"Welcome Home" from Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland will help vets from Iraq and Afghanistan navigate the VA system.

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Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland provides regular columns for VA Watchdog dot Org.  If you would like to contact Jim about his columns, you can email him here...  The archive of Jim's articles is here...  To find an answer to a specific VA benefits question, use the VA Watchdog search engine... click here...  And, be sure to use Jim's:  A Military Veterans Guide To Disability Compensation and Pension Benefits -- A Compendium of Resources and Knowledge For The Disabled Veteran -- click here...   JIm's series for new vets, "Welcome Home," is also featured on Military.com. And, you can follow Jim on TWITTER here ...

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Welcome Home! #7 -- Starting Your Transition

by Jim Strickland

You made a commitment to uphold and defend the values that make your country great. To fulfill that commitment required a partnership between you and your branch of service. For their part, your branch of service offered to train you and give you cutting edge skills and access to the most modern equipment ever.

You did your part. You met physical and mental challenges that a civilian couldn't dream of. You lived in parts of the world most people couldn't find on a map. You met people of different cultures as you traveled and many of them were in your ranks working as your partner.

Above all, you learned the importance of being a self starter. You understand the importance of the mission and you know that any job worth doing is worth doing well. You have pride in the work you do and it shows. Those are the points that will give you the edge as you leave active duty to become a veteran.

A lot has changed for you. When you started your military service a few years ago, you may have been straight out of high school and inexperienced in seeking employment. Maybe you had a job for a while prior to taking the oath but it wasn't the sort of work you'll want to find today.

Where does the new veteran begin to find work that is rewarding in salary, benefits, security and personal satisfaction?

As with most things in our life, planning ahead is the key to success. Once you've made the choice that you won't be staying in for that 20 year career, that's the moment your job search should begin. Today it's almost always the case that the Internet is your best friend and may be the only tool you need.

We should start at the beginning. What are your priorities? Some of us want the adventure of starting our life as a veteran in a large metro area like Los Angeles or New York City. Others can't imagine having to live in that hustle and bustle and would rather head to greener pastures (literally) and seek a quieter lifestyle in a smaller town.

Do you have a family, a spouse and children? Will the spouse be looking for work too? Are the schools where you live important to you so the kids have the best education possible?

You'll need to consider the cost of living where you want to live. A salary approaching 6 figures may sound attractive until you find out that a tiny apartment far from the bus line will cost you $1,900.00 per month. Is it worth it to you? For many it may be, for others – no way.

What's a veteran to do?

Long before you find yourself on the street looking for a job, you should already have work secured or close to it. It's well known among job-hunters that it's easier to find a job while you have one.

Priority number one - make a list. Decide what sort of work you want to do and where you want to do it. This is one of the few times in your life that you may choose to land anywhere from the Florida Keys to Juneau, Alaska or even another country working for an American company.

Once you've thought that through, start searching the Internet to determine such things as cost of living where you'd like to be. I like the cost-of-living calculators at CNNMoney.com and Bankrate.com for fast and free comparisons. Think long and hard about the quality of life of the locale where you land. If you aren't a fan of cold weather, no matter how good the job may sound Boston might not be your cup of tea. I like the Mercer Quality of Life Survey and city rankings found at Sustainlane.com for their data.

While you're contemplating the possibilities and opportunities that await you, start building your resume. Opinions vary on what makes the perfect resume. You'll hear that a detailed analysis of who you are and everything you've done back to grade school is mandatory and you'll be told that nothing of that sort at all is required. The truth is somewhere in between. As a manager in my civilian career, I preferred short and sweet. Maybe two pages of cleanly typed bullet points...just enough to get my attention. Search around to see some examples of what you feel will fit for you and design yours accordingly. Don't pay for a template and don't pay anyone to do it for you.

Use sites like Online Skills Translator at O-Net.org to convert your military skills and training into civilian equivalents.

Many online applications will require that you use their fillable format to build a resume according to their standards. Stick to the facts, don't try to overly impress and never include anything that you can't back up immediately. That employer would rather know the truth.

The big job sites are helpful. Monster, Yahoo and dozens of others have thousands of jobs posted daily. Military.com is a great place to get started and can help you with a lot of the tasks I pointed out earlier.

Federal jobs are often the best employment for the veteran to consider. You'll have an immediate hiring preference; the jobs are usually very secure and most have excellent benefits. The place to start looking for a federal job is USAJobs.Gov. This is a one stop shop for all federal jobs. The task of completing all the required entries may seem daunting at first but once you're done, you're done. Your on-line resume can be used for any of the current or future positions listed there and you may edit it at any time.

No matter what you hear about the job market "back home,” there's a job waiting for you. You have an edge on others because of your honorable service to our country. Get started in your search as early as you can and you'll make the transition back to civilian life smoother than you ever thought it could be.

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TOPICS: veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Jim Strickland, Veterans' Advocate, Welcome Home, Iraq veteran, Afghanistan veteran