Dear Joyce: After eight years and many rotations overseas on temporary duty, I will leave the Air Force late this summer. I'm looking for a more stable family life and, hopefully, more money. I am a weapon systems officer with a B.S. in chemical engineering and an M.S. in systems management.

I am starting to develop my transition plan and, frankly, am not impressed with either my first encounters with JMO (junior military officer) recruiters or the stories I'm hearing from my friends -- stories that include employer resistance to newly discharged officers.

My spouse will also be looking for a position.

What's your perspective on what is happening in the job market now and what might it look like in late summer? -- USAF Captain

Dear USAF Captain: I've found a good resource to suggest for your transition -- a customizing approach to making one of your life's most important moves -- but I'll take your last question first.

You need not worry too much about your timing when you cross over to the civilian job market later this year.

Sky Is Not Falling Despite hiring freezes and pink-slip parties, official employment figures report that with the exception of manufacturing, new hires in February outran layoffs, 135,000 to 94,000.

Companies, many of which have a backlog of unfilled positions, are choosier today, but they're still chasing white collars, particularly in professional, managerial and technical ranks.

One West Coast staffing director, with open orders for 800 tech hires, tells me that while information technology demand is softer than a few months ago, his company is hot on the trail of hardware and photonics specialists.

Fuzzy Outlook Opacity clouds the lens for late summer's job market. Projections, up and down, are exploding from pundits and economists. I'm betting its direction is up.

Your Clover Fields No matter. Even if the job market heads down, you'll still be one of the "HDs" -- highly desirables. Oh really, you say? You've heard that fresh ex-officers are stereotyped and shunned as inflexible, command-and-control freaks? Don't sweat it. Just check any personal rigidity vestiges at the interviewing door and be primed to burst forth with your HD strengths. Which are?

Ticking off your strengths is Bill Gaul, himself a veteran, now CEO of The Destiny Group, an Internet-based recruiting firm serving officers, enlisted personnel and their spouses.

Your Advantages "Former military personnel have an outstanding work ethic, know the value of a job, take responsibility seriously and possess many of the character qualities needed in today's workforce," Gaul says.

Gaul further explains that former military new hires may not need expensive, lengthy training because many were trained on similar machines and processes while in uniform. "And in these belt-tightening times, they understand adhering to a budget and optimizing efficiencies (doing more with less)." Good point.

Another big plus for hiring newly released military personnel that Gaul points out is the one-time location benefit at government expense. That benefit saves employers big money, as much as $25,000 in relocation expenses.

The first rule of transition is to use ALL available resources, including such niche help as the Veterans of Foreign Wars' www.VetJobs.com.

But if you hope to escape the cattle-calls of big national job boards, try the tailored-to-you approach used by Gaul's Destiny firm. It'll cost you nothing.

Luxury Looking Concerning your particular issues, Gaul estimates that you can command $50,000 to $70,000 in the civilian marketplace.

Your wife can use the free job-hunting resources on the Destiny spouse database.

With Destiny, the mechanics of your search become less stressful: You don't have to stand in line at the firm's job fairs, rattling off your story in a few minutes with others behind you listening; you do a professional interview in the privacy of a hotel suite.

Destiny doesn't earn a per-head fee for placements and doesn't push you to specific clients. The company's reps understand how to sell employers on former military members as a talent pool: "When you want to catch a salmon, forget the ocean and go to a small river up in Idaho where you'll be in a target-rich environment."

Send career questions for possible use in this column to Joyce Lain Kennedy at Box 368, Cardiff, CA 92007, or e-mail her at jlk@sunfeatures.com. Sorry, the volume of mail makes personal replies impossible.

© 2000, Los Angeles Times Syndicate