Your Veteran Hiring Initiative Is a Business Strategy; Don’t Treat It Like a ‘Community Service Project’
“[Veteran talent acquisition ] is not a community service project,” Crace says. “The goal really is to make the firm and the clients you are supporting more effective by bringing in extremely talented folks who just need a little assistance in setting themselves up for success when they first join the organization.”
Think of it this way: Imagine you spent years working for a large, highly structured corporation. You had very specific duties and a finely delimited spot in the overall hierarchy. Now, however, you’ve left that corporation and set your sights on employment in a more freewheeling, holacractic tech startup. The culture shock would no doubt be jarring, and in order to be your best self at that startup, you’d probably need some help translating your skills and daily practices into what is, for all intents and purposes, a whole new world.
Making the jump from the military to a civilian company can be a similarly dizzying experience for veterans. Moreover, the companies themselves don’t always understand how to translate military experience into the corporate world, which may be one of the biggest reasons behind shockingly high unemployment rates for young and recently separated (from the military, that is) veterans.
Solving the Puzzle: How Do Veterans Fit Into Your Organization?
“There are a lot of challenges, as far as understanding the best way to plug transitioning veterans into an organization and being able to support them through that transition,” Crace says.
Crace believes that, by and large, American employers have the best intentions when it comes to trying to hire veterans. These intentions are frustrated, however, by the difficulties of translating military experience into the corporate dialect.
“You have to look at the roles in your industry [in terms of] what is best suited for people coming right out of the military, and your recruiters and HR professionals need education to help them understand military resumes so they can match veterans to the opportunities,” Crace explains.
In terms of what this education looks like, Crace advises that employers implement specific education programs for both recruiters and hiring managers.
Crace also suggests bringing in examples of military resumes to give recruiters more experience with them. Military resumes can be difficult to parse for those of us who never served, thanks to some very specific and seemingly impenetrable jargon. By giving recruiters practice with military resumes, a company can help its recruiters get the base of understanding they need to accurately interpret military experience.
As for hiring managers, Crace says their education should focus on the benefits of veterans. Hiring managers need to know exactly what veterans can bring to bear on their departments and why the organization is focused on hiring veterans.
That education shouldn’t be framed in terms of “community service,” as Crace stresses above. Instead, it’s far more important (and more beneficial for all parties involved) to think of veteran hiring efforts in terms of real, concrete business results.
Finally, Crace also stresses the importance of creating an internal “center of excellence” composed of experts who can support ongoing veteran recruiting and hiring efforts.
“That way, you have representatives out in the market who are experts in military hiring and developing special military hiring campaigns and programs,” Crace says. “[The center of excellence] will support the recruiters who are on the ground and help attract talent.”
For Veterans, Interviews Aren’t Always Straightforward
Crace also notes that employers may be inadvertently turning veterans away through their interview processes. While we in the civilian world are well-versed in the rituals of interviewing, veterans don’t have as much experience. Interviews just aren’t a big part of the military life.
“Most of the time, they go into the military, they had one interview to get there, and now they’re in,” Crace says. “They haven’t had much practice with interviews. So they come out, and they have to learn the interview skills [that most of us take for granted].”
The average job interview is also based on the concept of “selling oneself.” In an ideal situation, a job seeker would walk into the room, wow the interviewers with their skills and achievements, and receive a job offer a couple of days later.
The problem is, this behavior is semi-antithetical to the culture of the military, which encourages service members to think of themselves in more team-centric terms.
Crace says interviewers should be aware of these facts, and they should approach interviews with veterans with “open minds.”
“Those that are interviewing veterans have to cut them some slack and help them translate their skills throughout that interview process,” Crace says.
Otherwise, the company may pass over an extremely qualified candidate simply because that candidate came from a totally different work culture. (I don’t know about you, but that sounds to me like a really bad reason to lose out on top talent.)
Above All, Stay Vigilant
Ultimately, when it comes to mounting a successful veteran hiring initiative, Crace says that vigilance is key.
“You have to stay on top of it. You can’t just do training once a year,” Crace says. “You have to have multiple people in the market and the organization who are really advocating and pushing.”
A veteran hiring initiative is a business strategy, and it should be treated as such. That means the people executing the strategy need to be held accountable, and they should have both clearly defined goals and comprehensive plans for achieving those goals.
“You have to understand where you’re at, what your goals are, and how you are going to accomplish them,” Crace says. “You can’t just have a program and a nice website. You have to get your hands dirty.”