Helping America's Heroes Transition to Successful Civilian Careers
Hire Heroes USA CEO and Marine Corps. veteran Brian Stann appeared on the FOX Business Network Friday to discuss his company’s efforts to help veterans become successful in the civilian workforce as well as in their communities.
Stann weighed in on the challenges for veterans transitioning to civilian careers.
“The hardest thing veterans have, even myself included as a Naval Academy graduate, is communicating our value and our skill set to a civilian employer. We use a lot acronyms, our jobs are a little bit different so we don’t know how to communicate what our skill set is and market ourselves. In the military we use ‘we’ and ‘they,’ we never use ‘I’ and ‘me.’ So interviewing for a job, creating a resume, a phone interview, a LinkedIn site, these are all foreign to us,” Stann told Maria Bartiromo.
Stann added that another obstacle for veterans is overcoming misunderstandings on the part of potential employers.
“A lot of times if the employer is not familiar with the military… when you’re looking to hire for a position and turnover costs money, you want to hire the right person. If you’re not familiar with them, if you’re not necessarily comfortable and you don’t understand them, then [you] may not hire them.”
But according to Stann, proper communication of veterans’ skill sets can overcome any misunderstandings and reach a common ground between veterans and their potential employers. He then explained that Hire Heroes USA employs many seasoned veterans that can empathize with what new vets are going through and are particularly suited to assisting them through the transition.
“For this company, over 70% of us are veterans ourselves. So, it’s men and women who have served, who have family who have served, that are helping these men and women overcome these obstacles. “
But Stann also views veterans’ qualities as important models for their communities in addition to their careers.
“The thing for us is that these men and women, with the sacrifice they’ve made serving during a time of two wars, we don’t want them to just come home and find a job. At a time in our county where our morality and our values are eroding, now is a great time for military personnel not just to come back and be leaders in their professional life, but also in their communities. Honor, courage, commitment, all these things, these are all things we want to rub off.”