Before I start, I have to mention that I miss the Ohio.  I miss what I never had.  I wonder how awesome my crewmates’ recent deployment must have been.  I wish I could have gone underway with them instead of the people I did.

Your experience in the military is made up by who you endured it with.  Unfortunately for me, all the good people came too late, and by that time I was past the point of being able to enjoy my experience.  I hope that all of those who are reading this, serving today, had a better experience than I did.  And I still hope I made a difference for the generation who came after me.

 

There is still an enormous amount of material I have left to write.  This story goes into great detail during the 2015 holidays, and I’m still not even finished with the interviews and thought processes I went through while on active duty.  To speed this up, I’m going to talk about four different interviews I had before getting out.  I’ll also throw in some words about GPS (the military separation course we’re required to take), because people are not quite whether it’s valuable or not.

 

Last time I talked about interests.  Once you’re confronted with job boards and the ability to apply, you’d better know what you’re actually interested in, otherwise you’ll be flooded with choices and will end up chasing things that don’t matter as much as you think (like job titles).

Decision Point #4: When and how should I start applying for jobs?

I remember beginning the job application process.  I first went on reputable sites like Monster.com and clearancejobs.com, because that’s what other people said made them successful.  I don’t encourage you to waste your time on these.  I got very little in return for the time I spent searching these sites.  I got perhaps two “matches” — that is, a job that I was interested in, and the company responded to my application.

I recommend only two websites: LinkedIn and Glassdoor.  By the end of my job search, these were the only two sites I was using.  (I’m not discussing USAjobs.gov here, that’s a very different topic.)

LinkedIn has three benefits: you can present yourself well to recruiters, who will almost certainly look at your profile prior to an interview and will gain a good impression of you before you talk with them.  You can also look up the people you’re interviewing with to look up their backgrounds and find common interests.  Finally, there’s an extraordinarily useful job search tool that functions way better than any other job board.  If you haven’t taken a look yet, you should soon!

When you’re using a job board, you MUST sort jobs by date posted, not by relevance.  Companies are terrible at removing old postings, and anything older than two weeks is probably going to get re-posted, filled, or forgotten about.  The chance of getting a response from an old posting is extremely slim, while applying to steaming new jobs typically gets you a very quick response.  All the best companies use LinkedIn to search for candidates and post jobs, and if you have a good profile, you are likely to get contacted by more than one recruiter.

Glassdoor is a website that gives you inside corporate information on salaries, interview questions, and boss reviews.  I found it to be an extremely accurate predictor of my own interview experiences, all the way through the offer letter.

I applied for 10-25 jobs per day.  I did that for about two weeks prior to my final deployment, and then resumed once I returned and no longer on active duty.  It’s a numbers game.  Maybe 10% look at you, 1% call you, and only a few of those will result in an offer.  It takes skill to get from a phone call to an offer, but first you need to farm, and that means sowing seeds.  It’s not as hard as you might think.  If you’ve figured out what type of career you want, pick a company and apply for everything that sounds like you might be qualified for and will enjoy doing.  For some companies, that may be one posting, and for others it may be 30.  Some application websites are more painful than others.  Some have taken a few minutes, while others have taken more than an hour.

A short answer to Decision Point #4:  Start four months in advance.  Many companies will not even want to talk to you then.  It takes an average of two months to get from initial phone call to an offer letter.  Again, that’s average, so I’ve been given an offer as quick as two weeks, and as slow as just under four months.  Most companies want to fill openings quickly, so if you’re too far out, you’ll be immediately disqualified.

Much of this advice comes from my wife, Rui, who worked as a recruiter for two different companies while we lived in Washington State.  How to apply for jobs, what the interview process looks like, what to say, how recruiters keep their records…I got an inside look at all of this, and it was very eye-opening.  It’s crazy how hard it is to find good talent.  A recruiter may sort through hundreds of resumes and conduct dozens of interviews for a single position.  For managers, it’s even harder.  And recruiters don’t like wasting time — just like you may have to apply for dozens if not hundreds of positions, recruiters will collect hundreds of resumes, then very quickly toss names in the garbage for small offenses like answering their phones impolitely.

