Whether you’re trying to determine your company as a military-friendly employer because you’re a veteran yourself (thank you for your service!) or you’re just informed how valuable military talent may be, we’ll share everything we all know about recruiting like a professional recruiting firm and retaining top military talent.
1. Move to Where the Vets Are
Each year, transitioning out the armed services are approximately 250,000 US service members. If you spread that quarter-million figure over the course of a year, while many of them are just the oldsters making their first transition into civilian life, you’ve got quite 20,000 highly skilled U.S. military veteran candidates pouring into the civilian job market every month! Lots of other veteran candidates are come into the workforce at once.
You ought to plan on attending some veteran-focused recruiting events and becoming accustomed to the duty boards most employed by vets and transitioning service members if you’re just getting started together with your effort to ascertain a proper military recruitment program. After all, those are the places where the vets are visiting be.
ALSO READ: How the Government Regulates the Properties and Paint Industry
2. Establish a Veteran Resource Group
“Establishing a veteran resource group in your company that enables veteran and non-veteran employees to make connections, initiate conversations, and promote learning is one key strategy for keeping military talent happy,” according to a military veteran hiring expert Wes O’Donnell.
While a decent veteran resource group is a superb asset for retention purposes, you shouldn’t overlook its value as a thought machine. A useful resource to your recruiting efforts will be the veterans who already work for your organization. They will define the aspects of your workplace culture that might be attractive to military talent, help shape your positioning as a military-friendly employer, function mentors for brand spanking new veteran hires, and translate military occupation codes into useful information for you and your team.
3. Use the pairing and begin requesting Employee Referrals
Finally, the networking power of current employees is something you shouldn’t overlook. Don’t be shy about asking them to refer you to the highest military talent they know from their networks because your best people know other amazing people.