Posted on Mar 2, 2015
VETERAN HIRING: If a company states they are "Veteran Friendly," what is your initial reaction?
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Do you believe the organization...
Posted in these groups: 
Employment
Civilian Career
Employment Civilian Career
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 61
My first reaction tends to be one of skepticism, mostly because we have seen cases of companies getting "outed" for not being military friendly at all. I tend to think that companies that label themselves as this are more checking the box than anything. Or, it's as some way of driving sales of their product. I'm just answering with 100% honesty, and I wish I felt different...but I'm just so skeptical of people self-annointing as military friendly without HAVING THE PROOF to show all of us why they are saying that.
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SFC Chad Sowash
No question it's not easy to ascertain, although for those companies who are committed they find a way.
After watching many a Private go outside the front gate and spend an exorbitant amount of cash on a variety of items over the years I can say I understand the "luring" game.
After watching many a Private go outside the front gate and spend an exorbitant amount of cash on a variety of items over the years I can say I understand the "luring" game.
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SPC David Shaffer
To be honest, I always try to think the best when an employer says they are veteran friendly. I know there are many dishonest companies and people, but I think it is imperative to do the research and find out where these companies truly stand. After we know which companies are being truthful we can spread the word on this fine network so that others can also apply to these companies. If anyone runs in to the other corporations that abuse our veterans to save money, make money, or look good. I encourage everyone to let others veterans know so we can spread the word. Rally Point is a perfect place for us to share this type of information. It will make job searching a lot easier for SM's and Veterans alike. Maybe we can have a place on Rally Point to post this information CPT Aaron Kletzing ?
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Cpl Tim Linville
I'm with the skepticism group. At my age, I have pretty much seen every trick the employers use. Still never found a company worth it's weight in spit and I will be 52 this month. Smoke and mirrors, lies, that's what the commies have made of this country.
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Maj David Han
I have worked as a beltway bandit in DC providing consulting services for a few large corporations. I always pushed to try and hire Wounded Warriors and veterans. I have personally seen and heard company leadership say that they wanted to hire Wounded Warriors. I often presented resumes of Wounded Warriors to them and ultimately ended up having to navigate the bureaucratic bull. In the end I was only ever able to get 1 veteran hired. But the big corporation couldn't hire the veteran due to the hiring requirements - no degree. The only way I could get the veteran hired was through a small business that was on the contract with the corporation that I worked for.
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In my humble opinion, very few civilian sector companies who claim they are "Vet Friendly" in practice actually hire very few if any Vets. I worked for one such company for a number of years and they were not alone. Out of their more than 100 employees, on 3 were actual veterans. The actual numbers were less than one (1) percent. Not a good way to endear yourself to Veterans whom they claimed to support.
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SFC Chad Sowash
Hey David, thanks for sharing your experience. I agree and have seen the same in my experiences, although I have also seen many companies truly commit to veteran hiring and drive 10%+ of their hiring from veterans. It can be done, an organization just needs the right experts on the ground, a team and a solid mission focused on needs of the business..
Thanks again!
Thanks again!
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As a National Guardsman the question on my mind is, "Are you NG/Reserves friendly, or just veteran friendly?" I'm not cynical enough to believe that companies don't care about vets at all, but I think there are very few that actually want NG and Reserves soldiers working for them.
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SFC Chad Sowash
Thanks for responding J... Why do you think that is? Due to the 2 week ATs and deployments?
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SSgt (Join to see)
My personal experience says that they're fine with working with a two week AT, but throw in WLC, ODT to Germany, a deployment and they're happy to see you hit road. I can't say I blame them either. The company I worked for met their legal obligations, however the hostility I felt didn't fit well with their professed statement, "We support the military 100%."
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SFC (Join to see)
It's a good thing there's laws for that. I've had companies try to pull some BS on me. They always lose.
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When I see a company stating that they are "Veteran Friendly", it's generally because they are recruiting at a military-heavy event. They want as many applicants as possible in order to give themselves as many choices as possible when it comes to filling the position, so they will generally say whatever they feel is necessary to appeal to their audience at the time.
As to whether they actually treat veterans any differently during the hiring process and once hired...well, I tend to doubt it.
As to whether they actually treat veterans any differently during the hiring process and once hired...well, I tend to doubt it.
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PVT (Join to see)
One thing to remember is that the company is potentially paying a lot of money for these things. Whether it's paying to attend the event, paying recruiters and their expenses to attent those events, advertising ahead of the event and so forth. You have to ask yourself, is the expense worth the publicity if they aren't actually hiring vets? Publicity works both ways, and once vets get the word that Company X isn't hiring, then that can be a real black eye to their PR.
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MAJ (Join to see)
A valid point, and I'm not saying that these companies refuse to hire veterans. You're right in that if they did, they wouldn't bother showing up at all. I just doubt they give vets any preference, either.
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We need to provide help crafting surveys for "RallyPointers". For example, this one needs an intermediate choice between slight/moderate/extreme cynicism and abject naivete. Something like, "May be giving preference to vets or may be using 'Veteran Friendly' as a PR ploy."
I suspect that companies that are truly "Veteran Friendly" are well-known among veterans. The grapevine is well-known and used among those who have served. Also, the media has been known to publicize businesses for their good works, at least on slow-news days.
I suspect that companies that are truly "Veteran Friendly" are well-known among veterans. The grapevine is well-known and used among those who have served. Also, the media has been known to publicize businesses for their good works, at least on slow-news days.
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SFC Chad Sowash
Thanks for the feedback Jack. I appreciate your thoughts on wordsmithing the survey and your suspicions on "Veteran Friendliness" and the community grapevine.
What is your definition of a "Veteran Friendly" organization?
What is your definition of a "Veteran Friendly" organization?
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CPT Jack Durish
One of the best descriptions I ever heard of the difference between a Christian and a Jew is simply this: A Christian believes that they will be judged by what they believe while a Jew believes that they will be judged by what they do. (Granted, what we do is largely determined by what we believe, but not necessarily so.) I'm a Jew.
If a company actively pursues veterans in their hiring opportunities, they are veteran friendly. If they say they are "Veteran Friendly", they may or may not be. I'll withhold judgment until I see what they do...
If a company actively pursues veterans in their hiring opportunities, they are veteran friendly. If they say they are "Veteran Friendly", they may or may not be. I'll withhold judgment until I see what they do...
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SFC Chad Sowash, Veteran Friendly Companies are truly amazing and I am grateful for the opportunity to work for my employer AMSEC. They support the Veterans with over 90% former Vets on the workforce.
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I have spent the last 18 months designing and implementing workforce development programs for transitioning Service Members and veterans. In my experience, roughly 20% of the companies I have worked with are truly hiring veterans for the right reasons i.e. leadership, professionalism, discipline, attention to detail, loyalty ect.. All of the companies initially say they are 'veteran friendly' but 80% fail to back up theirs claims.
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SFC Chad Sowash
I appreciate that Sam, I believe one of the biggest reasons those companies aren't successfully hiring veterans is due to their inability to align the talent pool with their business needs. All of the characteristics you list are very important but are soft skills sets which needs to also be aligned with hard skills and/or training programs which meet the company's business needs.
Great stuff, thanks for your comment..
Great stuff, thanks for your comment..
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Nope. I am in the job hunt right now. Veteran friendly means you know how to take orders and will show up to work on time. HOWEVER, it means we want to hire you in one of our lowest positions we have and pay you like a civilian who just graduated High School.
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