Many of the 175,000 plus persons who leave the military service each year have planned their future fairly well and make a smooth transition to the civilian work force. Others wind up wasting important time. Planning for a smooth transition to civilian life by finding a great job requires serious goal setting. It is important develop a solid marketing plan to help in finding meaningful employment. You can't develop a plan if you don't know where you are going.
Goals are as important as the plan itself.
If you wait until you have just driven out the gate at 90 miles per hour, waving your papers at the gate guard to decide your future plans, you aren't going to be very successful. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Most people are not able to realize all three of these goals in equal precedent, so some serious discussion and perhaps some soul searching has to take place early in the transition process. In order for intelligent choices to be made, each goal has to be examined with a sense of reality. Two important points to remember are that no one ever got rich in America working on salary, and workers are only worth what their skills are worth in a given market place.