Should you take the first job offer after the military?

Is it a mistake to take the first job you're offered?

To be clear, I don't believe the first job is a mistake. Most of us need a paycheck when we get out, and there's no shame in that. Rent doesn't care about your five-year plan.

The mistake is what we expect the job to do for us. When we get out, the first thing most of us reach for is certainty, because the military gave us so much of it. The paycheck showed up on the 1st and the 15th, every time, no fail. So we go looking for something that feels like that again, and the first solid offer looks like the answer to everything.

It isn't, and that's okay. It was never supposed to be. Maybe it was the first offer you got. Maybe it was the job you were striving towards and it pays really well. Either way, for most of us that first job out is a tool to help us figure out what we like and what we don't. If you go in knowing that, you'll get a lot more out of it.

Is it normal to hate your first job after the military?

Yes, and I want to be really clear about this one: if you're ten months into your first civilian job and you hate it, you didn't fail.

Now you know what you don't like just as much as what you do. Think about the leaders you served under. Some of them you wanted to be like, and some of them showed you exactly how you never wanted to lead. Both taught you something. Your first job works the same way. It gives you something to move away from just as much as something to move toward, and oftentimes we need to learn what we don't like before we can see what fits.

So don't waste it. Even in a job you can't stand, there are probably parts you do like: a kind of problem you enjoy solving, a type of work that makes the day go fast, some people you like working with. Write those down. That list is worth more than the paycheck.

Why do so many veterans leave their first civilian job?

Here's the cycle a lot of us go through. We get out and grab certainty first, which makes complete sense. We replace the paycheck. Then, somewhere around six months in, a new question shows up: wait a minute, where's my purpose? How come I don't feel like I'm giving back the way I was before?

So we leave to go find it somewhere else. The next job replaces the certainty again, the same empty piece is still there, and a few months later we're asking the same question. If you've been through two or three jobs already and it still feels off, that's usually why. The job was never the thing that was missing.

The way out of the cycle is to take what you can from each job and bring it with you, so you're moving toward something instead of just away from the last thing. I wrote more about why so many of us feel lost after getting out, and it starts in the same place: the certainty we lost.

What job should you get after the military?

I can't tell you the right job title without knowing you. What I can give you is the three questions I'd ask before you take any offer:

1. Does this work fit the values I've named? Not the ones you think you're supposed to have. The ones you took the time to decide on and want to grow towards.
2. Does it help me build the identity I'm growing into, or does it just rent me a title? Come on, we don't need new titles. Your identity comes from within.
3. Does the life around this job leave room for my habits? The workouts, the time with your family, the things that reinforce the person you want to become.

If you don't know your values yet, start there. Here's a quick way in. Think about something that really made you mad recently, and ask yourself why until you hit the bottom of it. Were you mad someone showed up late because you felt disrespected? Maybe you value respect. Then do the same with something you were proud of. If you can name two or three values that matter to you, you can use them to pick a career on purpose, instead of settling for whatever comes your way.

Is it okay to take a job for the money?

It's okay, as long as you're honest with yourself about it. Let me tell you a little bit of my own story.

When I got out, I wanted to get into software engineering. The first gig I landed was pretty awesome. I got to meet some great people, I learned some incredible things, and I was cutting my teeth in the entrepreneur world. Then I went to Meta, and I was there for almost seven years. What was I optimizing for when I went there? To be honest with you, it was the name and it was the money.

Don't get me wrong, Meta was a great experience, and I'm glad I was there. I found out what my skills were. What I didn't have was the impact on the world that I wanted. So I took everything I'd learned, and that's what brought me to start Prize: I wanted to build something that helped me become more of who I wanted to grow into.

Money is a means to an end. When you say you value money, it's worth asking what it gets you. Maybe it's freedom, maybe it's security for your family. Knowing the real answer makes it a lot easier to tell whether a job is giving it to you.

How long should you stay at your first job after the military?

There's no magic number of months. The better question is this one: is where I am right now helping me become more of who I want to be?

If you're not sure who you want to be, take a minute to figure that out first. It may be a challenging exercise, so sit down and write it down. What's the effect you want to have on the world? Who are the people you want to affect?

If the answer is no, that's okay. That's a signal in and of itself, and it should help you get clearer about where you want to go next. It doesn't mean quit tomorrow. It means start pointing your next move at something, so the next job is a step toward that person and not another lap around the cycle. If purpose is the piece you're missing, I wrote about how purpose gets built after the military.

What can you do this week?

1. Make two lists from your current job. What you like, and what you don't. The work, the people, the pace, the kind of problems. Keep adding to both.
2. Name two or three values. Use the "what made me mad, what made me proud" exercise above and ask why until you get to the root.
3. Run the three questions on your current job, or on the offer in front of you.
4. Talk to people who've done it. My conversation with Andrew Maza on the Prize Podcast is about treating getting out as a blank slate, and Terry Wallace's episode goes from the Marine Corps to Deloitte to running his own business.
5. Look at who can help. You can browse organizations that help with employment and education on Prize, and you decide who you reach out to.

Your first job doesn't have to be the one. It just has to teach you something about where you're headed.