COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Veterans
Ex-Soldiers Are Recruited Again (and Eagerly) for Civilian Jobs
Eilene Zimmerman, New York Times
June 18, 2006
A
confluence of events — media coverage of the Iraq war, a
patriotic desire to support the troops and corporate America's struggle
to fill jobs and groom leaders — has hiring managers tapping one
of the nation's most diverse and well-trained talent pools: the 220,000
men and women who leave military service each year.
Job boards for former military personnel are expanding rapidly —
Military.com is growing about 50 percent a year and RecruitMilitary
about 35 percent a year. Sales at VetJobs, which charges employers to
post jobs on its Web site, are up 200 percent over last year. The
Destiny Group, which operates more than 100 veteran-specific career
sites, reports a 250 percent increase in its business over the last
year.
Extensive coverage of the war, recruiters say, has created a largely
positive perception of the military. "They aren't a bunch of grunts
sitting in the woods smoking, with all kinds of things on their
helmets," said Bill Gaul, Destiny's president, referring to Vietnam-era
images. "Now what you see are people working on computers and technical
equipment. They look good. I don't have to work hard to convince people
anymore of the value of someone with military experience."
Employers are also attracted to the group's diversity. According to
Defense Department figures, about 18 percent of active-duty personnel
are African-American, 9 percent are Hispanic and about 15 percent are
women.
When Adria Cobeaga, an Army engineer, started her job search in April,
it yielded results almost immediately. She interviewed with 11
companies, and 9 asked her to come for a second interview. Ms. Cobeaga,
who returned from Iraq last summer, will begin her job as a project
manager with the Hensel Phelps Construction Company in San Diego in
mid-July, right after she is discharged.
While in Iraq, Ms. Cobeaga rarely knew what her team would be building
from one day to the next. "You just had to know enough to get people
where they needed to be and manage them," she said. "The people at
Hensel seemed to like that flexibility."
In January, William Harrison, a West Point alumnus and former field
artillery officer, began a job as an operating supervisor at the
Bronx-Westchester office of Con Edison. In the Army, he performed
maintenance on the computerized control system in Bradley fire support
vehicles. Both Ms. Cobeaga and Mr. Harrison, as junior military
officers, are in what recruiters call the sweet spot — they have
technical training, a college degree and leadership experience that
makes them highly desirable candidates in the corporate world. Mr.
Harrison and Ms. Cobeaga both worked with Bradley-Morris, an
Atlanta-based recruitment firm that places those with military
experience.
Young people making the transition out of the military are grouped into
two categories by recruiters, enlisted personnel and junior military
officers. Officers are seen as a good fit for nearly any midlevel
management position. Enlisted men and women have usually trained to be
mechanics, electricians or electronics specialists; in the civilian
world, they work for construction, high-tech or manufacturing
companies, said Bryan Zawikowski, general manager of Lucas Group
Military, a division of the recruiting firm Lucas Group.
Manufacturing jobs are seen as an especially good fit. The 2005 Skills
Gap study from the National Association of Manufacturers and
RecruitMilitary shows critical shortages in a number of jobs, including
machinists, electricians, engineers and programmers.
Those skills are in high supply in the military, said Drew Myers, chief
executive of RecruitMilitary, as are character traits like leadership,
integrity and respectfulness.
Those qualities, employers say, are what really set former soldiers
apart from other job candidates. It's not unusual for Marine sergeants
or Army platoon leaders in their early 20's, for example, to be
responsible for 15 to 100 people. Mr. Harrison, who is 25 and now at
Con Ed, was a platoon leader in the Army, responsible for about 30
people.
And those small-unit leadership skills translate well to business. Each
Starbucks store, for example, is essentially a small unit, said Bob
Ravener, the company's vice president for human resources for the
eastern United States, and a former Navy officer. "We can teach people
the Starbucks business, but we can't train them to be leaders, or have
integrity and honesty," he said. "And I know firsthand the military
gives you that."
The chief executive of Home Depot, Robert L. Nardelli, has been
reaching out to veterans since the 1980's, when he pioneered an officer
hiring program while at General Electric. He began a similar program at
Home Depot in 2002, and now 50 percent of those hired for the store
leadership program are junior military officers.
"They hit the ground running," said Dennis Donovan, the executive vice
president for human resources at Home Depot. "They go into a store
where we have a couple of hundred people, and they have the maturity to
manage."
In September 2004, Home Depot solidified its veteran recruiting with
the introduction of Operation Career Front, a coordinated effort with
Veterans Affairs, the Defense Department and the Labor Department to
recruit those coming out of the military. The human resources staff at
Home Depot are also specially trained to recruit veterans; 16,000 were
hired in 2004 and 17,000 in 2005.
One hurdle facing those leaving the service is how to explain on a
civilian résumé what they did in the military. There are
about 7,900 military occupational specialties but about 40,000 civilian
ones, so translating from one to the other isn't easy.
Christopher Michel, founder and chairman of the job board Military.com,
advised job seekers to drop military jargon from cover letters and
résumés and research civilian terms to use in describing
what they did in the service.
Another, more complicated hurdle for some is overcoming combat stress
disorders, which can make the transition to civilian life difficult.
About 30 percent of those returning from Iraq have sought help for
mental health problems from Veterans Affairs and 15 percent have been
diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Judy Caden, director of vocational rehabilitation and employment
at Veterans Affairs, said veterans who suffered physical or
psychological injuries often needed help evaluating job choices and
developing workplace coping mechanisms and communication skills.
Fortunately for these veterans, Ms. Caden said, their military
experience is still considered a desirable attribute. "You have an
environment today where employers really want them to be successful,"
she said.
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