 

Let me talk about Transition GPS (Goals, Plans, Success) for a moment.  I don’t know about others’ experiences, but mine were a mix of waste-of-time briefs on VA benefits that would never apply to me, and a handful of somewhat useful seminars on interviews and resumes.  The most useful thing I got out of the class was the use of a FUNCTIONAL STYLE RESUME.  This is very different than your standard chronological resume.  If you’re jumping into a brand new career path and people can’t tell what your skills are by reading your job titles, then you can better explain them with the functional style.  Mine was two pages long and talked in detail about my Division Officer and Watch Officer experiences, translating them into technical project management.  Big companies often ignored it because they couldn’t stand looking at a non-standard resume, but it got me incredible attention at smaller firms.  When you’re using either type, consider your audience.

 

Decision Point #5: When and how do I prepare for interviews?

I had four key interviews in my last couple of months on active duty.  I say they were “key” because I learned huge lessons about this process from them.  (I had several other interviews that didn’t mean much — usually companies or positions I had no interest in.)

The first interview, in the middle of GPS, was with an “exclusive” headhunting firm called “Alliance”.  They contacted me on LinkedIn saying I was a candidate they were interested in.  They advertised themselves as the most elite of all the military headhunters, only taking the top 20% of junior officers, and promising to get them into the most lucrative business careers available.  I did two hour-long interviews over the phone and answered a bunch of behavioral questions, such as, “Tell me of time you succeeded/failed,” “Where do you see yourself in five years,” and “What is your leadership style?”  I was honest and straightforward in all of my answers.  At the end, they said they would love to accept me, except that at one point I mentioned one of my future goals was to get a PhD.  “Tell us you’re interested in strictly business, and we’ll take you immediately!”

They may very well be a great headhunter, but I still haven’t totally put away the idea of getting a PhD.  I now know exactly the career moves I would need to take to earn a fellowship, and I’ve taken some of the first few.  There are many PhDs who work in my office, but it’s a special route and not required for promotion.  It would be mostly for pride if I did.

Here’s the catch.  Everyone loves to say they’re part of an exclusive group.  You want to be a part of something that others can’t.  So the attraction in this headhunter was that only 20% of officers get accepted.  But you know what…I don’t care.  These guys were “exclusive”, meaning if I signed with them I was obligated to stop all my other interviews.  Why would I do that?  Really, they were just taking advantage of my marketability.  I’m glad I didn’t call them back.  More than likely, I would have ended up in a sales or consulting job, which probably would not have been a good fit for me.  I’m not you, so consider your own needs and desires when making this decision.

I hope this style of narrative is helping you in your decision.  Otherwise, I’m not doing my job!

 

The next interview was with General Electric (GE), in their Aviation Department, for their Junior Officer Leadership Program.  Leadership Programs!!!  Just about everyone wants to find the secret key that will accelerate their careers (most importantly, pay and title) faster than their peers.  That was the point of joining the Navy, right?  Sign up for four years and have your career accelerated!  GE was one of many large corporations that offered this type of two-year rotational program which would give you a taste of various departments within the company, give you highly marketable training (6 Sigma Black Belt, LEAN, etc.), promise you face time with the company’s top executives, and reserve a premier managerial position for you after the completion of your two year education.

Any reasonable person would be licking their lips and rubbing their hands together when hearing about this program.  It’s all the bragging rights you could ever want.  And I have to admit, I screwed this one up!  Let me explain.

I got through a series of interviews rather quickly, first with recruiters, then with senior engineers with the company.  I warned them time and again that I’d be available to work probably no earlier than November.  They were fine with that.  Then…went on my last deployment.  I told them I was leaving and that I would be out of contact.  That didn’t help.  When I returned, there were a bunch of missed messages on my phone and in my email the week after I left.  I tried calling back, but over a month had gone by and they didn’t remember who I was.  I tried starting over, but nothing would get through.  Rui explained to me later that my name was somewhere in their application system with a black mark for having dropped off the face of the earth.

