Don’t Quit Your Day Job (Yet) | Haft of the Spear. Is a great post that people considering leaving government service should read. This covers the basics of going into business and some of the pitfalls. To what Michael said I’d add a few things.
- If the government is down sizing and furloughing workers don’t expect to go to work for government as an expensive contractor.
- National security is not quite the priority that you might expect in the rest of the world or America.
- Your skills are going to be evaluated on your last job not all your jobs so don’t expect to be a super sleuth if your last job was as a project manager.
- The number one reason somebody wants to hire you as a contractor is to abscond with your rolodex/address book. You are the loss leader Mr. 4 star general.
- National security is a shrinking element of the economy but by all means jump from a cushy gov job into a highly competitive shrinking economy.
- Industry doesn’t give a damn about your mission derived execution planning paradigm for non-profit designed solutions.
Lots of people make the leap. I’m at the point in my career where I leaped from government (county), to family business (retail) to industry (infosec), to academia (forensics). I did quite well in industry where I brought all projects in under budget and on time with award winning results. I could tie every dollar of my salary to a corporate objective and a profit multiplier in the double and sometimes triple digits. Few government employees even understand that kind of world. It’s not that they are wrong or industry is right. It is just a completely different mind set.