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In this article we are going to review a number of studies that have been taken from the military transition into the civilian workplace. Let’s first look at some of the basic information from the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over 200,000 people leave the military each year, most of them need jobs. About 573,000 new veterans looked for employment in 2014 and182,000 were Gulf War veterans. Unemployment among Gulf War vets was at 7.2% last year compared with 5.6% of the U.S. population. Because of the war turndown, there are a lot of military personnel returning home. Many of them have had up to four tours of duty. If we look further into the veterans themselves we find the following statistics for the University of Southern California Study. 66% of veterans said that they are not ready for civilian life while 83% are of veterans are worried about not having a job lined up. In addition, almost 40% do not have know where they are going to live. When you look at the extreme difference between military and civilian life it is no wonder that 66% of veterans are not ready for civilian life. Now let’s take a look on what employers think about veterans from a survey from CareerBuilder The survey reveals that 33% of the organizations surveyed were actively recruiting veterans for employment. Employers also said that 37% of vets were not sure how to write a resume when they first got out of the military. About 67% of all vets that are currently employed say that they are satisfied with their jobs while 24% of the veterans surveyed said they plan to change jobs next year. The report also said that over 57% of employed vets think being identified as a vet didn’t help their job finding chances. However, 46% of hiring managers said they watch for applications submitted from any veteran. Employers reported, by a margin of 68%.that given two equally qualified applicants, one a veteran and one not, they will be most likely to hire the veteran. When employers were asked the most important attributes they are looking for in veterans, they said the following: • Teamwork: 62% • Disciplined: 60% • Having integrity and respect: 58% • Ability to work under pressure: 52% • Leadership skills: 50% • Problem solving skills: 45% • Ability to rapidly adapt: 44% • Perseverance: 43% • Communication skills: 36% • Technical skills: 30% So as you can see by these statistics, intelligent hiring managers and recruiters realize that veterans have a lot of soft skills that the average college graduates do not. In another study 90% of military personnel assume that they will be able to use skills they learned in the service in a civilian job with 33% reporting they used a lot of their military skills in their first civilian jobs that they got. Only 38 % reported that they did not use any of those of the skills. Jim Stedt is a partner at The Business SoftSkills Company (GetSoftSkillsNow.Com) located in Santa Ana, California. They provide job readiness and workforce success videos for education, business, prisons and individual use. Training is available online, on DVD, or through an affiliate program. These products are the most complete and concise soft skills training packages now available for the price of an average college textbook.
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Military to civilian transition, military getting jobs, statistics,
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