Military Connection: Five Reasons to Hire Veterans

By Joe Silva

I recently had a bad experience at a clothing store. Without going into too much detail, I noticed that there were several employees standing around, having inappropriate conversations in front of customers, and flat-out misrepresenting their company. The only capable person there happened to be helping me, and she was one of the store’s managers.

“I hate to say it, but you have a lot of dead weight working here,” I said to her. This, after she apologized to me when one of these employees interrupted our transaction, asking to go on a break.

The manager didn’t agree with me, verbally, but her reaction told me that I wasn’t far off the mark. I suggested to her that she should look into hiring some new people, and after a brief pause, I added, “Maybe some Veterans.”

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that adding some Veteran blood to that establishment could potentially improve their service, efficiency and image. I highly recommend hiring Veterans to any employer who needs to boost production, improve their image or change their culture. Here is why:

Veterans are Team Players. If you want your establishment to be a winning team, you need to have employees who are willing to work as part of a team. Veterans from all service branches and all military occupations have completed some of the most rigorous team-building exercises around. Veteran employees, who feel valued by their company, will be the first to promote the company’s brand and culture.

Veterans are Detail Oriented. From boot camp to separation, Veterans were required to have inspection-ready uniforms, living quarters, and work spaces. Having an employee who can handle that sort of scrutiny can do wonders for your company. If they don’t know something, they’ll ask, and once they know, they do the job correctly.

Veterans are Planners, so they are great hires for companies concerned with productivity and schedules. In the military, Veterans were given manuals for every aspect of their lives, from brushing their teeth, to cleaning a rifle. Being conditioned to methodical planning of any task, they will most likely find ways to quicken your company’s tasks, and be able to write you an Standard Operating Procedure on it.

Veterans have the Can-Do Attitude. Military training and conditioning has equipped Veterans with the ingenuity and grit to get the job done. So, whether you need to meet a deadline, keep pace with the competition, or take out a machine gun nest, Veterans are going to get the job done.

Veterans Take Direction well. Most Veterans weren’t the commanding officers of their units, but even C.O.’s answered to their superiors. Veterans are used to being told what to do and how things are by whoever’s in charge, and then getting the job done. In the same thread, Veterans with military leadership experience have been conditioned to ooze confidence. Sometimes it’s not the order, or who gives it, but the tone in which the order is given that gets the desired results.

I try to imagine what that clothing store would be like if there were a Veteran or two on its sales team. I imagine that there would have been less standing around and more work being accomplished… I also imagine that I would have been a return customer.

Military Connection proudly serves those who serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve, Veterans and their Families. We are the go to site for Veteran Employment and information on Veteran education. Militaryconnection.com provides Veterans with and Directory of Employers, a Job Board, information on the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and a blog that offers Veterans boundless information. Be sure to visit Militaryconnection.com, the go to site.