Important rule:  You only get one shot with a company.  Ignore advice to the contrary.  Rui showed me the computer programs that get used for tracking applicants.  A black mark is a black mark, and the company will only contact you if their contact list is exhausted — which in this information age will never happen.  If you screw it up, it’s probably going to take you a few years (and the programs are scrubbed) before they’ll interview you again.

It wasn’t the only Junior Officer Leadership Program I applied for.  But I soon found that there were very hidden cons to these deals.  First, I must say that I noticed that there were many of my former colleagues who had made it with GE or similar firms.  However…these guys and girls were typically at the bottom of my class, whether in the Navy or otherwise.  Was I hallucinating?  Later I met a couple of folks in their mid-30s who had been through GE’s course and experienced a lot of frustration for it.

First, while it’s not mentioned up front, you are absolutely obligated to stay with the company for a minimum of five years.  Second, they found the culture to be exactly as the military.  Surrounded by former junior officers, the political games and backstabbing continued until they were isolated and burned out.  This surely won’t be everyone’s experience, but it’s something I don’t dare to go near.  Maybe the corporate world wasn’t for me altogether?

 

My next interview was with Tesla.  A wonderful, reputable company, right?  Everyone fawns over Elon Musk and his genius ambitions.  I called the veterans’ recruiting department and got a 30 minute interview for a Production Supervisor position.  The idea was, even though this might be a step down, it might be the only way for me to break into the high tech industry.  After speaking five minutes about my experience, the former Army MP Captain I interviewed with said, “Whoa, whoa, stop!  You are way too qualified for this position!  I’m afraid you’ll be bored and leave the job after three months.  Let me forward your resume to the Engineering team and see what they’ll say.”

Two weeks later I called the guy again.  “It looks like the Engineering team didn’t bite.  They usually expect at least ten years’ industry experience.  But hey, I still think Production Supervisor is a perfect fit for you.”  Another two weeks passed by and I called again.  “It looks like this team meant to post this position as an internal hire.  How does Maintenance Technician sound to you?”  I never called again.

Time and again I saw evidence that their HR Department continues to be a joke, and the company itself is not a great place to work.  Elon Musk rules with his personality, and can have great big mood swings and go on a firing spree after making insane, last minute changes to the design of a product.  Since there are thousands of people waiting in line to work at Tesla, there’s never a worry of exhausting talent.  Most people work for mediocre wages, and are expected to work at least 80 hours a week without overtime.  If you can’t keep up, you’ll get replaced quickly.

This was still the type of culture I was trying to avoid.  It should show you that all you’re guaranteed with a big company’s name is just that.  If bragging rights mean a whole lot to you, then these positions are available to you — but be ready to make some sacrifices.

 

I’m still focused on the Decision Point at hand — how and when do you prepare for interviews?  Perhaps I had good experience in dealing with my superiors in the Navy.  (Or…arguably not.)  But at least I had good interview prep from my times at Naval Reactors.  Seriously!  It is excellent preparation for interviews in the real world.  There is a common sense approach.  Think before you speak.  Make appropriate eye contact.  Show that you’re intelligent, but don’t volunteer too much information.  Smile and speak with your body.  Show interest.  Dress well.  Don’t pick your face or say “umm” too much.  Everything you learned in the military applies.  Doing all this will still get you a long way.

Now for the final story.  All the aforementioned companies were “backups”, and the other military headhunters were “backups to my backups”.  I was really after Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory.  Unfortunately, my inside contact whom I’d met at a career fair almost a year before wouldn’t answer office phone calls or emails.  Finally, I got the word that the gentleman had moved on to become the Program Manager of Advanced Technology at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  He was sitting in the throne of what I envisioned as the pinnacle of my future career.  I wanted to be this guy.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t help me anymore.

Penn State suggested I apply for jobs the normal way.  I never got contacted by anyone, even as I applied for jobs that developed submarine technology, or ones that required a TS/SCI clearance with a Counterintelligence Polygraph.

Pro Tip:  In the security world, there’s an abundance of clearances out there.  TS/SCI is not the highest, and I’m not talking about SAP either.  Many job applications, when asking for your clearance level, will ask whether you’ve had a polygraph.  There are two types: Counterintelligence (CI) and Full Scope (FS), otherwise known as Lifestyle.  If you don’t have one, you probably won’t get one.  The most common reason to need one is as an intelligence analyst.  You’d be amazed how many millions of people in the US have TS/SCIs…it’s not that helpful in the job search.  Also…different government agencies have different clearances that don’t cross over.  Having a TS/SCI in the Navy doesn’t help you if you want to work for the CIA, NSA, DHS, DoS, or DoE.  You have to start the clearance process from scratch.

(I’m amazed at what I learned during my job application process.  I’m also amazed at what I’ve learned in Washington, DC since moving here.)

The story…

I met a representative of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory at Submarine Group Nine’s Headquarters.  A brief conversation lead to me applying for several jobs on their website, and a very helpful recommendation from this rep.  This lead to a phone call for a “Sonar Operator Machine Interface Working Support Group Team Member”.  There was no job description.  They wanted either a recently separated fully qualified Submarine JO with Anti-Submarine Warfare experience (me!) or a retired ACINT (Acoustic Intelligence) specialist.

Pay attention — this is what you should expect for any job interview for any position you’re competing for once you’re at this level.  First there was a 30 minute “are you really a human” phone interview from an HR rep.  Then there was a 1 hour “are you really qualified for this position” phone interview from that same rep.  Then there was a 1-hour conference call with no fewer than five people interviewing me — two retired Submarine Captains, and three scientists.  And when I say “interview”, I really mean they were getting to know me and gauge my personality.  Again, I stayed friendly, true, and honest, and they immediately invited me for an interview out to Laurel, MD.

I was shocked — they bought a last minute flight ticket for nearly $1000 to get me across the country to their lab.  They also fully funded my meals, hotel, rental car, and all other expenses.  I knew I would have to say or do something really stupid to screw this up.  (And of course you know that I did — but wait and see why.)

The day before, I was sent an email with a list of 12 people I’d be interviewing with over the course of 8 hours.  This started with bosses, then moved to colleagues.  I’ll give you the short version.  While this was a great office with great people and a great mission, the job itself they wanted me to do was terrible.  I knocked out all the boss interviews just fine — all they asked was whether I had any problems speaking in public, or speaking to high ranking officers.  Of course I didn’t!  Then the first retired Sonar Senior Chief I talked to asked me if I knew exactly what I was interviewing for.  I said no, and so he shut the door.

He told me that if I were to get the job, I was the third person to have it in eight months.  The others had been fired due to poor performance.  That didn’t phase me.  He then said that my specific role on this team was a sort of “Product Support Representative”…that there were very many stakeholders in this project, all of whom were constantly calling the office angrily with different demands to changes in the product’s outcome.  Again, two previous JOs had been fired because they couldn’t please everyone.  It was impossible, in a sense.

Add this to commuting two to three times a week to downtown DC from Baltimore, as well as twice a month to Groton, CT.  Then add the fact that I had no input whatsoever into the product’s design, which was my only true interest.  Then, the final blow, was the statement from another retired Senior Chief:  “Have you ever worked for a really terrible Captain or Department Head?  Well, imagine working for ten of them.”

This broke me down.  I told them up front I had serious reservations about the job.  I was leaving the Navy to get away from this type of culture.  Their tone went from very friendly and open to very neutral.  The day ended, and I never took my words back — I only repeated them to each new interviewer, quoting what the Senior Chiefs had told me.

I somehow thought they’d still ask me to join their team.  They didn’t.  You could say in a sense I turned them down, by telling them no up front — but I didn’t.  They told me no, and it was a punch to the gut.  I was overconfident and I lost the job.  Probably for good reason — but it ate me up for a long time, as I was still jobless for three months after returning from my trip to East Asia.

