Raising The Bar To Hire More Veterans

After more than 30 years of serving the federal marketplace, and specifically the Department of Defense, I like many of you have witnessed first hand the challenges associated with our veterans as they leave military duty.

In far too many cases, they will share with me that their biggest concern is how to translate the military skills they’ve acquired to civilian jobs.

Veterans are widely regarded as excellent employees in our industry and valued for the skill sets they have developed in teamwork, self-discipline, and leadership. I believe that we have a responsibility to do more to help these veterans transition these skills into civilian professions. In fact, for companies that work alongside the DoD, it is imperative that we set the example and raise the bar for how companies incorporate veterans into the civilian workforce.

In this spirit I am proud to say that we at AT&T—after hiring 13,000 veterans since 2013—recently decided to enhance our efforts to attract and retain more military veterans, setting the goal to hire 20,000 veterans by 2020.

Some of the ways AT&T will be working to accomplish this goal are noted below:

Strategies for Hiring More Veterans

· Create a military focused career site for your company: Creating this resource shows that your company isn’t just going through the motions, but has put resources behind actively recruiting and hiring veterans. You can see our site at www.att.jobs/military

· Help veterans identify relevant positions: The job application process at large companies can be cumbersome and particularly frustrating for veterans who are entering a world with a new set of jargon. We have created an awesome tool at www.att.jobs/MOS that allows veterans to enter their Military Occupation Code and find positions at AT&T that will be a good fit for them.

· Consider transition challenges holistically: There are questions such as “Where do I want to live?” and “Do I want to pursue a civilian career similar to what I did in the military?” that veterans need to start asking themselves as much as 18 months before they plan to leave the service. We have created a military timeline that walks veterans through some of those questions and when they need to start thinking about them.

· Don’t forget the spouse! Military spouses are amazing and important partners in this transition. We created a page specifically for them highlighting work locations with flexible jobs.

· Create a community within the company: AT&T has had tremendous success for over 30 years with our Veterans Employee Resource Group that helps create an instant community for veterans joining the company. Its currently, about 9,000 members strong and has recently launched a pilot program to address the specific challenges new veteran hires have when they start. The program will focus on the similarities and differences between the culture of working at AT&T and the military. Specific topics will include chain-of-command and awards and recognition.

Supporting our military should not end with their retirement from service.

What are you doing in your organization to help veterans? Please share your thoughts and ideas here. As I’ve done in prior posts – within a month I will summarize all input in a document in an attempt to share lessons learned, to better serve, those who have served!