Avenues after Armed Forces
The most crucial part of exploring various avenues while planning your career is to be able to foresee what the future holds for you, or what impact it’s going to bring to you and the people around you. Talking about wit, courage, inspiration and prestige, Armed Forces has always been in the picture for every youngster aspiring to lead a life that not only promises success and security, but also guarantees adventure, excitement and challenges.
A career in Armed Forces promises one of the most prestigious positions in the nation. The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of India which consist of four services: The Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and Indian Coast Guard. The various paramilitary organizations and various inter-service institutions also help the Indian Armed Forces.
The profession offers you to learn and grow, undertaking myriad of duties and challenges. Unlike the life of a civilian, a defence person is prepared to take up all sorts of tasks and perform under pressure, sometimes with the responsibility of many lives. Strict discipline, courage, ability to withstand adverse situations, making decisions and excellent leadership skills is what the career in defence teaches you.
Having performed plethora of job roles and undertaken huge responsibilities, most of the defence persons retire at an age of 35–40 after a rewarding career to make sure our country’s defence force stays young and enthusiastic.
Such professionals still have about 20 years of productive professional life ahead of them, and careers which will only revitalize by their very presence and skills.
Transitioning soldiers often find it unbelievable that their skills highly compliment the corporate sector. The ones who doubt can however find proof in the ever mushrooming internship programs designed specifically to attract ex-military personnel into the corporate world.
Many officers opt towards moving forward with some professional degrees and trainings to explore opportunities in various sectors. Various prestigious institutions like IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Lucknow, Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad, XLRI Jamshedpur and Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon offer special courses exclusively for ex-service personnel.
It is highly believed that the defence career teaches you a lot in terms of leadership skills, team management, on-site activities, planning and execution that are invaluable to the corporate sector.
Now there are several career options available to the officer. Should s/he opt for a career in logistics management? S/he has lots of prior experience in that in Armed Forces. Should s/he opt for a career in Human Resource Management? S/he has lots of prior experience in that too in the Armed Forces. One can similarly talk of many other fields. Therefore, it is now essential that the officer understands his/her interests since it shall be a powerful motivator for the career ahead. Other assessments and counseling will help the officer forge a successful career ahead.
As somebody once said — “Leaders become great not because of their power, but because of the ability to empower others” .