I wanted to badly to get my foot in the door at Johns Hopkins’ APL.  I knew the other opportunities that awaited if I had only taken a terrible job for two years.  But not getting the job opened up even more opportunities.  It freed me and Rui to travel abroad for over two months after I left active duty on September 10th.  I had a hole in my gut for much of the time, but in retrospect it was a very daring decision.  The most important lesson that I learned was that I would never again be the one to be told “no”.  No matter how terrible the job, I would continue smiling and nodding my head until they gave me an offer, to which I had the power to say “no”.  I vowed to keep the ball in my court, not theirs.

I would continue to disobey my own vow, showing bluntly that I didn’t like a part of a deal when presented with it.  This allowed me to either negotiate it on the spot, or forget about the deal entirely.  I repeated this until I got three amazing deals in February, all even better than the Johns Hopkins position.

I’m not sure I recommend anyone else to be this daring.  I had a lot of savings and a lot of patience.

But the best part is that not only am I overseeing folks at Johns Hopkins in my current position, I’ve also recently been accepted to one of their Master’s programs.  After all, the HR and Admissions Departments don’t share databases.  I’m very, very likely to return to JHU after several years, in a much higher position than if I had simply started working there.

 

All the best of luck to you in your job search.  Please contact me via Facebook, this blog, or dominik.wermus@gmail.com if you’ve got specific questions for me.  I’d love to answer them.

Regards,

Dominik

I have a lot of friends reading this blog, and they’re paying particular attention to the job search narrative.  Many of my friends have their own resignation letters in hand, but before they can submit them, they’re asking themselves whether they can really go through with it.  The answer is yes, but be ready for what comes next.  It wasn’t easy for me, and it was very scary at times, given my particular set of circumstances — unemployed, on international travel, and on my mom’s couch for the winter holidays.

I’ve been waiting to say this for a long time.  Networking is a thing.  I hate to say it, but it’s true.

There are two types of networking, in my eyes; a light and dark side.  The “dark side” is the one we all despise — where privileged individuals take advantage of prestigious family connections in order to land at a top-name company or school.  Almost certainly, the individual did nothing to earn this other than be born in that family with those political connections.  I like to say such people have a “silver spoon”, though I don’t know where that comes from.

I’m extremely good at networking.  Yet I was born with zero of the advantages described above.  This is the “light” side of networking.  I’m the type of person who craves to know everything about everything.  I’ve naturally learned to ask questions in ways that people give me the most information — information that can’t easily be found by reading references.  So you could say that I know how to talk to people because I have a genuine interest in what they do.  I don’t need to fake any part of my personality.

I’m not just interested in people’s professions.  I’m interested in their personal lives.  I care very deeply about my friends.  Half the reason I’m writing this blog is to share useful information with you all.

By reading this blog, you’re gathering information, though you may not even know what questions to ask.  If you ask me specific questions, you’re networking, because you’re listening to what I have to say — taking my advice based on my experiences, so you can save yourself (and your loved ones) time, money, and grief.

I listen to people very closely — especially those who are much more seasoned than I am.  Older folks normally want to help younger folks.  Younger folks often don’t listen.  I’m accomplished many things because I’ve listened to older folks.

 

Getting on, let’s rewind back to where I last left off in the Job Search story.

Decision Point #3: What am I interested in?

This is the hardest part of the entire process.  How can you comfortably leave the military if you have no idea what’s on the other side?  You might ask yourself:  What if the hours are the same?  What if the treatment is just as horrible?  What if there is no potential for growth, or my work is meaningless?  How can I achieve happiness?  What even constitutes happiness?

Short answer: it’s built on four items.  Money, location, growth potential, and company culture.  The nature of your work actually matters less than you think.

