Post‐service careers for ex‐servicemen :2. Preparation and application for employment

One of the difficult problems facing a man on leaving the Services is whether to move house and then find the job, or to find the job first and then resettle the home. A career opportunity might well mean moving house with all the worries that it entails; to stick to the area where one lives might involve a lowly job with poor prospects. But whether a man is 30 years of age with the world at his feet, or 50 and feeling life is finished because he knows no other than the Services, there are two exercises to be carried out before making a decision about any future employment. These exercises comprise sef‐analysis and reconnaissance. Both are necessary to find a job having any career prospects, and both will help to avoid making a premature and possible unwise decision. These premature decisions are often founded on emotion rather than on reason, almost certainly on inadequate information, and possibly on misconceptions and ill‐founded prejudices about civilian life.