The Military Transition Network

January 29, 2021 Dan McDonough

Personnel leaving the military have a great range of innate skills and value sets, which have the potential to add real value to a civilian employer. Leadership, complex problem solving, accountability, the ability to get things done and an ingrained ‘can do’ team attitude all provide real benefits to any business. However, one of the hardest aspects of leaving the Military is the plethora of imperfect information surrounding the civilian job market available to browse online. In most branches of the military, the career progression is mapped out in front of you, and is planned and progressive. The civilian job market is a great deal harder to navigate.

There are a huge number of opportunities open to service leavers in almost every industry, the challenge is to work out where your highly transferable skills can be best deployed.

To help navigate the fog, networking is key. It is so important to talk to as many people as possible, across a broad range of industry sectors and experiences. Building your network is essential. It goes without saying how much harder building a network is in the current environment, with the pandemic disruption a lot of the normal avenues for networking have reduced. But it is important to remember that your military experience has prepared you for this exact eventuality. In disruption there can be opportunity and the harder you work at it, the luckier you will get.

Matero Consulting was formed by its two partners, Stuart Tootal and Dan McDonough, who have a shared vision that military experience offers a powerful learning perspective for business. In fusing the military experience of empowering mission purpose for the benefit of businesses who want to transform to different ways of working, Matero has also set up a Matero Military Transition Network (MTN) in 2020. The MTN is an informal network to support individuals transitioning from the military to new opportunities in the commercial world. The MTN gives its members an insight to the world of consultancy, bringing with it a perspective of working for a large corporate or a smaller organisation, such as Matero Consulting. It offers insights from both former service leavers with commercial change experience, as well as consultants who have not served but recognise the qualities and potential of service leavers. This combined perspective offers invaluable insight from their many years in a diverse range of commercial sectors and it also provides networking opportunities to connect with those that may be in, or have been, in similar positions. Consequently, it offers a broad perspective of, and entry points into, the consultancy world.

Matero Consulting hosts events as well as providing mentoring support and advice, drawing heavily on the depth of experience, different perspectives, and connections within our Matero Associate Community of experienced consultants. Whether an individual ends up working with Matero or not, the intent of the Network is that Dan and Stuart are able to give something back and assist those that have served.

We hosted our last event in collaboration with the Officers Association on 27 November 2020 which was attended by 25 service leavers. The feedback was excellent and people really valued the ability to hear different perspectives about consultancy from Big 4 to boutique, with the ability to follow up directly with the speakers in the breakout groupsMatero’s next Military Transition Network virtual event will take place in April, with guest speakers from various consultancy areas.  If you are interested in registering for the Matero Consulting Military Transition Network, please get in touch by reaching out to info@matero.co.uk or follow us on LinkedIn for further details.

Our Values:

Accountability, Action Orientation, Agility and Decency