Money accounts for your standard of living.  That depends on your tastes.  You didn’t work for peanuts before, and you shouldn’t now.  But if you feel the need to make more money than everyone else, than certain career fields are for you.  (And they weren’t for me.)  You want to be either a salesperson or consultant, and I promise you that you will work as many hours if not more than what you were doing before.  I was happy getting within 10% of what I was making before — no less, though.  I’d previously earned it.

Location is more important than what I originally thought.  I thought I’d move to anywhere a great job could be found.  But once I was actually offered good positions in the middle of nowhere, I turned them down.  I just couldn’t live in a town of 2000 people with the closest airport 4 hours away.  And Rui especially protested — she would have been miserable.  We eventually narrowed our choices down to DC and San Francisco as being the two places “hip” enough to live in, career-wise and socially.

Growth potential matters, and that depends both on the career field and the company.  Someone like me is going to want to invest hard work now to get dividends later.  I want to bust my butt and prove I’m valuable to a company so they’ll promote me fast — but I know it’s going to be hard work.  So should I work for a big company or small company?  Does the name matter?  The answer is not simple.

(For “the fastest climb”, you should work at a big-name company for a couple of years, then go to one of its competitors, rinse and repeat.  It’s kind of like the military.  Once you’re in, you can put it on your resume, but few people will actually know what your performance was.  And once you’re in, it’s a big bureaucracy with very mechanical ways to promote people, which can be deeply frustrating to those who are loyal.  So if you feel like you have the skills, you can start your own company to compete with who you were just working for.  Honestly that’s how business works.)

(You work at a small company at your own risk.  Think if you were hiring someone.  Before you meet candidates, you’re filtering resumes.  You judge people based on their previous companies or what schools they graduated from.  How else can you sort people before you meet them?)

The most important factor of all is company culture.  It’s the deciding factor which makes people love or hate their jobs — stay in or leave the military.  And you know the boss is the one who sets the tone the most.  Know this: you will never know the culture until you interview there, so you can’t make any decisions until that time.

 

Lots of words.  Lots more story to go.

I had some ideas for what type of jobs I wanted after the conference in DC, but I knew I needed more.  I couldn’t rely only on Penn State Applied Physics Laboratory.  I needed several backup plans, and they couldn’t all be university fellowships.

That’s when I first got into contact with military recruiters.  Any military member should be familiar with them.  After all, guys like Lee Cohen from Lucas Group start sending us emails AND paper mail as soon as we get to our first unit.  They advertise free job consulting and connections as a reward for our hard work in the military.  They don’t give a whole lot of details, just promising that they offer the best jobs with the best salaries with minimal work on your part.  Could I really trust that?

I gave them a shot.  First I contacted Orion, who had just landed a Nuclear Electronics Technician from my boat a job at SpaceX.  Too good to be true, right?  Additionally, two junior officers who had just been kicked off the Blue Crew for having sex on the submarine while underway both supposedly got amazing jobs through Orion as well (one at Amazon in Boston, the other at some marketing firm from his hometown in Ohio).

By the way…(Myth: if you get released from active duty for anything other than an honorable discharge, your life is ruined.  Totally false.  While employers did ask me why I was leaving the Navy, no one ever asked to see any of my records.)

Which was why the first steps with Orion and Lee Cohen were awkward.  They wanted all of my evals and fitreps, among other things.  Frankly, it was none of their business.  But if you want to work with them, you must fork them over.  What were they using them for, exactly?

I could go on a long time about these headhunters, but I’ll cut to the chase.  They don’t care about you.  They’re not interested in your welfare.  None of them.  When they see you, they see easy $$.  The truth is, you are totally capable of getting yourself hired at even better jobs than what they offer.  Companies who have a very hard time hiring people (think about why) go to Orion and other headhunters and pay an extravagant commission to get someone who is intelligent, hardworking, and above all, LOYAL.  THEY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR LOYALTY.

The typical commission for a headhunter is 40% of your first year salary, split between the firm and the recruiters who placed you.  They will push you to take jobs you don’t want.  They will get frustrated with you if you are picky.  And so they did get very frustrated with me, because I was very picky.

