Military Veteran Offer Recruiters a Reliable Talent Pipeline
Steady Employee Resources
By Ted Wadsworth, H2H Marketing Coordinator
Recruiters often deal with times when there are no qualified candidates to be found, and
other times there are more candidates then they can handle. It is the ‘feast or famine’ nature of
the recruiting business that has many organizations looking for reliable pipelines of talent. There
are more than a quarter million transitioning military veterans that can provide a steady pipeline
of talent to recruiters.
Each year over 250,000 veterans leave the U.S. military to enter the civilian job market. At
an average flow of approximately 250,000 highly skilled, educated and disciplined potential
employees, American businesses are increasingly developing veteran specific recruiting programs to
take advantage of this valuable talent pipeline.
"I know if I need people who are smart, skilled and reliable, I look for veterans," said Bill
Thomas, project manager for logistical solutions company Bowhead Support Group. "Workers are not
hard to find, talented workers are. Veterans bring much more to the job because of their
experience, discipline and ability to work as a team member."
Today’s work environment is increasingly technical and requires workers who are able to
understand and work in these environments. Recruiters are finding it challenging to find, screen
and hire these sorts of workers in sufficient numbers to satisfy their organization’s demands.
"Recruiters who are the most successful in their jobs are the ones who build pipelines, not
buckets," said Tom Aiello, vice president at Monster.com. "Let’s say your company needs 120 new
hires annually. It's much better to work ten hiring actions a month, every month, than using the
bucket recruiting strategy.
"Transitioning veterans are the best, most reliable pipeline I know," said Aiello. "Not only
do you know that every month 25,000 new veterans enter the job market, you could not ask for a
better source for people who bring both tangible and non-tangible skills to the table."
The U.S. military spends of $17 billion per year training service members. There are nearly
200 different occupational specialties, the vast majority of which are technical, non-combat
related. Many military training programs enable service members to obtain certification, license
and degrees as a result of their training and experiences.
When most people think of the jobs in the military, they tend to think of the infantry or
artillery. The fact is, these combat-related jobs account for less than 30 percent of all jobs. The
vast majority of service members work in areas such as logistics, administration, intelligence,
engineering and construction.
"There are thousands of service members who work in the building and construction trades in
their military jobs," said Darrell Roberts, executive director of the
Helmets to Hardhats program. "The military has
carpenters, masons, pipefitters, electricians and many other building and construction jobs. These
veterans are a natural fit and tend to excel in the civilian trades."
In addition to the over 250,000 veterans who transition out of the military, the U.S.
workforce includes an estimated 14 million veteran who are already employed. These include over a
million workers who are also members of the National Guard or Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps
or Coast Guard Reserves.
"During my time as an officer in the National Guard, I often heard stories about how the
skills soldiers learned during drill weekends helped in their civilian job," said Bill Thomas. "I
remember one case where a soldier became his company’s training manager, a job that mirrored what
he did on the weekend training Non-Commissioned Officers. Both the employer and the National Guard
benefited from the knowledge that NCO carried back and forth from his civilian and military
jobs."
"HelmetstoHardats.org was created to help transitioning service members and building and construction industry trade union and employers find each other,” said Darrell Roberts. “Through Helmets to Hardhats, thousands of veterans have started good, meaningful careers and thousands of trades and employers have found great workers. This truly is a situation where everyone wins; the veteran wins, the trades and employers win and America wins."
