Wed, Nov 9, 2011
Making Meaningful Connections: How To Attract And Engage Veteran Talent
Posted by Rear Adm. T McCreary
Here at Monster and Military.com, our ultimate goal is to get veterans to work in meaningful jobs that put their hard-earned skills to work in a civilian setting while giving employers access to a pool of largely untapped and highly valuable talent.
Our just-released Veterans Talent Index more than supports the notion that veterans bring a unique set of skills and added value to the employers that hire them.
Employers we surveyed overwhelmingly agree that hiring veterans just makes good business sense – nearly all (99%) employers who had hired a veteran felt their work experience was about the same or much better than non-veteran workers.
Of that, 69% of employer respondents felt that veteran workers perform their job functions ‘much better’ compared to non-veterans.
Bottom line: military veterans make excellent employees.
Arguably, the biggest challenge military veterans face as they transition into a civilian career, however, is finding that common ground among the skills they garnered while in the service, and translating them into relevant civilian workforce skills. No matter what a military veterans’ role was while in the service, there are many skills that translate directly into civilian jobs, it often just takes more digging before those skills become readily apparent.
For example, a military veteran with “combat experience” on his or her resume as their primary role while in the service may have had a secondary duty that falls into program management, logistics, IT, maintenance or even career counseling; all skills that are in-demand in the civilian workforce today.
Contrary to popular belief, less than a third of military vets’ primary job skills while serving is front line combat; the majority of military vets’ primary role while in service tends to fall into the management, operations and support realm instead.
The skills translation issue comes from both sides of the table though; veterans often have a hard time translating their own skills and shifting their mindset out of military culture and into civilian culture when talking to a hiring manager.
For example, a big part of military culture is the concept of teamwork – so veterans often have a hard time taking full credit for their accomplishments when in an interview. It’s switching from the “we accomplished this project” to the “I accomplished this project” mindset which isn’t second-nature to veterans when speaking about their experience in the service.
This is something we’ve heard from employers pretty often – that veterans who want to make that transition into a civilian job, need to learn how to compete in and acclimate to the environment they’re transitioning into.
Veteran Talent: Advice for Hiring Managers
Take the Time to Understand the Vast Array of Skills that Veterans Possess:
Use the skills translators out there in reverse. Do your own interpretation if the veteran you’re interested in hasn’t quite figured that out on his or her own yet. The extra time invested will be worth it; there’s a lot of hidden talent out there.
Don’t be Standard in Your Approach:
Explore not just the primary job the veteran held while in the service, but dig into the vast array of secondary experience they gained. Take the time to coax it out of them, helping them to get out of the “hey I was just doing my job” mentality to truly get at the skills, experience and talent that veteran possesses.
Talk About Your Company’s Mission:
Mission and vision are very important in the military. Talk about your own company’s mission and vision – veterans often don’t know whether they want to work for a particular company or not, but tend to focus more on the job opportunity with tunnel vision. However, a lot of veterans leave their first job out of the service quickly if they aren’t engaged in what the company’s vision is all about.
Veterans are outcome-focused – so the more you can talk about the job and how it relates back to the company’s mission and how their job will impact the team and the company, the more engaged that vet will be in the long-run.
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About the Author
"T" McCreary is President of Military.com and Vice President of Monster Worldwide. For most of his 27 years of naval service, Rear Admiral "T" McCreary, US Navy (ret.) was a public affairs officer. Assignments included the USS Missouri (BB 63) during Operation Desert Storm, U.S. Fifth Fleet, U. S. Pacific Command, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff where he worked as the special assistant to the Chairman. In 2003, T was promoted to rear admiral; he served as the Navy's Chief of Information for three years.Following his retirement from the Navy, he worked as the Director of Strategic Communication for the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Special Operations Command. T holds an MS in Mass Communication/Public Relations from San Diego State University and a BA in History from Northern Kentucky University.5 Responses to “Making Meaningful Connections: How To Attract And Engage Veteran Talent”
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November 9, 2011 at 8:35 PM
Great article. I would add two more important points.
1. The military is a different culture. For an organization known for keeping secrets our HR system is transparent. Our pay charts are online. You can find out exactly what someone in uniform is making without having to ask. Job descriptions are very clear, well, once you learn the language. In the Army a personal officer is the S-1. The size of unit is part of the title. So a Battalion S-1 would tell me the unit was 500-700 Soldiers and his/her rank was a captain. Contrast that with job titles on the web. Managers may have no direct reports or several. Their pay could be different by tens of thousands of dollars.
2. Recruiters need to understand that culture enough to be able to help tell a vet where they can fit it. Saying “we want to hire vets” is like saying “we want to hire someone from Microsoft.” Are you talking Steve Ballmer or an hourly employee? Every vet can bring a valuable skill set to your organization, but you need to know who will fit and who won’t.
In honor of Veterans Day (11/11/11) I am publishing 11 articles on reasons to hire a vet. Please join that discussion too. http://DavidALee.com
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November 9, 2011 at 9:17 PM
I would add two more points for consideration:
1. The military is a different culture. Despite being an organization known for its secrets, our HR system is very transparent. You can find military pay charts online and determine what everyone is paid, from private in the Army to Rear Admiral in the Navy. Job titles are very clear in most cases, once you learn the language. A personal officer in the Army is called S-1. Before that is a unit designator that tells you the size of the unit. Once you get to a level where you work on a general staff the S changes to G. OK…I know I confused you, but the point is if I meet someone who is not wearing their uniform and ask what they do, I can probably tell you their rank, which means I could approximately tell you their pay unless I knew the exact number of years they were in the service. Contrast that with a company where managers work for directors but directors in another company have less responsibility that the manager. And try and guess pay….
2. Recruiters should be career counselors. You should understand enough to be able to help someone determine where they fit in to your organization for all the reasons I just mentioned. I love the companies that say “We want to hire vets.” That’s like saying “We want to hire people from Microsoft.” Be more specific on what you are looking for; it helps save you time as well as the veteran.
In honor of Veterans Day (11/11/11) I am writing 11 articles on reasons to hire a vet on my blog. http://DavidALee.com Please come join the discussion.
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