Employer Misconceptions of Veterans and Veteran Misconceptions of Employers

This chapter outlines the misconceptions that employers may have about hiring military veterans and the misconceptions that veterans might have about civilian employers and offers recommendations on how to overcome the misconceptions. Employer misconceptions are countered in this chapter by presenting data on veteran socioeconomic status, geography, income, and education to give employers a better understanding of the groups they are trying to hire. Recommendations are offered to employers on how they can address veteran misconceptions with examples of how to market and sell their company and industry, properly train recruiters and other employees on military culture, create networking and mentoring opportunities, and establish accurate expectations to veterans, recruiters, and other employees within the company.

Understanding Veterans’ Résumés and Conducting Veteran Interviews

This chapter teaches recruiters and hiring managers how to become fluent in translating the language of military experience used on résumés and during interviews to create a competitive hiring advantage for veteran talent. It provides an example of a veteran’s résumé and dissects it to show how military occupations can translate to civilian careers and how military promotions indicate employability. Charts are provided to compare military to civilian levels of responsibility, and government information sources are listed to further understand the composition of military occupations and population cohorts to improve targeting of talent. It provides further information sources to gain a better understanding of military knowledge, skills, and abilities. It also discusses current best practices of leading employers of veterans and offers useful tips on how to conduct a productive hiring interview. A top 10 list is presented to help practitioners create and maintain a successful veteran hiring program.

The Soft Skills Veterans Bring to the Workforce

One of the benefits of hiring military veterans is the skill set they bring to the civilian workforce. Veterans are keenly aware, through leadership examples and training, of the importance of dealing with other people’s productively and of managing one’s own behavior. Working effectively with others and managing one’s own behavior are examples of nontechnical or “soft” social skills that can be measured by personality assessments. Examples of the types of attributes that personality assessments test for include the “big five factors” of personality (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion) as well as political skill. Taken together, these soft social skills reflect one’s capacity to get along with others and one’s capacity to compete with others; both getting along and getting ahead are empirically related to work success. Veterans have an advantage in civilian organizations in terms of using their soft social skills for personal and team growth by finding meaning in work.

Veteran Hiring and Retention

This chapter describes the experience and lessons learned regarding the veteran hiring initiative within Military Programs at Walmart. A proponent of veteran hiring for decades, Walmart formally launched the Veterans Welcome Home Commitment in 2013 and is currently the largest private sector employer of veterans and military spouses. While many companies understand the benefits of hiring veterans, a number of companies find that retaining veteran employees can be challenging. Using a four-step model, common-sense tactics utilized by Walmart are provided that can be used to help veterans successfully transition from their military careers to civilian organizations through understanding military and corporate culture and how veterans coming from the military’s culture fit in with an organization’s corporate culture. This chapter also describes how the lessons learned from Walmart’s veteran hiring efforts can be used by smaller companies that may be considering or are actively deploying veteran and military family member hiring initiatives.

Introduction

The introduction of this book explains how industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists and human resources leaders can use I/O research and best practices to understand military veterans and military families. This knowledge can help employers find, hire, and retain veterans as civilian employees in their organizations. This chapter first describes the American military as an organization, the demographics of the military, and why service members and veterans are different from other groups of individuals; it offers insight into the types of individuals who self-select into the military and then describes how the military develops the traits, skills, and competencies (including nontechnical “soft” skills) that are in high demand but short supply in the civilian labor market. In concludes with an explanation of how the military culture impacts the service members and how these elements create veteran employees who may differ in their tenure and their performance in civilian organizations.

Why Hire Veterans?

In order for employers to get the full benefit of hiring military veterans, they need to understand why it is in their best interest to employ and retain these individuals. This chapter presents and expands on the typical understanding of what it means to hire a veteran. It defines the skills and knowledge veterans bring to the organization along with the value associated with decisive efforts to integrate veterans into the civilian workforce. This chapter explores and outlines the subsequent impact of these decisions on a company’s organizational culture and competitive advantage in the marketplace (e.g., how veteran hiring contributes to the corporate bottom line by examining the return on investment of these decisions), looks at the current trends in the marketplace for veteran talent, provides suggestions on hiring veterans, and presents recommendations on how employers can advance the success of veterans in the workplace, including veterans with disabilities and injuries.

The Recent History of Veteran Recruitment and Retention

Setting the historical context for this book, this chapter describes the recent history of civilian veteran employment, relaying how the high military veteran unemployment rate in 2010 generated concern and reactions from the government and the public and the private sectors. It then provides examples of how government and companies worked together to improve the employment situation of military veterans through legislation, corporate hiring programs, and corporate partnerships but faced limited success because too few companies were involved. The current situation of veteran employment and retention is outlined, with examples provided of why military veterans may choose to leave civilian employment and suggestions offered to address the issues veteran employees may have in their jobs so that employers can do a better job of retaining them in their workforces.

Retention of Veteran Employees

Instead of viewing veteran employment as simply the state of having a job, this chapter posits thinking about the issue more holistically by examining the employment life cycle, including recruiting, hiring/onboarding, and retention. As military veteran unemployment numbers remain low, this chapter argues that the primary question has now shifted from whether or not veterans have a job to whether they have the right job and how long they remain in that job (i.e., retention or attrition). It next examines why veteran employees in civilian organizations leave their jobs; the reasons for their dissatisfaction; differences between veteran and nonveteran employees; how this impacts attraction; the difference between positive and negative veteran attrition; and how underemployment is defined and addressed. Best practices for retaining veteran employees are offered.

The Employment Situation of Military Spouses

This chapter examines military spouse employment, the business case for hiring military spouses, and barriers to their employment. The unemployment rate among military spouses remains high compared to civilian peers even though their educational attainment, pursuit of employment, volunteerism, and engagement in related professional development activities tends to support a strong business case for hiring them. Also, there is no evidence to suggest that military affiliation negatively impacts success or ability to perform in the workplace. Thus, there is a compelling business case to hire military spouses, but they are often overlooked as human capital resources. This chapter will help human resource professionals learn more about the value of military spouse job candidates and the issues that impact their employment across the human resource life cycle from recruitment to retention.

The Key Role of Supervisors for Supporting Veterans in the Workplace

This chapter focuses on the role of leadership in hiring and retaining military veterans in civilian organizations—both the leadership experience and abilities a veteran brings to an employer and the importance of civilian workplace supervisors. Supervisors are key in supporting and recognizing the unique knowledge, skills, and abilities that veterans bring to the workplace, enhancing not only the quality of business outcomes but also the social relationships within organizations. This chapter begins with a focus on the importance of managers and supervisors providing a culture of support for veterans by addressing how such support leads to improvements in self-efficacy, health, well-being, and job outcomes, such as increased retention of veterans in the civilian workplace. It then addresses the importance of both the leadership skills and qualities brought to the workplace by our veterans—and how organizations can recognize, utilize, and maximize the leadership skills of veterans.