Each year on Veteran’s Day, we pause to honor the contributions and sacrifice of military service members and their families. This year, that group includes thousands of military veterans returning home after the end of active conflict in Afghanistan.
As talent acquisition pros, our appreciation of veterans shouldn’t end after November 11. Each year, roughly a quarter of a million people retire from the US military – and many of those talented veterans will be looking for jobs in the civilian sector.
Hiring veterans is a smart move for civilian employers
With a record number of jobs currently unfilled in the US, military veterans represent a unique and often untapped talent pool for savvy employers. People coming out of the military possess a unique set of training and skills that civilian employers need.
Many are experienced in fields like IT, cybersecurity, finance, logistics, and more. Military service also helps to develop skills like leadership, problem solving, communication, and teambuilding – all of which are critical to business success.
In addition, hiring veterans can help employers to achieve their broader diversity and inclusion goals, as US veterans include millions of women, ethnic minorities, disabled individuals, and other key groups. There may even be opportunities to earn tax credits for hiring veterans.
Tackling the unique challenges of hiring veterans
Helping veterans transition to civilian employment makes good strategic sense, but it requires deliberate planning, process, and strategy. Our new e-book, Hiring Our Heroes: A Guide to Hiring Military Veterans for Civilian Roles, provides key insights and advice for employers looking to attract and engage this unique audience.
For example, we mentioned that military veterans bring a variety of desirable skills and experience to the table. But the military has a language of its own, and civilian recruiters often have trouble deciphering military terminology to understand how the experience on a veteran’s resume matches up with open roles. There are a number of online resources available to help veterans translate their military skills to civilian lingo – and these can also be valuable for recruiters. Improving your ability to identify relevant experience will make it easier to review resumes from veterans and craft job descriptions that will appeal to candidates with a military background.
The ebook is full of actionable tips like this, to help you re-focus the end-to-end candidate journey around a veteran audience. Topics include:
- Targeting veterans as a strategic audience
- Developing a veteran-focused content strategy
- Creating military-friendly job descriptions
- Customizing the career site experience for veterans
- Executing campaigns to attract veteran candidates, both virtually and in person
- Leveraging automation to target military-focused sourcing
- Selecting channels where veterans feel most comfortable
- Optimizing your process over time
There’s never been a better time to get started
If you’re ready to start tapping into the military talent pool to fill your open roles, Jobvite is here to help! Download the ebook today for insights on how to attract and engage this unique audience, and information on how our advance talent acquisition suite and automation capabilities can help.
