Best Options For Post Service Employment For Veterans

There is no doubt about how much our veterans sacrifice for our country; so it might come as a surprise that veterans sometimes struggle to find gainful employment. You would think that with all the gratitude that most of us feel and show for our men and women in uniform, it would be easy for them to find not just a job, but a very good job at that. We need more RecruitMilitary jobs for veterans. But when veterans begin to look for employment in civilian life, they find that there are quite a few difficulties that they had not anticipated. These are some of them:

  • A Veteran’s Resume Is Not What Employers Are Looking For: Having a good resume is important when you are looking for work because it is what will make a favorable impression on a prospective employer or not. Without that first good impression, you will not even get in the door to talk to a recruiter; and that is what makes this such an important step in a job search. But employers might have specific skills or experience in mind when they are looking for new employees; and when they are presented with a veteran’s resume that has a lot of military experience and perhaps no other experience at all, they just moved on to the next resume.
  • Veterans have years of experience that cannot be obtained in other industries, but that also means that there are very few or no civilian jobs that come close to resembling what they did in the military.
  • While most of us appreciate what our veterans have done for us and the country as a whole, there are still people who view anyone who served in the military negatively. Sometimes those people happen to be in hiring positions and that does not fare well for veterans. This negative perspective that recruiters sometimes have may come from violent representations of veterans in the media, but no matter where it comes from, it cause our servicemen and women problems when looking for a job.
  • One of the biggest things that companies look for when they are hiring people is a willingness to remain in the company for a long time. This makes sense because it takes valuable resources to train people and when hiring seems like a revolving door because of employees who leave too soon, a lot of money is simply wasted. When a recruiter notices that a candidate is still active as a reserve, the first thing that they think is that this soldier will be deployed at any time. That gets in the way of being selected for the job.

Veterans Need More Support

Veterans get a lot of help when they step out of the military and into civilian life. There are veteran hiring programs out there, but just not enough. RecruitMilitary jobs for veterans are needed. But there is obviously not enough being done for them when it comes to career development in the civilian world. This is one of the reasons that our veterans end up feeling frustrated when they begin to look for a job outside of the military. Having more resources and assistance both before and after leaving active duty would go a long way towards integration for our servicemen and women. Another initiative that would help a great deal would be to target the private sector with an educational initiative to teach recruiters and employers about the many benefits that hiring veterans will provide them with. This has been done at various times and to a certain extent but not as energetically as it should be done. The inclusive work environment that we want for veterans can be accomplished through hard work and initiatives that focus on eliminating biases and stereotypes that veterans have to deal with when looking for employment.

Things That You Can Do

Are you a veteran looking for employment? Despite all the obstacles that you might face when looking for a job in the civilian world, there is a job out there for you! Make sure that you have a great resume in hand. There are resume services that can help you to polish up your resume so that it stands out to recruiters in a positive light, this is essential because, without that, you will not even get an interview. When you apply for a job, prepare even more than you think is necessary. Do some research about the company that you are going to and practice your answers to possible questions about your military career. Always focus on positive aspects such as how the military taught you that teamwork gets a job done properly, and how it gave you leadership skills that will make you a great boss once you get to that point! Always maintain a positive attitude and remember that most people, including recruiters, value your service and see you as a hero. And of course, take full advantage of veteran hiring programs and RecruitMilitary jobs for veterans.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.