As the nation’s military continues its downsizing phase and unemployment statistics for veterans remain significant, attention is turning to efforts intended to help veterans find jobs. Civilian employers have been focusing on ways to recruit former service members, and more than a handful of states have passed laws in recent months to allow employers to give preference to veterans not just in government jobs but in the private sector as well. 
Steven Parker, vice president of customer success and business transformation at Achievers, an employee rewards and recognition platform, has a message for human resources professionals trying to bring veterans into their ranks: Change your focus.
“Many organizations focus hiring requirements primarily or solely on knowledge and experience – what people know and what they have done in the past, the stuff you can see on a resume,” Parker says. “In the rapidly changing environment we operate in today, this knowledge and experience can quickly become irrelevant. And hiring only for these attributes is often an expensive proposition as people expect their experience to equate to a higher starting salary.”
Parker urges HR to focus on personal attributes and capabilities—“who people are and what they can do versus just what they have done.” If an employer’s hiring process doesn’t exclude them on the front end, veterans can be the strongest candidates because they have learned the “leadership and adaptability skills required to quickly excel at new tasks or opportunities,” he says. Plus, they have a very clear understanding of the importance of culture.
Another desirable attribute of veterans, Parker says, is that they understand that done is often better than perfect. “Veterans learn in the military that a 90 percent solution to a problem executed in time is better than a 100 percent solution to a problem executed too late,” he says. “In this sense, veterans, especially those who have had to lead teams, have developed the courage and capability to take action even if that action contains some risk, and to incorporate key learning and move on quickly after failures.”
Sometimes, HR and hiring managers may be concerned about veterans’ lack of experience in civilian work and the fact that they may not have much, if any, experience with corporate interviews. But Parker says a well-structured assessment can lead to a conversation that highlights the transferable skills learned in the military, skills such as teamwork, dedication, initiative, entrepreneurialism, and “grace under —in some cases, literally.”
Parker says employers can learn a lot about a veteran’s performance by asking to see his or her performance evaluations, called NCOERs (noncommissioned officer evaluation reports) and OERs (officer evaluation reports). Those evaluations are often better records of actual contribution than a resume or a LinkedIn profile, he says.
Biases holding veterans back
Parker says employers often feel that veterans may be rigid or require hierarchical “command and control” structures, and he wants to refute that. “The reality is that many veterans work in small teams where entrepreneurialism is key to survival and the accomplishment of missions,” he says. “They will surprise you with their ability to take action in the absence of ‘orders’ and to bring teams together quickly around key initiatives.”
Some veterans may be older than similarly skilled applicants, but many have learned skills that “will greatly shorten time to performance in any new role, as they were often asked to learn new skills or perform new functions under severe conditions while serving,” Parker says.
Hiring preference OK?
Since attention is turning to helping former service members make the transition to civilian careers, some employers may consider granting a veterans’ hiring preference similar to the system common among government employers. Some states have enacted legislation allowing employers to offer a preference for veterans when they’re filling positions. But without such state legislation, employers need to be careful, according to Jeremy R. Lange, an attorney with Axley Brynelson LLP in Madison, Wisconsin, who wrote on the issue for the June issue of Wisconsin Employment Law Letter.
Lange explains that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued guidance in 1990 that deemed private-sector hiring preference for veterans a form of gender discrimination prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because of the comparatively low numbers of women in the military.
The 1990 EEOC guidance still stands because women continue to make up a small percentage of service members even though their ranks have grown considerably since the guidance was issued.