Hiring Veterans

Why It May Be the Right Move For Those Who Have Served and for Your Business

BY JULIA PAULUS OGILVIE

After spending four years in the Navy, Jason Mainard returned home with the expectation that his military experience would be considered career experience and help lead him to a job. “When I came home I interviewed at a lot of different jobs with no success,” says Mainard. “I understand that I didn’t have the same experience as some other people my age; I was 23 when I got out and entered the working world. Most people my age were just getting out of college.”

Mainard will never forget a particular interview just a few weeks after he returned home. The interviewer asked him what he had been doing since he left high school. “When I told him that I was in the military, he said that he was looking for someone that had a degree – any four-year degree,” says Mainard. “Then I asked him, ‘If you just need someone that has a four-year degree, what’s the difference with someone that has four years in the military?’”

Mainard was told that the difference was that four years of college showed that the applicant had matured. “I didn’t get the job, but I am pretty sure the two months I spent sitting off the coast of Iraq and the four years of constant training matured me a little,” he says.

Despite his experience and age, Mainard decided to attend college. “I didn’t officially enter the corporate world until I was 30, when other people my age already had many more years of experience,” he says. “I had to start later in life because I spent four years in the military. But today I sit here the owner of my own company with only nine years of working in the corporate world.”

As the owner of Sandler Training, The Rubicon Institute, Mainard believes that the military instilled in him the work ethic, ambition and drive all needed to run a business. “I have a lot of empathy for veterans coming home looking for a job,” says Mainard. “Veterans coming home might not have the most experience, but they are just looking for someone to give them a chance because they will be some of the hardest workers you’ll ever hire.”

With this same thought in mind, John Sondag, the Missouri president of AT&T, hires veterans for his business and encourages other business owners to consider doing the same. “For nearly 100 years we’ve provided career-specific training and placement assistance for transitioning military personnel, veterans, wounded soldiers as well as their spouses,” he says. “The self-discipline, teamwork and skills veterans gain from being a part of our armed forces are many of the same values we look for at AT&T.”

Rather than simply hiring veterans to fill jobs and get them back to work, AT&T goes a step further by recruiting veterans into the right careers by matching their military experience, soft skills and career motivations to bring them into career fields with long-term growth opportunities for each individual.

Since veterans self-identify their military status, the company does not know how many veterans it employs; however, AT&T recently doubled its goal of hiring veterans and their family members over the next five years to 10,000. “The original goal was set in April with the White House’s Joining Forces initiative,” says Sondag.

AT&T also announced that it is leading an initiative with JPMorgan Chase and the 100,000 Jobs Mission to create the veteran talent exchange vtx.jobs. “The exchange enables active-duty military and veteran job candidates to ‘opt in’ to a talent-sharing database to facilitate the sharing and referral of veteran candidates among participating 100,000 Jobs Mission member companies,” says Sondag. “AT&T recently launched a military spouse career site that showcases the breadth of AT&T’s portable and virtual careers across our U.S. locations and shares testimonials from our military spouse employees.”

According to Sondag, these programs benefit not just veterans but also the companies doing the hiring. “Many of the veterans we hire show characteristics of self-discipline, teamwork and leadership that are some of the same values in our current culture,” he says. “I encourage all businesses to increase opportunities for veteran employment. Collaborating with other corporations such as the 100,000 Jobs Mission is a way to reach a larger pool of talent. A collaboration also allows companies to share resources for veteran recruiting and make the transition to civilian life better for veterans.”

Overall of the many benefits of hiring veterans, Sondag sees leadership, initiative self-discipline, experience, resilience, technical skills, dependability and a team-oriented focus as some of the best and most common qualities.