How to Attract Veterans with an Authentic Recruitment Strategy

Use your diversity council or established veteran staff.

Utilize the talent you’ve already recruited as a sounding board, a decoder ring for acronym filled resumes and gut check on how to best address this unique group of individuals. These are the people who will stop you from calling every service member a soldier or matching the wrong military skill to the civilian skill set. Not only are they the subject matter experts, but will be a resource for retention you’ll want to utilize post-hire.

Position your social responsible brand. Veterans want to continue to serve.

They might have enjoyed educational benefits or free healthcare, but what any service member will tell you is they wanted to serve a bigger purpose. Surveys have shown that is what service members miss the most when transitioning to civilian life. Provide your veterans with your companies altruist purpose. No one expects profit to not enter into the picture, but come forth with your mission and impact on your customer.

Be prepared to discuss the details of benefit packages.

This is new to them. If you are corresponding with a recently separated service member, that person might have been in military service most of their employed life. They weren’t given health plans to choose from, they weren’t given FSAs or flex schedules. Give them insights into some of the unique or more mundane benefit packages, this might be answering a lot of unknowns for them.

Address veterans with formality.

Service member have respect drilled into them early on. They will use sir and ma’am repeatedly. If your organizational culture is a more modern where everyone uses first names, understand that this is a change for them and might take some time to adjust. Also, for brownie points, when introducing yourself, it doesn’t hurt to use some formalities. It makes them feel more comfortable.

Happy Veterans Day, don’t forget the military spouses, children and veterans already in your organization. Show appreciation authentically and the message will spread. It doesn’t take much to show how much you value their service.