How do you view temporary/contract employment following your service?

I've done the Temp thing. Went Temp to Full. It was a good deal.

That said, most people (not just vets) don't know how it works, or how it can be beneficial. It's a learning curve, and there is so much "risk" involved especially since we are coming from an environment where we have so much "stability" that the idea of going into an environment without stability is just "foreign."

I use that term a lot. Foreign.

The main problem I think Veterans encounter is that we're basically "Foreigners in our own country" (Title of my next book if anyone wants to co-write it with me). We look like everyone else, but we just don't understand all this basic stuff because we haven't been in "America" for the last 4-30+ years. We've been in "Americastan" (The Sequel to "Foreigners in our own country" pending co-writer).

So we need help learning the ropes. We need re-education, and folks to explain how something like this can be a good thing.

Like me. I got out, and became a government contractor. Hated it! Absolutely loathed it. Now, contract work or temp work would have given me a chance to "try it before I bought it" if that makes sense. Would have saved me A LOT of heart ache early on. It wasn't until 6-8 years later that I tried temp agencies, and discovered how useful they were.

Being able to say "the juice ain't worth the squeeze" whether it was job satisfaction, pay, commute, or whatever. It was nice. It also opened up the ability to try "different" things. I ever would have ended up doing dispatching or heating & air conditioning had I not tried them. I had done a "little" facility management in the Marines as a secondary role, and admin is something that is part of Intel. That expanded into this. But you would never think about tying Intel to HVAC dispatching. Now I work 3 miles from my house, enjoy what I do, have 0 stress. It's not what I envisioned... but hell. I doubt anyone has exactly the same outcome they planned.

Tamp jobs can be a good way to "test the waters" for a job. It is also a great way to bring in a paycheck while training, interviewing or deciding what it is you want to get into.

I'm in a temp position provided through Voc Rehab. It's with the government and the people I work for aren't bad at all. I think vets NEED to look at alternative means to get employment and move away from the "traditional" sites. As more and more are pushed out of service, the number of jobs are holding steady, the competition for them is increasing, thus making it a HR market. If you can get in on a temp; take it and run. It might not last, but can lead to another temp/permanent position somewhere else.