American Veterans Group Aligning with Veteran Nonprofits Important to its Clients

Today on Veterans Day we are sharing our final veteran profile in this series highlighting some of the veterans who have benefited from AVG’s philanthropy.? We are overwhelmed by the success of our Foundation and are even more satisfied at the broader impact all of our corporate clients have made on the veteran community.? It’s almost unbelievable to say that we’ve donated just over $600,000 to 37 nonprofits since our founding. The donations our Foundation has made have had a direct impact on the lives of 3,100 plus veterans in 46 American cities. There’s been a tangible, multiplier effect to our giving and that's because we align ourselves with our clients on their social missions to support veterans in their communities.? Today, we recognize our clients who make the hiring and training of veterans a key part of their CSR goals and we thank them for the opportunity to share our giving with veteran organizations important to them.? We also salute all our service men and women who have served our country bravely.?

Here’s Captain Killian Byrne 's story about how he transitioned from the Marine Corps to landing a great job with Amazon Web Services (AWS) from the Hiring Our Heroes (HOH) corporate fellowship program.

Killian went to the University of Pittsburgh on an ROTC scholarship, graduating in 2015. He then entered the Marine Corps officer candidate school. He thought he wanted to be an infantry leader, but after officer basic training he chose to do something more in the supporting establishment. He decided to become a communications officer.??

?His time as a communications officer sent him overseas to Australia, Kuwait, Syria and finally Iraq. In Iraq, he was the single point of contact for all the coalition forces on that base. He linked up and used the combined joint task force network ensuring communications stayed intact.???

?Killian initially enlisted to serve only four years, but served eight years with his last duty station being the Pentagon working in the command control communications and computers office as an action officer. It was his deployment to Iraq that caused him to consider transitioning out of the military.? His wife, a dentist, had landed a job after having been unemployed due to Covid for some time and he did not want to risk being deployed overseas again, pulling her away from a job she worked so hard to find. So, in 2021 he began looking at his options for transitioning out.?

He was hopeful after a friend shared his positive experience with the HOH corporate fellowship program.? His friend, who was already transitioning out, shared with Killian how smooth that experience made the job search process.??

?“The hardest part about Marine Corps transition or DOD transition, I would say, is that as much as you’d like to have something lined up for when you're done, companies don't hire a year out,” Killian shares. “So if you're trying to make plans in advance, it's very difficult to plan to transition in one year and then wait nine months to start the job search process.”?

?Killian says you cannot accrue more than 60 days leave, so even if he had planned to take terminal leave, that’s not enough time to find employment.???

?“There’s a lot of stress around that timeline,” adds Killian. “I was lucky in that my chain of command was very open to me doing the SkillBridge process. A friend of mine actually delayed his exit strategy by about a year because he wasn't able to get that time at the end to make his transition smooth.”?

Because Killian did have a lot of accrued time off, he was able to take that time off to prepare for the application process for the HOH corporate fellowship program.???

Killian says it took about six weeks to prepare for and finally be selected for his fellowship. During that time, he was completing paperwork and doing informational sessions and interviews.? With the help from his program coordinator and support team at HOH, Killian was able to tailor his resume to specific job roles and companies that were in the corporate fellowship pool of opportunities.? He said he had about 16 interviews.??

The preparation paid off. Soon after Killian was selected for a corporate fellowship with Amazon Web Services. The internship was based in Herndon, Virginia, which was only about 40 minutes from where he was living at the time.? Killian was able to participate primarily virtually but did go into the office on occasion to meet with teams.??

?“It was full-time every day but on the last day of the week, Hiring Our Heroes reserves that day to provide informational sessions,” says Killian. “Different companies were slotted for those Fridays to talk about various things. For example, Deloitte did a huge presentation talking about the transition from military to civilian life and sharing things like how power structures are organized in leadership roles and some of the unspoken rules and regulations in the corporate sector that aren't as well defined in the military.”?

?Killian’s goal going into the fellowship was to look for a company that was looking for fellows with intent to hire.? As his 12-week fellowship was coming to an end he was invited to participate in what Amazon calls loops, which is a part of their hiring process.? Killian participated in six different interviews at the end of which he was given a solid job offer that far exceeded his expectations in terms of compensation.??

?“I have been and will continue to recommend Hiring Our Heroes to every transitioning veteran that I know because it is so good to have a mechanism by which to transition,” Killian says.? “These companies have a vested interest in hiring veterans. So, you are treated with that priority. Hiring Our Heroes, just mainlines you straight to those folks and it’s made the process so much more manageable and less stressful than just trying to do it on my own.”?

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