The Media Center at

VetJobs Veteran Eagle
Issue 11:02, Monday, February 1, 2010
www.vetjobs.com

The Veteran Eagle is a newsletter for veterans, transitioning military, their family members and friends and supporters of VetJobs. Feel free to forward the newsletter to veterans and friends.

This month’s Veteran Eagle is sponsored by Excelsior College, and TECHEXPO Top Secret.

Contents:

1. Message from the Top

2. A note from the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (www.vfw.org)

3. 2010 WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award Recipients

4. VetJobs Recommends – 4Troops

5. Some Soldiers Face Involuntary Separation

6. Ohio Military Injury Relief Fund

7. Stop-Loss Payments Continue, But Some No Longer Eligible

8. Veterans Saluting the Flag

9. National Guard and Reserve Mobilized as of January 26, 2010

10. Significant Events this Month in Military History

Thank you for reading this VetJobs Veteran Eagle newsletter. If you like the newsletter and what VetJobs, the VFW and endorsing veteran service organizations do to assist veterans and their family members find employment, please go to www.weddles.com/poll.htm and vote VetJobs for the WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award!

“Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. Members of our Armed Forces don’t have that problem.” …Ronald Reagan

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1. Message from the Top

I am pleased to announce that VetJobs is a recipient of the 2010 WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award (www.weddles.com)! This award marks VetJobs not only as one of the top 30 job boards out of 50,000 career sites on the Internet, but one of only eight job boards that have received this prestigious award seven years in a row! Your votes have confirmed once again that VetJobs is the leading military related job board and one of the top career sites on the Internet! The staff of VetJobs wants to personally thank all of you who voted. We appreciate your support and will continue to work hard to earn your votes again for the 2011 WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award.

See article 3 below for the thirty recipients of the 2010 WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award. The eight elite sites who have received the award for all seven years are: CareerBuilder.com, DICE.com, EmploymentGuide.com, Execunet, HotJobs, Monster.com, Net-Temps.com and VetJobs.com. I congratulate these eight sites as they are the cream of the employment web sites on the Internet.

In addition to the WEDDLE’s award, this past year VetJobs was selected as the leading military site by Reader’s Digest and BusinessWeek. These are incredible achievements for a niche job board and reaffirms again that VetJobs is the leading military related job board on the Internet and that employers want to hire veterans!

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On Sunday, February 14, we celebrate Valentine’s Day! Be sure to remember your special person.

On February 15 the country celebrates President’s Day. The original purpose of President’s Day was to honor Washington and Lincoln, but it is now the day we honor all of the presidents who have served the United States.

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VetJobs is pleased to announce the addition of some great new resources to the Employment Assistance section (http://vetjobs.com/vetEmpAssistance.htm).

First is an article titled How to Find a Job! The article briefly lists the 22 things you need to be doing to find a job, especially during a recession.

Next are articles that list internet job board sites. Last month Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis commented that trying to find a job using the internet can be very difficult. I concur. There are hundreds of rip off sites and scam sites that prey on candidates seeking work. There are job board sites that provide “application forms” that collect your address, birth date and social security number (NEVER FILL THESE OUT!). Some want you to pay monthly fees to use the sites. As a general rule, I tell people DO NOT PAY anyone to help you find a job. There are plenty of legitimate job boards on the internet that you should not have to be paying to find a job. And of course there are the many front sites collecting resumes for third party recruiting firms and front sites for job aggregators.

While VetJobs has been extremely successful assisting transitioning military, veterans and their family members find jobs, we understand that not everyone will find a job through VetJobs. But when VetJobs does not have the job for you, we want to be able to direct you to legitimate sites to assist you in your job search.

Thus, as a public service VetJobs added four articles to the Employment Assistance section that provide lists of niche job board sites, state job board sites, comprehensive job board sites and aggregator job board sites. These are the most comprehensive listing of job board sites on the Internet. The lists are not intended to be all encompassing or mention every site available as sites come and go fairly regularly. But after over three months of research, we came up with these legitimate job boards currently on the internet.

The Niche Job Board Sites article lists job board sites by occupational category. The State Job Board Sites lists job boards by geographical emphasis by state. There are hundreds of sites in these listings.

We hope you will find these new resources helpful. Be sure to tell all your friends about the lists!

If you are still trying to ascertain what you want to do for a career please the VetJobs Career Advisor at www.vetjobs.com/careerAdvisor.htm and take the free career assessment.

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Be sure to check out the Upcoming Career Fairs page. VetJobs strives to list all military related job fairs worldwide. If you know of a job fair that is not listed, please forward the information to info@vetjobs.com.

