Years into civilian jobs, vets struggle with networking, resume skills

It’s not simply younger veterans who face hassle discovering good jobs. Labor Division officers have discovered a rising variety of veterans who’ve held civilian posts for years asking for assist with resume writing and networking to facilitate their subsequent profession step.

“Oftentimes, when veterans first get out of the army, they’re touchdown in a job as a result of that’s what they should be economically sustainable,” James Rodriguez, assistant secretary for the Veterans’ Employment and Coaching Service, mentioned in an interview with Army Occasions forward of Labor Day.

“However after they’ve received some training and a few further coaching, now they wish to get related to completely different careers. … And generally you want somebody that will help you navigate by means of all of that noise, show you how to perceive how one can leverage your army coaching, all of the skilled improvement that you just had and how one can land one among these great-paying profession alternatives.”

That demand has been one of many revelations of the Labor Division’s Off-Base Transition Coaching Program, launched as a pilot in early 2022 to help veterans, troops and their spouses in accessing job coaching help on points like interviewing, skilled outreach and resume writing.

Now in its third 12 months, this system has expanded to 37 cities in 10 states, all focused as areas with decrease veteran employment charges than the nationwide common. By way of the primary 9 months of fiscal 2024, this system had 9,983 contributors — up almost 160% from the whole for all of fiscal 2023.

Of the almost 18,000 enrollees, about 55% have been out of the ranks for greater than 4 years and roughly 40% left the army greater than 10 years in the past.

Program organizers have centered on methods to information contributors to in-demand jobs with greater pay and robust profession development alternatives, interesting to each newly separated troops and veterans out for a number of years. That features methods to focus on pitches to employers on the lookout for these abilities and connecting with native companies on the lookout for workers.

“In Texas or New York, the place they’re planning to construct these large factories to construct microchips, we would like the veterans to grasp that these kinds of occupations are going to exist,” Rodriguez mentioned. “In order that’s a giant a part of what our employment navigators do.”

Rodriguez, who served 21 years within the Marine Corps, mentioned he’s additionally persevering with his personal pitch to enterprise leaders about hiring veterans, each younger and previous.

“It’s a constant dialog we’ve to have,” he mentioned. “Our veterans outperformed their nonveteran friends (within the civilian workforce). We contribute to the economic system at a better price than our nonveteran friends. We keep at a corporation longer than our nonveteran friends, if the precise tradition match is there.

“So these kinds of issues are good for enterprise, and that’s the message I continuously give to employers.”

The subsequent step, he mentioned, is getting extra veterans prepared for these employers to rent. This system is on monitor to increase to twenty states by 2027, however division officers will want further funding accredited by Congress to proceed the trouble previous the deliberate five-year pilot timeline.

Extra info on the Off-Base Transition Coaching Program and different job assist assets is accessible by means of the Labor Division’s web site.