Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
American Corporate Partners and Veterati are both services to connect veterans with a mentor. Both are great- but for different reasons.
Start going down the #transitioningmilitary rabbit hole on LinkedIn and you will find more “veteran mentors” than you can shake a stick at.
From what I can see, these people tend to fall in one of three categories:
- Retired senior enlisted who just “want to help and keep serving service members.”
- Spouses who need an easily transportable career and a customer base that is nearby (since they are by a military base).
- Human resource professionals who learned early on that they needed a niche and found their niche in transitioning veterans.
Everyone wants to “help.” But there’s a difference between goodwill and results.
First know that if someone is charging you for their services to transition from the military-politely tell them to get fucked. You can refer them here if you want.
If they aren’t charging you, and they aren’t a non-profit, then they are earning a commission for placing you in a job. There’s nothing wrong with this business model — you just need to understand what their incentive structure is as a veteran. They are not doing this for charity: they want to put you in a job so they get paid. And your happiness and job satisfaction is not proportional to their payment.
So how can you start finding out about career opportunities for after the military and avoid being scammed or working a doofus?
Well, this site for starters. Shameless plug, I know.
There are two non-profit organizations that stand out for connecting veterans with industry professionals for mentorship and networking: American Corporate Partners (ACP) and Veterati.
Both organizations are focused on connecting veterans with industry professionals to help them navigate the job search, interview, and hiring processes.
I personally have used both and was immensely please with each.
So what are the differences?
They choose vs. you choose.
When you get started with ACP, you will submit info regarding your background and what your career interests are. Their staff will then comb through their database of volunteers to find someone who they think would be a good fit for you.
The good news is you don’t have to accept who they offer. When I used ACP, I didn’t decide on matching with a mentor until the third person they proposed to me. So you have full autonomy to decide who you want to work with.
On the slip side, Veterati puts the ball entirely in your court. Like ACP, you will build a profile to give Veterati some info on your interests. Mentors are then presented to you based on your career interests.
Connected to LinkedIn, you will get to see what that person does. You also get to see how active they are in mentoring and how they have been rated thus far by mentees.
Once you find someone, you schedule a call with them through the platform and then connect to discuss your career questions.
Length of relationship.
ACP is looking to connect you with mentor for an extended period of time.
My ACP mentor and I worked together for about 6 months. In that time, he reviewed my resume and MBA admission essays. He also connected me with alumni from some of my target business schools so that I could learn more about the value of an MBA. I spoke with senior execs at major corporations — connections I would’ve never made without the help of my mentor.
Veterati is more about creating targeted engagements. While you have the full ability to establish a relationship with a mentor on the platform, their service lends itself to having a one-off conversation.
So which do you use?
Both.
These are both fantastic organizations, each with their own unique benefits. There’s nothing saying you can’t use both.
I encourage you to use ACP to find a long-term mentor that you can reach out to during your entire transition process. Additionally, look through Veterati and connect with their mentors to ask targeted questions about specific industries.
Particularly for apsiring entrepreneurs, Veterati is a great way to connect with a number of people who work in entrepreneurship. You can talk to a variety of people working on lots of different projects in a multitude of industries.
I’ve had some business ideas of my own and found immense value in talking with entrepreneurs on Veterati who already had some time in the start-up trenches.
Literally my only knock on either of these organizations is that ACP has one of those terrible military stock photos on their cover page:
As a last note, both of these organizations are also open to military spouses.
Everyone is going to reach out to you to “help” you through your military transition. What I like about both of these organizations is that they put you in the driver’s seat and let you choose who you want to work with.
Both organizations also have a way to vet and rate mentors, helping prevent you wasting your time with some useless advice.
Use both and keep crushing.
Related: