Mary M. Burns ⋅ Denver, CO Kellogg School of Management Career Management Team; AdviseU (private coaching practice) ⋅ 25 years experience

Hi Anthony,
That's quite an amazing career at 21 years (and counting)...congratulations. I like your approach and being planful looking ahead 17 months to determine your transition and next move as you begin your civilian career. In addition to the valuable ideas above, I'm glad to offer the following:
1) LinkedIn: This is a valuable professional networking platform (less social media) that helps you to do many things through your job search: research companies, define a targeted search by industry, company, location, level and more; plus connect with people in your target firm list. You can get super focused by using the site in the beneficial ways and I'm glad to show you how.
2) Applying: Blindly applying and sending dozens and dozens of resumes (or hundreds!) is really a thing of the past. There are not enough recruiters in the HR teams to review all applications. The key to landing your next role will be a simultaneous effort in networking and building valuable internal advocates and referrals plus making your application. I'm glad to share more about how you can target your networking efforts without a lot of "cold" outreach.
3) Focus on Arizona: If this is your targeted geo location, there are ways to get a scope of the market and learn much more about what options might exist.

Please let me know if you'd like to schedule a short call for some coaching around the above one day/week in the future. I'm happy to be a resource for you and can be reached at: mary@adviseu.net.

I hope the above ideas are useful. Have a good week!
-Mary

Gabriel Hoffman ⋅ Dayton, OH Northrop Grumman ⋅ 40 years experience

Anthony, I can connect you to a career EHS engineer who worked for me for 2 years, top notch guy. Do not think he can help with Arizona per se, but he can review your resume and talk to you about the field.

ACP AdvisorNet Staff ⋅ New York, NY ⋅ 10 years experience

Hi Anthony,

Thank you so much for your question!

My first question to you is, do you have a resume? If so, has anyone in your desired civilian field been able to review and edit your resume? Also, working with an ACP mentor on tips for networking would hopefully be helpful!

I would also recommend taking a look at our "Community" tab and then click on the "Advisors" section. From there, you can filter by the field that is closest to your desired field. You can also search for advisors and then type in an Arizona area zip code to potentially find advisors in the area. You can directly message them to ask questions.

I also found these resources for you:

https://blog.linkedin.com/2020/may/june/12/four-tips-to-network-on-linkedin

https://hingemarketing.com/blog/story/networking-on-linkedin

https://medium.com/@axelcwittmann/7-alternatives-to-linkedin-you-might-not-have-heard-of-14d9bb2b8cdc

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/8218-networking-sites-job-seekers.html

https://www.careersingovernment.com/tools/gov-talk/career-advice/make-yourself-competitive-in-the-emergency-and-disaster-management-industry/

I hope this helps!

In addition, I connected with you on LinkedIn. We look forward to working with you in our program!

All the best,
Maria

Joe Engle ⋅ Indianapolis, IN Electrical/Software Eng. + MBA ⋅ 30 years experience

Hello Anthony. The regulatory field has been hot for quite a while. I think there are a lot of graduates in Environmental Studies, that scoop up positions related to the environment. However, related skills, that do not have related degrees, are very much sought after by companies. For examples, regulatory agency skills for UL-Safety, FCC-radiation, FDA-clinical trials, and on and on. Degrees are not offered in these areas, but many companies must have people in these areas to exist! So experience and knowledge about the area is highly desirable, and companies pay VERY well for these positions. I know of a company that was trying to find someone to be their UL(Underwriters Laboratory) standards guy. They could not find anyone. They ended up hiring somebody, because he knew what ‘building codes’ were!!

The downside to these regulatory positions is, there are only so many of them in any town. So relocation might be needed. You said you were fairly open to this. This actually is to your advantage, as a position like this might attract very few local applicants, per my example above.

You are correct, blindly sending out resumes, does not work anymore. The modern methods are LinkedIn(set up for scanning), networking, job oriented websites, and applying to published jobs on websites. You should do all of these as best you can. When you see your job posted on the company's website, apply and send them a GOOD resume! Additionally, a few reputable(maybe local) recruiters, can help as they are frequently hired by small/medium sized companies to fill positions. These smaller companies may have a very limited HR department. (Beware of ‘overseas’ recruiters, as they are just searching the internet, the same as you can do.)

Lastly, I put together a document for putting together a good resume, targeting a job. I will be happy to send it to you. Just message me if interested.

Good Luck,
Joe