In response to my article Job Descriptions: 4 Tips for Attracting Diverse Candidates, reader Jamie Costello asked to write about the importance of hiring veterans in the private sector. His article appears in its entirety, below.
Any manager or business owner will tell you that trying to get the right talent for their business is difficult. Hours of flicking through CVs and conducting interviews before you’re able to find the right one. It’s a challenge that all businesses have. One solution: hire more veterans.
According to the British Legion, around 120,000 veterans in the UK (Editor’s note: 326,000 in the United States) are currently unemployed after serving the army, with many desperate to find work. If we consider the qualities that veterans gain from the army, they could be the ideal employees to add to your workforce. Especially when you consider that government schemes have also been introduced to encourage taking on veterans at their work.
Business owners still have doubts about whether they should hire veterans. Here are five solid reasons why military veterans could benefit your business:
Veterans Are Goal-Oriented
It’s most likely that your job advertisement will involve achieving some sort of objectives or goals whilst working at your business. It can be difficult to find individuals that are driven by goals and objectives but you can assure Military veterans are encouraged when goals are in place. Their training is constructed around meeting objectives and achievements through cooperation and collaboration and personal development to achieve will occur as a result.
Veterans Are Responsible
Being serious about their role in the military is something that will be drilled into the heads of military personnel. They’re unlikely to make silly mistakes or bad decisions because they know that the consequences can be very serious. Due to how much it’s drilled into them, they’re likely to be rather particular and precise with their work.
Veterans Exhibit Leadership
A great asset for businesses is being able to hire employees that will stay for the long-term. Hiring internally means your company can grow but be cost-effective at the same time. This makes veterans prime candidates to work their way up the ladder through promotions to more serious leadership roles because of the leadership qualities they would have gained through their training.
Veterans Have a Strong Work Ethic
During their military service, veterans would have gained a go hard or go home mentality. Taking work seriously will be a prime goal of veterans so their work ethic to meeting the demands of the business will be apparent. A business owner will always appreciate a hard worker so if it’s what you’re looking for, it may be worth considering hiring a veteran.
Veterans Can Work Independently
The qualities of a good candidate for a job role will include being able to work independently as well as working in a team. Training in the army, there will be several missions that involve cooperating with your teammates to ensure that the goals are achieved, but certain situations will also involve using initiative and making decisive decisions individually. This is where you’ll be able to benefit from hiring military veterans knowing that trusting your employees to get on with work won’t be an issue.
Here are just a few important examples of how hiring a military veteran can be a great asset to your business. They possess many transferable skills that can be beneficial to your workforce and you’ll be sure they’ll make the effort to achieve goals that are in place for the business, especially when you consider they’d prefer to spend less time sorting out their military personal injury claims and more time being productive as an employee.
About the Author
Jamie Costello is an experienced business writer based in the UK. He uses his experience from education and work experience within several industries to help create his articles. His topics range from career advice to resolving disputes in the workplace.
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