MightyRecruiterAs more and more veterans return from deployment overseas seeking gainful employment, many are encountering obstacles that impede their reentry into the workforce. Many of these individuals are highly trained, skilled and credentialed professionals who have made extraordinary sacrifices for their country. As the unemployment rate for veterans continues to climb, outpacing the national unemployment rate, organizations should implement changes to better help veterans to transition back into the workforce. Whether you need a refresher on how to hire a veteran or not, here are a few ways to improve your recruiting strategies.
Tailor Job Descriptions to Veterans
Most veterans have a variety of skills and credentials that can only gained from serving in the military. Also, if they’ve recently been deployed, you have to consider that they’ve been mainly exposed to using military jargon. When creating job descriptions to attract veteran candidates, make sure you are using their language. Use military language to attract more job candidates with military backgrounds.
Train Hiring Personnel on How to Hire a Veteran
In this day and age, human resource personnel are well-versed in evaluating job applications and resumes for qualities and skills they are looking for in regular candidates. However, many lack the ability to properly qualify veterans based off the information that is on their applications and resumes. They also may not know how to effectively recruit and hire veterans. Many veterans are not necessarily good at translating their military skills on paper. This creates a challenging situation for employers because they want to attract the right candidates, but may not have the capacity or time to do so. To better enable human resource personnel to better understand and qualify veteran candidates, provide them with training that enhances their knowledge of military backgrounds and military language.
Understand and Appreciate Military Culture
One major roadblock that employers often encounter is not having a good understanding of military culture to begin with. How can employers hope to recruit veterans when there are so many misconceptions floating about? They can’t, unless they develop a deeper understanding of military values, policies, processes, culture and life. Employers should have a basic understanding to help facilitate a more transparent hiring process and work culture, which will help to create a positive working relationship.
Look Beyond the Tax Breaks
While the government currently offers a variety of tax breaks to help spur the hiring of veterans, some employers may be hiring veterans for all of the wrong reasons. While there is no denying that your company can benefit from any tax breaks that it receives, don’t let the ones that are offered for the hiring of vets sway you. If military personnel are willing to make many sacrifices for their country, you as an employer can afford to make some concessions as well. After all, you are getting highly-skilled and trained military professionals to work for your company. When working on how to hire a veteran, keep in mind that tax breaks are simply icing on the cake.
Focus Interview on the Vet
No matter what branch of service military candidates have served in, they all possess different skills, experiences and credentials. It is up to you the interviewer