Hiring veterans: a cost-effective staffing solution - includes related articles on employment of military veterans

HR Magazine, Nov, 1998 by Miles Z. Epstein, David G. Epstein

In today's tight labor market, hiring the men and women who are leaving the military can save your company more than $100,000 per year in search firm fees and relocation costs.

In a town few can pronounce - West Conshohcoken, Penn.-Litton PRC's human resources department is saving more than $100,000 per year by tapping into one of the nation's most underestimated sources of talent: the U.S. Armed Forces.

Not bad when you consider that Litton, which designs and develops information technology systems, hires the type of workers that are at a premium in today's tight labor market.

"Over the last two years, we hired 18 people from a Defense Department program called the Defense Outplacement Referral System," says Sandy Fimiano, a senior human resources representative at Litton. "Because we avoided search firm fees and relocation costs, we saved over $200,000 using this program."

If Litton PRC saved $200,000 on 18 hires, imagine the savings being realized at General Electric, where they hire a reported 200 junior military, officers per year.

And imagine is all you can do, according to GE spokesman Ted Meyer. "We wouldn't want to help other companies set up a program like ours. We feel we are recruiting great people from the military and don't want to share them with other companies," he says.

Like it or not, the secret is out: Hiring veterans is a cost-effective staffing solution.

THE BENEFITS OF HIRING VETERANS

Hiring veterans can give organizations a big boost-particularly those that need younger workers or those with technical skills.

"Some 45 percent of the 200,000 plus people coming out of the military each year are under 25 and have technical skills," says Susan Savino, owner of Competitive Edge Services Inc., a recruiting firm in Fairfax Station, Va. What's more, 92 percent of active-duty personnel use computers, 51 percent use LAN systems, 98 percent are high school graduates and over 36 percent have college degrees, according to the Department of Defense (DOD).

David Huffer, senior manager of recruitment services at Federal Express in Memphis, has found other benefits to hiring former members of the armed forces. "Veterans are team players and have great leadership skills," he says.

Karen Stevens, a staffing specialist at Goodyear in Dallas, says that "even low-ranking military, people have supervisory and leadership experience." An added benefit, she says, is that "many non-commissioned officers are often easier to hire and satisfy with compensation than graduating engineers."

In addition, the physical fitness requirements of military service mean that veterans tend to be healthy employees-which can translate to reduced costs for health-care claims and fewer workdays lost to illness.

Perhaps best of all, employers often can reach out and recruit veterans without spending a penny. "Every company can hire men and women leaving the U.S. Armed Forces without paying search firm fees and relocation costs," explains Litton PRC's Fimiano, because the service is free and the military pays for moving costs.

In fact, a number of programs sponsored by the DOD, The Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and veterans organizations, help employers get access to retiring veterans.

If you're tired of paying search firm fees and relocation expenses to attract the best workers, here are some no-cost and low-cost resources that can expand your workforce without bursting your budget.

DORS/THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Historians and the Guinness Book of World Records will tell yon that the largest invasion on record occurred on D-Day in World War II, when 185,000 U.S. troops took to the beaches of France.

Not so.

The largest invasion in history happened quietly and without a single burst of gunfire: It was the military downsizing of the 1990s, which sent more than 500,000 troops into the civilian .job market. To help human resource professionals find and hire men and women who were departing .from the service, the DOD created Operation Transition.

Operation Transition offers employers two vehicles for tapping into the military labor pool at no cost: The Defense Outplacement Referral System (DORS) and the Transition Bulletin Board (TBB).

DORS is an automated resume and referral system that allows employers (such as Litton PRC) to request resumes for open positions. You can register for the program via the World Wide Web at http://www.dmdc.osd.mil/ot or by calling (800) 727-3677. More than 16,000 employers are already signed up.

"I would have spent a lot of money hiring people for my company without the DORS system," says Jeff Stoker, director of human resources at Timeplex Group, a Clearwater, Fla.-based computer network consulting firm. "In the last nine months, I've hired 12 people from DORS who have the special skills I'm looking for - the highly trained computer and high-tech specialists leaving the military. I can go into the database and get resumes from qualified candidates in three minutes."

Most of the search firms get their resumes from the DORS system, explains Litton PRC's Fimiano. To get the most out of the system, companies can work with their state employment services' veterans representatives to track down military personnel who are relocated and haven't posted their new contact information. Employers also can track down military people at http://www.militarycity.com.