The Military…not just for the battle field anymore…

Soldiers, Sailors, Airman and Marines...long gone are the days of the judge giving you the choice of jail or the military. Also gone are the days or even the thought that if you weren’t smart enough to cut it in college, your only choice was to be a grunt in the filed or swabbing the deck on some ship out to sea. Today’s members of the armed forces, regardless of the branch they are in are as intelligent as any college grad plus they have job experience have learned responsibility, discipline and have a work ethic that any employer would love to have. With all this pretty much a known fact, the question begs to be asked; why do we have to go out of our way to convince companies that it is in their best interest to hire veterans? Now I’m not asking that question as a sailor of 13 years who is looking to find employment. I have a job, a nice job too. I ask that question as a career advisor whose job it is to assist my graduates in finding employment, many of them, veterans who have come to ECPI University to get that piece of paper that somehow justifies their existence to some company.

I see plenty of employment opportunities come across my computer screen every day. It is a part of my job to review them and make sure that they are of value to my students, (it is also part of the reasons that I wear these reading glasses that make me look like Grandpa Torres). These postings have a lot of information on them and I always look to see what is it that these employers want. They lay out lists upon lists of desired qualifications, necessary skills and lots of requests for traits that just are not really quantifiable. You know, the regular laundry list of things like communications skills, leadership skills, customer service skills, you know the type. These are all things that we learn while in the service of our country. The traits and soft skills that have no degree or piece of paper to prove that someone is well versed in these areas, and yet, our positions as members of most elite fighting force on the planet, dictate that we learn them and learn them fast.

If you are looking at a résumé and see a degree of some sort, from any university, the thought is normally that they have a certain level of knowledge. It is at least enough of a level of knowledge that you as a hiring manager will take it into account. I think we need to make a change in our though process so that when we see a military section on a résumé, we can automatically assume this candidate has a certain level of soft skill training that it would fulfill that portion of the job requirement. Not every veteran has seen combat. Not every veteran is an Army Ranger or Navy Seal. We don’t all get to be on the recruiting poster, but we all do get to learn those X factor skills that every employer is looking for and maybe we should start giving that a little more weight in the decision to invite them in for an interview. It might just be worth it to you and your bottom line and remember, when they call you sir or ma’am, it’s a term of respect, not of age.