Chris LaPoint | Dice | October 6, 2014
Every year, approximately 250,000 military personnel leave the service to return to civilian life. When the home front beckons, many will be looking to become IT professionals, a role that, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, is among the fastest growing jobs in the country.
How their field skills will translate to the back office is something to ponder. With the advent of virtualization, mobile, and the cloud, IT changes faster than the wind, as do the skill sets needed to succeed.
Click here to find military IT-related jobs.
That said, the nature of today’s military—always on the go, and heavily reliant on virtual solutions—may actually be the perfect training ground for IT.
Consider that many war-fighters already are IT technicians. They need to be skilled in data management, mobile solutions, security, the ability to fix problems as they arise onsite, and more.
This IT knowledge is desperately needed, and matches many of the skill sets outlined in a recent public-sector IT survey by my company, SolarWinds. The only difference is that soldiers are using these skills with dusty boots on the ground.
Having that sort of background can give them a serious leg up on their entrance into civilian IT. Here are some examples of how battlefield “know-how” can be deployed in the office to take on some of today’s hottest IT issues:
