Enhancing Veterans Employment

Prospects in the Private Sector

Final Branding Report and Recommendations

Feb. 22, 2007

Prepared for Office of Policy

Department of Veterans Affairs 810 Vermont Ave. NW Washington, DC 20420

Prepared by

The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, Inc. (Veterans Across America ™ )

152 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10016

and

Abt Associates Inc.

4550 Montgomery Avenue Suite 800 North

Washington, DC 20420

The Study’s Authors Wes Poriotis , Founder and Chairman of The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, Inc. (Veterans Across America™) Dr. Ray Healey , Co-Founder of Veterans Across America™, and Executive Director of The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, Inc. Peter Dickinson , Consultant to The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, Inc. and project manager of the study.

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Contents 1. Executive summary . p. 3 2. Overview of Purpose, Objectives and Methodology p. 6

2.1. Introduction p. 6 2.2. Purpose p. 6 2.3. Objectives p. 6 2.4. Research Methodology p. 7 2.4.1. Corporate Site Visits p. 7 2.4.2. Peer-to-Peer Consultations p. 9 2.4.3. Branding and Marketing Summits p. 10

3. Findings and Analyses p. 12

3.1. Principal Findings p. 12 3.1.1. Part One: Corporate Site Visits p. 12 3.1.2. Part Two: Peer-to-Peer Consultations p. 20 3.1.3. Part Three: Branding and Marketing Summits p. 28

4. Recommendations p. 42

4.1. Branding and Marketing Campaign to Improve the Employment Prospects of Transitioning Military Veterans p. 44 4.2. Veterans Peer-to-Peer Career Network p. 46 4.2.1. The Alumni Database, The “Veterans’ Resource Network” p. 47

Appendix A. Interview Schedule p. 50 Appendix B. Comparative Profiles: Corporate Site Visits p. 51 Appendix C. Comparative Profiles: Peer-to-Peer Consultations p. 54 Appendix D. Comparative Profiles: Branding and Marketing Summits p. 55 Appendix E. Matrix of Responses to Key Questions p. 56 Appendix F. Company A Corporate Site Visit Discussion Guides p. 59 Appendix G. Discussion Guide for Peer-to-Peer Consultations p. 70 Appendix H. Branding and Marketing Summit Agendas p. 72 Appendix I. About The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives p. 74 Appendix J. Background Materials Sent to Study Participants p. 75

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1. Executive Summary

A year-long study by The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives found that today’s military veterans face significant barriers in successfully transitioning to private sector employment. These barriers include:

• Widespread and inaccurate negative perceptions about veterans; • Lack of awareness and information in the private sector about veterans; • Ineffective or non-existent governmental and private sector supply chain

mechanisms for connecting veterans with jobs; and • Inadequate support systems to help transitioning veterans find and obtain quality

private sector jobs.

Over the course of the study, interviews were conducted with senior executives, talent acquisition managers, human resources directors, and recruiters at companies that combined employ over 500,000 people and generate more than $250 billion in annual revenues. In spite of the consistently strong positive perceptions that were voiced about veterans’ leadership skills, work ethic, maturity, and integrity, it is clear that there are equally strong negative perceptions that persist about military veterans’ lack of business knowledge, creativity, and education; as well, there are questions about the mental stability of some veterans due to combat stress; overall, the study concluded, many of those interviewed have reached the conclusion that hiring veterans does not produce positive business results. Further, the study found little evidence that federal programs designed to support veterans’ transitions into private sector employment had any positive effects.

Throughout the course of seven corporate site visits, six peer-to-peer consultations, and three branding and marketing summits, the following key findings emerged: Lack of Accurate Information and Support Systems Ar e Barriers to Improving Employment Prospects for Transitioning Veterans

Today’s War on Terror veterans, and those that recently preceded them, face a very different job market than that of World War II era veterans. World War II veterans were greeted as returning heroes and given ample career opportunities by a grateful Nation, often without regard to their training or education. By contrast, today’s military veterans enter into a job market that is highly competitive; one in which businesses desire employees who can ‘hit the ground running’ without additional training or education. In this environment, veterans often find themselves at a disadvantage securing quality jobs compared to non-veteran counterparts who may have both college degrees and private sector experience.

To further support veterans as they seek private sector employment, the federal government should foster and support the development of peer-to-peer career networks for veterans based upon the best practices of successful peer-to-peer networks. The central component of this career network would be a comprehensive and searchable database of military veterans that would allow veterans to “network” among their peers and provide private sector employers a location to find veteran talent.

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There is little or no demand by private sector empl oyers for military veterans because they are perceived as contributing little o r no business value.

The vast majority of executives and hiring managers interviewed noted that when

they evaluated job candidates, they were looking for people who 1) could demonstrate that they had an aptitude for their specific business or industry and 2) could quickly make a contribution to the bottom line of their companies. The general consensus among these executives was that most of the training veterans receive in the Armed Forces does not translate easily or at all into specific job skills that are needed in their businesses and industries. As a result, veterans are not perceived as having the ability to contribute swiftly or significantly to corporate profitability, and thus there is little or no demand to pro-actively seek to hire veterans. Demand for veterans among private sector employers could be increased through a private sector-oriented marketing strategy, based u pon proven consumer branding techniques.

The marketing and branding experts interviewed agreed that the “brand” image of

veterans in its current state is akin to a consumer product that has lost much of its luster and appeal. The zenith of the veteran “brand” occurred at the end of World War II and the nadir of the veteran “brand” likely occurred at the end of the Vietnam War. The experts also agreed it is very feasible to design and execute a marketing strategy to increase this demand in the private sector. The goal of a marketing strategy should be first to dispel inaccurate negative perceptions about veterans, and then replace those misconceptions with positive ones demonstrating persuasively that veterans can and have helped businesses become successful. In order to improve veterans’ employment prospects, the federal government should contract with a private sector marketing entity to design and execute a targeted marketing strategy—based upon proven consumer branding techniques—to help veterans overcome barriers to private sector employment. Key to this strategy would be the development and dissemination of case studies on military veterans who have succeeded in small, medium and large businesses. Private sector employers lack accurate information about today’s military veterans, including how they could find qualified veterans if they so desired.

There was widespread ignorance among those interviewed about the education,

training and skills of today’s transitioning military veterans. For example, few understood that today’s military is highly technological, and that a large number of military veterans have valuable technology and information technology skills. However, even those that did perceive veterans as being a valued asset to their business had little or no knowledge about where and how to find qualified veterans.

Despite considerable annual spending by the Department of Labor on veterans’ employment programs, corporate America is almost completely unaware of and untouched by their programs.

Very few of the persons interviewed in this study, those that should be most informed of the vast veteran resource, even knew of these employment programs.

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Veterans’ employment opportunities could be enhance d through the development and dissemination of accurate information about the ir skill sets.

Experts participating in the study Summits agreed that a public relations and educational campaign should be launched prior to or concurrent with a marketing campaign regarding veterans skills and talents. This campaign should be built around demographic analyses of the veteran talent pool and case studies of veterans who have succeeded in small, medium and large businesses. Real life examples of veterans who have carved out successful careers in business not only reinforce marketing messages about the value that veterans can bring to business, but also make it easier for hiring managers and talent acquisition executives to “envision” veterans working for them. A targeted marketing approach might then focus its efforts on specific skill sets that veterans are widely understood to possess, directed specifically at industries and companies that would be most in need of and receptive to veteran job candidates with such skills.

Once the campaign has been successful in stimulating an increased demand for

veterans in these select industries, the ability to capitalize on these employment successes—by extending these breakthroughs into further successes—would be possible in other market segments.

Veterans transitioning into the private sector are less prepared to find and secure jobs than their civilian counterparts.

There was universal agreement among study participants that the resumes and interview skills of veterans were below average compared to civilian job applicants. Similarly, veterans were less likely to successfully “network” their way to employment, both because they lack personal networks in the private sector and because there exists no comprehensive peer-to-peer network for the vast majority of military veterans seeking career placement, development and advancement support. Furthermore, based upon the interviews conducted in this study, there is virtually no awareness within private sector employers of federal programs and services designed to support veterans seeking private sector jobs. The creation of peer-to-peer career networks for ve terans would improve veterans’ ability to find and secure jobs in the private sect or.

Private sector talent acquisition leaders, college alumni officials, and marketing experts all agreed that peer-to-peer networks provide significant assistance for members of the network as they pursue career development and advancement. Creation of one or more such networks for veterans is both feasible and desirable. A veterans peer-to-peer network should include the following elements, all found in successful models examined in this study:

• A searchable database of members, • An easily accessible resource center, • Pro-active employment programs,

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• An active communications outreach program, and • A social component that coalesces and strengthens the affinity among members.

2. Overview of Purpose, Objectives and Methodology 2.1. Introduction

Section 211 of the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2004 (P.L.108-454) required the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to contract for a study and report on veterans employment. In fulfillment of that requirement, VA contracted with Abt Associates to conduct this study, dividing the work among tasks and sub-tasks. Task One-I of that study was subcontracted to The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, Inc. (Veterans Across America ™).

2.2. Purpose

The purpose of this task is to research specific concepts in order to determine if they are feasible to pursue in order to improve the employment prospects of military veterans. Specifically, this task has three principal purposes: 1. To analyze peer-to-peer alumni networks, such as college alumni associations, which provide entrée into, and mentoring within, private sector employers, and to assess the feasibility of establishing new networks, or changes to existing networks, for increasing the employment of veterans in the private sector; 2. To conduct a series of meetings with employers in key industry sectors in order to understand how they make hiring decisions, and to see how they can increase the hiring of veterans; and 3. To draft recommendations on the feasibility of undertaking a campaign to “brand” and market veterans as a competitive business asset. 2.3. Objectives

In fulfillment of the above purposes, The Center pursued three objectives: 1. Research and draft recommendations on the feasibility of developing a veterans’ peer- to-peer career network.

The Center conducted six alumni and peer-to-peer consultations; three with successful college alumni organizations and three with other types of organizations that had successful and applicable models of peer-to-peer networks. The Center examined the internal structures and operational activities of each organization to assess whether a veterans’ peer-to-peer network could be similarly structured and operated. 2. Conduct a series of high-level meetings with major employers in key industry sectors to understand how they make hiring decisions and how they can enhance the hiring of veterans.

The Center conducted seven corporate field visits to meet with executives, talent acquisition management, recruiters and military veterans. In each company we sought to meet with people who could provide insight into trends in hiring veterans, as well as

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supply us with additional information necessary to perform an audit of corporate perceptions of the military “brand.” 3. Research and draft recommendations on the feasibility of undertaking a campaign to “brand” and market veterans as a competitive business asset.

The Center has held three “branding and marketing” summits with national leaders in the fields of advertising, public opinion, and public relations. These summits have provided us with expert advice and counsel on how to research, review, and make recommendations regarding the feasibility of a national branding and marketing campaign. 2.4. Research Methodology

The information contained in this report, including the findings and conclusions, are based upon the statements and opinions of the participants conducted over the course of seven corporate site visits, six peer-to-peer consultations, and three branding and marketing summits. 2.4.1. Corporate Site Visits Selection of Companies

The seven companies chosen for the corporate site visits provide a representative

snapshot of corporate America. All companies chosen were in non-defense sectors, since defense-related companies have very specific needs for persons with military experience. Companies were chosen to ensure a diverse representation of various sectors in the economy including: customer service, financial services, manufacturing, consumer products and entertainment. Several of the companies chosen are among the world leaders in their respective sectors or fields. In addition, the companies were selected to provide a balance between those who had reputations for taking pro-active steps to employ veterans and those who had no particular reputation related to veterans’ employment.

The selection of companies was also contingent upon the consent of each company to participate in this research. Companies agreed to provide access to their operations and to make available top talent acquisition and/or human resource executives for, in-depth interviews. See Appendix B for a profile of the companies selected and participants interviewed.

After developing a target list of companies for this research project, a member of The Center contacted individuals within those companies to make the meeting request either by phone call or email. In most cases, first introductions about the research project were followed by several discussions in order to gain agreement about the ground rules of the meeting and to insure that the proper participants would be able to participate. In some cases, this process was lengthy and required detailed interaction. No incentives were provided to any of the companies or individuals who participated.

Background materials (see Appendix J), which included the legislation authorizing the study, the relevant sections from the study proposal, and background news articles on The Center were sent to prospective companies in order to inform them of the purpose of

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the study. Discussion guides were sent in advance, as requested, to one or more of the individuals within the company to further clarify the meetings (see Appendix F for discussion guides.)

Organization of the Corporate Site Visits

The corporate meetings were designed to gather information about the policies, practices, perceptions, and opinions of talent acquisition and human resources executives and personnel, regarding the recruitment and employment of military veterans. The number and duration of interviews conducted during the corporate site visits varied from company to company. For example, Company A, the smallest company visited, made a wider level of employees available, from the very top of the company down the line over the course of two days. Separate meetings were held with the company’s senior leadership (CEO and CFO), the Senior VP of People, the Director of Talent Acquisition, a group of senior recruiters, and a group of veterans employed in the company.

On the other hand, the meeting with Company E, the second largest company visited, included just two persons: but those two persons were the two highest ranking talent acquisition executives of an international company that employs more than 100,000 people worldwide. The other five corporate site visits ran the gamut between these two, with mixes of multiple meetings and top executives, depending on company organization and availability. In all but one visit, top talent acquisition executives, recruiters, and veterans working for that company were included.

Discussion guides for each visit and each meeting were prepared in advance (see Appendix F). Each discussion guide was divided into four areas of inquiry: talent acquisition and hiring practices; perceptions of veterans and military service, policies and practices affecting veterans; and personal experience with military veterans. The discussion guides were refined following the first two corporate site visits, and were standardized for the final five corporate site visits.

During each of the meetings, The Center’s team used the discussion guides as the foundation of the interviews, generally following the order of the guides. However, since these were in-depth interviews, the order of questions asked often varied in order to pursue areas of inquiry to their fullest extent. Center participants were: Team Leader, Veterans Employment Expert, and Project Manager, each of whom took turns leading the discussion and questioning. In addition, a representative of Abt Associates participated in several of the meetings.

A representative of the Department of Veterans Affairs also attended several of the corporate site visits, either in person or via conference call. At the beginning of each meeting, all participants were told that their identities, responses, and the identity of their company would be treated as confidential information and would not be published or publicly disseminated in a format or manner that would disclose their identity or that of their company. In order to assist in the collection of information, The Center asked companies B, C, D, E, F and G for permission to tape record their meetings; three companies consented and three declined.

Following each corporate site visit, a report of the meetings was compiled, which included a list of preliminary cumulative findings. These reports also placed the responses

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to the dozen most fruitful questions into a matrix. A compilation of that question matrix is included as Appendix E of this report. 2.4.2. Peer-to-Peer Consultations Selection of Organizations

The six organizations and institutions chosen to participate in the peer-to-peer consultations represent a sample of some of the most successful organizations of their type. Candidates were primarily selected based upon the likelihood that that organization could contribute information, insights, best practices, or models of how to develop a peer-to-peer network for military veterans. Because the objective of this part of the research was not to measure perceptions or opinions, but rather to develop recommendations about how to develop a model for a military peer-to-peer network, the organizations were chosen precisely because they were top performers. For example, the two graduate schools visited are among the finest in the nation, and their alumni programs are noted for their success in furthering their graduates’ professional careers. Overall, four of the six consultations were held with college-style alumni organizations.

The Center also selected two other types of organizations to provide particular insights on the principles underlying a potential veterans’ peer-to-peer network. The online community was selected in order to examine whether a virtual organization residing on the Internet could sufficiently achieve the goals of improving veterans’ employment opportunities. The minority educational foundation was chosen because of the similarities between the biases faced by minorities in seeking employment in corporate America and those faced by military veterans. Furthermore, the minority educational foundation had a reputation for having one of the strongest and most successful professional alumni networks in the nation. See Appendix C for a comparison of the organizations and the participants.

After developing a target list of organizations for this part of the research project, a member of The Center contacted individuals within those organizations. As with the corporate site visits, the logistics of arranging these consultations involved numerous phone calls and emails, although these meetings were significantly less difficult to arrange than the corporate meetings. Background materials (see Appendix J), which included the legislation authorizing the study, the relevant sections from the study proposal and background news articles on The Center were sent in advance of the consultations. This allowed the participants the opportunity to prepare for the discussions, since these meetings were about finding facts and best practices, not about assessing perceptions. In most cases, the discussion guides (see Appendix G) were sent in advance to the organizations in order to further prepare them for productive consultations. No incentives were provided to any of the companies or individuals who participated. Organization of the Consultations

Each of the consultations took place over the course of a two-hour meeting either in person, via conference call, or a mix of both. In each case, The Center was able to meet with the person at the top of the organization and/or the person with responsibility for programs to assist their members in their careers.

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The Center participants included: Team Leader, Veterans Employment Expert, and Project Manager, each of whom took an active role in asking questions and moderating the discussion. Also participating in the consultations were members of Abt Associates, as well as a representative of the Department of Veterans Affairs overseeing this research project.

A discussion guide was prepared prior to each consultation, consisting of questions arranged around several themes: the organizations structure; the organizations operations, the organizations success at assisting member find career opportunities and advance within their careers; and whether the organization had any veterans’ program (see Appendix G).

At the beginning of each meeting, all participants were told that their identities, responses, and the identity of their organization would be treated as confidential information and would not be published or publicly disseminated in a format or manner that would disclose their identity or that of their organization. In order to assist in the collection of information, The Center asked each of them for permission to tape record their meetings; all of them consented.

Each of these meetings proved to be extremely fruitful, not only in providing a very rich conversation about the best practices of each organization, but also in providing additional ideas and insights on matters related to veterans’ employment in general. As was the case with the corporate site visit participants, the persons with whom we consulted were grateful for the opportunity to share their knowledge in the cause of helping military veterans. Following each consultation, a report of the meeting was compiled, which included a list of cumulative preliminary findings. 2.4.3. Branding and Marketing Summits Selection of Summit Participants

The volunteer experts who participated in the branding and marketing summits were selected based upon their expertise in the areas of branding, marketing, advertising, and public relations. Each of these experts brought significant expertise derived, on average, from two decades working in the private sector for some of the largest corporate names in the country. The group for each summit was assembled to include a mix of the above disciplines. In addition, the group of volunteer experts was assembled to include a broad expertise of marketing in numerous sectors of the economy, including financial services, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, and consumer goods. Five of the seven volunteer experts who participated in the first summit also participated in the second summit.

Additionally, six of them also participated in the third summit, providing important continuity. See Appendix D for the description of summit participants.

None of the volunteer experts were compensated for their time or expertise, nor were any incentives provided for participation. All of the persons who agreed to participate in the summits were informed at the beginning of the meeting that all of their comments would be considered confidential and would not be associated with them in reports published or disseminated to the public. Background materials (see Appendix J), which included the legislation authorizing the study, the relevant sections from the study

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proposal, and background news articles on The Center, and congressional testimonies of The Center’s Team Leader on veterans employment were sent to all participants in advance of each summit.

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Organization of the Summits

The first summit was held in a meeting room in New York City. In addition to the seven volunteer marketing experts, there were eight member of The Center, two employees of Abt Associates, and one representative of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

An agenda was prepared in advance of each summit in order to guide the discussions (see Appendix H). The first summit focused upon providing expert advice on how to approach corporate site visits, as well as how to accomplish the task of developing recommendations about the feasibility of a national branding and marketing campaign supporting veterans’ employment.

The initial part of the agenda for the first summit focused on a background review and discussion of the purposes of the study and the issues and challenges facing veterans seeking private sector employment. Next ensued a discussion of marketing and branding techniques and how they could be used to advance veterans employment prospects. The final part of the agenda was designed to focus the volunteer experts on providing practical advice to The Center’s team on how to organize the then upcoming corporate site visits.

The second summit was conducted via conference call. This summit was designed to provide a structure for branding and marketing recommendations, as well as to advise The Center on the conduct of the remaining research components. The agenda for the second summit began with a background review and discussion of the preliminary findings from the completed corporate site visits. Next, possible recommendations for a branding and marketing summit, focused on the “message,” audience, structure, costs, and metrics for a successful campaign was discussed. Finally, a discussion of how to improve or refocus the remaining corporate site visits to enhance the final recommendations was held.

The third summit was conducted at the offices of the Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives in New York City. Five volunteer branding and marketing experts participated in the discussion in person and one public relations expert joined the meeting via conference call. Three members of The Center’s team, one representative of Abt Associates, and one representative from the Department of Veterans Affairs also joined the discussion. The main group was broken up into smaller “breakout sessions” for part of this summit, to focus the discussion on some of the key findings that emerged in the course of the research study.

The second and third summits were recorded with the consent of all the participants. Following each of the summits, a summary was prepared.

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3. Findings and Analyses 3.1. Principal Findings

Presented below are findings associated with the seven site visits, six peer-to-peer consultations, and three branding summits. 3.1.1. Part One: Corporate Site Visits

Comprehensive interviews with senior executives, talent acquisition and human resources directors, and employment recruiters—at companies that combined employ over 500,000 people and generate more than $250 billion in annual revenues—evidenced widespread negative misperceptions regarding veterans’ ability to gain access to or succeed in today’s business arena. Other findings included the following: there is an almost total lack of awareness and information in the private sector about veterans; governmental and private sector supply chain mechanisms for connecting veterans with jobs are ineffective or non-existent; and there are inadequate supportive systems to help transitioning veterans find and obtain quality private sector jobs. Below are the detailed findings associated with the seven corporate site visits conducted. The private sector perceives military service as having little or no business value.

After a year of interviews with scores of corporate executives, hiring managers, executive recruiters and a wide variety of other individuals who play prominent roles in the world of employment, one unavoidable conclusion is that the American private sector, while it has good intentions with regard to increasing its hiring of veterans, has serious reservations about doing so. This is in large part because it has not yet been able to establish a clear connection between the skills and talents that veterans offer and the specific “competencies” of many of the jobs that need to be filled.

Moreover, all of the companies in the study acknowledged, either explicitly or implicitly, that there was a bottom line focus in much of their hiring. As a result, the average veteran job candidate will be at a relative disadvantage in the hiring process because there is no clear evidence that she or he is prepared to offer specific industry expertise or timely contribution to the profitability of a corporation.

The top hiring manager at Company C noted that much of the hiring his recruiters were doing was focused on finding people with a background in and aptitude for financial services, and that unless veteran job candidates could demonstrate that they had this kind of background, they were probably going to have a tougher time being considered for many jobs being advertised. The notable exception to this rule at this company was in its IT (information technologies) division, where an informal “network” of about 50-60 veterans had evolved. This group formed in large part because the head of this division, himself a veteran, had made it his business to seek out and hire other veterans for computer and technology jobs at the company.

He knew from personal experience that the vast majority of the veterans who are transitioning from the armed forces have considerable technological and computer skills. Thus, it makes sense for him to not only hire many veterans but also to encourage his colleagues who are veterans to be resourceful in finding veterans to hire. In this particular case, the average veteran job candidate might well not have a “background in and aptitude for” financial services, but this deficit is more than made up for by the veteran’s established “background in and aptitude for” computer technologies.

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The handicap that many veteran job candidates appear to labor under, namely that they do not have the requisite “background and aptitude” for many available jobs, was a consistent theme in virtually all of the company interviews. One of the top hiring managers at Company B, himself a Vietnam veteran, said that he was eager to hire veterans and that he had hired a substantial number of them for various divisions of the company. However, he acknowledged that many of his hiring managers were by necessity looking for candidates who had a specific background and track record in financial services specialties. Company E and G’s hiring managers were looking for people with background in marketing consumer products.

Another barrier that emerged again and again in our interviews is that many executives and hiring managers seem somewhat less inclined to embrace veterans as potential employees, because of the pervasive and consistent preconceptions, misconceptions, myths and outright stereotypes about military veterans that linger in the popular imagination. Participants at all seven companies visited, almost regardless of job function or veteran status, gave remarkably similar responses when asked to name the qualities or attributes that they associated with military veterans.

Among the negative attributes that were consistently mentioned were the following:

• Inflexibility/Rigidity • Inability To Do Anything But Take Orders • Lack of Higher Education • Lack of Creativity • Lack of Specific Private Sector Business Knowledge • Lack of Private Sector Business and Financial Job Skills • Concerns About PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) • Concerns About the Effects of Combat

A Company F representative explicitly stated that the average veteran would

probably be less likely to be considered as a potential employee of the company’s main divisions, because these units were producing “creative” content for media, and thus they needed “creative” content providers to step into those roles.

It should be noted that among the scores of executives interviewed, there was also a clear perception of the positive attributes that are generally ascribed to veterans. When asked what their general perceptions were of veterans, the attributes most frequently mentioned were as follows:

• Leadership • Work Ethic • Reliability • Discipline • Maturity • Team Players • Integrity • Problem Solvers • Good at Project Management

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These positive attributes suggest that there is a range of positive images of

veterans that are prevalent in the general perceptions of the executives of corporate America, and that savvy veterans may be able to leverage these favorable perceptions when applying for jobs. Especially important in this regard are traits like Leadership, Work Ethic and Integrity. In fact, the desire for finding job candidates with proven integrity was a persistent theme through all of the company interviews. The top hiring managers at Company B said that “integrity” was enormously important to them, because the company is in the business of selling financial products and thus a reputation for integrity in handling money was of paramount importance. Company C’s top hiring manager mentioned much the same thing, that when you are in the business of financial services, integrity was of vital importance.

Several executives at Company D emphasized that, in an era of Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, with the government’s focus on strict financial accounting, it was more important than ever to find employees who had an unblemished reputation for integrity.

While the positive attributes cited above suggest that the average person we talked to has a good impression of the veteran as a person, the negative attributes leave a strong impression that veterans were simply “not a good fit” for positions beyond those for which these companies could discern a direct connection between the specific skills of a military occupational specialty (MOS) and the specific “competencies” demanded by individual jobs. There is a general lack of information about the su pply of veterans, how to access this talent pool, and the applicable skills of mili tary veterans.

The lack of accurate information about the veteran talent pool among corporate

talent acquisition executives and recruiters was universal at all the companies, even those with veterans working among them. For example, those responsible for finding talent and hiring at Company A were completely unaware of the significant numbers of military veterans in their state. Moreover, the manager of IT recruiting at the company was amazed that veterans might have precisely the kinds of computer and technological skills that he was seeking. Other than recruiting from military bases, no one in Company A was aware of where to find military veteran job candidates, or of the bountiful opportunities to find talent in their geographical area, which happens to be a hotbed for transitioning veterans.

At Company C, other than one IT recruiter who had a veteran as department head, none of the other talent acquisition managers or recruiters had any connections or linkage with sources of military talent. One recruiter responsible for a state with a huge population of veterans stated flatly that there were “not a lot of military in [that state].” Executives at Company F indicated a total lack of knowledge about how military veterans could be found, where information on this resource could be gathered, and whether any “talent pipelines” for military veterans existed.

Even though Company D had a limited program to recruit junior military officers, which had achieved success over the course of more than 10 years, the talent acquisition operations had yet to adopt a wider program of recruiting other former military personnel, especially “enlisted” veterans as opposed to officers.

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One of the main obstacles to increased hiring of veterans is the lack of a supply-chain “pipeline” of veteran talent that company hiring managers could tap into to readily locate veterans with specific skills and talents in their local areas.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually by the Department of Labor on veterans’ employment programs, this study found that corporate America was almost completely unaware of and untouched by such efforts. Of more than 100 persons interviewed in this study, the number who had even heard of federal programs to help veterans employment could be counted on one hand. Virtually every top hiring manager at all of the companies visited agreed, “I would love to hire more veterans, because I know they have many of the characteristics I am looking for—such as leadership, integrity, discipline and a team-player attitude—but, I don’t know where to find veterans and I don’t have a readily accessible and reliable resource of talent I can draw from.”

The top talent acquisition executive at Company B said in no uncertain terms that, “If you can provide me with an easily accessible source of veteran talent, such as a database of veterans with specific talents, I promise you I will hire as many veterans as I can. The key is that I need the talent resource. Others stated that they would “step up” the hiring of veterans if they could find a reputable and reliable source of veteran talent.

The top hiring manager at Company C echoed this request but went a step further, saying that we should keep in mind that the South has a very strong and enduring culture of respecting and honoring military service. He added that companies like his that were steeped in this tradition would leap at the chance to use such a veteran talent resource to find more veterans to hire, because they had a high regard for this talent, and because they were aware that their customers and clients had an equally high regard for veterans.

And one of the two top hiring managers at Company E, who is a former Marine, noted that, in spite of the fact that his company has a long tradition of hiring a lot of veterans—in part because of the influence of a former CEO, who was a Vietnam veteran—his department would surely increase its hiring of veterans, especially if he and his team could recruit veterans from the various geographical regions where the company maintains operations.

Even in companies that have an enlightened awarenes s or appreciation of veterans, or those that have established specific programs to recruit certain veterans, this knowledge or appreciation of veterans, or receptivi ty to them, is not sufficiently disseminated throughout the company.

Despite Company B’s record of seeking to hire former military, their own HR executives said that they didn’t know if their recruiters “are even aware of veterans,” and that most of their hiring personnel had at best “neutral” perceptions of the value of veterans. This was in spite of the fact that the company’s CEO was a veteran, another fact that was not widely known among the company’s recruiters. One positive sign at this meeting, however, was that one of the top hiring managers, himself a veteran, said explicitly that, “If our CEO makes it clear to the talent acquisitions team that he wants us to be more aggressive about hiring veterans, I can assure you that that will happen quickly.”

Despite Company D’s success with its junior officer leadership program, when company executives tried to implement a similar program in another division in the company, there was institutional resistance, which the company is still trying to overcome.

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This suggests that for any program to be replicated, a great deal of investigation and foundation building must precede the effort.

None of the seven companies visited ask about veteran status during interviews (some do allow veterans the option to self-identify themselves). Furthermore, none of the companies had identified veterans that were current employees. In fact, in several cases, the veterans who came to the meetings we arranged were meeting each other for the very first time, and did not previously know that there were brother and sister veterans within the same company.

The only company in which there was considerable awareness of the presence of veteran employees was Company C, in which the IT Division, as noted above, had an informal network of veterans who had been hired in the division over time. In this enclave, the veterans all knew each other and supported each other’s efforts to bring more veterans into the company fold. But, unfortunately, very little of this informal culture of pro-veteran feelings had emanated outward and been embraced by the vast majority of the hiring managers and recruiters in the company. Occasionally one of the regular recruiters from the company, who had received a resume that was clearly from a veteran, would informally consult with either the veteran who headed up the IT division, or one of his deputies, about what they thought about the qualifications of the veteran candidate. But by and large it had gone unnoticed in the overall talent acquisition group that there was a part of the company in which veteran job candidates were not only being actively embraced, but in fact were being sought after because they had particular skills and talents that were very much in demand.

There exists a lack of information about the succes s of military veterans even in companies that are headed by veterans themselves.

Despite the fact that the CEO of Company C was a veteran himself, and had in fact made a public ‘testimonial’ about hiring veterans, few in the talent acquisition department even knew these two facts. It emerged in interviews that the CEO had in fact done very little if anything to persuade his talent acquisition team about what he believed to be the value of hiring veterans.

The same was true at Company E, where talent acquisition executives observed that their “line managers rarely think of military as a source for talent” even though the CEO is a veteran. And although Company F’s CEO is a veteran, their human resource executives doubted if anyone in the company was aware of this fact.

Veterans are less prepared than their non-veteran c ounterparts in their ability to find employment within the private sector career.

The general consensus of the hiring managers and talent acquisition executives we spoke to was that veterans’ resume writing and job interviewing skills are below par compared to their non-veteran counterparts. Talent acquisition personnel at all of the companies visited reported that veterans’ resumes generally do a poor job of translating military skills into comparable private sector needs; and that they tend to be filled with military jargon that has little or no value to private sector recruiters. Talent acquisition personnel at all companies except Company F reported that veterans were less

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successful than non-veterans during interviews in explaining their experience and talents. In particular, recruiters at several of the companies reported that veterans were “very unprepared” for the kinds of behavioral-based or competency-based interviewing that are common practice these days, despite the fact that the information about how to adapt to and succeed at these techniques is readily available and easily accessible on the Internet.

Many veterans transitioning from the military to the private sector have inadequate information about how the private sector pays and promotes employees.

Numerous military personnel interviewed at Companies A, B, and D reported that the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) was of little value, and they frankly considered it just another “checklist item” on their way out of the military. None found it to be of significant assistance in their career search.

Another aspect of the lack of readiness of many veterans to make a successful transition to the job market is their ignorance of, or unrealistic expectations about, the levels of compensation they can expect to receive when joining private sector companies. Company A and C talent acquisition personnel reported that military veteran job candidates and employees often had unrealistic expectations of the pay and promotion systems in the private sector, which made their adjustments difficult. Several executives noted that this might be because veterans in general are accustomed to operating in a system where compensation is fixed and predictable, based solely on the rank one has achieved. To transition abruptly from that kind of highly controlled system, in which one’s pay is set and expected, to the kind of wide open system of the private sector, where compensation is absolutely fluid, unpredictable and highly negotiable, may be confusing and disorienting for many new veterans.

Company C, for example, said that they had difficulty hiring some veterans because the job candidates, having transitioned from a rank level in the military where a specific level of pay was mandated, seemed to have trouble adjusting to the fact that they were coming into a system where nothing was set and predictable, and where they might well have to take a pay cut. The Company C executive noted that in a number of cases, veteran job candidates who were angling for jobs in the $75,000 range, had to resign themselves to accepting starting pay of about $68,000. In some cases they had made the adjustment, in others they had elected to turn down the positions.

Veterans have few if any professional networks to draw from in order to help them locate jobs or advance their careers.

Other than graduates of the service academies, ther e exists no comprehensive peer-to-peer network for military veterans.

The service academies do a superb job of building and maintaining their alumni networks, in part through the use of the joint service database for all graduates of the five service academies, iSABRD (the online version of the Service Alumni Business Resource Directory), in part through an aggressive alumni employment “networking” program, and in part through running a series of alumni social functions that bring service academy graduates together face-to-face. There is no equivalent network for the vast majority of veteran “alumni,” those who were enlisted members of the armed forces.

As soon as a service academy member “graduates” from one of these schools, he or she is automatically enrolled as a member of an alumni network of tens of thousands of

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brother and sister graduates, and can count on this huge support network to be helpful in many different kinds of circumstances, from landing a job to locating a buddy from years back. But when an enlisted person “graduates,” or transitions, from a branch of the armed forces, there is no existing, automatic network that person can join or take advantage of. There are several informal military networks that are available to join, but none that offers anything like the comprehensive catalogue of benefits and services that the services academy alumni network provides from day one.

There is no adequate system in place to connect qua lified veterans with appropriate private sector job opportunities.

Among the most stunning findings from our corporate visits with seven major American companies is that there is virtually no awareness within private sector employers of the federal programs and services designed to help place veterans in private sector jobs. With the exception of one person at Company G, nobody interviewed at any of the companies had ever been approached by or had any contact with any veterans’ employment personnel or services. Furthermore, none of the business association leaders or outside recruitment firm personnel interviewed we spoke to had ever heard of or had any understanding of the terms VETS (Veterans Employment and Training Service), LVERs or DVOPs. This, in spite of the fact that this branch of the Labor Department has employment operatives in locations in all 50 states, and expends several billions of dollars in running this operation and marketing its services.

As one recruiter with more than twenty years experience said, “People responsible for placing military into jobs have never come to recruiters to help in a placement.”

The job search, recruitment, and placement industry has inadequate knowledge of and access to the veteran talent pool and no financ ial incentive to pursue placement of veterans.

Outside job search, recruitment, and placement firms play a major role in filling

private sector jobs, yet there is little awareness among these organizations about the value of veterans as potential job candidates, or of how they might go about recruiting this talent. None of the five recruitment professionals interviewed, who had more than 100 years experience between them, had ever had a client request that military service be one of the specified requirements for positions to be filled.

Astoundingly, neither of the senior recruiters at the top executive search firm we visited, both of whom are service academy graduates themselves, had ever fielded a request from one of their big company clients to search specifically for a candidate who was a veteran. While there are clear incentives in much of the professional job search industry for providing diverse and balanced candidate slates, there have been no incentives for formally including veterans under the umbrella of diversity. There has been virtually no attempt made to consider designating veterans as a separate “diverse” group for purposes of employment. Internet employment services are important componen ts of job searches by veterans that must be better understood and address ed.

