Veterans job opportunities on the rise

Austin Brigden
Communications Intern

In the current economic climate job hunting can be a daunting task. The situation for past and present members of the armed forces is perhaps even more difficult when questions about work experience and work availability are raised.

It appears the federal government is making strides to fulfill the promises made by President Obama’s executive order November of last year regarding veterans employment. The newly-created Council of Veterans Employment has been tasked with “coordinating a government-wide effort to enhance the recruitment and training of vets to make them more employable by government agencies,” Reported the Washington Post’s Federal Diary June 22. One of the Council’s agendas is to “create advocates for veterans' employment within each federal agency." All 24 agencies covered by the order have established a Veterans Employment Program.

The administration also wants to create its own skills translator, similar to those found on the the following websites. This translator would help veterans realize that seemingly narrow-use military skills might have broad application in the civilian side of government.

For more information on this initiative, visit OPM's Veterans Employment Information website.

The website FedsHireVets.gov is a critical component of President Obama’s Veterans Employment Initiative. This website will be the main source for Veterans employment information and resources for both Veterans and Hiring Officials. The website's launch represents phase one of an ongoing effort to help the men and women who have served our country in the military and their families find employment in the Federal Civil Service.

In addition to government efforts, veterans have numerous job websites dedicated to their unique skills and needs, including partnerships through the Reserve Officers Association as benefits to our members.

No Fear Transitions

No Fear Transitions, an affinity partner with ROA, has a team of former military Officers and NCOs, all of whom have already succeeded in a second, civilian career, and have helped thousands of transitioning military personnel to optimize their potential. All have been professionally educated in career management and coaching and all are externally credentialed and all are members of both the Career Masters Institute and the Career Directors International. They employ personalized processes to help transitioning service members determine and then achieve their career goals. During the initial screening, NFT will determine if you were referred by ROA and if so will apply a discount to your services.

Corporate Gray

Also through ROA, people have access to Corporate Gray’s Civilian Job Bank that helps translate military expertise to civilian positions and connect with employers in need of these transferable skill sets. The ROA career center provides: Resume posting with search agent functionality (e-mail notification of matching job); Career advice, military skill code translator, job fair info, relocation assistance, etc.; Resume searching with candidate matching; Company profile pages, banner ads, and links to company home pages; and a variety of monthly newsletters with sponsorship opportunities for employers.

Vetjobs.com

This website features a comprehensive list of military veteran organizations organized by branch and encourages visitors to join for the purposes of “camaraderie, networking and showing support of veteran causes.” The website also encourages people to send information about military service organizations not on their lists.

The employment assistance page on this website is a resources for veterans seeking jobs. This page is loaded with resume and interview tips, career planning advice, healthcare and employment information, and links to hundreds of job board sites organized by job type and location with a range of focus from very broad to very narrow. The website also features keyword searching assistance to make job searches faster and more specific, information about career opportunities in the armed forces, and training in Microsoft Excel and Access.

Vetjobs.com also provides information and assistance to employers and spouses. Employers are provided a number of articles detailing the benefits of hiring veterans. Moreover, the employer resources page contains dozens of links to information regarding the government, the military, relocation, salary surveys, and much more. The spouse resources page features a number of links to websites which can help military families. As the site says, the list is not comprehensive, but a good start.

JOFDAV.com (Job Opportunities For Disabled American Veterans)

This website is an example of one of the many niche job search websites on the internet, catering specifically to veterans with disabilities, and offers a selection of job opportunities. Links to other niche sites can also be accessed through the resources link on the right of the homepage. The main page also features browsing by job category and searching can be done by any combination of state, title, and description. The site is very user friendly. Unlike vetjobs.com, this site is also connected to social media sites: facebook, twitter, and linkdin through its sister site disABLEDperson.com.

The site’s news and blog sections are a couple of areas that need improvement. These sections are not kept up to date as well as the equivalents on vetjobs.com and the content (in the blogs at least) is often too generalized or limited to be of much help. That said, there are some blogs, such as one with tips for interview preparation that are well written. As with vetjobs.com, there is information for employers on this site, but unfortunately it is not as well organized or consolidated and can be found mostly by sifting through the site’s blogs.

MILITARY.com

This website’s strength lies in its advanced job search engine function which features modifiers for security clearance, branch of the armed forces, military status, rank, and separation date. Moreover, there are extensive drop-down menus to help the searcher find specific job categories and work locations. The main page also features a long list of military-friendly employers, though unfortunately these aren’t categorized in any way.

Further exploration of the website confirms its claim to be the largest veteran job board in the world. For example, the site devotes a page to career expos and informs visitors where and when to attend these events. Another impressive feature of the website is the internal veteran career network which allows users to create profiles and “connect with members in specific companies, industries or locations.” Basically, it functions as an internal Linkdin, which explains the absence of that site while Facebook and Twitter are present. Added to this are the site’s resume center, salary calculator, skills translator, and spouse and employer pages. The latter two function much in the same way as those on vetjobs.com. However, the family resource links on the military.com/careers spouse page deal with family changes resulting from a new job such as finding schools for the children and relocating.

While this blog hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface of good job finding sites out there, these three will provide comprehensive, detailed, and specialized aid for veterans. Furthermore, the number of links to other sites between them will satisfy anyone seeking another veteran-specific job website.