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Transferable Skills
Service Leavers have unrivalled experience and excellent personal qualities. The CTP aims to help you identify those skills and abilities and market yourself in the civilian employment market. You may not realise it but you are in fact part of the "best trained workforce in Britain". You therefore have a great deal to offer new employers, not just in your specialist area of expertise, but in terms of the general skills you will have developed while in the forces.
Some examples of transferable skills valued by civilian employers:
Leadership Qualities:
Leadership and management skills are highly regarded in the civilian world, and these are developed at all levels in the forces. In fact, many of the leadership and management training techniques first used by the Services, have been adopted by civilian organisations for the development of their staff. A great majority of service personnel are capable instructors, ranging from teaching basic military subjects to highly technical subjects such as electronics or mechanical engineering.
Reliability and Decisiveness:
You will have been tested in highly demanding and pressurised situations, whether simulated or real crises, and you have learned to get it right first time and how to take responsibility for yourself, your own actions, and your resources. Imagine how valuable this ability is in industry and commercial situations.
Flexibility:
Service personnel usually change their job location every 2 to 3 years and are used to a degree of upheaval in their working patterns and environment. There are always new challenges to master, and you are quick to learn, picking up new skills with ease and adapting to new circumstances.
Determination and Self-Discipline:
You face danger and discomfort without lowering your standards, and learn to remain calm and courteous when under considerable provocation. This breeds self-discipline and determination.
Courage and Loyalty:
Integrity is part of everything that you do. You develop not only physical courage, but more importantly moral courage, including loyalty to your team members.
Initiative:
There are many occasions in a service career when the individual has to act on his or her own initiative, and to keep going even in extreme circumstances. This breeds the ability to complete goals, self-motivation and self-confidence.