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Internet employment companies, such as Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com,

have become predominant in the world of employment, as the greatest volume generators of business and the principal gatekeepers in filling jobs. All of the companies we talked to utilize their services to a greater or lesser extent to find new employees, usually by concentrating their online recruitment efforts on one or the other of these services.

These services rely on analyses of “keywords” contained in resumes, as performed by the Internet service’s software programs, and a successful online resume is one that is flagged by the software programs, because it contains keywords that correspond to those that match a particular job.

However, because military resumes tend to be replete with military jargon, which has no correspondence with the keyword traits or “buzzwords” that are being sought in most job searches, often veterans end up missing out on opportunities that their experience and training would otherwise qualify them for.

The top hiring managers we spoke to at the various companies said that, often, the task of filling a given position amounted to a rapid-fire attempt by a recruiter to see if any of the resumes that had poured into the electronic systems of their human resource departments contained enough keywords that matched the needs of the positions that needed to be filled. Thus, unless the electronic resume of a given veteran had been edited so that some of the requisite “buzzwords” registered on the radar screen, that veterans had little if any chance to be noticed by the recruiter and thus get to the next step of the process.

The top hiring manager at Company C, for example, noted that her 90 or so recruiters were often expected to fill a large number of jobs in short period of time, and thus that only a cursory search of electronic resumes was possible.

Hiring managers generally do not look beyond the rigid parameters of the “military occupation specialties” (MOS) of military veterans, and assess the broader skills and capabilities they many possess that might make them successful employees in a variety of roles.

It became clear in many of our conversations with company hiring managers that one of the reasons they might overlook the skills and talents that a given veteran might possess is that there was a tendency to focus too exclusively on the veteran’s formal training in the military, which manifests itself in the capabilities as outlined in the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). Unless the veteran could articulate in person or in a resume that he/she had talents and capabilities that went beyond what was stated in the MOS, there was a tendency to assume that the veteran had little more to offer than the sum of skills in this narrow specialty. There seemed little capacity among the hiring managers interviewed to take a broader view of the value of specific kinds of military training, and to “project” what a given veteran might be able to do for a company, beyond the rigid confines of previous training.

This shortsightedness extended even to those executives and hiring managers who themselves had moved well beyond their early formal training or experience, and achieved success in a variety of broader roles in their companies, success that could not have been easily predicted based on a prescriptive view of how past training leads to future capacity.

Senior executives at several of the companies visited had come to their positions not by simply “moving up the ladder,” but by moving onto different career ladders based

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upon their ability to succeed in a series of challenging positions. Yet ironically these same executives, when discussing military veterans, seemed to value only their directly applicable job experience or training in evaluating whether they could be successful in new positions. 3.1.2. Part Two: Peer-to-Peer Consultations

A series of consultations with peer-to-peer organizations, such as college alumni offices, found that the creation of a peer-to-peer professional network for veterans could significantly aid veterans to overcome barriers to private sector employment. Establishment of their own peer-to-peer network would be the core of a new “veterans resource center.” The most critical component of the “veterans’ resource center” would be a well organized and searchable database of veteran members offering veterans a professional network to help them locate, obtain, and succeed in new employment. The database could also be utilized by American companies to find veterans with desired skill sets and talents, further enhancing veterans employment prospects. Following are the detailed findings from the peer-to-peer consultations.

Peer-to-peer networks provide significant value for their members as they pursue career development and advancement.

All six of the alumni organizations reported that their peer-to-peer networks were

enormously beneficial to the career development and advancement of their members. The principal benefit of these networks is in the availability of an exclusive alumni database, which allows alumni seeking jobs to locate other alumni who are already in the workforce, and gives employed alums a tool for identifying employee talent from a favorite alma mater. Several of the organizations provided career counseling services to their alumni, such as programs to improve their resume writing and interviewing skills, social events to enhance networking opportunities, and professional career counseling on an individual basis.

One of the organizations, the law school alumni network, was very explicit about how its success in the area of employment for alumni should be measured. As the director said, “We have a clearly defined measurement of success: 100% employment and 100% satisfaction for all graduates at graduation and 9 months later.” The director reported that the organization was “very close” to achieving that goal and credited the peer-to-peer network as playing a significant role in that success.

A peer-to peer alumni network is a critical element for career placement. One extremely successful model of a peer-to-peer network is the law school alumni organization. Its three goals are to “create a spirit of unity and affinity with alumni, to engage in fundraising from its alumni, and to provide an opportunity for social networking among the alumni.” It maintains a resource center that is the hub of activity for the whole network. The resource center coordinates all communications to alumni and creates “networking” opportunities focused on the goal of increasing employment among younger and newer alumni.

To get an indication of the amount of personnel needed to run a successful alumni network, consider the alumni office of the state university we studied, which has a small staff consisting of the executive director, two assistant directors, three full-time staff

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members and three part-time staff. This office services an alumni body of approximately 130,000 members. The consensus among all of the alumni networks was that a specialized peer-to-peer network for military veterans would be very us eful in helping veterans locate jobs, enter new jobs, find better jobs, and succeed in existing jobs.

A “Cradle to Grave” searchable database is a key tool for an alumni network, both for developing and sustaining a cohesive community of alums and for fostering employment opportunities among members. All interviewed alumni groups seek to maintain a so-called “cradle-to-grave” connection with their alumni, establishing a relationship with them day they graduate and working to build and develop that relationship throughout their lives. They encourage the alumni to consider the alumni association as a “resource network,” to which they can utilize under a wide variety of circumstances: seeking new employment, connecting with old friends, seeking to hire from the ranks of alumni, socializing, and mentoring, etc.

An important goal of all the alumni associations in the study is to enroll alumni in a database as soon as possible, sometimes even before they graduate. They also endeavor to keep the alumni entries as up-to-date as possible and to stay in touch with the members throughout their lives. College and university alumni offices routinely contact students both prior to and just after graduation.

At the law school alumni organization, for example, all students are treated as alumni from the first day of admission to the school if not before. In fact, the law school alumni network makes this early sign-up available even to prospective law students. All graduates are automatically entered into the alumni directory, which is available online. The alumni resource center makes new students and young alums aware of the school’s many continuing legal education programs, and usually at least one student is involved in the development of each of those programs. Of the 40,000 graduates of the law school, the Alumni Office has addresses (either mail or email) for about half. The primary means of communicating to them is through mailing of alumni publications, via e-mail, and directly by phone.

For the law school’s alumni database, maintenance is handled by an outside vendor and is primarily an online resource. All graduates receive password access to the alumni directory. Information is initially obtained from the school’s admission office and then must be updated by the alumni themselves. As with other alumni organizations, the primary tools for law school alumni are the online database and the social networking opportunities that are made available to them, including all of the continuing legal education programs.

At the service academy, there are about 70,000 living graduates. Of these, about 50,000 are active members of the Academy Alumni Association. The primary database for alumni is the Service Academy Business Resource Directory (iSABRD), which is an online “Yellow Pages” for service academy alumni. This web-based, service is a joint service database for all graduates of all five service academies (Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine), as well as the Royal Military College of Canada. It is an extremely valuable business-to-business networking tool, which also allows graduates who need services or products to find fellow service academy graduates. The directory is

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also used by graduates during their career transition to the civilian sector to obtain information about prospective employers.

Another feature of the military academy alumni association is a Life Membership at Graduation Program. Since 1980, 99.9% of each class has entered this program and become life members. The lifetime dues are deducted from their salaries in installments over the three years they attend the academy. All information is updated by the alumni themselves. The information is not verified or authenticated by the Alumni Association.

The service academy alumni group, for example, encourages each graduate in its database to maintain a detailed page of information on the website, including work information (such as title, phone numbers and email, work history); information about spouse and children, hobbies, organizations belonged to, etc. The group sends out regular email requests for its members to update these information pages.

Veterans can enroll in the online military academy network free-of-charge simply by registering at the site and providing basic identifying information. They may include as much or as little personal information as they choose. Information is provided voluntarily by those who register with the network and is maintained in an online database. Information about other veterans can be found in the network database, but contact between them is accomplished through a “blind” e-mail system, in which persons submit an e-mail message, which is then sent by the alumni network “blindly” to intended recipients, rather than by providing direct contact information.

For the state university, all alumni are contacted prior to and just after graduation by mail to join the Alumni Association. The Alumni Association is provided with the names and addresses of all members of each graduating class directly from the University. The information is contained in an online database that is the core of the Online Community. Registration is primarily done online or through the mail, and members must pay a $40 annual fee, or $600 lifetime fee, to join the Association. There are 10,000 paid members of the association. The association also occasionally conducts campaigns to increase membership through direct mail, e-mail, and other marketing activities.

It is clear from our research that a proposed veteran peer-to-peer network must make connections with service members before they leave the military, at a time when they feel themselves most connected to their shared experience. An Alumni “Resource Center,” which makes all of the alumni network’s capabilities readily available to alumni, and works to increase “connectivity” among alums, is critical.

The law school alumni association reports their group is an ongoing “resource center,” not only for new or recent graduates who are seeking their first jobs, but also for alumni who have spent time on one or more career paths, only to decide that they want or need to change that path. Law graduates who have spent a few years pursuing a partnership at a major law firms, for example, may decide that this is not a satisfactory professional choice and that they would rather pursue another path.

Fortunately, there are among the thousands of law school alumni many other lawyers who have made similar alternative choices and the alumni representatives are more than happy to introduce the law school alums who are seeking to make a change to those alums who already succeeded in making these transitions. This is a classic example of the “cradle to grave” orientation of a thriving alumni network, which can help a newly-minted lawyer find a first job, help a mid-career lawyer switch professional gears; or even guide a retiring lawyer to new opportunities post retirement.

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The online military alumni network is a multipurpose website that targets the 30 million active duty service members, veterans, and persons with an interest in military-related matters. This website provides news, networking, online career services, military and veteran retail discounts, and additional features.

At the service academy, the Alumni Association employs 83 persons who work in offices located just outside of the gates of the academy. There are 100 Chapters of the Alumni Association located across the United States and worldwide. There are also 73 Class organizations from the Class of 1932 to the Class of 2007. In addition, there are 86 parent clubs located across the country. A regular series of social events that brings alumn i together—such as class reunions, sporting events, cocktail receptions, spe cial speakers, is vital to sustaining the network.

Alumni events are enormously important for all of the alumni organizations, because they provide an opportunity for the alumni representatives to meet and interact with alumni members and a chance for the alumni to talk to and “network” with each other. Alumni fund-raising representatives can make personal appeals for contributions, representatives can speak to alumni about other programs and any number of other activities involving “affinity” groups.

Knowing the value of these face-to-face encounters, the alumni representatives in the study said they continuously work to increase attendance at the events they now stage, and are always thinking about new “affinity” groups they can create, so that they can develop additional events that appeal to these smaller subsets of the large alumni cohort. For the state university alumni network, for example, the focus is primarily on regional reunion events held around the country.

Creating a veteran peer-to-peer network by itself, without providing additional services, benefits, or incentives to bring in members, is less likely to succeed, was the consensus opinion of the various network representatives with whom we spoke. As the Alumni Director at the business school noted, people these days have a defined amount of time and numerous competing demands for that time. Providing reasons other than pure professional networking to engage with other alumni members will enhance the interest of members participating in that network. For the law school, the primary services are social, educational, and career advancement. There are reunions programs class-by-class held every five years, in which about 30% of graduates participate.

In addition, there are social networking events held across the country for alumni, students and prospective students. There are also more than 3,000 continuing legal education programs per year.

The online military network relies upon its large menu of services, including news, social networking, and access to information, benefits and discounts, as the principal incentives to bring people into the network.

Most of the activities of the state university’s alumni office are social in nature; however, from these events the Alumni Association is able to induce people to join the Online Community and the Career Center’s Alumni network, as well as to engage in other volunteer opportunities.

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Alumni benefits provide a strong inducement for alums to remain active in the network and to keep in touch with the network’s resource center.

In the law alumni association, members have a very comprehensive list of benefits, including access to the Law School buildings, library and university athletic facilities. They also receive an Alumni Card, which entitles them to a number of discounts on items ranging from car rentals and parking to movie and theatre discounts. In addition, all alumni are eligible to receive career services and continuing legal education programs.

Service academy alumni association members are eligible for a comprehensive menu of benefits, including a magazine mailed 10 times a year, discounts on commercial and retail purchases, access to the Alumni House for events, and other travel and social programs.

The online alumni network’s mission is to connect veterans with benefits and services they need and deserve. Its career network was set up to provide an additional method of helping transitioning military and veterans find and succeed in jobs in the private sector by creating linkages to other veterans currently working in private sector. It provides the following benefits and services: 1) news and military benefits information, including comprehensive guides to veteran’s benefits; 2) personal networking, including a “Buddy Finder” service based upon military service affinity, organized into military units; and 3) financial discounts for an array of products and services.

For the state university, members have access to the Online Community, a career center, alumni events, and receive a quarterly magazine. An aggressive and coordinated employment program, which uses the alumni database as a springboard to connect recent graduates and younger alumni with older alumni who are already employed in various fields, is indispensable.

One of the most important functions of the alumni n etworks we studied, if not the most important, is to help their alumni members fin d jobs.

The most effective way to accomplish that is to make use of the alumni networks themselves, by “networking” among alumni members who have jobs to find out whether they can be useful to recent graduates seeking jobs.

Generally, according to the alumni networks in the study, alumni who currently hold senior positions in various industries and organizations can be helpful to recent graduates, or other graduates who are thinking of switching jobs, in three major ways: 1) hiring the graduates themselves; 2) referring the graduates to other people who might be interested in hiring them; and 3) acting as mentors in the interest of helping the graduates decide whether a given profession or job is worth pursuing. The service academy, for example, reports that there is a great deal of hiring that takes place within the network of the tens of thousands of service academy graduates represented in its alumni network, because academy graduates “like to hire other academy graduates or work for academy graduates or help academy graduates get jobs or simply do business with them.”

At the law school, from the very first day of admission, the school places a tremendous emphasis on finding satisfying careers for its students. Alumni can receive direct assistance from the Office of Career Services. The alumni database can be used as a networking tool to help alumni find more information about specific job opportunities from alumni who may be working in that firm or company.

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In the first year, law students must complete a very structured program to prepare them to find employment after graduation, including a specific course on preparing their resumes. For alumni, there is a professional career counselor who works only with alumni in the Office of Career Services to provide continuing assistance. The law school also has a very structured program for learning how to succeed in job interviews. Students must attend interview workshops, do practice interviews, and attend social networking events to get experience talking with persons with power. They also have a video mock interview program.

Some of the alumni networks actively seek to introduce their younger alumni or recent graduates to older alumni who are already established in their fields. The law school alumni organization, for example, takes a group of law students to Los Angeles each year, to meet with and in some cases interview with, Law School alumni who are currently working as lawyers in the film, television and entertainment industries.

The business school representatives actively and aggressively “network” among the huge cohort of their alumni, such as alumni who hold senior positions in major American corporations and organizations. They know many of these alums by name and, when they have a graduate student or a recent graduate that is interested in a given company, they can call the alums and ask them to meet with or interview the graduate, or at least refer them. Also, representatives of major companies visit the business school every year, knowing that it is a prime source for recruiting talent.

Career coaching, instruction in resume writing, and practice job interviewing, are all services provided by all of the alumni organizations interviewed, with the exception of the Internet based network, which does not provide such “hands-on” assistance.

The online military website does provide some employment services, including job listings, resume posting, and online career services. As with the other alumni networks, veterans who are part of the network can gain additional information about job opportunities by contacting a fellow veteran member who works at given company, as identified through the network.

The foundation, which has a small but rapidly growing network of people of color who are pursuing positions in finance and accounting, also aggressively networks among this group of alums on behalf of newer graduates from its program.

At the state university, all alumni have free access to a national Internet service with 200,000 job listings and a resume posting service. Alumni also can list and find jobs through the alumni network’s online community. Jobs available at the University are posted separately through the University’s website.

Using the state university’s Career Network, an online database of alumni, alumni can find valuable connections and information on job search strategies, specific companies, industry trends and professional organizations. Also, the Alumni Association has contracted with a local career counselor to provide career services to alumni at significantly discounted rates.

The service academy Alumni Office, in collaboration with the other service academies, holds three job fairs a year. Eighty to 100 employers participate in each of the career fairs, of which about 1/3 of the companies are from the defense sector and 2/3rds are from non-defense sector industries. About 800-900 alumni pay a $35 fee to participate in each job fair. A fourth job fair is being added this year.

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In addition, the Joint Service Academy Jobs Electronically (JSAJE) is an exclusive job web site designed for service academy alumni seeking private sector jobs. It also hosts alumni resumes for employers who are seeking service academy alumni for job openings. There were about 140 job listings and 1,500 active resumes on JSAJE at the time of our meeting. The iSABRD database discussed above is also a significant resource in helping alumni find jobs through networking. The iSABRD network is also the primary way that alumni can get help in securing interviews for specific job openings.

Any member of the service academy who is seeking a job at a given company or in a given industry can access either the bound volume or the online version of iSABRD, and can quickly identify graduates or alums of the other four service academies, who currently work at that company or in that industry, along with contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses. Equally importantly, any graduate from this academy who is in a senior position at a company and who is desirous of hiring graduates from this academy, finds the iSABRD directory a valuable source of talent.

For the services academy, the Director of Career Services provides personal career counseling on resumes. Also, preparation for specific job interviews is offered through individual counseling by the Director of Career Services.

An active communications outreach program, utilizin g alumni magazines, newsletters, phone calls, online publications and b last emails is vital for sustaining network.

At the law school, the primary means of communicating with its thousands of alums

is through mailing of alumni publications, via e-mail, and directly by phone. All of the networks interviewed in the study had active and widespread communications programs, which endeavored to maintain communications with alumni with regularity, using a broad spectrum of media, ranging from electronic newsletters to more conventional print publications.

Mentoring programs are an important way for experienced alumni to guide newer graduates, but they must be structured and conducted to reflect current realities of time constraints and the resistance of potential participants.

Mentoring must be changed and adapted to reflect today’s social structures and relationships. Today’s generation of potential mentors is less willing to make the time and social commitment to serve as volunteer mentors in school settings.

All of the peer-to-peer networks talked about the value of mentors and mentoring relationships, in terms of helping new alumni and recent graduates develop a better sense of which jobs or careers they would like to pursue. Whether it is a senior attorney at a major law firm who is willing to introduce a law student or recent graduate to the intricacies of courtroom litigation, or a CFO of a Forbes 500 corporation who is willing to mentor a newly minted MBA, mentoring is yet another tool for increasing communications among alumni, as well as helping young alumni get more information about career choices. In spite of this value, the law school, for example, no longer spends a significant amount of time or resources in running a traditional mentorship program, in which the school develops possible matches between mentors and mentees. In the past, this involved a long and laborious process of working to meet the expectations of the participants and seeking the best possible matches.

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In addition, the number of potential mentors has declined in recent years because of the fear that it would be too great a commitment. As a result, the law school has developed a program called the “8-Minute Mentoring Program”, which is modeled on ‘speed dating’ in terms of how the mentor and mentee interact in a succession of brief (8-minute) meetings, and can seek to develop mentoring relationships if a connection is made. Mentors commit only to a two-hour session at which they will interact with 12 to 15 potential mentees for 8-minutes, and then rotate to the next. If there is a good connection and match, it is up to the mentor and mentee to make that connection themselves.

At the state university, the career network includes an opportunity for alumni to volunteer as mentors and advisors for other students or graduates. There are about 600 to 700 alumni who have agreed to be mentors. The program was begun five years ago and includes detailed information about the mentors, including where they work and their direct contact information.

For the service academy, the Alumni Association does not actively help alumni find mentors in the private sector. However, using social networking opportunities offered by the Association, as well as the iSABRD database, alumni may develop their own mentor relationships. A “network of networks” is likely the optimal model for success for a thriving alumni network, an ever-expanding web of connectivity that incorporates an interlocking network of the many different “affinity groups” that make up the overall alumni cohort.

So-called “affinity groups” are increasingly import ant for all of the alumni networks.

In terms of fostering more “connectivity” among their alumni, the various networks

have found that it is helpful to identify subsets of the overall alumni group that have a common interest or passion. This can range from business school students who are interested in environmental activism to law students interested in hearing speakers who are experts in constitutional law, to people of color in finance who are desirous of finding out which companies are most welcoming of minorities. Any shared interest that inclines groups of alumni to communicate with each other accomplishes the objective of promoting more “networking.” Affinity groups can also be effective in terms of promoting employment, in that groups of alumni who routinely gather together to discuss or enjoy some affinity group activity or interest, may end up talking to each other about working together.

Social interaction can lead to economic interaction. The minority education foundation has one of the strongest bonds between its members. They reported that this bond resulted in tremendous assistance among its members in terms of job referrals and mentoring. The services academy also had one of the strongest bonds because of its intense shared experience. The representatives of this organization reported that the affinity among the members was almost universal and lasted their lifetimes.

At the law school, because the school has a very limited physical campus, the alumni organization relies on “virtual” methods of organizing student alumni programs. The primary method of organizing the alumni is through the development of “wide variety of affinity” groups, which are then further divided into smaller affinity groups and cross-sectional affinity groups. Examples of these affinity groups include groups organized by practice, geography, graduating class, non-practicing lawyers, seriously ill, gender, race, and sexual orientation.

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Rather than create a single national network for veterans, a better model may be to construct a “network of networks” based upon smaller, more closely connected veteran and military communities. The state university representatives said that a veterans’ resource network would be a good idea because the strength of a network is related to the strength of the common bond, and military veterans appear to have a stronger bond than most college graduates. The stronger and closer the bond and shared experience between people, the more likely they will have a desire to help each other, which is the basis for “networking.”

There exists no comprehensive peer-to-peer network for the vast majority of military veterans seeking career development and ad vancement support.

Although two of the organizations visited had peer-to-peer networks available to members who were veterans, neither had a sufficiently comprehensive system. The online military organization has developed several online programs and services, however its open registration process creates a weak affinity among its members. In addition, because it is Internet-based, it cannot deliver comprehensive career services to its members. The service academy has developed a very strong model for its members, all of whom are military veterans. However, this organization does not extend beyond a limited membership of graduates from this institution and similar institutions, representing only a very small percentage of the nation’s 26 million veterans. 3.1.3. Part Three: Branding and Marketing Summits

A series of three summits with branding, marketing, advertising, and public relations professionals affirmed the study’s preliminary hypotheses that a targeted marketing strategy is essential for breaking down barriers to veteran employment. Specifically, a well-developed marketing strategy should be executed to help veterans overcome the prevalent negative perceptions about veterans, and to promote the positive value of military experience. In addition, concurrent public relations and educational activities focused upon case studies of veterans who have succeeded in small, medium and large business should be a strong component of marketing materials. Following are the detailed findings from the branding and marketing summits. There is a need to change corporate perceptions of the value of military service to business.

Participants in the branding and marketing summits reached a consensus—that there exists a need to change corporate perceptions of the value of military service to business. To dispel the myths, misconceptions and stereotypes that prevail in the minds of many business executives, a comprehensive marketing strategy should be enacted. Summit experts supported findings from corporate interviews and noted that one of the main reasons companies don’t hire more veterans is that there are very pronounced negative perceptions about ex-military among hiring managers, including: 1) military service just produces mindless infantry soldiers who take orders and carry guns; 2) veterans don’t learn relevant skills to meet the demands of today’s businesses; 3)

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veterans who have emerged from the rigid command structure of the armed forces are robotic characters who have no capacity to think independently or creatively; 4) veterans who have been schooled in this rigid, authoritarian, “take orders” school do not have the flexibility and adaptability to adjust to the rapidly changing environment of modern business. Comprehensive marketing research must be conducted prior to development of a marketing strategy.

Before designing the marketing strategy, there was agreement that considerable research should be completed.

This research should be designed to describe the experiences of the thousands of veterans below the CEO level in American business that have made significant contributions to the success of their companies. The research should include veterans who have started small businesses and succeeded in building thriving enterprises. Summit participants felt that if the research could prove that, in some cases, veterans in certain business roles had outperformed their non-veteran counterparts in similar roles and in similar competitive situations, that fact alone could have a powerfully stimulating effect on the hiring of other veterans.

Additional research will be necessary to develop a marketing strategy that is relevant to the needs of hiring managers—and responsive to providing specific kinds of talent needed to fill specific jobs in their industries. In addition, qualitative research should be conducted with key stakeholders of the employment industry, including human resources personnel, executive recruiters, talent acquisition executives and hiring managers to learn about how to most effectively position, message and reach each audience.

The marketing strategy must have clear metrics for success, and should begin with small efforts.

Implementation of the veteran marketing strategic plan should begin with “pilot” marketing campaigns focused upon targeted populations. Early efforts should be monitored and tested for effectiveness through both qualitative and quantitative measures, before considering a roll out of bigger and broader national campaigns to other segments.

The budget for a strategic marketing plan to help veterans transition to private sector jobs could be related to a percentage of the costs of military recruitment.

To meet the potential costs of implementing such a marketing plan, it was suggested that a portion of existing marketing budgets spent on military recruitment should be dedicated to the purpose of finding employment for recruits after they leave the service. One expert noted that in product marketing the budget is usually based upon a percentage of sales; thus, it might be comparable to peg the marketing costs of implementing a plan to improve transitioning veterans’ employment prospects at a percentage of the military recruitment budget.

One way to measure the success of such a campaign will be through “brand equity,” which involves qualitative research, such as tracking studies which measure attitudes and feelings about veterans and their key attributes. In product marketing, changes in brand equity are a reliable precursor to sales changes. (The quantitative

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research science behind brand value is well documented and used within the marketplace. It is true that “brand equity” doesn’t always translate to increased sales, but it does support brand quality perception and sustainable market share.) To market veterans using consumer marketing techniq ues, a product portfolio should be developed.

Another finding from the Summits is that if the veteran as a “product” is going to be

promoted and supported by an advertising and marketing plan, it would be useful to develop a “product portfolio” for the brand, which would provide an overview of the individual strengths and collective expertise veterans can bring to employers. There was agreement that this “portfolio” would include all of the positive perceptions of veterans that had been previously discussed, e.g. discipline, teamwork, strong work ethic, reliability, high integrity, capacity for leadership, ability to perform well under pressure, and ability to see a project through to completion. There was also agreement that the portfolio would contain a description of the specific skills and talents that veterans demonstrably possess: a capacity for “project management”; a command of technological and computer skills; an ability to adapt these skills to a wide variety of mission critical tasks; a demonstrated ability to assume a leadership role at a very early stage of a “career.”

In comparing the relevant experience of many veterans to that of their civilian peers, it would be important to emphasize that many young people in the armed forces are thrust into a leadership role in their early 20s, at an age when their civilian counterparts of the same age are usually just taking the first steps on the career ladder and have little or no opportunity to develop leadership skills. A successful marketing plan must be believable, rel evant, and must motivate to action .

Experts at the Summits supported the standard marketing tenets that a successful marketing and branding campaign must be “believable,” be “relevant to companies’ needs,” and motivate new actions.” To be believable, it should be more than just a collection of catchy slogans and clever pitches, since the average hiring manager working “under the gun” needs to believe that the veteran job candidate will make a real contribution to a company, and not be just a slickly hyped product. In that regard, perhaps the most critical part of the campaign will be its ability to convince skeptical hiring mangers that veterans really do have skills and talents that are “relevant to companies’ needs.” And, finally, the real acid test of how effective this type of campaign is will be the extent to which it motivates hiring mangers to “real action,” that is hiring considerably more veterans. This will be the real “bottom line” measure of whether the campaign is a success or not.

In order to motivate hiring managers to “take new actions” with regard to hiring veterans, it was agreed that a successful marketing plan should include strong visual and emotional appeals. One participant cited the TV advertising campaign for the recruitment of Marines, which features the slogan, “The few, the proud, the Marines.” This campaign, which showcases a young person who is transformed through his military training into a polished, heroic, almost mythical figure—able to do battle with powerful enemies while

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wielding a polished sword and a confident air—typifies the kind of vibrant and emotional pitch that the best advertising of this kind would embody. A strategic marketing plan for veterans should have elements similar to a “branding” campaign for a consumer product.

There was considerable discussion during the Summits that the development of a

branding and marketing plan on behalf of the employability of veterans should be based on the concept of veterans as a “brand.” It then follows that the ability to assess ongoing “brand equity” of this brand in the marketplace would be useful. In other words, if “veterans” were considered as a product associated with a brand, like Nike or Coca Cola or Pepcid AC, it would be possible to determine what employers and the public think of the “brand.”

After some discussion of how the veteran brand is currently being perceived by most Americans, it was agreed that it has lost a fair amount of its “brand equity” in the last 30-40 years, and is in serious need of a branding overhaul. The participants agreed that the zenith of the veteran brand occurred at the end of World War II, when hundreds of thousands of veterans of that successful war returned home to a hero’s welcome, and were received with open arms by American companies, big and small.

The participants also agreed that the nadir of the brand veteran probably occurred at the end of the Vietnam War, when tens of thousands of American veterans returned home to find that, far from being hailed as heroes, in many cases they were reviled and shunned—and not so subtly blamed for what was widely perceived to be a military failure.

Summit participants agreed that the current state of “brand equity” for veterans lies somewhere between that of the heroic image of the post World War II soldiers, and the “spat at, baby killer” image that was common after Vietnam. One participant mentioned that in the post 9/11 era, there has been a resurgence of patriotic feeling aimed at those members of the armed forces who are fighting the War on Terror, and that this feeling might contribute to an improvement in the perceptions of the overall brand of veterans. Others cautioned that the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq might have repercussions in terms of negative feelings toward the veterans who emerge from this conflict, not dissimilar to those that plagued Vietnam veterans.

The Summits concluded that the nation’s citizens have learned something important from the Vietnam War experience about the need to separate the war being fought from the people who are fighting it, and about how crucial it is not to blame this generation of young veterans no matter what the final outcome of and judgment on the current war might be. Nonetheless, another participant warned that the reports of veterans of the Iraq war coming back with PTSD and ailments stemming from “bio hazard” exposure—which are eerily similar to the reports a generation ago about Vietnam veterans returning with health problems related to Agent Orange—could end up casting a pall over the image of Iraq war veterans, and stigmatizing them in the public’s mind, in spite of our best efforts to treat them fairly. All of these factors should be weighed in developing a strategic marketing plan that seeks to present a more positive image of the brand veteran.

One marketing expert observed that, if the marketing plan is, in effect, to represent veterans as a “product” that needs to be re-branded, the “selling points” of this product

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should be identified. These selling points would be the equivalent of the kinds of testimonials that are presented to support various consumer products, such as pain relievers (“fast acting”) or Volvo cars (“safe”). Along those lines, just as in the marketing campaigns in support of a consumer product like a pain reliever, it will be important to break the veteran “brand” into smaller segments for the purposes of marketing. For example, one expert noted that Tylenol is a “master brand”; while Tylenol PM, Tylenol Arthritis, Tylenol Cold Relief are all sub-brands that share elements of the “master brand,” but require wholly separate marketing efforts for each of their targeted audiences. In the same way, the “master brand” is the whole cohort of veterans, but there may need to be “sub-brands” created that represented, for example, the different services of the armed forces such as the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guard. Furthermore, one might need to break these sub-brands into even smaller sub-brands, representing groups such as veterans with combat experience, veterans with a background in intelligence and computer technology, or wounded and disabled veterans.

A primary goal of a strategic marketing plan should focus on refuting, dispelling, and overcoming inaccurate negative perceptions of v eterans.

Summit participants agreed that one goal of a marketing strategy should be to dispel the negative perceptions that hiring managers have about veterans, and replace those misconceptions with more positive images. There was general discussion about what those positive perceptions might be, and general agreement that they include the following: Veterans are known for: 1) teamwork 2) discipline 3) an ability to perform under extremely stressful situations, such as the kinds of chaos and unpredictability that prevail during warfare; 4) an ability to accomplish a mission; 5) a particular capacity for “project management”; 6) a proven capacity to simply “outwork” their civilian counterparts. (As one expert explained, “Folks who have been in the armed forces—who are used to the long hours and arduous life in the military—will show up earlier, work harder and stay later than the average civilian employee. The veteran will still be at the office at 7:00 pm, making her last call to a client or customer, long after her civilian counterparts have gone home.”)

Along with promotion of positive characteristics, image problems should also be addressed. Summit participants identified four prevalent negative perceptions: 1) questions about mental stability, such as PTSD 2) a belief that volunteering to serve in the Armed Forces indicates that the person was a “loser” who had no other options—the military was a choice of “last resort” 3) military veterans are used to operating along strict chains of command, giving and following orders, and that veterans are not independent thinkers, and 4) the training, skills and experience gained from serving in the military is of no value to corporate America—e.g. veterans have no real business skills.

In particular the veteran marketing strategy has to overcome the idea that only a “loser” would enlist in the armed forces, that the only kids who enlist now are those who either cannot get decent jobs or cannot get into college; and that the armed forces is their “last resort.” As one marketing expert asserted, “some people think that these are kids that even McDonald’s doesn’t want to hire.” Another participant added that this perception has been reinforced by news stories describing how the armed forces, supposedly desperate to recruit enough bodies to meet their recruitment goals, has been forced to significantly lower the benchmark standards of what constitutes an acceptable recruit.

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However, rather than seeking to refute all inaccurate negative perceptions of military veterans, the marketing plan should consider focusing upon promoting the positive perceptions as being more important than negative ones. Instead of trying to counter and override all of the negative stereotypes about veterans and military service, it may be more practical to focus upon offering positive images that outweigh the negative ones. As one participant characterized it, “play the cards you are dealt.”

Because of the inherent difficulty of changing people’s beliefs and countering entrenched stereotypes, Summit participants agreed that it may be better to identify and emphasize the specific and tangible job skills that many veterans possess—such as project management, consulting, procurement, supply-chain management or accounting—rather than focus too much on of more subjective attributes such as “discipline” and “teamwork.” Hiring managers no doubt appreciate the value of traits like discipline and integrity, but when it comes to the moment of adding a veteran to a company’s workforce, it may be more compelling that the veteran has a proven track record of performing successfully in the specific role that the hiring manager needs to fill. The point was reiterated that it would be important to identify the specific “job skills” that would be desirable in different industries, and to tailor the presentations of veterans’ job skills so that they coincided with the skills needed in the industries they sought to enter. As part of an ongoing strategic marketing plan, veterans’ training, skills, and experience should be translated into terminology that is easily understood and valued by the private sector.

Quite apart from the need to foster these more positive images of veterans, Summit participants agreed that the kinds of military skills ant talents veterans have acquired should be “translated” into the specific skills that the average corporation is actually looking for in order to fill key positions. As one person asserted, “It’s all well and good for a hiring manager to understand that a veteran is disciplined and a team player, but if the hiring manager is looking for somebody with a specific background in, say, banking, insurance or consumer products, then even the most disciplined and reliable veteran candidate may be out of luck because of a perception that she or he has nothing to offer in the way of translatable skills for the job in question.”

Thus, if veterans are to be successfully marketed to hiring managers in a given industry, it will be necessary to reassess the veteran’s military background and “skill set” and to “redefine” them in a way that is relevant to that industry. Also, as several Summit participants pointed out, the incomprehensible technical jargon that makes so many veterans’ resumes impossible to decipher must be “translated” into common terminology that a hiring manager in a given industry understands. This will assist hiring managers in discerning whether the veteran in question has something tangible to offer the company. There was general agreement at the Summits that marketing research will be necessary to identify which qualities an “ideal” job candidate should have to be a seriously considered for jobs in different industries.

Clearly, as one participant pointed out, a veteran who is seeking a job in the insurance industry, for example, will need to present different qualifications and abilities than, say, a veteran who is seeking to get hired in the software industry or the entertainment industry. In order to assess what these “ideal qualities” are, it may also help, as another person pointed out, if the research were to include in-depth interviews with hiring managers in a broad spectrum of industries. One goal of this marketing

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research would be to develop a collection of “key words” that could be used in targeted campaigns for various industries.

As part of a marketing plan, it may be necessary to change the specific terminology used to describe military veterans. After a discussion of the term “veteran” and whether the term itself has a positive or negative image in the mind of the public—and therefore would play a positive or negative role in a branding campaign— it was agreed that it may be important to change the terminology that is commonly used to refer to those who have served in the military. The consensus among the group was that the term “veteran” to many people connotes, as one participant described, “an old gentleman in a purple-hat who marches haltingly in parades.”

Even though ‘veteran’ is an honored and respected epithet, the marketing experts at the table thought that the “image” of the term veteran “skewed old” and contained an impression of physical feebleness. One participant noted that if one were going to build a marketing plan around a term, perhaps it might be wise to select one that carried a greater sense of modernity and physical vibrancy, or at least did not convey images of advanced age and physical decline. One expert suggested that the campaign could utilize a term such as “Military-Americans,” which might convey a special status on the veteran group in the manner of other terms, like African-Americans, Irish Americans or Asian Americans.

An educational campaign about modern military servi ce should be included as an integral part of a strategic marketing plan.

One Summit participant noted that there is a need to “demystify military service”

and to convince the public that those who that have served in the armed forces “are much more than just foot soldiers.” A perceptual bridge is needed to present veterans as more “businesslike,” and thus easier to assimilate into a corporate workplace. One way to do this, it was suggested, may be to educate the public and American business about the enormously complicated and highly efficient system of people and processes that underlies and supports the soldiers on the front lines.

As one expert noted, for every soldier on the front lines there is a tightly coordinated and highly skilled team of people who ensure that the soldiers have everything they need, from supplies to intelligence to weapons, to conduct their operations effectively. These supporting players range from the supply chain expert who makes sure that enough food and supplies arrive in the battle zone on time, to the communications expert who is guiding soldiers to their next theater of operation, using every electronic and technological tool at her disposal. By putting some of the focus on these vital support personnel, and emphasizing that the kinds of skills these people display could be useful to any large enterprise, the marketing message could reduce if not eliminate the notion the average veteran is nothing but a one-dimensional fighting machine.

In addition to marketing and re-branding plans designed to change perceptions and impressions about veterans, Summit participants agreed that there is a need to mount a major education initiative that would coincide with and help bolster the marketing efforts. This education campaign could take many forms: 1) direct discussions with hiring managers in which advocates for veterans would seek to dispel the damaging myths and misconceptions about veterans, and replace these preconceptions with more substantive information about the positive traits veterans possess; 2) presentations to be made at the

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annual meeting of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), which would be designed to educate human resources professionals and talent acquisition executives about the many qualities that veterans possess that would be valuable to their businesses; 3) producing informational materials, to be available to employers or other interested parties, detailing the demographic profile of the 250,000 veterans who transition out of the military each year, such as their educational levels, skill sets, and technical acumen.

Beyond the more direct marketing and branding efforts—which could range from national PSAs (public service announcements) on TV and radio to “viral marketing” via cell phones or the Internet—it was agreed that backup materials should be created that can help quantify the “business value” of the military/veteran asset, in terms that will make it easier for companies to conclude that it’s important to include veterans as an integral part of the overall talent acquisition process. A comprehensive public relations campaign should be another component of the marketing plan.

A public relations expert pointed out that it may be imperative to conduct a vigorous public relations (PR) campaign in concert with the marketing and branding initiatives. To be most effective, the expert said, the PR campaign should be launched in advance of the marketing campaign, and should be aimed at laying the groundwork for establishing the major themes of that marketing effort. One key objective of this PR campaign would be to battle the various negative stereotypes and myths about military service, particularly those related to combat and stress disorders.

An indispensable element of this PR effort would be to disseminate the kinds of “successful veteran in business” stories that were referred to earlier. The placement of these kinds of positive stories about executives, who have utilized their experience in the armed forces as a springboard for business success, will go a long way in adding credibility and reinforcement to the presentations of the marketing experts. If one were able to place such stories in the kinds of major business publications that are read every day by company executives and hiring managers—publications like Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and The Financial Times—then a firm foundation would be laid for the marketing appeals to come.

In fact, as the PR expert pointed out, studies show that the average consumer is more inclined to believe something that is printed in the news pages of a newspaper or magazine, than something that is merely offered in an advertising or marketing campaign. If one could manage to present the veterans’ marketing messages in both forums, first in news publications and later in the marketing and advertising media, then the messages will reinforce each other and add up to a more convincing presentation than would be possible in a PR campaign or a marketing campaign alone.

A possible marketing strategy would be to develop “case studies” of successful transitions by veterans into the private sector, or of companies that became successful or more successful by proactively recruiting and hiring veterans. In marketing veterans to business, several participants noted how important it would be to use actual case studies of successful transitions by service members into private sector employment. Real life examples of veterans who have carved out successful careers in business not only reinforce the message of the value that veterans can bring to business, but also make it

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easier for hiring managers and talent acquisition executives to “envision” veterans working for them. By showcasing the stories veterans who have succeeded in business, the marketing campaign can have a profound impact on a hiring manager, who, having “seen” the example of veterans who have thrived in business, may feel more confident about taking a chance on another veteran who could duplicate the success of the veteran who was showcased.

The Value of the Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives’ List of the Forbes 500 CEOs who are Veterans

In this regard, one participant noted that a trove of information that could be used in

such a campaign of veteran business success existed in the list, compiled by The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives (Veterans Across America ™), of the veterans who had ascended to become the CEOs of the Forbes 500 biggest American companies. This list of more than 40 names would provide plenty of raw materials for such a “success” campaign, especially if one were to focus on those CEOs who had started on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder and risen to the highest level. Among this group, it was mentioned, is Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon Communications, who, upon leaving the armed forces after service in Vietnam, returned to an entry-level job as a lineman for a phone company—and worked his way up to heading a global telecommunications enterprise. Another example of this “mailroom to boardroom” success, it was noted, is Joe Grano, who started his working career post Vietnam as a local stock broker and worked his way up to being, for a time, CEO of UBS Paine Webber.

A possible theme for a marketing campaign could be the Armed Forces operate in many ways as a very large business or corporation, and that military experience has much in common with business experience. One expert said that it would be advisable to “take the veteran out of the military space” and to make the case that the armed forces, rather than being some “alien culture” where a veteran could not learn any transferable business skills, was in fact the “biggest employer in the country,” a business proving ground where service members are learning valuable business skills every day. He added that the attention of employers in the private sector should be focused on the idea that running the armed forces is in effect just like running a big business, in fact a “highly successful business with a worldwide scope.”

He counseled that the advocates for the armed forces as a big business should be saying, “We have logistics, we have payroll and accounting, we have supply chain, we have project management, we have personnel management, we have telecommunications—in fact we have all the essential elements of any successful business.” He added that “Everybody is impressed these days if you say you work for a GE or an IBM, but, in truth, even these giant enterprises pale in comparison to the sheer size and scope of the armed forces, in terms of the size of its infrastructure and the magnitude of the logistical challenges it faces every day.”

To reinforce the idea that veterans are in effect skilled employees who just happen to have acquired their skills in a different kind of big company setting, one could make the case that most veterans have worked their way up through the “same kind of tracking system” that exists in corporate America. Just as in a big company an employee can start in the mailroom and work his/her way up to upper management, so the veteran has often

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risen from the lowest military rank to a much higher rank, gathering greater experience, increased responsibility and superior abilities at every step of the way. Another person noted that the goal is to help hiring managers reach the conclusion that the armed forces are “just one huge company with offices all over the world, delivering services to all of us on a daily basis.”

The corollary of this marketing message would be that the average veteran applying for a job not only has transferable skills but in fact has “already worked in a corporate setting.” Another corollary would be that the veteran job candidate has “already demonstrated a capacity to make a ‘bottom line’ contribution” to a company. If this particular marketing approach were adopted, it would be important, as one person said, “to counsel veterans who are transitioning from the military to be ready to articulate this ‘military is big business’ theme, and to be prepared to make this case in job interviews.”

In terms of the pitch to hiring managers that veterans possess transferable job skills relevant to business, one participant suggested that “We should create a ‘Project manager certification,’ one that would likely be welcomed by the private sector as a clear indicator” that the person with this certificate has a particular kind of skill that is eminently useful in many different kinds of companies. Also, in marketing military service, one could liken the “honorable discharge” to an academic degree, and articulate the kinds of skills and talents that the average veteran has picked up along the way to getting this “degree.”

Marketing Four Years of Military Service as Compara ble to Four Years in Business

The suggestion was made, for example, that one could try to “market” four years of

military service as being comparable to the first four years of business experience in a company. One could add, this person noted, that serving four years in the armed forces is very much analogous to working in the early years of a career at any company: that the recruit who joins the armed forces, like his/her civilian counterpart who takes an entry level job at a company, has to do the following: quickly adjust to a new situation, learn to perform a series of tasks and deliver a superior performance on those tasks, respond intelligently to the demands made by superiors, and chart a course in the organization that will lead to positions of greater responsibility.

In fact, one could argue that 3-4 years in the military actually offers a relatively greater opportunity for proving one’s leadership capability, since young recruits in the armed forces are frequently asked to assume “management” positions of great responsibility early in the game—being thrust into a position as head of a platoon, for example. As part of this aspect of the marketing campaign, one could make the case that the rudiments of business knowledge can be learned in a matter of months, but that true leadership and character may take years to develop.

A possible theme for another marketing campaign could be to expand patriotic support for the troops to supporting them by hiring them after they return home.

There were differing opinions about what form the overall marketing campaign should take. There had been considerable discussion dating back to the first branding summit about the need for a “national branding and marketing campaign,” but there were varying opinions about whether a large, broad, national campaign would actually be the most effective way to reach the many audiences that would need to be convinced about the value of hiring veterans. One marketing expert argued for a “big picture” national

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campaign, and recommended that one of the central themes of such a campaign should be, “Support our troops by hiring our troops when they finish serving their country.” The expert suggested that this “pitch” would capitalize on the “patriotic” feeling of many employers, and would provide them with a simple and direct way of translating their convictions about “supporting the troops” into practical actions. The key message would be that “to support means to hire.”

The “Publicity Value” of Hiring Veterans, from Medi a Coverage

Another expert noted that those employers who embraced this message and began

to hire more veterans would be able to take advantage of the “publicity value” of their actions; they could quietly seeking to generate media stories about their efforts to support the troops, by providing them with employment after they had completed their service to country. In effect the message would be “we are supporting our troops” by giving them the opportunity “to support themselves” post service. Another possible targeting strategy for a marketing campaign would be to focus on specific skill sets or industries for which military experience is more easily transferable.

Another argument offered in support of this more targeted marketing approach is to focus the campaign on the specific “skill sets” that many veterans are widely understood to possess and then target the industries that would be most receptive to welcoming job candidates with those skill sets. The clearest example of this, all of the experts agreed, was the “technological and computer skills” that many veterans acquire in the military. Rather than begin a marketing campaign with a broad, general claim that veterans have skills that are translatable into the needs of business, it would be more effective to focus tightly on these technology skills, and aim the campaign at companies and hiring managers who are looking for these skills. Companies in this target group would include defense companies, software companies specializing in surveillance, artificial intelligence or hacker detection, and other high tech companies focused on robotics and other technical areas. A particular target for this appeal might be the legions of small-and-medium sized technology companies that are eager to hire people with technical training, but who may not get the huge outpouring of resumes that bigger and better known companies receive.

One of the main reasons to adopt this “targeted” approach focused on technological skills and successes in select industries, according to one expert, is that “changing behaviors and attitudes, especially well-entrenched ideas, is one of the most difficult things to accomplish in marketing,” and often takes an extended period of time. In the meantime, while the overall campaign is striving to slowly change the public’s general attitudes about veterans, the targeted campaign will be doing its work to change perceptions in one sector of the economy.

The Marketing Focus on the “Low Hanging Fruit,” suc h as Military Contractors

The campaign might first focus, on the “low hanging fruit,” such as military

contractors or companies that utilize police forces and security agencies, or other companies that already have shown receptivity to hiring veterans with technological skills. Then, as noted, the marketing messages could build on these successes to reach other

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industries. One of the key points to stress in this regard is that computer and technological skills are a well established part of the “skill set” of most veterans. Once a small group of technology-oriented companies has hired a substantial number of veterans—and especially once these companies have enjoyed proven successes with this infusion of new veteran employees—this becomes a bona fide “success story” that can be utilized to build interest within other industries.

As one expert explained, “Once you’ve established that these people (veterans) are successful in one area of the economy, you can extrapolate this success and export it to other parts of the economy. Let’s say IBM and GE are looking for people who are versed in technology, then you can make them aware that some other companies are already capitalizing on this asset.” “Success breeds success,” as one participant asserted. Another stimulus in this process of spreading the news of veteran talent from one company to another is that, in a period when there is a growing "war for talent,” as was mentioned by many of the hiring managers interviewed in the study, companies that see other companies taking advantage of a key talent pool, especially one that can contribute to a company’s productivity and profitability, are likely to follow suit and try to get their fair share of this asset.

Another point to stress in persuading hiring managers that it would be productive to hire veterans who have mastered advanced technological and computer skills, is that these potential employees have already proven that they can learn complex procedures and skills, and therefore it is likely they will be able to quickly learn whatever they need to, or are asked to, in the course of adapting to new responsibilities or new job requirements.

In terms of structuring the marketing campaign, the first step, Summit participants agreed, would be to segment the employment market into specific industries or job types, such as banking, software and technology, consumer products, insurance and the like. Then, after reviewing market research information from each industry, individual marketing campaigns “targeting” the employers and hiring managers in those industries could be implemented. It may also be advantageous to first pursue the “low hanging fruit”—such as defense industries, security specialists or other technical skill jobs—that have a proven track record or a strong reputation for hiring lots of veterans. Once the campaign has been successful in stimulating an increased demand for veterans in these select industries, one would then in a position to capitalize on these employment successes—by extending these breakthroughs into further success in other market segments.

The Focus of the Marketing Campaign on the “C-Suite ” of Executives

Another targeting strategy for marketing campaigns might be to focus upon top

corporate executives either at or below the “C-Level.” One expert noted that, if the marketing plan were to be successful in reaching

executives and hiring managers of Forbes 500 companies, it would be important to direct some of the communications at the “C-suite” (Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, etc…) The theory was, as one expert noted, “If the CEO concludes that hiring veterans will contribute to the success of the business, and that hiring veterans is a top priority, this conviction will disseminate through the company and in particular will be conveyed to the HR and talent acquisition departments. But various other experts noted that, in their experience, trying to communicate with the C-suite level

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of corporation was a formidable challenge these days, “since everybody is trying to get to the CEO” and the “average CEO is so overwhelmed by the various demands on her time and the many appeals for action,” that it’s nearly impossible to break through the logjam. The general consensus was that a better strategy would be to “aim the marketing campaign” just below the level of the C-suite and assume that, if the messages are compelling, they will “filter up.”

One participant mentioned that one of the logical ways to get the attention of the C-suite of executives, and that of the top executives just below that level, is to identify many examples of veterans who have transitioned into the workforce, “fast-tracked their way to success” and made key “bottom-line contributions” to their companies. This is particularly true of those veterans who have started at the bottom rung of the employment ladder and worked their way up to be CEOs, such as Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon, or Joe Grano, who was for a time CEO of UBS Paine Webber. One could start by publicizing the career paths of the more than 40 CEOs who are veterans and are running Forbes 500 companies. In fact, a whole marketing campaign, one person noted, could be built on the stories of veterans who have reached the top rungs of business in America. Another person added that this “success” campaign could be expanded to include veterans who had started successful businesses, like the World War II veteran who founded Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

One person reminded the Summit that “we can build a positive portrait” of the veteran, for example by reminding people that a company like Federal Express was founded by military pilots and is headed by a veteran; it would be important to make the point that the veterans who founded FedEx “didn’t have any civilian background in business before they started and ran this big business, and that they were capitalizing primarily on talents and experience they had acquired in the military. In researching these “veteran” executives, however, one person noted that there are probably many veterans in senior positions in American companies whose status as former military is either little known, or totally unknown; this is because many people who have served in the armed forces either “downplay their veteran status or hide it altogether.” One person noted that, because in the past we have “politicized military service,” such as in the Vietnam era, many veterans are inclined to “camouflage” the fact they have served; they may not acknowledge their service in their resumes or on their business cards, whereas, by contrast, back in the 1940s and 1950s people were much more open about revealing their background in the armed forces.

Along these lines, the campaign needs to stress that these are “a number of very competitive and talented people” who have served in the military, and that in fact, in a time when there’s a war for talent, these are “good people to grab before other companies get their hands on them”—and that this is a talent pool that you “overlook at your peril.”

The Focus on Small and Medium-sized Businesses

Another important target for marketing is small and medium sized-business, where

most job opportunities reside. One veterans’ employment expert noted that, when fashioning the early stages of a marketing plan, it probably would make sense to aim the first pitches at small-to-medium enterprises—the ones that statistically have the most jobs to offer. Small-to-medium sized companies are both hungrier for talent and less inclined than Fortune 500 companies to discriminate against veterans because of their perceived

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lack of “social pedigrees, advanced degrees or old-boy network connections.” One way to sweeten the deal, another expert suggested, would be to offer to pay first year health premiums for veterans who join small companies, which would be a very compelling inducement for the typical small company business owner. A related marketing pitch to make to the small business owner is a reminder that, for new veterans, the government pays all expenses to relocate them to another part of the country; this means that a small business owner can hire a talented veteran in one part of the country, and arrange to bring him or her to a company facility in another part of the country, without having to worry about covering relocation expenses. This in itself can make a veteran candidate look more attractive.

The Marketing Campaign’s Focus on “Narrowcasting”

The marketing campaign should consider using modern “narrowcasting”

techniques, especially Internet-based tools, rather than national broadcast techniques, such as television advertising. Several other marketing experts suggested that a broad, generic national campaign that used TV as a vehicle to carry a sweeping message, was an “outdated, overly expensive and old school” way to convey the campaign’s messages, and that what was needed instead was a “highly targeted campaign” that focused “like a laser” on individual channels of communication, and which used the Internet as a principal tool for spreading the messages. One of the experts noted that “people may confuse ‘targeted’ with ‘small,’ which is not the case. Running a ‘targeted’ campaign is about being focused, and going deeper with one target rather than trying to influence everybody at once.” The expert reiterated that the use of “broadcast, network TV” is an “outmoded model”: it reaches everybody, but it costs a lot of money and it’s inefficient.

