Veteran experience is professional experience

With five generations currently in the workforce, it is safe to assume that the number of Veterans and reservists/guardsmen in the applicants’ pool is only growing. However, oftentimes it can be difficult to translate military experience into civilian experience, which can keep qualified veteran resumes from making their way to hiring managers’ desks. With an active and growing Veterans ENG at Ramboll, we have been working to overcome the bias that often hinders consideration of many veterans as candidates for hire. We asked some of our veteran employees and employees that are family members of military veterans for their suggestions on promoting military veteran candidates for hire and ensuring that veteran resumes get into the right hands.

Here's what they had to say:

Seek guidance from veteran employees to better understand military vernacular and experience and how this translates into the valued skills and experience

Just like in any profession, there’s a lot of jargon associated with military experience. Unless one is familiar with what such experience represents, what is written on a resume might not seem to inherently fit with the skills that hiring managers are looking for. But with military resumes, it’s even more important to read between the lines.

“There’s implicit responsibilities in military roles not reflected on the resume,” says Eric Hodek, Ramboll Principal, Director of REH Americas Northwest Operations, founder of the Veterans ENG, and former Captain in the US Army. “I was an artillery man, but most folks aren’t going to see the range of other responsibilities that were required in that role. We are asked to do a lot at a young age - I had 100 people reporting to me at the age of 27.”

On top of that responsibility, there’s the code of ethics and values that the military instills in its members from the beginning. Words like accountability, respect, persistence, and ownership were common phrases heard from our veterans during our interviews.

“When you ask a veteran to do something, you can have a certain level of confidence that it’ll get done and they will hold themselves accountable for completing it. You won’t get a lot of finger pointing,” says Tim Erwin, PE, CEM, Ramboll’s Director of Energy Consulting Services and retired US Army Captain who served in Iraq.

David Heidlauf, Ramboll Principal and former Field Artillery Captain, US Army Reserves, adds, “Another is aspect adaptability. Everyone in the military is trained to be able and willing to take over the responsibility of their supervisor because their supervisor could be taken out of action at a moment’s notice. In the leadership realm, you may be a platoon leader, but you have to be ready to be the company commander.”

Understand who would organically be a good fit for your organization

As mentioned above, there are certain attributes that veterans tend to bring to the table, but alongside those are relevant competencies that might align directly with something your company has to offer.

“I have built many consulting teams over the last 25 years and have seen hundreds of resumes. Since my son joined the Air Force, I have a new appreciation and new perspective when I review resumes of veteran candidates. These types of candidates are ideal because through their military training they have learned accountability, persistence, integrity, a strong work ethic, commitment, and service to others. These are the attributes that we, as a company, value and want” says Erin Tesch Director, Health Sciences Americas, and military mom.

Jim Hockey, HR Business Partner and US Air Force reservist, adds: “At Ramboll specifically, for instance, we are a bit unique in that we have a custom fabrication facility – and the military has welders and pipefitters that could transition phenomenally. Understanding the competencies that are in the military and what are some good fits for your company is very important. Once we do that, we can identify more opportunities to find complementary skillsets within the organization.”

Train your recruiting team and share knowledge throughout your organization

Once you’ve taken the first two steps detailed above, it’s key to focus on training. There are many ways to do that – including leveraging your veteran leaders and letting them share their knowledge and expertise with recruiters and hiring managers.

Bruce Kennington, Principal, current lead of the Veterans ENG, and former Division Officer and qualified nuclear engineer having served aboard nuclear submarines in the US Navy says, “We, in the Veterans ENG, really look to overcome the unconscious bias where a lot of times military veterans are passed over that might be perfectly qualified compared to other candidates, particularly junior candidates coming straight out of undergrad or graduate school. These military veteran candidates a lot of times have up to two to five years’ worth of experience of leading and managing people and relatively highly technical areas of practice.”

Once you’ve exhausted your internal resources, the next step could be making sure your military applicants aren’t getting pushed out of the running before anyone has the time to make the needed connections.

“For me, it’s really about pausing and looking at our network and seeing who can help me make a better choice about this individual,” suggests Keleigh Hagensen, Human Resource Business Partner and military spouse. “But it’s also about going back and looking at your job descriptions and seeing how you can make the language more inclusive of veterans, so that it opens the position to a different type of candidate.”

Support veterans, active service members, and military family members in the workplace

The resources and support you have for your military-affiliated employees will be key to retention and growing your military and associated-employee base. A Veterans ENG is a perfect example of the support you can offer for military employees. They can be advocates and allies and educators. They can provide a safe space.

“The values that a company holds matter a great deal to a veteran,” Eric adds. “That’s one of the reasons I started the Veterans ENG, to try and provide a vehicle where we can get that same kind of camaraderie and shared experience and foster that same accountability and ownership at Ramboll.”

But beyond Veterans, there’s military family members and active service members. Active service members will require support for the inherent time commitments of reserves and National Guard. They can be called to serve and protect our country at a moment’s notice. And for families, there’s deployments, moves, and absences. Within the military, there is a built-in support structure for family members, but within society and organizations that’s not always the case. That’s why it’s essential to have resources for military family that focus on flexibility, support, and security.

“Having the support of not only my team but the organization as a military spouse gives me the peace of mind to focus on my family and the time we can spend making memories before we have to be apart,” Keleigh says. “The benefits and support an organization offer to active military members and military family demonstrates respect for their service and creates an environment where that community feels valued for their service to our country.”

For this article, we interviewed several members of our Veterans ENG as well as members of our HR and Talent Acquisitions teams. Contributors included: Bruce Kennington, Eric Hodek, Tim Erwin, David Heidlauf, Jim Hockey, Keleigh Hagensen, Erin Tesch, and John Kokkines