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Over the past two weeks I was twice interviewed on FOX Business News. The interview on Monday’s Scoreboard with David Asman was particularly good. For those who did not see it, here is the link:

http://video.foxbusiness.com/#/v/3986350/helping-vets-get-jobs/?playlist_id=87066

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On the economic front, the country is getting mixed signals. According to the Department of Commerce, the U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in six years during the fourth quarter of 2009, even as consumer spending and business investment remained tepid. Real gross domestic product increased at a 5.7% seasonally adjusted annual rate in the final three months of the year. However, 3.4% of the growth came via the swing in inventories which were severely depleted. Growth just to replace inventories is not sustaining growth that creates jobs. But even with healthy growth in the second half of the year, the overall economy shrank 2.4% in 2009, the worst drop since the 10.9% decline in 1946. It was also the first annual decline since 1991. We have had two growth quarters, which technically means the recession is over, but things are still tough.

The mixed signals are hopeful, but not sustaining as unemployment still remains high at 10% and many predict unemployment will increase. Most economists point out that the REAL unemployment rate is 17% to 20% when you add in those who have dropped out of the workforce or are working part time jobs to make ends meet. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, and Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock, agree that the economy would have to grow roughly 5% for all of 2010 which would equal 3 million net new jobs just to ratchet down the unemployment rate for the year by 1%. Yet even optimists think the creation of just 1 million net new jobs is probably out of reach for 2010 given the current administration’s policies. That means the unemployment rate is not coming down anytime soon. High unemployment poses a risk to a recovery because it leads consumers to spend less, keeping economic growth weak. Too sharp a pullback in spending might even push the economy back into recession.

The bottom line is the country is not going to make significant progress and reduce unemployment until small businesses start hiring. The economic history of the United States has been that small businesses are what led America out of every recession over the last 100 years. Roughly 80% plus of new jobs come from small businesses and 60% plus of all workers in the United States work for a small business. But small businesses are not hiring because they are scared by the activities of this administration!

While the administration has proposed a small business hiring tax credit, such a move means nothing to small businesses. They cannot spend a tax credit to hire new employees! Small businesses need cash. Until the administration takes significant steps to improve the economy, we are going to be stuck just like in 1932 when Hoover made bad decisions that kept the United States in the Great Depression while the rest of the world moved forward. The same is happening today. The rest of the world is now out of the recession but the United States is going deeper.

If the administration is serious about moving America forward, it would be doing the following:
1. Work on lowering taxes
2. Work on freeing up the capital markets to start lending
3. Work on reducing the size of the federal government
4. Work on reducing onerous federal regulatory and reporting requirements
5. Quit trying to force the healthcare bill in its current form and move toward tort reform to improve the healthcare process in America
6. Quit having the federal government take over businesses, and
7. Support free enterprise.

Time will tell. In the meantime, there are millions of people out of work with no real prospect for a job!

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Finally, please keep the victims of the Haiti earthquake in your prayers. A good way to help is to contribute to CARE at www.care.org. Every time there is a major tragedy, the United States is the first on the scene with substantial relief. And it is it our military that has led the way in providing assistance!

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As always, if there is anything we at VetJobs can do for you, please do not hesitate to call or email.

Remember, Freedom Is Never Free – Support Our Armed Forces and Veterans

Best regards,

Ted Daywalt
President

2. A note from the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (www.vfw.org)!

Dignity Memorial offers VFW members pre-planning and at-need funeral services. Dignity Memorial® providers serve more veterans than any other funeral service provider, and our professionals are knowledgeable in veterans’ burial benefits provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. When you choose a Dignity Memorial provider, you can be confident you’ll understand what your VA burial benefits include and how to apply for them.

In addition to this expertise, we support veterans through programs such as the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall and the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program. We also offer the free Veterans Planning Guide as an educational resource, and special pricing for members of the VFW. For more information or to request your Veterans Planning Guide, visit www.DignityVeteransVFW.com.

3. 2010 WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award Recipients

For the last seven years, WEDDLE’s has been conducting year-long ballots of human resource personnel, recruiters and job seekers to determine which employment-related sites they like best. The balloting is open to all and covers all job boards and career portals, including those operated by commercial enterprises, associations and societies, trade organizations, college and university alumni organizations and affinity groups.

The WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award is unique. It is the only award recognizing job boards where the winners are picked not by pundits and so-called experts, but by the actual users of the job boards. As there is no higher accolade than to be recognized by one’s users, the WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award is highly coveted by the winners. These 30 recipients are simply the best employment sites on the Web!