The use of cable TV networks is less expensive and more efficient as a vehicle, since cable networks by definition reach targeted audiences. And, several experts noted, the Internet has proven to be the most efficient and effective way to reach targeted audiences at minimal cost, not to mention that the Internet is the most interactive communications medium: “you can create a marketing pitch that will send people to a website, and they will interact with it,” providing valuable feedback about the effectiveness of the message. Part of the marketing campaign may involve persuading governmental and private sector leaders that there exists a problem that needs addressing. At the start of the third summit, one public relations expert noted that “support for our military service members is now the strongest that it’s been since WW II,” but added that one key goal of the proposed marketing campaign must be to convince the Government and the Congress “that there really is a problem with veterans’ employment,” before Congress or anybody else will “buy in” to providing a solution. A national marketing campaign, which could be commi ssioned by the Department of Veterans Affairs, could also help to improve the public’s overall perception of the VA.

Another marketing expert articulated the rationale for the Veterans Affairs (VA) department to embrace this marketing campaign, by noting that “the country has “certain expectations” about what the VA should be doing and a perception about “what

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responsibilities” the VA should be shouldering. He added that, in the past, VA has been associated with benefit programs like the GI Bill, and that at the moment it is likely best known for providing a “range of medical and health benefits” to its veteran cohort. But, for various reasons, it was time for VA to create a “whole new kit” for its more than 25 million veterans, and that one of the ways VA could do this is by becoming an “advocate for veterans in the area of marketing and branding.” By embracing this role of “directing and driving” the effort to present a new image and “brand” for veterans to the country, the VA would be able to rebrand itself in the public’s mind.

The VA could a accomplish this rebranding of part of its mission by funding an effort to brand military Americans, and by overseeing the branding campaign, setting the parameters, specification and goals of the campaign, and ensuring that the proper experts were commissioned to design and administer the campaign. There was general agreement that VA does not have the expertise and the capabilities to actually create and propagate the campaign, and that this task should be outsourced to the private sector. On the other hand VA is “the closest agency” to this issue, and would be a highly effective advocate for the marketing program because of the organization’s profound understanding of the value of the veteran asset.

Supervision of the marketing campaign might be a good joint venture for VA and the Department of Defense (DOD), in that both organizations know a great deal about the skills and talents that are acquired by those who have served in the military. Ultimately, without the cooperation between both organizations, the task would be difficult to accomplish. Positioning military veterans as adding to diversity could increase their prospects for employment.

Marketing Veterans as a “Diverse” Population

In the midst of a discussion of the concept of “diversity”—which Summit participants

agreed had become well entrenched in corporate America as one of the principal criteria for hiring, as well as a key “guideline” in the whole talent acquisition industry— one of the marketing experts recounted that she had worked for a period of time in the “sponsorship space, one replete with lots of sporting events.” She added that executive recruiters and others “sent me a lot of men to hire, presumably because of the sports angle, but I kept asking, ‘Where are the women, why aren’t you sending me more women? I simply wanted a balanced slate of candidates.’”

She added that one of the ways to stimulate the hiring of many more veterans would be to expand the definition of “diversity” so that it included veterans, along with the other designated groups, such as women and people of color. There was general agreement that this alone would drive a lot of new hiring of veterans, since, as one person put it, “A lot of hiring managers make hiring decisions according to ‘diversity guidelines’ and ‘targets,’ particularly “at the end of the year when people are trying to qualify for bonuses paid for reaching diversity targets.” A long time expert on veterans’ employment noted that this strategy made perfect sense, especially since the current veteran population is eminently diverse, made up by one estimate of more than 40% of women and people of color. There was agreement that the marketing campaign should advocate this expanded definition of “diversity” as a “best practice” to be adopted by the employment industry.

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4. Recommendations Presented below are recommendations related to improving the employment prospects of military veterans in the private sectors. 4.1. Branding and Marketing Campaign to Improve Employme nt Prospects of Transitioning Military Veterans An effort should be made to educate corporate Ameri ca’s hiring managers about the positive business value of hiring veterans .

A perception exists among hiring managers that military service has little or no

business value and that the training many veterans receive is not applicable to the “bottom line” needs of companies. Further education with respect to qualities such as leadership, integrity and the proven ability to excel in project management is required. This kind of reshaping of the image of veterans so that they can be perceived as greater assets to business should be a central element of a branding and marketing campaign.

Because there is a “general lack of information” about the supply of talented veterans every effort should be made to educate America’s employers, big and small, about where they can find available veterans, and how they can tap into established sources of this talent.

Every effort should be made to convince companies who have “led the way” in the hiring of veterans, to make sure that this message is conveyed to the rank and file of company employees, especially those in the talent acquisition departments. Since there is a “lack of information” about the successful business careers of many top executives who are veterans, there should be an effort made to use these success stories and track records to enhance the general perception that veterans can be real “bottom line” assets to business.

Federal programs to enhance veteran hiring were unheard of by virtually all of those interviewed. An evaluation of federal programs designed to accomplish this interface should be undertaken to discover whether this is an area better outsourced to the private sector.

Since the job search, recruitment and placement industry has inadequate knowledge of and access to the veteran talent pool, an effort should be made to educate the top executives in this industry—who are often “gatekeepers” in the search of high-level talent—that veterans are both an important talent pool to tap, and that it is incumbent upon them to educate the clients companies they serve about the value of veterans.

Electronic hiring through job sites such as Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com, or through computer screening of the hundreds of electronic resumes that pour into large companies every day has become commonplace. This means that it is critically important to advise veteran job seekers about how to best take advantage of these systems. 4.1.1. A branding and marketing campaign to “rebrand” the veteran as a competitive business asset is feasible, but it shou ld, at least in its early stages, be highly targeted and tightly focused —and make use of communication vehicles that enable one to reach very selective audiences .

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Rather than attempt to create a broad marketing message that veterans have

“transferable skill sets” that are valuable to business, it would be more productive to identify a couple of specific skills that many veterans clearly have acquired—such as advanced technological and computer skills. One should then try to market those specific skills to a small group of companies and industries that have demonstrated that they have an appetite and a need for those skills. The targeted campaign should first try to capture the attention of the “low hanging fruit,” companies like military contractors, police forces and security agencies that already have shown their receptivity to hiring veterans with technological skills; then, as noted, one should build on these successes to reach a broader range of companies.

Trying to communicate with the C-suite level of corporations is a formidable challenge these days, “since everybody is trying to get to the CEO” and the “average CEO is so overwhelmed by the various demands on her time, and the many appeals for action,” that it’s nearly impossible to break through the logjam. Thus, in the effort to convince CEOs that hiring veterans is a smart competitive move, a shrewder strategy would be to “aim the marketing campaign” just below the level of the Csuite and assume that, if the message is compelling, they will “filter up.”

In marketing the skills of veterans, one should segment the employment market into specific industries or job types, such as banking, technology, consumer products, insurance and the like. One should then do market research in each industry and use the findings to tailor individual marketing campaigns that would be “targeted” to the employers and hiring managers in those industries.

4.1.2. One major goal of a marketing campaign should be to dispel the myths, misconceptions and damaging stereotypes about veter ans that prevail in the minds of many business executives and hiring managers. It will be important to replace these misconceptions and negative perceptions with more positive images of veterans.

One negative perception that must be overcome is the idea that only a “loser” would enlist in the armed forces these days, and that the only kids who join these days are those who either cannot get decent jobs or cannot get into college—that the military is “their last resort.” Rather than trying to counter and override all of the negative stereotypes about veterans and military service, one should focus upon offering positive images that outweigh the negative ones. As one marketing expert put it, ‘Play the cards you are dealt.”

4.1.3. If one is going to develop a marketing campaign that will present veterans as a “brand,” like, say, Pepsi or Volvo, one must first assess what is the current “brand equity” of this brand in the marketplace. Also, one should develop a “product portfolio” for the brand—including its “selling points”—which would provide an overview of the individual strengths and collective expertise veterans can bring to employers.

If one is considering veterans as a “product” that needs to be re-branded, one needs to reiterate the “selling points” of this product, which would be the equivalent of the kinds of testimonials that are presented to advertise various consumer products, such as pain relievers (“fast acting”) or Volvo cars (“safe”).

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This product “portfolio” should include all of the positive perceptions of veterans that have been identified, such as discipline, teamwork, strong work ethic, reliability, high integrity, capacity for leadership, ability to perform well under pressure and ability to see a project through to completion. It may be better to identify and emphasize the specific and tangible job skills that many veterans possess—such as project management, consulting, procurement, supply-chain management, telecommunications, logistics or accounting—rather than focus too much on of more subjective attributes such as “discipline” and “teamwork.” 4.1.4. It will be necessary to reassess the military backg rounds and “skill sets” of veterans and to “redefine” and “translate” these in to the kinds of language that are commonly used in the different industries the veter ans seek to enter .

The goal is to find correspondences, between the specific skills that veterans have to offer and the “competencies” corporations are actually looking for to fill key positions. In the process, the incomprehensible technical jargon that makes so many veterans’ resumes impossible to decipher should be “translated” into plain English, so that that hiring managers can readily understand the skills being presented.

4.1.5. Marketing research will be necessary to identify which qualities an “ideal” job candidate needs to have to be a serious candidate f or jobs in different industries .

One should consider changing the terminology that is commonly used to refer to those who have served in the military, since the term “veteran” to many people, connotes, as one marketing expert put it, “an old gentleman in a purple-hat who marches haltingly in parades.” One should consider using a different term, such as “Military-Americans,” One should seek to use actual case studies of successful transitions that have been made by service members into private sector employment. Real life examples of veterans who have carved out successful careers in business not only reinforce the message that veterans can bring real value to business, but also make it easier for hiring managers and talent acquisition executives to “envision” veterans working for them. These case studies could range from “bootstrap stories” of veterans who have risen from entry-level jobs to be CEOs of Forbes 500 companies, to accounts of how enterprising veterans have started small companies and built successful businesses.

4.1.6. It would be imperative to conduct vigorous educatio nal and public relations (PR) campaigns in concert with the marketing and br anding initiatives .

Make the case that the Armed Forces, rather than being some “alien culture” where a veteran does not learn any transferable business skills, is in fact the “biggest employer in the country,” a large scale business proving ground where service members are learning valuable business skills every day. Focus the attention of employees in the private sector on the idea that being a leader in the armed forces is in effect just like running a big business, in fact a “highly successful business with a worldwide scope.” Research should be undertaken to see if it’s possible to prove that, in some cases,

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veterans in certain business roles have outperformed their non-veteran counterparts in similar roles and in similar competitive situations.

The results of this research could have a powerfully stimulating effect on the hiring of other veterans, and could be used in a campaign to convince company CEOs that a high priority ought to be placed on the hiring of veterans. It would be critically important to highlight the career paths of those veterans who had used the skills and talents they had acquired in the armed forces to ascend to the top ranks of American business. Foremost among this group would be the veterans who had become CEOs of major companies, such as the more than 40 who currently are at the helm of the Forbes 500 biggest companies. 4.1.7. As part of the marketing campaign, efforts should b e made to expand the working definition of “diversity,” as it applies to the guidelines for hiring in corporate America. The goal would be to confer upon veterans the same kind of preferred status that is enjoyed by the other groups covered by diversity programs, women and people of color.” 4.2. Veterans Peer-to-Peer Career Network 1. Perhaps the most important thing learned from the various peer-to-peer alumni networks studied is the value of a central “resource center,” which acts as a hub of information and activity for all of the services and benefits that an alumni network distributes to its members. 2. According to our research, the principal functions of such a resource center are to: Maintain a searchable database that contains information about all alumni in a given network, but is only available to those members;

• Use the alumni database and other resources to help find employment for the members of the network, and to set up “mentoring” opportunities;

• Engage in an active communications program that seeks to keep the alumni members informed about the network’s activities and efforts;

• Plan and conduct alumni events which endeavor to bring alumni together face-to-face on a regular basis;

• Make a package of alumni benefits available to the network members, knowing that one of the key inducements for alumni to stay connected with their network is to take advantage of various kinds of benefits; and

• Further extend the breadth and depth of the alumni network through the development of “affinity groups,” which foster interaction among smaller subgroups of the main alumni body, based on the sharing of special interests or activities.

3. On the basis of what we have learned both from discussions with peer-to-peer alumni networks, and from suggestions made by the talent acquisition executives at the major companies, it appears that one of the best ways to increase employment among veterans is to develop a comprehensive veterans res ource center that would serve its alumni body (e.g. the veterans of America’s armed forces), with the same rigor and care that the other alumni networks use to help their alumni cohorts. Such a resource center would contain the following elements:

• Alumni database; Veterans Resource Network;

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• Outreach programs; and • Alumni events.

These elements are described below. 4.2.1. The Alumni Database, the “Veterans Resource Network ”

As soon as a veteran leaves the armed forces, or preferably during the final months of service, or even as much as a year before the end of service, the veteran would be invited to enroll in the database of a veterans’ alumni organization, the “Veterans Resource Network.” The database, which would principally be an online entity, but which also could be published in hardbound/paperback versions (like the service academies’ iSABRD directory), would contain a page of information about each veteran alumni member. The key information that the Veterans Resource Centers (VRC) would seek to include in each member’s entry would be employment information and contact information, but the veteran would also be asked to provide any personal information (sports, family information, hobbies, and other special interests) that would stimulate communication among alumni members. 4.2.2. The Veterans Resource Center’s Employment Outreach Program

Perhaps the most important function of any alumni network, apart from increasing social interaction among its members is helping the members of its alumni body find quality employment. The main engine for increasing employment among the alumni body of veterans would be the above-named database, the “Veterans Resource Network” (VRN). The VRN would be used in the following ways to increase employment among its members.

• New alumni members of the VRN (e.g. the most recent transitioning veterans) who are seeking employment could use the database to contact experienced alumni members (e.g. veterans who have been in the workforce for years or decades), who: 1) might have jobs to offer; or 2) might be able to offer career advice; or 3) might be willing to recommend the young veterans to another veteran in the network; or 4) might be willing to act as a career “mentor” to the more recent alumnus or alumna.

• Employment representatives of the Veterans Resource Centers (who, ideally, would be veterans themselves) could contact alumni members who are already in the workforce to see if they would be willing to be contacted directly by new alumni members and to be helpful to new veterans.

• A public version of the VRN database could be made available as an employment resource for big public companies, chambers of commerce, small and medium-sized firms and nonprofit organizations that are seeking to hire veteran talent. Every one of the companies studied said they would be very interested in hiring more veterans, but that they often had trouble locating this talent; all of the companies also said that, if there were a reliable source of such talent, such as a searchable database of the kind that is being proposed here, they would enthusiastically embrace it and use it as a source for talent.

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Other tactics that employment representatives of the Veterans Resource Centers (VRC) could engage in are as follows: met with the top talent acquisition executives and human resource personnel of major American companies to make them aware of the many attractive qualities of the veteran talent they represent; and advise new alumni veterans about how to rewrite their resumes so that these documents will be both readable and understandable by talent acquisition executives, and so that the appropriate “buzzwords” will show up in the kinds of online screening that many human resource executives use to find talent.

4.2.3. The Veterans Resource Center’s Communication Outrea ch Program

Since regular communications with alumni members is one of the most vital functions of any alumni network, and one of the key ways to sustain a sense of “community”, the Veterans Resource Centers would seek to communicate with their veteran alumni members on a regular basis, and in as many different ways as possible. 4.2.4. The Veterans Resource Centers’ Alumni Events

To encourage its alumni members to gather together on a regular basis, the Veteran Resource Center (VRC) representatives would develop and conduct a series of alumni events for their veteran cohort, which might include alumni reunions, sporting events, cocktail parties, conferences and special speaker events.

Just as one of the ways to keep alumni members involved is through regular communications, so another is via the distributions of various benefits that are only available to alumni members. Thus, the VRC should consider what benefits it could make available to its veteran members, such as the kinds of discounts and privileges that are the usual offerings of these kinds of networks.

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Appendix A. Interview Schedule Corporate Site Visits Corporate Site Visit 1: Company A April 12-13, 2006 Corporate Site Visit 2: Company B May 22-23, 2006 Corporate Site Visit 3: Company C June 12, 2006 Corporate Site Visit 4: Company D July 18, 2006 Corporate Site Visit 5: Company E October 12, 2006 Corporate Site Visit 6: Company F November 2, 2006 Corporate Site Visit 7: Company G January 8, 2007 Peer-to-Peer Consultations Peer-to-Peer Consult 1: Organization A July 12, 2006 Peer-to-Peer Consult 2: Organization B July 17, 2006 Peer-to-Peer Consult 3: Organization C August 1, 2006 Peer-to-Peer Consult 4: Organization D August 16, 2006 Peer-to-Peer Consult 5: Organization E November 27, 2006 Peer-to-Peer Consult 6: Organization F November 28, 2006 Branding and Marketing Summits Branding Summit 1: January 11, 2006 Branding Summit 2: (Conference Call) September 15, 2006 Branding Summit 3: February 2, 2007

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Appendix B. Comparative Profiles: Corporate Site Visits, includ ing Seven Major Companies, Two Chambers of Commerce and Two Human Resource Firms Selection Criteria

The seven companies chosen for the corporate site visits provide a representative snapshot of corporate America. Due to the nature of this research, the selection of companies was contingent upon the consent of each company to participate in this research. Taking advantage of the corporate relationships of The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, companies were chosen in part based upon their agreement to make available top talent acquisition and/or human resource executives for candid interviews. Companies were also selected to ensure a diverse representation of various sectors in the economy, such as customer service, financial services, manufacturing, consumer products and entertainment. Companies that were among the leaders in their respective sectors or fields were preferred. In addition, companies were chosen to represent a balance of companies; some had reputations for taking pro-active actions related to veterans’ employment, while others did not have any particular reputation related to veterans’ employment. Brief Comparative Profiles of Companies Visited and Participants

Company A was founded as a direct marketing fulfillment company and now includes direct marketing and customer service operations. Most of its operation centers are located in southern states. Company A also has centers in a few foreign countries. Company A employs over 10,000 personnel worldwide and has annual revenues of over $1 billion. The majority of jobs at Company A are entry-level hourly wage positions. Participants interviewed at Company A were the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President of Operations, Senior Vice President of People, Director of Talent Acquisition, Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition, Manager of Talent Acquisition, Manager for Technical Talent Acquisition, Director of Security, Manager of Security, Operations Manager, and Financial Analyst.

