Kevin J McRoberts ⋅ Des Moines, IA MCRE-US Advisory Services, LLC ⋅ 40 years experience

Look into the commercial real estate information business like Costar.com; Reis.com; etc. Many others... Big business all across the U.S. Go to their websites and careers tab or call them... Huge growth in any major market and remote work as well.
Thanks to you, and Good luck - call anytime. Mac

John McNamara ⋅ Minneapolis, MN U.S. Marine Corps, Captain ⋅ 7 years served

Hi Christopher,
I like all the above answers.
Any company with present or historical ties to manufacturing will value it, and it may not be a differentiation...but a requirement.
Although companies do like the leadership military members bring...they also like practical experience in the specific field you are looking to go into. This gets you closer to that mark.

The only added insight I would bring, is that much like the MBA allows you to transition from a field not specific relevant to what your experience shows, going through a LSS or Black Belt program / position is another useful thing to do in your career if you need to "pivot".

At my old company, if you were stuck in a certain marketing/sales role, and you wanted to get out of it...and transition to the next rung or different area of the company, entering into that job gave you the opportunity to look outside of your current role/area/division etc. The role also gave you alot of visibility to the leadership.

Best Regards,
John

Michelle Muckenthaler ⋅ Castle Rock, CO National CineMedia ⋅ 9 years experience

In my IT realm, we struggled with applying LEAN, when most of the examples of success we were finding were in non-IT industries. I would encourage you to go forward with Six Sigma, as it will be likely be quite helpful in a non-IT industry. At the very least, it will give you another perspective to use, but will likely be very useful in any workflow situation you find yourself in.

Eric Knode ⋅ Minneapolis, MN Owner BPM Consulting LLC ⋅ 10 years experience

Hello Christopher,

I would agree with Po. Most companies, especially F500, value someone with a working knowledge of continuous improvement tools and techniques.

The challenge is finding a course that provides real value. I received mine through the military so I cannot speak to any of the suggestions. I would recommend a comprehensive course not a weekend learn to pass a test deal.

All the best.
Eric

Po Wong ⋅ Orlando, FL Johnson & Johnson (retired) ⋅ 40 years experience

Hi Christopher,

Thanks for your service!
Most major companies highly value PEx (Process Excellence -LEAN Six Sigma) due to the concept can apply to business process (Finance, IT, supply chain, source to pay...) and technical such as manufacturing, product Design & Development..... Many company including J&J will train and pay for LEAN certification. Very high % of our business associates are green or black belt certified.

My daughter has a MS in Engineering and a master black belt in PEx. She was moving from Medical, Auto Industries, to currently managing corporate business project with a global company. PEx is a very useful addition to formal college degree....and also give you flexible to change your career interest...

David Daugerdas ⋅ Palatine, IL IBM ⋅ 36 years experience

Thank you for your service. Although I'm personally not Six Sigma certified, I have a friend in the healthcare field who is, and he provide the following: "Having knowledge of performance improvement methodologies is a differentiator I feel. The soft skill and technical tools are useful in any position. I would recommend an online green belt course, or a course at a local community college. I have also found that the price of these courses have come down."

David McLaughlin ⋅ Missouri City, TX Oxy ⋅ 16 years experience

Christopher, there are 2 parts to this. A) how does it help you grow as a professional leader, and B) how much does it matter to your prospective employer? I earned a company certification in Six Sigma at my first company after leaving the Army. It had a very strong culture of quality and recognized people who led successful LSS projects. My second company is in an industry that hasn't really adopted LSS so it was less of a differentiator for me and the people I engage with at work either don't appreciate the impact it can have or look negatively at over analyzing situations vs just getting work done. So my anser to A is that it helped me tremendously in being able to quantitatively define, measure, analyze, improve, and control business problems. My answer to B is it varies, so consider your target industry and companies. I do happen to be an IT Program Manager, but I worked with many engineers in my last company who led LSS projects. In summary, I'd invest the time in getting the LSS certification if you're the kind of person who really enjoys improving processes. Not everyone is.