One man’s resettlement...

In June 2003, after 22 years, I left the Royal Signals as a 40-year-old Staff Sergeant. I had specialised as a driver and a lineman, and served in the big three – UK, Germany and Northern Ireland – with just the occasional trip to more exotic countries.

My qualifications amounted to City & Guilds in fibre-optics, and the testing and installation of single and multi-mode cable. My main experience was in motor transport, cable laying and stores, and I had thought that I would end up as a driving instructor or something similar, as all my military qualifications pointed in that direction. However, I have not gone into any of these areas because I wanted a brand new start.

My Career Transition Workshop was very useful. I took it very early – in October 2001 – as soon as I qualified in my last two years. It started me thinking straight away about what I should do with the rest of my life, although the idea of going into IT was already in my mind.

I felt very vulnerable and exposed at first. The big wild world of civilian life, and what I was going to do, was only 20 months away. The course made me understand that qualifications were the very least of my worries; I had to learn how to sell myself and convert my military experiences into ‘civilianspeak’.

At the end I was very surprised on what I was able to add on my CV. It had to be edited to provide just the right amount of content. I thought that I was overqualified in some areas and underqualified in others; the team soon put that right for me and balanced it out. I could not believe that I had done all that! As for ‘where to settle’ we had already decided to live in Northern Ireland, as my wife is from there. We have owned a property there for a number of years so this was the easy part of the resettlement process.

I knew I wanted to do something completely different from what I was doing in the Services. I wanted a new career in IT. My only experience was what I had taught myself over a number of years at home. All my experience was as a very proficient home user, building PCs for friends and using them at work. I took a number of courses aiming to become a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) in Windows 2000. These were spread over the last two years of service, taking a week’s training, then going back two months later to do another part. This used up my full resettlement entitlement of seven weeks, plus a week of leave.

The training provider was Gateway IT, based in Barnstaple in Devon. It catered well for Service people. The team was very professional and honest about what lay ahead. It was not a ‘boot camp’ set-up – it was hands-on with plenty of equipment for each person so no waiting to use a piece of kit.

The course was well run, with first-class instruction and very good facilities. The MCSE package is very intense. People should be under no illusion that it is easy and that it will necessarily get them a job. I now work for the third-largest IT company on the planet and one thing they don’t like is what they call a ‘paper MCSE’ – somebody who has done the courses and then cram sessions to learn the answers, with no experience.

However, it takes years of experience to be a fully blown MCSE, and most job interviews these days will expose people who have taken the ‘paper’ path. Experience will tell over qualifications any day, and we have an example of this in my workplace. John left the Services about six years ago. He has not got one certification to his name, but has designed and deployed a number of networks for government projects, and this is not just making a couple of PCs talk to each other and put MS Office on the network. He has shown that commitment and a can-do attitude is the key to success. You could not buy his knowledge from any course you attend; he is key to the section and ensures that our network runs effectively.

When I was leaving, a very kind boss let me have one day a week to work with a network support team within the military. They put me on a 2nd-line help desk that involved live problems users were having, from profiles to e-mail and advice – not just passing on calls to another party. No course could teach you the knowledge I gained. Working with MS Office proved vital because all applications can behave very differently over a network than on a home PC.

With the security situation I was concerned about how to explain a military CV to a prospective employer. The local Regular Forces Employment Association consultant was very helpful. He understood the situation and was able to introduce me to companies that were safe for people with my background. This was vital – he gave my CV to the company I work for today!

I work for Fujitsu Services in Belfast. The RFEA helped to arrange the interview – my first one ever, outside the military. I was very anxious about the whole episode. It took an hour of questions from three different people who specialised in IT technicalities, customer services and security. The interviewers were good. They made me feel relaxed after the first five minutes; I was on a roll after that. It was what I expected from the briefings on the CTW.

My only advice to anyone on a job interview is, ‘Don’t try to answer a question unless you are sure of the answer. Be honest and say you don’t know the answer – they’ll soon catch on if you are taking a stab in the dark.’ The people who interviewed me were not just after technical skills, they wanted to know what my problem-solving skills were like. To be honest, most Service people have these skills, and they are very important ones in the IT world.

Because the rules allowed me to accept paid employment before my last day in the Army, I have been a Network Support Engineer for nearly a year now. As such, I give user support on a network to 5,000-plus users. I resolve hardware and software issues, and administration tasks for user accounts. I carry out maintenance on workstations and printers. I also support server managers with server maintenance and back-up of data, as well as being responsible for the security of IT equipment, data and buildings.

I like the job very much and I’m on a constant learning curve, which is very steep at the moment. My only dislike is having to drive 25 miles each way to work.

Like the Army, I work in a team and we rely on each other for back-up and support. Although we take time off when we want to, we’re still expected to be committed to the customer, and of course the company, and don’t go home until we’ve fixed any problems. There are a lot of people out there who would get cheesed off if they could not get on the network. Communicating with other parts of the company is vital; we speak to our associates on the mainland almost daily to keep information flowing when a system goes down.

I am rewarded well in terms of job satisfaction. I know that when I go home that’s it and, if I’m called in, the overtime clock starts ticking. We do go on-call about every eight weeks or so, which lasts for a week, but we are paid accordingly. The company has good free private medical and dental plans, and I qualify for them after my first year. Leave is also pretty good – 25 working days and 11 public holidays – and we can sell any time not taken back to the company.

I found it a lot easier than I thought to adapt to being a civilian. I feel more independent since leaving the Services, as I now have to stand on my own two feet. No one tells me when to go to the dentist, or when to go to this office and that lecture.

There is a difference in salary, but not enough to worry about. We were in a fairly good position as we have had our house for eight years or so and the mortgage is manageable. My pension covers housing costs very easily and leaves me with money to spare. My gross annual income with my pension takes me above what I was earning as a Staff Sergeant in Northern Ireland, and our standard of living has hardly changed. However, my first promotion is just round the corner when I move in to the mobile engineering role.

Looking back, I found the whole resettlement process long winded, with a great deal of information to take in. Make sure you spend the available money and time wisely. Looking back, maybe I should have taken just a couple of the electives rather than the full MCSE, and done other things instead.

Getting the money from the pay office was a bit of a drama with all the paperwork involved, because I spread the courses over different financial years. My advice to anyone leaving after 22 years is, ‘Use your last two years taking resettlement, because when you go out of the camp gate nobody except yourself is going to be concerned about you.’