You can work with headhunters if you want.  They’re free after all.  I had five working for me at the same time: Lucas Group, Orion, Bradley Morris, Alliance, and Tech Qualled.  Out of HUNDREDS of job placements, ONLY ONE was the type of job that I would have been happy taking.  So if you’re willing to settle, and you really don’t care about your career, then let them have at you.  Otherwise, if you’re going with them, be prepared to waste an awful lot of time sorting through absolute trash.

 

Back to the Decision Point: What are you interested in?  How do you make that decision for yourself?  Each headhunter will put you through a series of courses (or skip them altogether if you want) telling you how to choose your career field.  They give you five categories: Engineering, Operations, Manufacturing Management, Sales, and Leadership Development Programs.  Common sense should tell you that these don’t govern all the industries available in the civilian world.  That’s just what the headhunters have available for you.

So here’s my version.  When I sit down face-to-face with a friend, these are some questions I ask to narrow down the enormous fields out there:

1. What do you envision yourself doing?  (You may lack confidence in your answer, but chances are, your first instinct is actually what fits you.  You may be lead astray by other people’s advice, i.e. headhunters’.  Your gut instinct is about 90% right.  This means you should focus on the key words, which for me were “science”, “technology”, and “program management” — and hey, guess what, it’s what I’m doing now, and I’m ecstatically happy.)
2. Where do you want to live?  (If you don’t narrow it down early you are going to overwhelm yourself with choices.  Plus, you’re at a huge disadvantage if you’re not a local.  Yes, really.)
3. How hard do you want to work?  (If you don’t want to work more than 40 hours a week, there are a lot of careers you can kiss goodbye to right now.  That includes sales, consulting, and the majority of high-tech firms.  Sorry.)
4. Do you want to go back to school?  (For the majority of military officers, going back to school is not necessary.  The desire to do so is often to fulfill an ego need.  You probably have the training and experience necessary for 90% of jobs.  School, in this case, is not about aiding your employment search.  More on school later.)

After answering the above four questions, I would share with you a wealth of data points I earned in the previous year, mostly from people I met during job interviews.  And so there you must rely on your own ability to “network” to learn more about what’s out there.  More data can overwhelm your options, but it can also open doors you never knew existed.

I, for one, had renounced the Department of Defense and all associated industries.  And yet here I am, happy as a songbird.  I had no idea I’d be working here, and I’m very proud that I am.  Never say never.

 

I went to the job conference in DC one year out from separation.  I turned in my resignation letter three months later.  With six months left, I contacted headhunters and began to apply for jobs on my own.  Next time, I’ll talk about three key interviews I had prior to leaving the Navy.  The results may shock you!

All the best,

Dominik

One year ago today, in the early afternoon, I was on the Ohio in the Bremerton shipyard.  I was thinking of staying late again when Rui called asking me to come home as soon as possible.  I knew it was serious.  Ideas started flowing, yet I thought there was a chance that this was very good news.  I stopped by my XO’s office and dropped a hint that Rui could be expecting.  He was excited for me, and my heart pounded all the way home.

I opened the door, and saw Rui’s face covered in tears and her eyes swollen.  She was not smiling.  “I have to let you know…that Bobby killed himself this morning.”

I kept my heart solid like a rock.  Before distracting emotions could take hold, I needed to know:  How?  Where?  Why?  What were the first things I needed to do?  First I called my mom.  She could barely speak, so the call was short enough to get the names and numbers of the neighbors who had found him.  I called them next.

What followed became a twisted journey down a rabbit hole.  The couple concerned were “proud” to have had him choose their apartment as the place to end his life.  They had already “taken care of” most of everything, including the crime scene, his apartment, his suicide note, and his cell phone and laptop, having kept most of it away from the police.  Bobby had somehow got into their apartment, unlocked their gun safe and ammo locker, assembled the weapon, and ended his life with a shot to his right temple in their shower.  He had never touched a gun in his life.  “But you know, he was just so smart, he could figure out anything.”

