name in the conversation.

One way to get the customer’s view is to arrange a focus group and ask them. Another way is to look at what customers complain about. A third way is to ask agents what part of the call is most likely to upset customers.

3. Questions

Once you’ve defined what makes each part of the call good enough, then you need to reformulate that as a question.

The question needs to be as specific and as unambiguous as you can make it. Your answers also need to be specific and understood consistently.

If your question is “How well did the agent explain the function of the product?” and the answers are “Excellently,” “Quite well,” “Poorly,” or “Very poorly,” it’s unlikely that any two evaluators will agree on the answer in relation to the same call.

Evaluators find “Yes/No” answers to questions defining a specific standard a lot easier to use.

4. What about behavior?

Most forms have at least one evaluation criterion related to how polite/respectful the agent was on the call.

There may be others related to how clearly or quickly the agent spoke.

There may also be a “bucket” question on how well the agent adhered to compliance rules.

Put these at the end. An evaluator can answer them easily after listening to the whole call without having to scroll back up the form.

5. How much detail do you need?

Contact centers evaluating calls manually will evaluate no more than 1% of calls handled.

It takes longer for a person to evaluate a call than the length of the call itself.

To evaluate all calls manually, the contact center would need more evaluators than agents handling the calls. That is not going to happen.

The faster you can evaluate a call, the more calls you can evaluate, so a shorter form will lead to a better sample size.

It’s a good idea to look at your questions and decide which ones are “necessary” and which ones are “nice to have,” then cut out the “nice to haves.”

Catching enough detail is a delicate balance. Normally, less than 5% of randomly selected calls will have any significant problem at all.

Once you know what a “problematic call” is like in terms of length, which queue it serves, which agent handled it etc., you can focus part of your selection there to catch more of them.

Always select some calls randomly to validate your assumptions, however.

One idea is a 2-stage form. Start with some global questions on script/process adherence, correct information given, and politeness. Only move on to the second stage of the form if there is a problem to be solved in the first stage.

6. Testing

This form may lose people their quality bonuses or even their jobs, so we need to test it to be sure the results are accurate.

The read through

Get someone not involved in the form creation process to read it through. Authors tend to fall in love with their work. An external critical eye may see things that otherwise won’t be seen.

The test-drive

Get evaluators to use it to evaluate some real calls. They will point out how questions need to be changed to be useful

Calibration

Calibration is when multiple evaluators evaluate the same call with the same form. In theory, they should all produce the same results.

Where a question leads to disagreement, you will need to agree on the “correct” answer, then adjust the wording of the question and pre-set answers to lead to this result.

Wrap up

If you’re struggling to create or improve a form. Try following this process. Tell me how you get on! I’d love to hear about it.

CEO’s Impact On Culture: 4 Things To Consider
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CEO’s Impact On Culture: 4 Things To Consider

There are days when I am very excited to start the day and others where I wonder what is in store for me. Recently, I had one of those “wonder” days when heading to visit a very successful business owner. Many times on my visits the individual temperature and heart rate of this leader can be “summer Florida hot” even in the winter and other times it can be “Northern New England dark February cold.” By the way, this has nothing to do with the actual weather outside. I decided that on this visit it was worth exploring how this was impacting his organizational health given the continual external challenges.

The minute the leader turned the corner I could tell he was in a good mood which meant it might be time to have that “carefrontational” conversation that would be needed. I got greeted with that warm smile of excitement like he couldn’t wait to tell me something. After learning that he picked up some new clients and that revenue was back growing again, he made a side comment that caught my attention. “It is funny, Mike, despite this great news, I cannot get the leadership team excited about this. But that is okay. They will be happy when their bonuses come in.”

Right then, I decided to ask the “carefrontational” question with a qualifier: “Would you mind if we park it right here?”

He said, “Sure, what is the matter?” I asked if he would mind if we dug deeper into his comment about the leadership team not being excited and he said of course.

I asked him that “carefrontational” question: “What role are you playing in their lack of excitement?” At first, he was dumbstruck that I asked, yet I let the silence fill the car and did not try to say more. He shifted in his seat and looked out the window. We had built the TRUST needed for this to be okay or it wouldn’t work.

From there we dug deep into how I experience his moods when I visit and asked what does his team experience on a day-in-day-out basis? It led us to a very moving and emotional phase, yet it was also powerful. He expressed how he allows his personal situation at home (good/bad) and the business results (day to day) to positively or negatively impact his mindset or mood. The light bulb went off about how that roller coaster impacts the organization’s commitment to the goals and ambitions he has and also how at home his family might be feeling. It was so cool because he recognized it and articulated it versus me saying what I observed. He owned it…

4 Things CEOs Should Consider When Running A Company

CEO leads a team meeting about company culture

A few thoughts for those of you running a company, especially a family one, that might help improve the overall business performance along with relationships you have at work and home.

