NOTE: In order to think outside the box on this one, requires a little more brutish outlook. In line with the purpose of this blog, this article makes no attempts to show both sides, since there is already sufficient documentation discussing the opposing views. If you are looking for validation that you belong to Hire Vets of America, look elsewhere. If you are looking for an exculpatory look at what you could be doing, without mincing words, keep reading.
CAVEAT: Although this article looks mainly at bonafide veterans, spouses of veterans should be considered in this mix. Their commitment to mission is no less, and often more than that of the veteran. When I deployed to Iraq for glory and hardship, my wife stayed home watching the kids and wondering everyday if she would get a visit by the base commander with bad news.
CAVEAT: Although this article looks mainly at bonafide veterans, spouses of veterans should be considered in this mix. Their commitment to mission is no less, and often more than that of the veteran. When I deployed to Iraq for glory and hardship, my wife stayed home watching the kids and wondering everyday if she would get a visit by the base commander with bad news.
You look at your company and know you are open to employing vets. You look at the skills in leadership, reliability as evident of a security clearance, and hard-work as evident by their dedication to mission and say to yourself, nay ask yourself “why are we not getting more of these quality people to apply to jobs?”
In all fairness, you broadcast out loud that you want to hire vets, but it seems that the applications that come in just doesn’t match up with the quality words/resumes you would expect. Is there a reason for this? Is there a connection between what you and your company sees and the fact that veterans tend to be underemployed and underpaid (when compared to their civilian counterparts)?
UNDERSTANDING MINDSET
To appreciate this it is important for your hiring process leaders to understand the basics of military basic training. During initiation/basic training, the military uses processes refined over decades,
When I joined the military, they performed "break you down and build you back up." This makes one strong, but (at least for me) can impact how one defines oneself. When one is built/rebuilt to be able to think of "mission first" that conditioning never really goes away. In that light, the single hardest issue I now face is when asked “what would you like to do” or “who are you?” When as a military member your job is to be the best at where they put you, “a professional with unlimited liability” and on duty “24/7,” over time that can become permanent/semi-permanent.
So how does one go from swearing an oath to the constitution (willing to die for it, even if it leaves family and kids without you) to thinking about ones' own needs? (Hint: this is why a military family is also part of the military, it requires wholehearted investment).
I believe this is, in part, part of the epidemic this country faces of under-employing its veterans. A vet has been trained to think very differently, and it could be equal to thinking in a different language. The vet is more interested in being used well, then finding their dream job (their dream is to help a company with its mission, period). Too much energy is now spent (NOT LEAN), when all that needs to happen is asking an HR department if it needs good motivated trustworthy workers/leaders and will it train people who have a track record for learning new skills.
HR OPPORTUNITIES
It is possible that some of this potential is being screened out of the process. A military member may not understand that some companies use auto-filters looking for keywords, while others use the "if its too long its trash rule." Truth is, the civilian world has no consistent rule that works across the range of companies that are out there. And I have yet to see ANY company website clearly indicate what format it wants or needs to see.
Secondly, ask yourself: given all the sensitivity training that centers around dealing with homosexuality or race issues, or the ability for your HR to work with an interpreter to hire someone who is still learning English or reads Braille - Is your HR department trained in seeing veterans as a different type of group, with a unique manner of communicating? Are you doing what is required by law, or does HR strive to be respected by taking a veteran into a fold? Is there a sensitivity there for the differences a veteran has or is it really "their way or the highway?"
It boils down to this: you know they can be trained and trusted. So - Do you teach a veteran your culture from within, or expect them to have insight into it from outside the wall?
REASONS FOR HIRING VETS
1) Quality costs up front, but is also an investment in building infrastructure that lasts and will see your company last longer than a decade. Companies nowadays use the H-1B process to hire qualified persons of other countries, as opposed to capable yet not-yet-trained veterans down the street (Question: when did companies become so finicky about hiring practices but ignorant of the benefits of the apprenticing of persons in the ways of corporate culture?). This saves costs in the short run until the outsourced person either moves to another business and brings your secrets with them, or goes back to their home country and becomes a direct competitor that can outright bottom-line you in labor costs. At that point, your business is subject to the same lack of loyalty as the veteran feels, and the same patriotism that your former H-1B worker feels. It may seem odd, but the phrase "its only business" is only said by the person taking advantage of the other. Not to say outsourcing makes no sense, but the time has come for companies to exert environmental responsibility in terms of hiring your fellow country-men and women. Failing to do so makes government intervention more appealing to those without jobs, and more possible given sufficient unemployment. A company that lays off Americans in favor of outsourcing could be haunted someday by those same people, working for federal regulators, who nitpick your company to death.
2) Ever bothered by the inability for your IT department to protect your company from hacks, or viruses? Hate FB or Twitter for industrial secrets haphazardly passed? Or what about cross-pollinating documents (posting of sensitive materials on less secure media)? Did you care much about industrial security when you were a less well employed hourly employee? Why should you expect your current workers to care about this? Hiring vets improves your security. A vet nowadays is trained yearly on protecting information (OPSEC, Information Assurance, Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection) and if they fail to protect information they can be penalized monetarily, removed from the service, or sent to Leavenworth. Further they understand that their brothers and sisters down range can lose their lives if the wrong information gets into the wrong hands. Hiring a person so trained infuses your business culture with protecting information, using discretion online, and being cognizant of the threats from outside data sources (CD, DVD, USB, emailed file attachments, poor passwords, etc.).