Company B is a major insurance and financial services company headquartered in the United States with operations in every state as well as on four continents. Company B employs over 25,000 people worldwide and has annual revenues over $25 billion. Participants interviewed in Company B were the Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Vice President of Human Resources for Corporate Operations and Systems, Vice President of Corporate Compensation, Vice President and Chief Administrative Office for the International Division, Vice President of Information Systems, Vice President of Audit, Director of the Office for Service members Group Life Insurance, and two OSGLI Claims Examiners.

Company C is a full-service provider of retail and commercial banking, trust, securities brokerage, mortgage and insurance products and services. Company C is ranked as one of the nation’s Top 15 banks and has an annual income over $5 billion. Company C operates in more than a dozen states and employees over 25,000 people. Company C ranks on both the Forbes 500 and Fortune 500 listing of America’s largest

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companies. Participants interviewed in Company were the Director of Recruiting and Employment, Vice President of Corporate Staffing, Director of Diversity and Workforce Experience, Corporate Recruiter for Trust, Corporate Recruiter for Information Technology, Corporate Recruiter for Mortgage, Senior Director of Operations and Technology, Vice President for Senior Projects, Manager of Program Management Office, and an Information Technology Project Manager.

Company D is a major industrial and manufacturing company with multiple vertical businesses across a variety of sectors. Company D employs over 250,000 persons worldwide, including over 100,000 in the United States, and has annual revenues over $150 billion. Participants interviewed at Company D were the Vice President of Human Resources, Manager of Military Initiatives, four Department Directors who supervised military veterans, and ten former junior military officers who were recruited to work at Company D under a specific recruitment initiative.

Company E is a major food and beverage products company with annual revenues over $25 billion and more than 100,000 employees worldwide. Participants interviewed at Company E were two of their highest ranking talent acquisition executives, the Senior Vice President for Human Resources and the Director of Executive Staffing.

Company F is a major entertainment company producing original content as well as distributing entertainment through television and other media. Company F is headquartered in the United States, employs over 10,000 personnel, and has annual revenues over $10 billion. Participants interviewed at Company F were the Senior Vice President for Human Resources, Vice President for Human Resources, Vice President for Staffing and two other Vice Presidents.

Company G is a major international consumer products company with over 25,000 employees worldwide, and annual revenues over $10,000 billion. Company G is a market leader in its core consumer products throughout four continents. Participating for Company G were the Director of Global Talent Management and the Director of Global Staffing. Table 1 presents a comparison of the companies visited by principle business, number of employees, and annual revenues. Table 1. Comparison of Companies Visited Principle Business Total Employees Annual Revenues Company A Customer Service Over 10,000 $1 Billion Company B Insurance Over 25,000 $25 Billion Company C Banking Over 25,000 $5 Billion Company D Industrial Manufacturing Over 250,000 $150 Billion Company E Food and Beverage Over 100,000 $25 Billion Company F Entertainment Over 10,000 $10 Billion Company G Consumer Products Over 25,000 $10 Billion Brief Comparative Profile of Chambers of Commerce

Two Chambers of Commerce were interviewed on veterans’ employment issues in order to provide an additional perspective, that of the small and medium business community. The Center met with the Executive Directors of both chambers.

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Chamber A is located in a major metropolitan area with over several million residents and has thousands of member companies.

Chamber B is located in a metropolitan area with hundreds of thousands of residents and has hundreds of member companies. Brief Comparative Profiles of Human Resource Firms

Two human resource firms were also interviewed to gain more perspective on how veterans are viewed in the employment arena.

Firm A is one of the one of the biggest and most powerful executive search firms in the world, with offices in numerous cities in the United States and foreign countries. Firm A focuses primarily on senior executive level positions. The Center interviewed two executives of Firm A at their headquarters, both of whom were veterans and service academy graduates.

Firm B is one of the largest privately-held career management and staffing firms in the country, based in a major metropolitan area with offices in several other states. Firm B provides comprehensive recruitment and staffing services for small, medium, and large companies at multiple levels. The Center interviewed four executives at Firm B who have more than 100 years of combined experience.

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Appendix C. Comparative Profiles: Peer-to-Peer Consultations Selection Criteria

The six organizations and institutions chosen represent a cross section of traditional college alumni organizations as well as other non-traditional peer-to-peer organizations. Because the goal of this piece of the research was to learn best practices, organizations were primarily chosen due to their reputation as having the finest peer-to-peer networks among their institutional peers. Organizations were also chosen in part based upon their willingness to participate in this research project. Brief Comparative Profiles of Organizations Consulted and Participants Organization A – Online Community

Organization A is large online community of current service members, military veterans, family and friends of military and veterans, as well as other persons interested in military or veterans issues. The online community also includes a section designed to encourage peer-to-peer networking. There are more than 250,000 veterans in this peer-to-peer network. Participating for Organization A were the Founder/Chairman of the organization and the Vice President of Marketing. Organization B – Public University

Organization B is a large public university, which is part of a larger state system. Organization B has more than 100,000 alumni. Participating for Organization B was their Assistant Director in the Office of Alumni Relations. Organization C – Business School

Organization C is a business school affiliated with a major private university. The business school has over 25,000 alumni. Participating for Organization C were the Director of Alumni Relations, the Assistant Dean of Admissions, and the Director of Human Resources. Organization D - Minority Educational Foundation

Organization D is a small, private foundation that provides educational assistance and mentoring to minority students. Organization D has over 100 alumni. Participating for Organization D was their President and Director of Development. Organization E – Law School

Organization E is a law school affiliated with a major private university. The law school has over 25,000 alumni. Participating for Organization E were the Assistant Dean for Career Services and Associate Dean for Development and Alumni Relations. Organization F – Military Educational Institution

Organization F is a higher education institution that educates and trains future military servicemembers. Organization F has more than 50,000 alumni. Participating for Organization F was their Alumni Association’s Director of Member Services.

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Appendix D. Comparative Profiles: Branding and Marketing Summit s Selection Criteria

The branding and marketing experts chosen to participate in the Branding and Marketing Summits were selected based upon their expertise in the areas of branding, marketing, advertising, and public relations. The group was also selected with a goal of providing a balanced group in terms of diversity. Brief Comparative Profile of Summit Participants

Participant 1 is a marketing executive with more than 25 years experience in marketing research, primarily in consumer products and financial services.

Participant 2 is a marketing executive with more than 20 years experience, primarily in consumer products.

Participant 3 is a marketing executive with an engineering background and 25 years experience, primarily in manufacturing.

Participant 4 is a marketing research specialist with more than 20 years experience working primarily in telecommunications.

Participant 5 is a marketing consultant with more than 25 years experience in information technology.

Participant 6 is an advertising and marketing consultant with 15 years experience who founded his own firm after working for major advertising agencies.

Participant 7 is a senior advertising executive with more than 20 years experience working at one of the nation’s largest agencies.

Participant 8 is a public relations consultant with more than 30 years experience working at multiple public relations firms.

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Appendix E. Matrix of Responses to Key Questions Section One - Part 1 Have Corporate Talent Acquisition Strategy? Key Elements of Talent Acquisition Strategy Company A Yes Employee Referrals, Internet Services Colleges and Universities Company B Yes Internal Human Resources, Internet Services, Recruitment Firms Company C No Formal Strategy Employee Referrals, Internet Services, Targeting Competitors Employees Company D Yes Internal Human Resources, Internet Services Company E Yes Internal Recruiters, Internet Services Company F Yes Internal Recruiters, Internet Services Company G Yes Colleges and Universities, Internet Services, Employee Referrals Section One - Part 2 Veterans Included in Talent Acquisition Strategy? Actively Tried to Recruit Veterans? How have veterans fared in the company? Company A Not enough information Company B Yes Yes, Junior Military Officers Very well Company C No, Not enough information, although one C-suite executive is veteran Company D Yes Yes, Junior Military Officers in one of the companies divisions Very well Company E Yes Yes, Junior Military Officers Not enough information, although several individual success stories Company F No Yes, in the past. Not currently. Not enough information, although one C-suite executive is veteran Company G No No No information Section One - Part 3 Work with State Workforce Systems? Work with LVERS & DVOPS? Utilize Internet Services? Utilize Outside Recruitment Firms? Company A Yes, limited basis No Yes, heavily Yes Company B No No Yes, heavily Yes Company C No No Yes, heavily Yes, for high level positions Company D No No Yes Yes, limited basis Company E No No Yes, heavily Yes Company F No No Yes Yes Company G Yes Yes, at one plant location only Yes Yes Section Two - Part 1

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Attributes of an ideal employee Company A Disciplined, dedicated, specific knowledge and skill sets, compassionate, good listener, problem-solving skills, adaptability, professional, people skills, stable employment history Company B Ethics, leadership Company C Leadership, "job-ready", sales experience, specific skill sets Company D Leadership, character Company E Intellectual curiosity, capacity to learn, courage, potential to grow, transferable skills Company F Creative, cross-discipline skills, mix of technical and project management skills Company G Cross-discipline skills, able to function in ambiguity, character, ethics, global mindset Section Two - Part 1 Strengths of Veterans/Weaknesses of Veterans Respondents Non-Veterans Veterans Non-Veterans Veterans Company A

• Work ethic, honest, reliable task-oriented, integrity, follow orders, Teamwork, goal-oriented, leaders, problem solvers, integrity, ethical, Accountable, Social skills,

• Too structured, "harsh", mental stability, lack skill sets, adaptability, "Hard asses", too aggressive, leadership style

Company B • Leadership, problem-solving, teamwork, dependability, loyalty, ethics,

Integrity, disciplined, motivated, reliable, loyalty, teamwork, well-trained, • Lack of business knowledge or skills, mental stability, rigid, Lack of education,

mental stability Company C

• Leadership, discipline, loyalty, goal-oriented, "think on feet," Leadership, crisis management, task-oriented, work ethic, teamwork, multitasking

• Lack of specific skill sets, inflexible, adaptability, mental stability "Hard asses", lack of financial skills

Company D • Character, integrity, dedication, work ethic, international experience, Leadership,

teamwork, self confidence, quick learners, perform under stress • Lack of business knowledge or skills , Too authoritative, need direction

Company E • Respect, loyalty, leadership, maturity, Leadership, teamwork • Lack of business knowledge or skills

Company F • Leadership, discipline • Inflexible, lack creativity, lack of business skills

Company G

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• Leadership, discipline, teamwork, perform under stress, international experience, technical skills

• Need direction, adaptability, too authoritative, rigid Section Two - Part 2 Biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking private s ector employment Most difficult adjustment for veterans entering private sector employment Company A

• Lack of specific industry expertise, bad resumes, lack of transferable skills Not good at managing people, salary and promotion system, lack of people skills

Company B • Lack of knowledge about veterans in private sector, bad resumes and interviewing

skills, lack of financial skills, Adjusting to corporate culture, corporate leadership structure, salary and promotion system, office politics

Company C • Bad resumes and interviewing skills, Adjusting to corporate leadership structure,

salary and promotion system, adjusting to corporate culture Company D

• Lack of business skills, bad resumes, Adjusting to corporate culture, adjusting to corporate leadership structure

Company E • Bad resumes and interviewing skills, Adjusting to corporate leadership structure

Company F • Bad resumes and interviewing skills, Adjusting to corporate culture, adjusting to

corporate leadership structure Company G

• Bad resumes and interviewing skills, Adjusting to corporate culture Section Three and Four Keep records of veterans, status of employees Employ veterans in talent acquisition positions? Are non veterans aware of the term "MOS"? Support creation of peer-to-peer network for veterans? Number of respondents who are / are NOT Company A No A couple No Yes 6 Veterans; 7 non-veterans Company B No No No Yes 10 veterans; 7 non-veterans Company C No Do not know No Yes 3 veterans; 6 non-veterans Company D No, Yes, including senior VP Yes Yes 14 veterans; 2 non-veterans Company E No Yes 1 veteran; 1 - non-veteran Company F No No No 0 veterans; 5 non-veterans Company G Yes No No Yes 0 Veterans; 2 non veterans

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Appendix F. Company A Corporate Site Visit Discussion Guides

Discussion guides focus on three areas: talent acquisition and hiring practices, perceptions of veterans and military experience, policies and practices affecting veterans. Each section is broken into Core and Follow-Up questions. There are four differently-focused discussion guides for: senior management, talent acquisition management, senior recruiters and military veterans. Discussion Guide for Senior Management SECTION ONE: Talent Acquisition and Hiring Practice s Core Questions: 1. Could you briefly describe COMPANY A and its corporate philosophy? 2. How is this philosophy reflected in the people who work here? 3. How would you describe the ideal COMPANY A employee? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 4. How is COMPANY A’s corporate philosophy reflected in your talent acquisition strategies? 5. Describe your talent acquisition strategy in terms of when and how is it developed, refined, and refocused over time? 6. Describe the typical hiring process at COMPANY A. 7. Are there different processes involved for jobs at different levels within the company? 8. Do all COMPANY A’s individual companies reflect the same corporate philosophy, talent acquisition, and hiring strategies and practices? 9. Does COMPANY A target segments of the workforce for particular skill sets that you need and value? 10. Have you targeted particular groups with similar backgrounds, such as Wharton MBAs or MIT graduates? If so, how did you approach this task? 11. Do you use Internet employment companies, such as Monster and Career Builder, in your recruitment efforts? 12. Does COMPANY A utilize outside recruitment firms to help assess and support talent acquisition? If so, how much and what kind of direction do you give them? 13. Of these various factors considered when recruiting and hiring employees, what are the one or two most important that you personally are interested in and why? 14. How would you describe your ideal employee in terms of leadership competencies and values? Discussion Guide for Senior Management SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice Core Questions: 1. When you think of veterans what are the first images that come to mind? What are the first thoughts and impressions that come to your mind? 2. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality private sector jobs compared to their civilian counterparts?

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3. How do you think veterans do in adjusting to the corporate culture compared to non-veterans entering the corporate world? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 4. If you had two job candidates, equally matched in terms of education, experience, and skills, and you knew that one of them was a veteran, would that fact alone influence your decision? 5. In thinking of veterans, do your thoughts or impressions change if you think of newer veterans from the War on Terror versus older veterans from WWII, Korea, or Vietnam? How so? 6. When you think of active members of the Armed Forces, what are the first thoughts and impressions that come to mind? 7. What personal traits and characteristics do you generally associate with veterans? 8. What professional skills or strengths do you generally associate with veterans? 9. Are these skills and strengths ones that you need and/or value in your company? 10. What professional or personal weaknesses in terms of performing well in private sector jobs do you associate with military veterans? 11. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality jobs in companies that are similar to yours? 12. How do you think veterans generally fare securing employment in your company? 13. How would do you think officers fare compared to how enlisted personnel fare in finding quality private sector employment? 14. How would you compare military experience with corporate experience? What are the main similarities and differences? 15. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking employment in the corporate world? 16. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking to advance within the corporate world? Discussion Guide for Senior Management SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Vet erans Core Questions: 1. Does the company have any policies or practices, or has it taken any special actions to recruit or hire military veterans? 2. Would your Company Allow and/or support a military veterans' employee group designed to provide networking, mentoring, and other support for job candidates and employees? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 3. Does the company maintain records, statistical or other information about employees who have served in the military? 4. If a decision was made to make hiring veterans a priority, how would you go about it? 5. Are there any special policies or practices, or has the company taken any special actions to support military veterans or members of the Guard and reserves? 6. Does the company have military veterans within the talent acquisition or human resources departments? 7. Have you personally interviewed military veterans for positions at COMPANY A or while working in another company?

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8. From your personal experience, did you observe any common traits, strengths, or weaknesses among the military veterans during the job interview process? 9. From your personal experience, how would you rate veterans compared to non-veterans? What significant differences have you noticed between the two? 10. Are you aware of the term MOS, or military occupations specialty? Does your company have any way to translate MOS to your needs? 11. Are there employee associations that exist in your company? If so, please describe them. SECTION FOUR: Personal Experience with Veterans

Prior to the end of each meeting, if such information was not ascertained in our discussions, we will ask specifically about the interviewees’ personal relationships and experience with military veterans. 1. Are you a military veteran? 2. Are any members of your immediate or extended family military veterans? 3. How many of your friends / close friends are military veterans? Discussion Guide for Talent Acquisition and Human Resources Management SECTION ONE: Talent Acquisition and Hiring Practice s Core Questions: 1. Could you briefly describe COMPANY A and its corporate philosophy? 2. How is COMPANY A’s corporate philosophy reflected in your talent acquisition strategies? 3. Describe your talent acquisition strategy in terms of when and how is it developed, refined, and refocused over time? 4. How would you describe the ideal COMPANY A employee? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 5. How is this philosophy reflected in the people who work here? 6. Describe the typical hiring process at COMPANY A. 7. Are there different processes involved for jobs at different levels within the company? 8. Do all COMPANY A’s companies reflect the same corporate philosophy, talent acquisition, and hiring strategies and practices? 9. Does COMPANY A target segments of the workforce for particular skill sets that you need and value? 10. Have you targeted particular groups with similar backgrounds, such as Wharton MBAs or MIT graduates? If so, how did you approach this task? 11. Do you use Internet employment companies, such as Monster and Career Builder, in your recruitment efforts? 12. Does COMPANY A utilize outside recruitment firms to help assess and support talent acquisition? If so, how much and what kind of direction do you give them? 13. Of these various factors considered when recruiting and hiring employees, what are the one or two most important that you personally are interested in and why? 14. How would you describe your ideal employee in terms of leadership competencies and values?

