James Walsh

Each year, more than 200,000 people leave the U.S. military, flooding the market with a vast pool of high-potential talent. Companies increasingly recognize the leadership skills and technical expertise military veterans possess, and now that hiring activity has accelerated, talent managers should look to the armed forces to develop their workforces.

"People need to stop thinking about the military as, ‘How does carrying a gun transfer to corporate America?'" said Kurt Ronn, president of HRworks, a military recruitment specialist.

With an active personnel count that is more than twice the entire population of Washington, D.C., the military is a bona fide hub of diverse and specialized - but largely untapped - recruitment and development opportunities.

Why the Military?

From public affairs professionals to structural engineers, from Kansas to Kandahar, the armed forces are multidimensional global skills centers with a tradition of discipline, innovation and leadership. However, questions remain. How does potential translate into productivity? How does a captain in the military become a leader in the business world?

Knowledge is power. In an environment in which success is increasingly contingent on postsecondary education, the military is no different. Education has replaced battlefield promotion as the pre-eminent vehicle to get ahead. According to a 2004 Population Reference Bureau report, "America's Military Population," the army transitions 15,000 to 20,000 junior military officers (JMOs) into its active ranks each year, all of whom have graduated from one of the service academies or as ROTC cadets at a traditional university.

In 2002, under former CEO Robert Nardelli, Home Depot Inc. initiated a store leadership program that offered two years of training to future store managers. Of the 1,142 people hired into the program, 528 were junior military officers (JMOs), the vast majority of whom were highly skilled and college educated. Within four years, more than 100 JMOs were running Home Depots nationwide. Lieutenants became leaders, and employers outside of traditional recruiting bases began to take notice of the development potential of veteran workers.

"The [General Electric] successes, the success with the [Home Depot] JMO leadership program, people are much more aware," Ronn said. "If 10 years ago you went to a strategic conference for academy grads, there would have been maybe eight companies there. If you were to go just before the recession hit, there probably would have been 60 to 80 different companies, a cross section of the business world."

What distinguishes military veterans from the civilian talent pool are the intangibles that cannot be found on a diploma. In a recent SHRM poll, "Employing Military Personnel and Recruiting Veterans - Attitudes and Practices," results showed that more than 90 percent of the companies included in the sample cited former military candidates' accountability, composure under pressure, professionalism, problem-solving skills and leadership qualities as benefits of hiring workers out of the armed forces.

Tapping Into the Talent Pipeline

As corporate America slowly pulls itself out of the recession, the market presents opportunities for forward-thinking organizations to anticipate future growth and plan accordingly. For companies to take their businesses to the next level, they must establish identifiable pipelines of proven talent.

Similar to a diversity strategy, where the recruiter may target a key group to establish a recruitment base within that demographic, the same can be said of tapping into the military's vast resources.

However, despite the upsides of dynamically recruiting armed forces veterans, talent acquisition here can be problematic. According to King Streets Associates' "2007 Survey of Retired Military Officers," 80 percent of officers between 2004 and 2006 received transition support pre-retirement, yet their startup time in civilian roles was 50 to 100 percent longer than other new hires.

Recognizing and developing suitable candidates with military backgrounds demands specialized recruitment strategies. Talent managers should forge close relationships and maintain the integrity of their recruitment practices at all times.

"With the relationships we established within the military at transition centers and with associations, it is all about the credibility that you build with those organizations," said Linda Sykes, former Marine and project manager at HRworks.

Respecting and acting upon the code of loyalty and integrity that is bred into the armed forces experience is fundamental, she said. Creating and sustaining relationships with resources such as military transition centers or the Veterans Employment and Training Service reinforces existing organizational ties to the military and offers organizations a sustainable and easily accessible supply of talent.

"If you become known within the forces as a military-friendly employer, you are going to have a much larger applicant flow, therefore you are going to be able to select the best," Ronn said.

Strategic networking can establish a pipeline of talent, but it's up to talent managers to separate the wheat from the chaff, which can be challenging. According to the aforementioned SHRM survey, talent managers considered translating military skills into civilian job experience to be the biggest challenge when hiring candidates from that demographic.

Bridging the gap that separates civilian professionals from their military counterparts is a vital component in a successful recruitment strategy. Talent managers can use military transition specialists to fast-track qualified high-potential candidates into the talent pool.

Carol Glazer, president of the National Organization on Disability, works closely with businesses to streamline the recruitment function so talent managers can understand disabled veterans' skills and needs.

"We translate their military experience into civilian experience for their resumes and work with employers to help structure jobs that are appropriate for them and to make sure that when they are hired they succeed," she said.

Successfully integrating veterans into the workforce requires a combination of opportunity and preparation, identifying recruitment opportunities and networking in a way that is consistent with military values. However, having the expertise to recognize elite prospects as well as the infrastructure to develop them into corporate leaders is what forward-thinking organizations must strive for.

From Business Prospect to Business Leader

An effective recruitment strategy is only half the battle. More often than not, a company's on-boarding model will determine the success or failure of veterans transitioning into the civilian workforce.

According to King Street Associates' "2007 Survey of Human Resources Professionals," turnover among military officers is 20 to 60 percent higher than in other workforce segments. Developing and implementing an on-boarding program that navigates the disconnect between military and civilian life isn't easy, but it is imperative. Adaptability and specialization will determine if high-potential service veterans can be productive in corporate America.

James Ford, a former captain in the U.S. Air Force and now a pilot with Delta Air Lines, left the military in 1988 and has experienced firsthand the struggles of workforce reintegration. "It's hard; once you go out in the regular world, everything is less controlled," he said. "The civilian world has much less structure than the military."

Establishing mentor programs is one way an organization can offset the differences between the highly structured U.S. military and the civilian workplace environment. Mentors from military backgrounds can temper the "mission focus" of new former military employees and assist in the development of skills that will enable the individual to succeed.

For some, swapping combat gear for Brooks Brothers suits comes with special challenges. Medical advancements have saved the lives of scores of critically injured military personnel, drastically increasing the number of individuals with disabilities leaving the military.

In previous eras, disabled veterans often lived on the margins of society, subsisting on government benefits, but there is a growing commitment to reintegrate these individuals into the business arena.

"We work with companies on what we call organizational readiness," said Nadine Vogel, founder and president of Springboard Consulting. "They need to support disabled employees in ways that they need, whether it's training, employee resource groups or emergency preparedness programs, so the person coming in has the greatest chance of success."

Understanding and acting on disabled veterans' specific needs, whether they are physical, developmental or psychological, is the key to unlock the potential of this group. For instance, many military veteran employees suffer from mental illnesses. Coordinating flexible development programs allows companies to successfully reintegrate disabled former armed forces employees and provide them with a goal-oriented work environment in which they can thrive.

"Our society can set artificially low expectations for veterans returning home, and it's going to be a costly mistake," Glazer said. "We owe it to them to set our expectations high, to be there ready to help them achieve as far as they can possibly go."

Military veterans already have left their mark on Fortune 500 companies such as Procter & Gamble, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson. For business leaders looking for opportunities to stimulate growth after the lethargy of the recession, the armed forces could represent the next great sustainable pool of talent for ambitious and prepared employers.

"As the economy picks up, employers are saying to themselves, ‘It would be great to have the relationship pipeline in place so when I need it, I can get to it,'" Ronn said.

View article publication in the September 2010 Issue of Talent Management Magazine

View the full September 2010 Issue of Talent Management Magazine

James Walsh is an editorial intern at Talent Management magazine. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .