Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
The last part of the Military to MBA series will be about what to do at school to succeed and get the most from your experience. You can create opportunities not only for yourself but also for other veterans.
A few key points to take into the process:
- Have a plan.
- Give back.
- Share your experiences.
Getting ready for interviews/recruiting
One of the more consistent refrains I’ve heard from people starting their MBA, especially veterans, is how quickly the recruiting process starts. Each school has different policies about when recruiters can start coming onto campus, but generally, you can expect events to start happening within the first four to six weeks.
That’s fast.
And for a veteran, who might be eight years out of their last academic experience and with little to no practical business knowledge, the first month or two is already strenuous enough. You can expect some serious frustration in trying to grasp accounting and finance principles and generally adjust to being a student again.
In your first year, the recruiting effort will be mostly aimed at landing your all-too-important summer internship. The internship serves as a way to gain experience in your target industry and signal to future employers your interests. And if you find yourself enjoying the work and performing well, it can be a way to walk into your second year with a job already lined up for after graduation.
The most important part of entering this phase is having a plan. You may not have the perfect roadmap set out for your career. Don’t worry — many of your fellow students, especially veterans, likely won’t either. But it’s critical to have a strong idea of the two to three industries and functions you think you may want to pursue.
If you are really struggling with this, start reaching out to your school’s career center before you arrive on campus. That’s what they are there for. You may also want to check out this book list to help you start thinking about what you want to do, and why.
Manage the extracurriculars
MBA programs are famously filled with clubs, societies, guest speakers, workshops, networking events, and a dozen other things that will all be vying for your attention.
Before you arrive on campus, identify your priorities for how you will want to spend your time. It’s easy to get spread a mile wide, but only an inch deep in all the activities available to you. Think about what is important to you personally and what is important for your next career and dive into those.
I’ll provide my own priorities as an example. I’m starting my MBA in Fall 2020 with the plan of only focusing on the following organizations:
- Veteran’s club
- Marketing club
- Entrepreneurship club
- Outdoors club
The first one on there is important to me for obvious reasons. The next two are specifically aligned with my career ambitions. There are a lot of other career-oriented clubs out there, but I want to focus my attention on these two. And the last is what will be my social club — something I do just for fun and to build a community.
Are these subject to change? Yes. But going in with a plan on how I want to spend my time will help me focus and prevent me from trying to go everywhere, but accomplishing nothing.
Try your hand at entrepreneurship
Being a student is a great time to try being an entrepreneur. Top schools all have some type of support to help student startups — support that can be hard to find once you graduate. And since you won’t have a job anyway while a full-time student, why not try your hand at creating your own?
A set of numbers that I routinely share is:
50% of WWII veterans owned their own business.
So did 40% of Korean War veterans.
The post-9/11 generation? Only 4.5%.
Veterans can make fantastic entrepreneurs. Ever heard of Nike, Walmart, or FedEx? All started by veterans.
You also don’t have to totally create your own idea. I can guarantee that someone in your class will be working on a startup and that they will surely need some type of help. This doesn’t have to be your plan for after graduation, but you could spend a semester working with a classmate. Rolling up your sleeves and working to build something can be a fantastic way to learn about a lot of practical business problems.
I worked at a startup for my DoD Skillsbridge internship (something I encourage every veteran to do) and learned a ton. In that time I had to deal with marketing, hiring, business development, and strategy as we were building something from the ground up and our team was small (fewer than 10 people).
During that time, we had a potential investor come visit. Seeing that there were me and another veteran there for a Skillsbridge internship got him excited. He told the founder, “I encourage every startup to bring veterans onto their team. They just know how to get things done.”
Are you thinking of buying a business? I recommend taking a look at Acquira and its accelerator as a way to get started. They place you in a cohort with other business buyers, help you vet deals, and then help you put together the financing to close on a business. Take a look HERE and use the link to get 10% off.
Participate in the Veteran’s Club
At first, I wrote the title of this section as “Join the Veteran’s Club” and then deliberately decided to change “join” to “participate.” Why? Because “join” is passive while “participate” requires action.
Participating in the veteran’s club is important for four main reasons.
First, you may gain exclusive opportunities. The veteran’s clubs I spoke with during my own evaluation process routinely told me that their club hosted networking events just for veterans. This usually involved a company sending in a veteran from their team to engage with current veteran students. Veterans tend to have a more direct communication style and these events can be a way to cut through some of the “brochure” appeal of a company and get into brass tacks about what the company and culture are really like.
Second, you may find yourself just needing to commiserate with like-minded individuals. Whilst the non-veterans in your class may be hardcore stressing about a project, the veterans may be thinking, “Yea, but no one is going to die! C’mon, it’s not that big of a deal.” It can be good to have a network to share these feelings with sometimes.
Third, I’m a big believer in the importance of veterans educating civilians about the military. Don’t doubt that people are interested in your story. You likely did things in the military that are just completely off the normal path and civilians are interested in that. I think it’s also important to share your experiences about the conflicts you were in to help educate people who likely have nothing more to go on than some articles on the internet.
The odds are also good that your classmates will someday be in the process of hiring and supervising other veterans. Pay it forward to those veterans by helping your classmates understand the military experience and how to work with those from a military background.
Lastly, help out other veterans in the admissions process. Bringing in strong veteran leadership into the business world is good all the way around for everyone. Do your part to help your future classmates get into school.
Some veterans want to leave the military and separate themselves from their identity as a veteran. Especially if you had a negative experience in uniform, I can understand this dynamic. But like it or not, you are a veteran. You spent time in the military and it shaped you in one way or another. Being a veteran doesn’t mean you need to shout about it at every opportunity, but I’m a believer in recognizing the forces that shaped you as a person.
Graduate and conquer the world
You served your country in uniform. You probably did some hard things, met some nutty people, and went to some out-of-the-way places. There’s a balance all veterans have to strike between recognizing how these experiences made you stronger while being humble about them.
Take your military experiences and your MBA and put them into use. Bring strong leadership into your next organization. Build a company that brings value to customers and provides a place for work to work and be proud of what they do. Mentor veterans and non-veterans alike to help them succeed.
Go and crush it.
Lastly, if you’ve been a consistent reader of the Military to MBA series, I greatly thank you for your following and patronage.
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Related:
You’re a Vet? Great. No one Owes You Shit.