SUGGESTIONS
1) If you require resumes, provide a rule-book on your website. 1 page only, 2 pages, unlimited? Do you use a machine that scans for words? If so, you do not need a limit on resume length. Either way, take some of the guesswork out of the process, and also receive products that meet your need.
2) Is it feasible that you are missing out on quality people because they don't speak the language? Hate to break it to you but someone who heard bullets fly in Iraq won't talk the same (let alone write the same) as someone who went from college to business school. You want someone who talks the talk, or walks the walk? They may not always be mutually exclusive, but the future of your business may be impacted if they are. Why are you still looking at resumes anyway? Anyone can write anything on a resume. Military members are evaluated yearly on forms that can be easily provided to you. Perhaps have 1 HR rep who specializes in Veterans Hiring and allow for alternate referral (similar to internal referrals, but for those who put their life on the line). Read these forms and KNOW what this person did.
3) Perform a Quality Assurance check of the resume process. How disconnected or connected is the hiring manager from filtering out wheat/chaff? When was the last time that those who ultimately make hiring decisions been flooded with all the applicants for a job? This offers insight into what could be wrong with the hiring process (if any). A poorly worded job description could indicate to some applicants that a position is managerial rather than worker-bee. Are some jobs written in a way that it looks like you are looking for a candidate who walks on water but want to pay them minimum wage? This bogs the system down and forces your filtering personnel to get overly methodical, and less creative. I had a saying when I did real estate "tell me what you are REALLY looking for." Look at how you process candidates and determine if they meet your needs by analyzing every step in the "telephone game."
3a) Be business professional by being up-front about salary range. I consider this as part of QA in hiring because by failing to be honest about salary range (good old DOE is a lie...right?) in the job posting you are part of sending the mixed message as well as accountable for flooding your HR department. We live in a world where both sides knows that there is a range for hiring/taking the job. By nature, the one offering the job is in a position of authority over the job-seeker who is responsive to what you put on the posting. It is passive and a sign of weakness for an HR department to not put salary range in the job posting, not to mention frustrates the hiring manager and the prospective interviewees. I sure do not want to waste my time interviewing for a job I cannot possibly afford to take, and a company is unlikely to upgrade its salary allotment for a specific job because some great DOE worker is interviewed (sorry, I know we said DOE, but you have too much experience). Time is money, and your company may be wasting a lot of it by fielding non-matches. If is the case, you can be sure your company is not spending time on a veteran that has explosive potential but has not yet mastered resumes.
4) Eliminate discrepancies between those that fill out the forms and those that walk in a resume. I have come across a decent amount of people who have filled out forms (i.e. your online process) to no avail, but got the job where they walked in the front door with a hard-copy resume and a handshake. A situation like this means that your hiring managers are not hiring those that follow the process. Truth be told, it is difficult to blame hiring managers as it is difficult on the eyes to look at electronic resumes all day. However, this also means that your company is not likely to employ vets who are conditioned to following the rules. I am all for a requirement to handshake and walk in a resume in person, but make this a documented part of your process. Don't reward those that violate your processes: either incorporate their way as a process, or effectively eliminate it. Chose your business culture by either being a hands-off approach or an in-person touch.
5) Clarify your company culture when it comes to shortsightedness or longsightedness. To be sure, not every position is the same, and for some positions all that is needed is someone who can do the job and never look up from what they are doing. In America, this quality is a relatively common occurrence, but it could help being more clear that this is what you want. However, is your culture one where people are passing through from this opportunity to the next bigger one? Or do you want people with a career in mind who are going to be loyal and move up in the ranks? If the former is your culture, a veteran may be glad to oblige you, but if you are the latter, than a veteran will be happy to be there. As someone trained in strategic thinking though, the veteran will want to understand how the company promotes within (or fails to do so) and ask about this during the interview. However, some companies become somehow offended at this and recommend acting like you only want this one job forever during the interview. Excuse me, but what is the point of an interview if you don't get real insight into a prospective employee? Does your company really want to hire someone who is heads-down & short-sighted and realize over the years that this person will never grow beyond their original job? I believe this to be a waste of hiring process. I have personally experienced interviews where I asked questions about the promotion structure, gracefully and tactfully, and the interviewer believed I was there until I found something better. This person obviously does not understand the loyalty inherent in the veteran, but loyalty must be earned.
5a) Examine your own people. A veteran can be a threat to the people you have. Do you need something done in a month, and your employees tell you it will take longer than that? Your company obviously does not have enough (empowered) veterans to make your desires into reality. A company filled with safe/secure employees in the wrong places can stop an energetic motivated veteran from getting to the interview stage. "Watch out for this guy, he will take our jobs in a year. He isn't a team-player, he works hard and makes the rest of us look bad." In reality, he isn't a threat to a power player like you. But he is a threat to those that give you as the Hiring Manager the top 10 applicants. Were they looking at hunger, desire, drive? Do you want someone who has demonstrated sheer capability managing people under stress, or someone who has the right letters after their name? Are these mutually exclusive by definition? No, but the former was probably to busy working 20 hour days to take time to go to a MBA class. Let's look at it another way: have you ever told a veteran in your company to pursue tuition assistance and felt disappointed that they didnt get the education you required? Probably not. Want to know why? Veterans accept personal responsibility and know excuses are meaningless.
6) Immediately advise HR that resumes with too much "military jargon" will be given full consideration. This person who was broken down (training) to protect your freedom deserves nothing less than a fair shot if they are qualified. To say that their resume has too much military clearly means that your company really doesn't love military veterans, let alone employ enough of them.
CONCLUSION
