As Veterans Day approaches, the nation looks at ways to honor those who have served in the military. But honors alone don’t get former service members employed once they re-enter the civilian world. So employers need not just an understanding of the legal requirements related to employing or reemploying veterans; they also need to understand the attributes veterans bring and the challenges they face when searching for civilian employment. 
Paul J. Sweeney, an attorney with Coughlin & Gerhart, LLP in Binghamton, New York, logged 29 years of active and reserve service in the Marine Corps, including a deployment to Iraq. He points to important benefits employers enjoy when hiring veterans. “As a general rule, the armed forces sets high standards when recruiting service members,” Sweeney says. “Unlike the general population, more than nine out of 10 of those who enlist in the armed forces have a high school degree. Also, the armed forces screens out those with criminal convictions and drug issues.”
Sweeney also points to discipline policies in the military that “weed out those who fail to meet demanding performance standards” and to the military’s “outstanding training and experience, which directly benefits future employers.” Veterans who receive an honorable discharge “have a proven track record of success over several years” that justifies a close look from employers.
Bill Ruhling, an attorney with DiMuroGinsberg, PC in Alexandria, Virginia, is a West Point graduate who spent the first six years of his career with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. He continues reserve service and agrees that veterans bring benefits to civilian employers. Whether veterans worked in skilled trades or spent time in the combat arms, he says “they have learned to accomplish the tasks put in front of them through teamwork.”
Ruhling says that leaders at all levels in the military learn to follow first and then to lead. “In this way, they learn to fit into the best aspects of an organization’s culture and work within that framework to accomplish the task effectively and efficiently.”
Advice for employers
Sometimes employers are hesitant to hire veterans because of a lack of civilian work experience, but Ruhling urges employers to look beyond the job titles in a veteran’s resume. For example, a resume may say that a prospective employee was a squad leader. “That might not translate in many peoples’ minds, but being willing to ask a veteran what that means, you will find out it means the applicant was a small group foreperson,” probably responsible for completing complex tasks leading five to 10 workers.
Ruhling points out that many veterans have spent their entire professional careers in the military, and they’re not necessarily trained how to translate their military occupational specialty (MOS) into civilian terms. “But that should not dissuade employers from seeking out those applicants,” he says.
Ruhling says a human resources department that tracks employees’ experience can look at their list of current employees with military experience and get them “to help translate some of the military-speak to more recognizable skills.”
Sweeney also advises employers to consider the skills and experiences that make veterans capable of “hitting the ground running” in a civilian workplace. “Veterans, especially those in a post-9/11 world, are used to moving around and working with different people often under very challenging conditions,” he says, adding that adaptability is a trait common in veterans.
“Similarly, understanding the chain of command and for whom one works comes easily to a veteran, even if the boss no longer wears stripes,” Sweeney says.
Legal obligations
As employers prepare to hire returning service members, they need to understand the laws related to hiring and reemploying veterans. For example, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) provides enhanced leave rights and employment protections for service members upon completion of their uniformed service, Ruhling says.
USERRA also prohibits employers from considering uniformed service as a “motivating factor” in the decision to deny initial employment, reemployment, retention, promotion, or the provision of any benefit of employment. “This means that employers need to take into account that they may have to accommodate some employees’ service in the National Guard and/or reserves,” Ruhling says.
USERRA doesn’t require employers to provide paid leave for military service, Sweeney points out. Instead, the law simply requires that an employer not discriminate in hiring those with military obligations, such as reservists. It also requires employers to allow an employee unpaid time off for military service, to provide limited job security to that employee upon return from military service, and to treat the employee the same as other employees, he says.
The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA) is another law employers must keep in mind. Ruhling reminds employers that are government contractors that they must provide a voluntary invitation to employees to self-identify as disabled or as a veteran. Contractors are required to use statistics relating to the percentage of veterans in the labor force to set a hiring benchmark and to maintain records of that statistic for at least three years.
Many employers that aren’t government contractors also have begun collecting self-identification information related to protected veteran status – those who have served in a military campaign or have a service-connected disability.
“This provides an opportunity for employers to identify veterans for favorable consideration, but it also could be a double-edged sword,” Ruhling says. “There are those who may not be hired that will want to use this voluntary disclosure to prop up a claim for discrimination.”
Ruhling says employers can guard against unfounded accusations by maintaining a record of their employees who are veterans or currently serving in the National Guard or reserves. “By ensuring these statistics are available, employers can oftentimes use the information to bolster their defense that they do not use uniformed service as a motivating factor in adverse decisions.”
Personal experiences
Despite the challenges inherent in going from military to civilian work, both Sweeney and Ruhling managed successful transitions, but they had to plan carefully.
Sweeney served as a Marine Corps judge advocate from 1987-1992, part of that time serving as a criminal defense attorney and a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. Even with that extensive experience he was concerned that attorneys who had never served in the military wouldn’t understand his background. So he “civilianized” his resume as much as he could and, when possible, sent it to law partners who had military experience.
“As expected, the positive response rate was higher from those who knew what I did on active duty,” Sweeney says. “I was hired in 1992 at my current firm, Coughlin & Gerhart, LLP, after I sent my resume to a former Army JAG who served in Vietnam. During the recruitment process, I was given a chance to explain my experience to the other attorneys, which included more trials than some of the firm’s litigation partners.”
Sweeney says he never gets tired of responding to questions from people asking if his service was similar to the TV show JAG or the movie A Few Good Men. “I sincerely believe that I am a better lawyer because of my past military service,” he says.
Ruhling also turned to military contacts when moving to civilian employment. “As I was making my transition, I was able to draw upon a robust network of alumni from West Point, along with several of my friends and colleagues from the Army to help with my job search,” he says. That network was helpful in terms of identifying opportunities and in “helping prospective employers understand how I might fit into their organization.”
A stumbling block Ruhling encountered related to the hiring tempo in the civilian world. “When I was leaving service, as an officer I had to submit my resignation with a minimum of six months lead time. Civilian employers, however, were hiring for immediate needs, not for a possible opening six to 12 months in the future.”
The transition process didn’t end when he found employment, Ruhling says. He also had to adjust how he tackled work. “I was leaving a government law practice where billable hours were irrelevant. I spent the amount of time I needed on a project without regard to how long it would take.” As he started monitoring his time, he had to find the most efficient way to handle his workload.
“The good news of the story, though, was that I was disciplined and prepared to put in the work,” Ruhling says. “And I had been trained to develop systems to ensure success.” When he had bad days, he says he always knew that it was going to be OK.
“After all, it wasn’t likely that someone was going to shoot at me or that my decisions would risk getting someone killed,” Ruhling says. “The military truly has made me the person and the lawyer that I am, and I wouldn’t change a day I served in uniform.”