1. Judgment

Be careful to not attribute another’s actions to their character or personality. There are usually external factors that impact how people behave at work that impact how they are showing up that day. Invest time with your team to know what is going on personally and professionally so that when you notice a change, you can have that “carefrontational” conversation before it gets too far and they leave or you decide to fire them without understanding them. I have learned a new term connected to this called fundamental attribution error!

2. Vulnerability Space

If you as a leader are challenged with external factors contributing to your emotional feelings, so are other team members. Sharing that you are feeling stressed or concerned or experiencing some challenges at home can help your leadership team be more respectful and supportive. It can also help them share their situation. As a CEO/owner, I will assure you, over time, you will get a 2X-3X lift in individual performance when they know you care as much about their operational/financial performance as you do their personal welfare. Trust takes time but it does compound. The more everyone relates to each other the more connected the team will be, and when you need help they will be committed to it versus complying because you are their “boss.”

3. Structure with Flexibility

It may sound like a contradiction, yet what I mean is to put structure into your meetings with the team so they have a rhythm and cadence. We are humans and need connections and stability and knowing that there is a framework helps tremendously. That being said, during these get-togethers adding various exercises to keep people connected, reminding them why they are there, and adding some fun keeps people excited to attend and looking forward to the get-togethers.

4. Be a Learning Leader

Life is a journey and the fact that you are the business owner or CEO doesn’t mean you have all the answers. Nothing in your title says you should but many times we feel imposter syndrome if we don’t. My experience is intellectual curiosity and emotional intelligence are two of the most powerful traits a leader can and needs to develop. Ask for help and feedback, and listen to hear, not challenge. It might surprise you where in your organization the answers are. When you open up about what you need help with and are clear, there will be culture carriers who will rise up and help you.

The ultimate success of any SMB owner/CEO isn’t to always have the answers. It is to truly know your team well enough to know who can provide the right perspectives for you to make the most informed decision for the organization. Let me know if you want to discuss this further or debate the thinking above by connecting with me on LinkedIn or emailing me at [email protected]. I love connecting with high-integrity, growth-oriented business leaders who also care deeply about the environment and humanity.

3 Warning Signs The Job Will Be Bad
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3 Warning Signs The Job Will Be Bad

You applied for a job and made it through to the interview process. You’re incredibly excited to meet the hiring manager and potential future co-workers. But during your interview, whether prompted by something you heard or observed, you suddenly get a bad feeling about the job opportunity. Is this a sign that the job will be bad?

It is possible to spot a bad job and/or toxic work environment during an interview. Luckily, if you know what to look for and learn to trust your gut, you’ll also likely avoid accepting a job offer for a bad/toxic job. In your next job interview, watch out for these three warning signs the job will be bad…

1. The Hiring Manager Doesn’t Ask You A Lot Of Questions

@j.t.odonnell 3 Signs the job opportunity could be bad. #badboss #badjob #toxixjob #toxicboss #careertiktok #careeradvice #careertok #jobinterview #jobinterviewtips ♬ Eyes. Lips. Face. (e.l.f.) – iLL Wayno & Holla FyeSixWun

The first warning sign you should watch out for is when the person interviewing you does all the talking. They don’t ask you a lot of questions. They just sit and talk about the job and how great the company is. Really good managers and companies have clear expectations and they’re going to get at that through a series of questions to you in an interview. So if you don’t do a lot of talking, something’s up.

2. The Employees Aren’t Talking To Each Other

Women wait for a job interview

The next warning sign to watch out for requires you to be observant. If you’re physically in the office for the job interview and notice that people aren’t really chatting much, that’s a bad sign. Maybe they look a little serious and aren’t very open to talking about the company and the opportunity. Happy employees love to talk about their employer.

3. There’s No Formal Job Description

Man has a bad feeling about a job during the interview

The final warning sign that the job will be bad is if there’s no formal job description. And when you ask for it, the hiring manager says there isn’t one. Good companies always have job descriptions clearly written out so that they can make sure you understand your expectations.

If any of these warning signs are popping up in your interview, the job will probably be bad and you could end up dealing with a toxic work environment. Now, you might be tempted to accept the job offer even if you have a bad feeling because you’ve been looking for a job for a while. This will only hurt your career down the road. No matter how desperate you are for a job, you should never accept a job offer if there are major warning signs. The good news is, I can help you find the right job for YOU.

I’d love it if you joined my FREE community where professionals like you are learning how to become empowered in their careers so they can finally find career happiness and satisfaction, and overcome job burnout once and for all!

Sign up for my FREE community and become a Workplace Renegade today! My team and I are looking forward to working with you soon.