Navigating a Career Change What is it like to apply for a job outside of the Defence Force? Commander Andrew McMillan has been a Warfare Officer for 32 years. He’s had an interesting career that’s taken its own path, with roles such as Aide de Camp to the Governor General, Peacekeeping in Bosnia, Commanding Officer of the Operational Diving Team, Naval Advisor London and Director of the Institute for Leader Development. His thoughts had been turning towards life beyond the Navy – thoughts that were keeping him awake at night. Thoughts like: “We get so many valuable skills and wonderful experiences, at some point we need to capitalise on them while they remain current”. In his fourth leadership development role, it was his choice of work on his mind, not the process to get there. He figured he’d knock up a CV and would walk into an interview without too much effort. Today, Mr McMillan works for the Public Service Commission’s Fale, a team working to support the strengthening of 16 Pacific Island nations’ Public Service Commissions. He didn’t just “walk in” to the role. In fact, he had applied for three positions the previous year, and got nowhere.
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“I was a bit rattled,” he says. “I wasn’t even shortlisted. I thought, something had gone wrong.” He got the tip for the PSC job from the Chief People Officer, and he wanted to get this one right. He went to the NZDF Transition Team. Established in November 2019, the team provides Career Transition coaches to help Regular Force personnel navigate the move from military to civilian life. They offer workshops, webinars, transition seminars and one-to-one coaching for personalised planning and preparation. CDR McMillan went to his coach, Tania. She wasn’t impressed with his CV. She was even less impressed with his personal email address with a ‘69’ in it. “She told me the content was okay, but told me to imagine an overworked HR person, going through CVs, just looking for an excuse to put mine in the bin. She told me to get a professional email address, and that we needed to get my current role onto the first page.” With a revamped CV, CDR McMillan found himself shortlisted. They wanted to interview him. “I had to run back to Tania for coaching on interview techniques. I hadn’t been on that side of the table since I was 19 at the Officer Selection Board. I’m used to being on the side asking the questions. So, she instructed me on the Situation, Task, Action, Result technique and grilled me with practice questions, and I sought other colleagues’ advice on how to approach interviews.”
He says he really enjoyed the interview. “I felt really well prepared for the questions asked.” He was asked back, and told he was the preferred candidate. “Once I accepted, they wanted to talk salary. I wasn’t ready for that, I had to run back to Tania to find out how to do salary negotiation!” The separation from a Navy world of 32 years is not easy, he says. “Even by lunchtime on the first day of the job, I was feeling separation anxiety. You don’t understand, I suppose, how much those 32 years shape you, mould you, grow you, support you. It’s not to be underestimated. I’m in the Reserves which keeps some connection. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like, not to be able to go back onto the naval base. That cut-off from something that’s been such a large part of my life would be quite bizarre.” In Defence, he ran teams for years. “I had thought, wouldn’t be great not to have to manage people for once, not having that constant load. But as soon as I lost my team, I thought, who am I? I’m not CDR McMillan anymore. Being in leader development I used one of our models, the SCARF model, to analyse myself. The S is for status and it’s been interesting to understand how we measure our status in life, I realise that, for me, leading a team is part of that. So is uniform, rank, even just being able to say you’re a part of the Navy whānau, that’s the C for connection.”
