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Career Transition: Public Sector to Private

Moving from the public sector to a private sector security job can be a huge leap. In this book excerpt, David Quilter points out the strengths you'll bring along with the skills you may need to develop.

By J. David Quilter

February 17, 2009 — CSO — Moving from the public sector to a private sector security job can be a huge leap. David Quilter points out the strengths you'll bring along with the skills you may need to develop. Excerpted from From One Winning Career to the Next, published by the Security Executive Council and available through their online store.

You bring gifts as you transition from the public to the private sector. In government or military service, you may have perhaps performed some of the following tasks and grown in the skills of:

Constructing and overseeing multi-million dollar budgets
Managing liaison with local, state, and national law enforcement agencies
Evaluating organizational performance
Interviewing potential employees
Interviewing criminal suspects
Bridging inter-service rivalries
Conducting audits and inspections
Dealing with the unexpected in life-threatening situations
Losing a friend or colleague on the job, in violent circumstances
Making quick decisions that may have life or death consequences

I encourage you to add to this list from your own history. Then consider how you can translate your leadership experiences into business success. Do this in a way that executives can understand and see the value your skills and know-how brings to them as they seek to accomplish their goals. Do that and you will be on the short path to earning their trust. Learning the nuances and rhythms of your new organization will allow you to lead and integrate security in a way that makes the jobs of other executives easier. They will have fewer distractions, interruptions and see a better bottom line.

Because of your experience, you bring certain advantages to the business world. Tough crises, scenes of violent crime and life and death decisions test a person's mettle. It takes skill and discipline to testify in court and persistence to follow a case to a successful conclusion. A certain basic willingness to serve also involves discipline. For fourteen years, I thought the GS (in GS-1811) stood for "government servant", rather than the more prosaic "general schedule" which has to do with an employee's pay status. To this day, I prefer my first understanding of GS.

Many in public service have held both operations and headquarters positions. The flexibility required to move from one level of service to another develops balance, resilience, and a focus on the needs of the organization, not simply one's own career. For example, in the DEA I began as a special agent working in the New York Division office. Eventually I was reassigned to Headquarters in Washington, DC, and after some years, I became the chief of agent resources.