Veterans Top Tags | November

With a sweet tooth, I believe this season’s holidays formally start the week before Halloween. That’s when we assemble the candy for trick or treaters. Of course, it has to be tasted for quality, thoroughly and often.

#Veterans month begins immediately afterward, with the #Marine Corp Birthday setting up recognition and remembrance for Veterans Day.

Thanksgiving arrives quickly with fellowship, food, and football.?I hope your teams won.?My favorites struggled, but all was made well when Virginia Tech trounced University of Virginia .

We used to drive out to the country and cut down our Christmas tree on the Friday after Thanksgiving.?Now we purchase a tree and wreaths from a local Church. On our visit, a member of the congregation, an Army Veteran and U.S. Senator, was in charge. He had the youth group “hopping and popping” and our visit was surprising short and efficient.

Now it’s logistics – transportation, food – as preparations for Christmas and New Years are finalized.

With so much happening so quickly, it’s easy to forget about our struggling battle buddies.

I was reminded of service members facing food insecurity when the scouts collected food in my neighborhood for the foodbank.?

Seeing those at the intersections with “Homeless Veteran” cardboard signs reminded me to contribute to a local nonprofit that feeds the homeless.

Cleaning a spare bedroom for holiday guests reminded me that gently used items could be donated to a Veteran-focused organization instead of being thrown out.

The opportunities to “do good and feel good” are everywhere this season, so do look for the reminder that moves you.

I hope you have wonderful holidays and a Merry Christmas!

My top posts from last month are:

1.?Buy Veteran

Amanda Lalonde shared a post featuring ways to purchase from military owned companies.

The post contains an article , which has a link for the Institute for Veterans and Military Families - IVMF shopping guide, which features 500 Veteran, activity duty, reservists, and military-spouse owned businesses.?Perfect timing as I am behind on my Christmas shopping.

Beyond my personal situation, I am glad this guide exists, so kudos to the team for assembling it.? Supporting Veterans and our community by spending money on their products or services is a powerful statement.? If you know of other such lists, let me know in a comment.

2.?Helping Veteran Entrepreneurs

Like other entrepreneurs, Veterans entrepreneurs want to focus on running and growing their business.?Pursuing their American dream means bringing products and solutions to customers. Few get excited about the administrative tasks that come with ownership.

Bruce Thompson, MBA offers a possible insight for Veteran business owners when dealing with Human Resource issues.

It features training options to avoid costly HR mistakes.

His post also provides a good benchmark for Veterans who would like to own their own business. Many find owning a franchise, instead of starting a business from scratch, more attractive because it comes with existing administrative tasks and training.

3.?Legal Help for Veterans

One-way Veterans become homeless is due to eviction.? The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs provides no assistant or benefit to help Veterans with legal issues, such as challenging an unfair eviction notice. One organization that does provide help is the Veterans Legal Institute .

Their recent post highlights sponsors who support them and provide the resources so they can help our Veterans at no cost.

Often, we forget that for organizations to provide no cost or pro bono support to Veterans, funds are needed.?Sponsors who provide this support are a blessing. It’s nice to see their message of thanks to those who help them help our Veterans.

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4.?What does LinkedIn know about Veterans?

A lot.

Learn more from the post by Cory Boatwright about their new report – 2023 Veteran Opportunity Report: Understanding Veteran employment across the U.S.?

His post has a link to the report, which was developed from relevant Veteran insights on their platform.

I’ve gone through it several times.?The 44-page PowerPoint-like report contains information about employment, education, and state resources. I suggest sharing this with your company leadership if they are interested in becoming a more attractive employer for Veterans.

5.?Jobs

Beau Higgins reminds us that companies are still hiring over these holidays.

His post includes a link to register for a webinar that explains how to create a profile that could match to current jobs.

6.?Quick Takes

During November, I spoke with these engaging Veteran Thought Leaders:

James Miller talked to me about the University/College programs that support Student-Veterans while they are earning their degree. Getting into the right school is important but using the GI Bill education benefit to obtain a valuable degree, graduate on-time, and transition into an appropriate job is the objective. Jim describes programs and resources schools can implement to support Student-Veterans through this process .?

Sheila Harmeyer , HR professional, Veteran, and military spouse described the programs CGI has to support military spouses .

I thought adding a Military Spouse subgroup to their Veterans affinity group was a good idea that others could leverage.?Her description of support for Military Spouses while their service member is deployed reminded me of how our Church supports families during difficult times. Based on this discussion, I am going to suggest to our Church leadership that we expand the support to Military Spouses during a deployment.

Frank Larkin talked to me about the importance of buddy checks .

He is a leading advocate for National Warrior Call Day, making November 12th the day we all reach out to our battle buddies.?His thoughts on the importance of reconnecting and avoiding isolation are worth sharing widely.

Tim Best described how they go about matching a Service member or Veteran with a job .

He detailed their process, from creating a personal profile, a one-on-one discussion to better understand goals and aspirations, and the connecting with possible employers.?I found this conversation insightful in terms of understanding how the matching occurs, so that we can minimize the need to restart a job search if that doesn’t go well.

Michael Quinn and I spoke about the challenges to a successful transition .

We discussed the importance of doing sufficient homework about companies and opportunities so that you can translate military experiences into capabilities that can be easily understood as a match for their needs. Stated differently, and as Michael found out in his first job search, if companies can’t understand what you have done, they are generally unwilling to invest in translating that for you.?? They will move on to other candidates.

James Gfrerer helped me better understand interoperability and why it matters .

His explanation, coupled with an example from the Financial Services industry, provided clarity.?While we once thought having the same device was key, now it's more about structure and security covering how we share data.?Great, plain English description of an important technology issue.

7.?FAQs

Many have older Veterans in the life – family, friend, or neighbor – and they are concerned they might not have the means to support themselves as they age. Pension is a Veteran’s benefit that might be appropriate. I explained more about this benefit in this post .

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8.?Helping our Homeless Veterans

Whether a Veteran or not, everyone wants to help our Homeless Veterans, but most are not sure what to do. I shared this post with one suggested action.

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9.?Notable and quotable

Keeping with the transition theme, Alfredo Torres. Quickly summarized several best practices for a successful transition from service members he has been working with in this post .

I continue to believe LinkedIn provides the best platform for Veterans to get information and support to pursue their American Dream. If you don’t already, #FollowTheseVoices.