RSSBy Anne Freedman, Staffing Columnist
With the work of the U.S. armed forces currently in the public eye, veterans’ advocates are reminding us that people trained in the military make excellent employees.
It’s “not a coincidence” that the most military-friendly companies are also very profitable companies, said Chris Hale, general manager and columnist for G.I. Jobs magazine during a session at the Recruiting 2004 Conference and Expo held by Kennedy Information in New York last fall.
Reservists and military veterans have leadership responsibilities thrust upon them at much younger ages, and that works to the competitive advantage of companies, he said. “It’s truly a business value.”
As of Sept. 30, there were 1.4 million members of the U.S. military on active duty. As of Dec. 15, there were about 185,700 mobilized reservists and Guard members.
One veteran who recently gained national exposure with his hiring by Donald Trump on the reality TV show “The Apprentice” was Kelly Perdew, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a former intelligence officer in the U.S. Army.
Military leaders make the transition to corporate America smoothly because they are trained to be adaptable, agile and flexible, according to Brian Trueblood, executive senior partner at Lucas Group, an executive search firm based in Atlanta.
HR executives also believe veterans are more reliable, better able to handle difficult assignments, more self-disciplined, more capable of quickly learning new skills and have better technical skills than civilian employees, according to a survey cited by Dan Friedman, assistant director of the New York office of the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service of the U.S. Department of Labor, during the
Recruiting 2004 conference.
As part of the Labor Department’s emphasis in this area, the DOL has created a HireVetsFirst.gov Web site to serve as a comprehensive job site for veterans, recruiters and companies.
There are other Web sites targeting vets as well, including The Destiny Group (destinygrp.com), which operates 40 veteran-specific career sites including Vets4Hire.com, HireAVet.com and Militaryspouses.com.
Bill Gaul, the company’s president and CEO, says companies interested in diversity hiring will benefit from “tapping the military market.”
TAOnline.com, which says it’s the first military e-recruiting Web site, having been founded in 1996, notes the military is one of the “most diverse organizations in the world with almost 35 percent of its population having a minority background (21 percent African American, 14 percent Hispanic).”
Other military-oriented career Web sites, noted by job board experts CareerXroads and Weddle’s Guide to Employment Web Sites, include VetJobs.com, CorporateGray.com, IntelligenceCareers.com, Military.com (a subsidiary of Monster.com) and RecruitMilitary.com.
Friedman said the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service helped 1.3 million veterans, of whom about 10 percent were disabled, find work last year.
March 2, 2005
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