I was ready to rip these people in half, but as the Chicago detective told me, in the end, it was Bobby’s choice.  The rest was not worth fighting.  It was time to get friends together and mourn.

But I knew I could only feel better once I understood.  He always wanted to understand himself as well.  If we could just understand it, we could help other people with the same problems.

There was more to be angry at.  I knew why he killed himself.  I had lived almost the same life he did.  I knew the demons that tore up his mind and all his days unbearable.  I knew how he tried everything he could to make it all go away, leaving the “last resort” truly for last.  And I suppose it just happens that one day you’re very seriously thinking of ending the pain, and you go all the way through with it.  It was the second time he tried, with the first having been almost ten years before.

There were no sudden warning signs.  We had been talking over the phone once every three weeks or so.  That was more than we had talked in college.  Life was getting better for him.  He had a decent job with very good friends, both new and old.  He was constantly engaged with the outside world.  He was close to literally hundreds of people.  Yet, he thought he was a failure.  He was on the verge of trying something new — leaving Chicago, going to another big city, and starting all over again.  None of his friends or family outside Chicago suspected anything so serious.  He didn’t give us a chance to save him.

All throughout the process of going through his belongings, calling banks and credit card companies, talking with the police, and setting up two funeral services, I kept my heart stone and my brain logical.  But I broke down and my heart melted into a puddle as I was singing “Amazing Grace” at the first service.

How do you explain brotherhood?  I shared a bedroom with for half my life.  We played with the same neighbors, and did karate, baseball, and cub scouts together until he went to middle school.  He was too cool for me after that, so he spent most of the time picking on me in front of his friends.  He made me join Theater in high school, so we did both a play and a musical together — he as a popular senior and me as a nerdy freshman.  We had traveled a fifth of the world together.  We suffered many days cooped up in our hairy aunt’s apartment in Bydgoszcz.  We shared so many millions of memories together that no one else can understand.  That’s what brotherhood is.

I didn’t like him most of the time.  I didn’t like being picked on.  It reminded me of how much I didn’t like myself.  The biggest reason I went to VMI and joined the Navy was to “outgrow” him and become permanently proud of myself — but as he constantly reminded me, he would always be my big brother.

We were so much the same.  At some point in high school, I realized he also despised himself.  Maybe he admitted it to me.  I remember Adam pointed it out to me about myself, rather harshly, but it suddenly made sense.  Regardless, I also realized he was trying very hard to change himself.  He wanted to become “permanently proud” — achieve a self-confidence that couldn’t be shaken.  He wanted to act and make people laugh.  He wanted to earn respect from all the people that didn’t matter.

If only he knew how much everyone around him loved him for exactly who he was.  When you live for loving others, you’ll gather friends of the utmost devotion.  In his suicide note, he asked for no funeral — probably because he pictured there would be fewer than a dozen people.  He didn’t realize at the Chicago one alone, the massive hall was standing room only and went out the door.  If he knew how much star power he had, he would never have ended his life.  He already had what he was looking for.

It’s no one’s fault, and it doesn’t matter now.  What’s done is past, and those of us who live with his flame in our hearts go forth to make our lives better.  The real lesson here is to burn with love and show it to each other every day.  Yes — Bobby did it for all of us, and all his friends did that for him, too.  We can’t understand why it didn’t reach him.

With horror, I felt like it could have been me.  And…it was me.  Part of me was lost.

Do you want a clinical name for a mood disorder?  Don’t bother.  Know that whatever it was, it was there from our earliest memories.  Bobby survived with a heart-wrenching mental illness for 30 years.  We understand mental illness at a pathetic level, and our treatment and reactions are neolithic.  We’ll understand later.

Again — the real lesson is to live for love.  Love yourself and love everyone else, even if they’re terrible to you.  And soak up the love that others give you.  Believe in it, and know that nothing else matters as much as your friends and family.  Continue to live well, and rejoice in what you have.  Shine for the whole world.