The 2010 recipients are: 6FigureJobs.com, Absolutely Healthcare, AfterCollege.com, AllHealthcareJobs.com, AllRetailJobs.com, CareerBuilder.com, CollegeGrad.com, CollegeRecruiter.com,
Dice.com, DirectEmployers.com, DiversityJobs.com, EmploymentGuide.com, Execunet, GetTheJob.com, Hcareers, HealthCareerWeb.com, HEALTHeCAREERS Network, HotJobs, Indeed.com, Job.com, JobFox.com, Jobing, JobsinLogistics.com, Monster.com, Net-Temps.com, SimplyHired.com, SnagAJob.com, TheLadders.com, TopUSAJobs.com and VetJobs.com.

Of the 2010 recipient sites, eight have won this coveted award all seven years. The top eight recipients are: CareerBuilder.com, DICE.com, EmploymentGuide.com, Execunet, HotJobs, Monster.com, Net-Temps.com and VetJobs.com!

The 2010 winning sites break out as follows:
• 19 are niche sites that specialize in a particular career field, industry, geographic location or personal attribute;
• 11 are all-purpose sites that serve job seekers and employers in a wide range of professions, crafts, trades and industries;
• Among the niche sites, 4 focus on healthcare, 3 serve recent college graduates and/or alumni, 3 specialize in senior level workers, and 2 serve special affinity groups within the workforce (DiversityJobs.com and VetJobs.com).
• Among the niche sites, 6 industries are represented: healthcare, retail, information systems, hospitality, logistics and staffing.

/—-February Veteran Eagle sponsor is Excelsior College—-\

Success. On time and on target. Excelsior College is the college of choice for Veterans.

Veteran supports are in place at Excelsior College to guide you through the process of reaching your educational goals which lead to future civilian career success. We will walk you through the application process, enrollment procedures, and qualifications for financial aid.

Excelsior College makes the most of your prior military training to provide the maximum transfer of credit. We’ve developed degree programs specifically for military careers and beyond.

You’ll also have the advantage of Excelsior’s Success Strategy for Military and Veterans program. An online course specifically designed to assist veterans. This course increases your success in college by providing orientation information, activities for personal growth and relevant skill development, and perspectives on educational and career planning. By the close of the course, you’ll have a degree completion plan and earn 3 college credits.

Excelsior College offers many special amenities for incoming veterans. Our veteran friendly web site, the latest new social and academic online communities for information and discussion in the form of a Military/Veteran Facebook Page and Blog, programs through our Center for Professional Development (over 60 programs approved for VA benefits) and deferred payment for those using Post 9/11 benefits.

As an accredited leader in distance education, Excelsior College applies the college credit already earned to a respected degree in Liberal Arts, Business, Technology, Nursing or Health Sciences, providing the best start toward degree completion.

Visit www.veterans3.excelsior.edu today.

\—–Please visit your February Veteran Eagle sponsor Excelsior College at the above URL—–/

4. VetJobs Recommends – 4Troops

Four powerful American voices come together for one important cause – to support the American veteran and honor their sacrifices through song. 4TROOPS are not only seasoned vocalists, but also United States combat veterans that served on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. The CD includes a collection of patriotic and uplifting songs designed to entertain and spread their positive message to all serving troops, veterans and American citizens who are inspired by them every day. A portion of the proceeds from the sales of 4TROOPS products will benefit charities that support American veterans. For more information, visit http://www.4troopsmusic.com/. You can contact 4Troops with questions, comments and suggestions at 4troops@sonymusic.com

/—February Veteran Eagle sponsor is TECHEXPO Top Secret—-\

TECHEXPO Top Secret’s next job fair is:

2/9, BWI Marriott, 1743 West Nursery Road, Linthicum Heights, MD, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Pre-register at http://www.techexpoUSA.com/index_VJS.cfm

2/10, The Ritz Carlton, Pentagon City, 1250 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Pre-register at http://www.techexpoUSA.com/index_VJS.cfm

\—–Please visit your February Veteran Eagle sponsor TECHEXPO Top Secret at www.techexpousa.com—-/

5. Some Soldiers Face Involuntary Separation

American Forces Press Service reports soldiers who don’t want to extend their enlistments in units slated to deploy on or after January 1 may be involuntarily separated up to three months early. The new Enlisted Involuntary Early Separation Program will affect active-duty Soldiers scheduled to separate during the first six months of their unit’s deployment. The program applies only to regular Army enlisted Soldiers with more than 36 months of active service and less than 71 months of total service when they have an ending term-of-service date during their unit’s first six months of deployment.

