Most employers have a pretty good idea about how to find recent college graduates to hire: running an internship program or visiting university job fairs are two great ways. But when businesses want to hire veterans — to gain good employees and to do their part to lower the veteran unemployment rate — some of them don’t know where to begin. But that’s about to change.
Recently, the website Employer Roadmap launched to help answer employers’ questions about hiring vets and their spouses and to connect veterans with businesses looking for specific skills.
The website, a joint project of Hiring Our Heroes and USAA, went live during a Veterans Jobs Summit at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg. Kathryn Dill of Forbes spoke to Eric Eversole, the executive director of Hiring Our Heroes and the vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about what Employer Roadmap aims to accomplish: “There’s really no one-size-fits-all approach to helping companies recruit, hire, and retain veteran talent,” Eversole said. “This allows businesses to self-asses, and then we can deliver more customizable solutions.”
Part of the website’s mission is to educate employers on such matters like why hiring veterans’ spouses can still be a good idea — despite the fact that they often have gaps in their resumes brought on by frequent moves. Employer Roadmap also includes resources about how to recruit and train veterans and encourages employers to get to know the veterans already working for them and ask for their assistance in recruiting more service members.
While some larger companies are able to launch their own initiatives to train and hire veterans (think: Microsoft, Tesla, and General Motors), smaller companies might not have the resources to set up such a program. And that’s where Employer Roadmap comes in.
Army veteran Geoff Grant, USAA program director, told Dill, “Small to medium sized businesses say, ‘I don’t have this huge HR budget, what do I do to hire one or two vets? Where do I find them?’ That’s where the best practices tool is really key.”
Of the estimated 1.5 million veterans that are expected to join the civilian workforce in the next five years, we’re sure that many of them will find employment, thanks to Employer Roadmap.
MORE: Instead of Letting Veterans Struggle Post Service, GM Trains Them For Dealership Employment