6. Ohio Military Injury Relief Fund

The Ohio Military Injury Relief Fund gives money to those injured during active service as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom. The injury must have occurred while the servicemember was in receipt of hazardous duty, combat or hostile fire pay. Qualifying injuries include any physical injury suffered in the line of duty or a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder while serving in country under either operation. For more information, contact your local County Veterans Service Office in Ohio, telephone the Ohio Department of Veterans Services at: 1-888-296-7541 (option 5), or visit http://dvs.ohio.gov/home/veterans_benefits/military_injury_relief_fund.aspx

7. Stop-Loss Payments Continue, But Some No Longer Eligible

American Forces Press Service reports the fiscal 2010 defense budget extends payments to servicemembers involuntarily extended on active duty under the so-called “Stop Loss” program, but those who received a bonus for voluntarily re-enlisting or extending their service no longer qualify for retroactive Stop Loss pay. The Defense Department has put the new policy into effect, modifying eligibility for retroactive special pay to comply with Section 8108 of the 2010 Defense Department Appropriations Act, which took effect December 19, 2009. Servicemembers affected by the new policy who already received Stop Loss payments will not be required to repay them, defense officials said. However, all outstanding applications from affected servicemembers will be returned, along with an explanation of the change in law that makes them no longer eligible to receive the payments, officials said.

8. Veterans Saluting the Flag

Section 594 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law as Public Law 110-181 on Jan. 28, allows veterans out of uniform to salute the flag.

Section 9 of Title 4, United States Code, was amended by striking “all persons present” and all that follows through the end of the section, and inserted the following: “All persons present in uniform should render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute. All other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over their heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries who are present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”

9. National Guard and Reserve Mobilized as of January 26, 2010

The total number currently on active duty from the Army National Guard and Army Reserve is 112,553; Navy Reserve, 6,988; Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, 16,604; Marine Corps Reserve, 6,392; and the Coast Guard Reserve, 771. This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been activated to 143,308, including both units and individual augmentees. A cumulative roster of all National Guard and Reserve personnel who are currently activated may be found at http://www.defense.gov/news/Jan2010/d20100126ngr.pdf.

10. Significant Events this Month in Military History

1763 – Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years War in Europe

1778 – The American frigate Ranger carried the Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France

1795 – Navy Supply Corps established

1813 – The American ship USS Hornet sank the British sloop HMS Peacock in an action off the coast of Guiana (north coast of South America) during the war of 1812

1836 – Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began his siege of the Alamo Spanish mission in San Antonio, Texas.

1863 – General Joseph Hooker organized the Army of the Potomac

1863 – The Confederate ship Nashville was destroyed by the Union ironclad vessel USS Montauk on the Ogeechee River in Georgia during the American Civil War

1865 – The battle of Petersburg (American Civil War)

1898 – The battleship USS Maine was sunk following an explosion in the harbor of Havana, Cuba.

1916 – The German Fleet was given orders to attack armed Allied merchant ships without warning during WWI.

1916 – Beginning of the battle of Verdun, in France, which lasted ten months (WW I)

1917 – British intelligence intercepted the “Zimmerman telegram,” sent to the Mexican government by the German foreign minister, promising Mexico that the lands taken from it by the U.S. during the 1846-1848 war would be returned if Mexico entered World War I on Germany’s side and the Germans won. The message was promptly relayed to the U.S. Government

1942 – A Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of California, shelling the coastline near the town of Ellwood.

1943 – Women’s Marine Corps Auxiliary established.

1943 – The German Afrika Korps defeated American forces during the battle of Kasserine Pass, in Tunisia (WW II)

1944 – Beginning of the German Army offensive against the Anzio bridgehead in Italy (WW II)

1944 – U.S. Marines seized Parry Island from Japanese forces, completing their takeover of the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific (WW II)

1945 – U.S. Marines began the invasion of Iwo Jima in the Western Pacific (WW II)

1966 – Operation White Wing, a search and destroy mission during the Vietnam War.

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VetJobs is exclusively sponsored and partially owned by the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (www.vfw.org) and endorsed by The Vietnam Veterans of America (www.vva.org), the Association of the US Navy (www.navy-reserve.org), the Veterans of Modern Warfare (www.vmwusa.org), the Student Veterans of America (www.studentveterans.org), the Military Order of the Purple Heart (www.purpleheart.org) and Hope4Heroes (www.hope4heroes.org).
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Veterans make the best employees!
Freedom Is Never Free – Support Our Armed Forces and Veterans!

VetJobs is an appropriate employment service delivery system for EEOC, VEVRAA/JVA and OFCCP compliance support!

Seven year recipient of AIRS Top Recruiting Site
Six year recipient of WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Award
Four year recipient of Workforce Management Top 10 Recruiting Site
Only military job board selected by Reader’s Digest
Only military job board selected by BusinessWeek
CareerXRoads Top Recruiting Site

VetJobs is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business