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SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice Core Questions: 1. When you think of veterans what are the first images that come to mind? What are the first thoughts and impressions that come to your mind? 2. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality private sector jobs compared to their civilian counterparts? 3. How do you think veterans do in adjusting to the corporate culture compared to non-veterans entering the corporate world? 4. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking employment in the corporate world? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 5. If you had two job candidates, equally matched in terms of education, experience, and skills, and you knew that one of them was a veteran, would that fact alone influence your decision? 6. In thinking of veterans, do your thoughts or impressions change if you think of newer veterans from the War on Terror versus older veterans from WWII, Korea, or Vietnam? How so? 7. When you think of active members of the Armed Forces, what are the first thoughts and impressions that come to mind? 8. What personal traits and characteristics do you generally associate with veterans? 9. What professional skills or strengths do you generally associate with veterans? 10. Are these skills and strengths ones that you need and/or value in your company? 11. What professional or personal weaknesses in terms of performing well in private sector jobs do you associate with military veterans? 12. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality jobs in companies that are similar to yours? 13. How do you think veterans generally fare securing employment in your company? 14. How would do you think officers fare compared to how enlisted personnel fare in finding quality private sector employment? 15. How would you compare military experience with corporate experience? What are the main similarities and differences? 16. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking to advance within the corporate world? SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Vet erans Core Questions: 1. Does the company have any policies or practices, or has it taken any special actions to recruit or hire military veterans? 2. If a decision was made to make hiring veterans a priority, how would you go about it? 3. Would your Company allow and/or support a military veterans' employee group designed to provide networking, mentoring, and other support for job candidates and employees? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 4. Does the company maintain records, statistical or other information about employees who have served in the military?

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5. Are there any special policies or practices, or has the company taken any special actions to support military veterans or members of the Guard and reserves? 6. Does the company have military veterans within the talent acquisition or human resources departments? 7. Have you personally interviewed military veterans for positions at COMPANY A or while working in another company? 8. From your personal experience, did you observe any common traits, strengths, or weaknesses among the military veterans during the job interview process? 9. From your personal experience, how would you rate veterans compared to non-veterans? What significant differences have you noticed between the two? 10. Are you aware of the term MOS, or military occupations specialty? Does your company have any way to translate MOS to your needs? 11. Are there employee associations that exist in your company? If so, please describe them. SECTION FOUR: Personal Experience with Veterans Prior to the end of each meeting, if such information was not ascertained in our discussions, we will ask specifically about the interviewees’ personal relationships and experience with military veterans. 1. Are you a military veteran? 2. Are any members of your immediate or extended family military veterans? 3. How many of your friends / close friends are military veterans? Discussion Guide for Recruiters and Human Resource Personnel SECTION ONE: Talent Acquisition and Hiring Practice s Core Questions: 1. Could you briefly describe COMPANY A and its corporate philosophy? 2. Describe the typical hiring process at COMPANY A. 3. Have you targeted particular groups with similar backgrounds, such as Wharton MBAs or MIT graduates? If so, how did you approach this task? 4. How would you describe the ideal COMPANY A employee? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 5. How is COMPANY A’s corporate philosophy reflected in your talent acquisition strategies? 6. How is this philosophy reflected in the people who work here? 7. Describe your talent acquisition strategy in terms of when and how is it developed, refined, and refocused over time? 8. Are there different processes involved for jobs at different levels within the company? 9. Do all COMPANY A’s companies reflect the same corporate philosophy, talent acquisition, and hiring strategies and practices? 10. Does COMPANY A target segments of the workforce for particular skill sets that you need and value? 11. Do you use Internet employment companies, such as Monster and Career Builder’ in your recruitment efforts? 12. Does COMPANY A utilize outside recruitment firms to help assess and support talent acquisition? If so, how much and what kind of direction do you give them?

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13. Of these various factors considered when recruiting and hiring employees, what are the one or two most important that you personally are interested in and why? 14. How would you describe your ideal employee in terms of leadership competencies and values? SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice Core Questions: 1. If you had two job candidates, equally matched in terms of education, experience, and skills, and you knew that one of them was a veteran, would that fact alone influence your decision? 2. When you think of veterans what are the first images that come to mind? What are the first thoughts and impressions that come to your mind? 3. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality private sector jobs compared to their civilian counterparts? 4. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking employment in the corporate world? 5. In thinking of veterans, do your thoughts or impressions change if you think of newer veterans from the War on Terror versus older veterans from WWII, Korea, or Vietnam? How so? 6. When you think of active members of the Armed Forces, what are the first thoughts and impressions that come to mind? 7. What personal traits and characteristics do you generally associate with veterans? 8. What professional skills or strengths do you generally associate with veterans? 9. Are these skills and strengths ones that you need and/or value in your company? 10. What professional or personal weaknesses in terms of performing well in private sector jobs do you associate with military veterans? 11. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality jobs in companies that are similar to yours? 12. How do you think veterans generally fare securing employment in your company? 13. How would do you think officers fare compared to how enlisted personnel fare in finding quality private sector employment? 14. How would you compare military experience with corporate experience? What are the main similarities and differences? 15. How do you think veterans do in adjusting to the corporate culture compared to non-veterans entering the corporate world? 16. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking to advance within the corporate world? SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Vet erans Core Questions: 1. Does the company have any policies or practices, or has it taken any special actions to recruit or hire military veterans? 2. If a decision was made to make hiring veterans a priority, how would you go about it? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 3. Does the company maintain records, statistical or other information about employees with who have served in the military?

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4. Are there any special policies or practices, or has the company taken any special actions to support military veterans or members of the Guard and reserves? 5. Does the company have military veterans within the talent acquisition or human resources departments? 6. Have you personally interviewed military veterans for positions at COMPANY A or while working in another company? 7. From your personal experience, did you observe any common traits, strengths, or weaknesses among the military veterans during the job interview process? 8. From your personal experience, how would you rate veterans compared to non-veterans? What significant differences have you noticed between the two? 9. Are you aware of the term MOS, or military occupations specialty? Does your company have any way to translate MOS to your needs? 10. Are there employee associations that exist in your company? If so, please describe them. 11. Would your Company Allow and/or support a military veterans' employee group designed to provide networking, mentoring, and other support for job candidates and employees? SECTION FOUR: Personal Experience with Veterans Prior to the end of each meeting, if such information was not ascertained in our discussions, we will ask specifically about the interviewees’ personal relationships and experience with military veterans. 1. Are you a military veteran? 2. Are any members of your immediate or extended family military veterans? 3. How many of your friends / close friends are military veterans? Discussion Guide for Military Veterans SECTION ONE: Talent Acquisition and Hiring Practice s Core Questions: 1. Could you briefly describe COMPANY A and its corporate philosophy? 2. How is this philosophy reflected in the people who work here? 3. How would you describe the ideal COMPANY A employee? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 4. How is COMPANY A’s corporate philosophy reflected in your talent acquisition strategies? 5. Describe your talent acquisition strategy in terms of when and how is it developed, refined, and refocused over time? 6. Describe the typical hiring process at COMPANY A. 7. Are there different processes involved for jobs at different levels within the company? 8. Do all COMPANY A’s companies reflect the same corporate philosophy, talent acquisition, and hiring strategies and practices? 9. Does COMPANY A target segments of the workforce for particular skill sets that you need and value?

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10. Have you targeted particular groups with similar backgrounds, such as Wharton MBAs or MIT graduates? If so, how did you approach this task? 11. Do you use Internet employment companies, such as Monster and Career Builder’ in your recruitment efforts? 12. Does COMPANY A utilize outside recruitment firms to help assess and support talent acquisition? If so, how much and what kind of direction do you give them? 13. Of these various factors considered when recruiting and hiring employees, what are the one or two most important that you personally are interested in and why? 14. How would you describe your ideal employee in terms of leadership competencies and values? SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice Core Questions: 1. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality private sector jobs compared to their civilian counterparts? 2. How do you think veterans generally fare securing employment in your company? 3. How do you think veterans do in adjusting to the corporate culture compared to non-veterans entering the corporate world? 4. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking employment in the corporate world? 5. What are the biggest obstacles facing veterans seeking to advance within the corporate world? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 6. If you had two job candidates, equally matched in terms of education, experience, and skills, and you knew that one of them was a veteran, would that fact alone influence your decision? 7. When you think of veterans what are the first images that come to mind? What are the first thoughts and impressions that come to your mind? 8. In thinking of veterans, do your thoughts or impressions change if you think of newer veterans from the War on Terror versus older veterans from WWII, Korea, or Vietnam? How so? 9. When you think of active members of the Armed Forces, what are the first thoughts and impressions that come to mind? 10. What personal traits and characteristics do you generally associate with veterans? 11. What professional skills or strengths do you generally associate with veterans? 12. Are these skills and strengths ones that you need and/or value in your company? 13. What professional or personal weaknesses in terms of performing well in private sector jobs do you associate with military veterans? 14. How do you think veterans fare in finding and securing quality jobs in companies that are similar to yours? 15. How would do you think officers fare compared to how enlisted personnel fare in finding quality private sector employment? 16. How would you compare military experience with corporate experience? What are the main similarities and differences?

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SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Veterans Core Questions: 1. Does the company have any policies or practices, or has it taken any special actions to recruit or hire military veterans? 2. Are there any special policies or practices, or has the company taken any special actions to support military veterans or members of the Guard and reserves? 3. Would you participate in a military veterans' employee group designed to provide networking, mentoring, and other support for job candidates and employees? Possible Follow-Up Questions: 4. Does the company maintain records, statistical or other information about employees who have served in the military? 5. If a decision was made to make hiring veterans a priority, how would you go about it? 6. Does the company have military veterans within the talent acquisition or human resources departments? 7. Have you personally interviewed military veterans for positions at COMPANY A or while working in another company? 8. From your personal experience, did you observe any common traits, strengths, or weaknesses among the military veterans during the job interview process? 9. From your personal experience, how would you rate veterans compared to non-veterans? What significant differences have you noticed between the two? 10. Are you aware of the term MOS, or military occupations specialty? Does your company have any way to translate MOS to your needs? 11. Are there employee associations that exist in your company? If so, please describe them. SECTION FOUR: Personal Military Experience 1. Describe your military experience in terms of where and, when you served, as well as the jobs you performed and skills you acquired from the military? 2. Has your military experience and training played a significant role in your civilian career? Discussion Guide for Company B Meeting BACKGROUND 1. Can you provide a brief overview of your company and how it is organized? 2. Can you describe in greater detail your talent acquisition and human resource operations? SECTION ONE: Talent Acquisition and Hiring Practice s 1. Do you have a formal talent acquisition strategy, and when or how often is it revised? 2. Describe key elements of your talent acquisition strategy? 3. Describe the attributes of an ideal employee? 4. How do outside recruitment firms fit into your talent acquisition operations? 5. How does the Internet fit into your talent acquisition operations? 6. How do state workforce systems fit into your talent acquisition operations? 7. How do LVERs and DVOPs fit into your talent acquisition operations? 8. Have you ever included veterans in the development of your talent acquisition strategy? 9. Have you actively tried to recruit veterans, and if so, what has been the result?

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SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice 1. What are your first impressions of veterans? 2. What strengths do you associate with veterans? 3. What weaknesses do you associate with veterans? 4. How have veterans fared in your company? 5. What are the biggest obstacles veterans face in transitioning and advancing in the private sector? 6. What are the most difficult adjustments veterans face in transitioning to the private sector? 7. Have you observed differences between former enlisted personnel compared to former officers? 8. Have you observed any differences between older veterans and younger veterans? SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Vet erans 1. Do you keep records of veteran status during the recruitment process or after hiring? 2. Do you have veterans employed in your talent acquisition operations? 3. Are you aware of the term MOS? 4. Would you support creation of a peer-to-peer network of veterans in your company? SECTION FOUR: Personal Experience with Military Vet erans 1. Are you, members of your family, or close friends veterans? Discussion Guide for Recruitment Firms BACKGROUND 1. Can you provide a brief overview of your company and how it is organized? 2. Can you describe in greater detail the services you provide other companies? SECTION ONE: Talent Acquisition and Hiring Practices 1. Do most companies you work with have a talent acquisition strategy? 2. When and how do companies develop their talent acquisition strategies? 3. Do you play a role in helping companies develop their talent acquisition strategies? 4. What are the typical elements of a company’s talent acquisition strategy? 5. Are you aware of companies that include veterans in their talent acquisition strategy? 6. How often do companies ask you specifically to search for veterans? 7. Do you interact with state workforce systems? 8. Do you interact with LVERs and DVOPs? 9. Do you interact with Internet employment services? 10. Describe some typical attributes of an ideal job candidate that companies seek? SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice 1. What are your first impressions of veterans? 2. What strengths do you associate with veterans? 3. What weaknesses do you associate with veterans? 4. How well do veterans fare when competing against non-veterans in your searches? 5. What are the biggest obstacles veterans face in transitioning to the private sector?

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6. What are the most difficult adjustments veterans face in transitioning to the private sector? 7. Have you observed differences between former enlisted personnel compared to former officers? 8. Have you observed any differences between older veterans and younger veterans? SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Vet erans 1. Do you normally keep records of veteran status during your search process? 2. Do you have veterans employed in your company and in what roles? 3. Are you aware of the term MOS? 4. What do you think about the creation of a peer-to-peer network of veterans in the private sector? SECTION FOUR: Personal Experience with Military Vet erans 1. Are you, members of your family, or close friends veterans?

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Appendix G. Discussion Guide for Peer-to-Peer Consultations BACKGROUND 1. Can you provide a brief overview of your association and its membership? SECTION ONE: Talent Acquisition and Hiring Practice s 1. Do most companies in your association have a talent acquisition strategy? 2. Do you know when and how companies develop their talent acquisition strategies? 3. Does your association play a role in helping companies find talent? 4. Do you or your association interact with state workforce systems? 5. Do you or your association interact with LVERs and DVOPs? 6. Do you or your association interact with Internet employment services? 7. Describe some typical attributes that companies seek in an employee? 8. Are you aware of companies that actively recruit veterans? 9. Has your association ever specifically considered veterans as a source of talent? SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice 1. What are your first impressions of veterans? 2. What strengths do you associate with veterans? 3. What weaknesses do you associate with veterans? 4. How well do veterans fare when competing against non-veterans in the private sector? 5. What are the biggest obstacles veterans face in transitioning to the private sector? 6. What are the most difficult adjustments veterans face in transitioning to the private sector? 7. Have you observed differences between former enlisted personnel compared to former officers? 8. Have you observed any differences between older veterans and younger veterans? SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Vet erans 1. Does your association have any special policies or programs concerning veterans? 2. Do you have veterans employed in your association? 3. Are you aware of the term MOS? 4. What do you think about the creation of a peer-to-peer network of veterans in the private sector? SECTION FOUR: Personal Experience with Military Vet erans 1. Are you, members of your family, or close friends veterans? Discussion Guide for Company D, E, F & G Meetings BACKGROUND 1. Can you provide a brief overview of your company and how it is organized? 2. Can you describe in greater detail your talent acquisition and human resource operations? 3. Do you have a formal talent acquisition strategy, and when or how often is it revised? 4. Describe key elements of your talent acquisition strategy?

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5. Describe the attributes of an ideal employee? 6. How do outside recruitment firms fit into your talent acquisition operations? 7. How does the Internet fit into your talent acquisition operations? 8. How do state workforce systems fit into your talent acquisition operations? 9. How do LVERs and DVOPs fit into your talent acquisition operations? 10. Have you ever included veterans in the development of your talent acquisition strategy? 11. Have you actively tried to recruit veterans, and if so, what has been the result? SECTION TWO: Perceptions of Veterans and Military S ervice 12. What are your first impressions of veterans? 13. What strengths do you associate with veterans? 14. What weaknesses do you associate with veterans? 15. How have veterans fared in your company? 16. What are the biggest obstacles veterans face in transitioning and advancing in the private sector? 17. What are the most difficult adjustments veterans face in transitioning to the private sector? 18. Have you observed differences between former enlisted personnel compared to former officers? 19. Have you observed any differences between older veterans and younger veterans? SECTION THREE: Policies and Practices Affecting Vet erans 20. Do you keep records of veteran status during the recruitment process or after hiring? 21. Do you have veterans employed in your talent acquisition operations? 22. Are you aware of the term MOS? 23. Would you support creation of a peer-to-peer network of veterans in your company? SECTION FOUR: Personal Experience with Military Veterans 24. Are you, members of your family, or close friends veterans?

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Appendix H. Branding and Marketing Summit Agendas Branding and Marketing Summit I Agenda

The agenda for the first Branding and Marketing Summit was quite ambitious, but enabled a broad discussion of many related topics. The discussion provided significant insights and direction to the forthcoming preparations for the corporate site visits. The dynamic nature of the discussions generally followed the planned agenda, although the last two items on the agenda were not covered in as much depth as anticipated.

1. Overview of Summit and Introduction of Participants 2. Background and Explanation of Current Veterans Employment Study 3. Branding Success Stories: Insights and Lessons from Participants 4. Discussion of Veterans Employment Challenges and Obstacles 5. Discussion of the Principles of “Branding” and Marketing Research Techniques 6. Overview and Discussion of Upcoming Corporate Site Visits 7. Research Topics and Techniques for Corporate Site Visits 8. Discussion and Drafting of Questions for Corporate Site Visits Branding and Marketing Summit II Agenda 1) Introduction and Background

• Background of Veterans Employment Study • Review of First Summit Meeting & Completed Corporate Site Visits

2) Group Discussion of Preliminary Findings from Completed Corporate Site Visits 3) Discussion of Possible Recommendations for Branding and Marketing Campaign

• Messages: What to Say and How to Say It • Targets: Who to Reach and How • Structure of Marketing Campaign • Costs, including Possible Sources of Funding • Effectiveness, and How to Measure

4) Recommendations for Future Corporate Site Visits Branding and Marketing Summit III Agenda 1) Introduction and Background 2) Goals of Meeting 3) Break Out Sessions: (rotating groups) 4) Branding/Re-Branding

• Is it feasible to establish a national campaign to brand the veteran as a business asset?

• How does one successfully change the brand of a product that is negatively viewed?

• How can the veteran brand be changed? • What are the most feasible approaches to re-branding? • What advertising techniques could be used to re-brand the veteran? • Can social cues or symbols play a role? • How can a branding campaign influence the hidden job market?

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• Can corporate America help with re-branding the veteran? • What is the role of the Federal government?

5) Attitudes/Behaviors • Is it feasible to establish a national campaign to change the attitudes of the private

sector towards hiring veterans, and significantly increase their hiring of veterans? • How does one successfully change the attitudes associated with the veterans? • How feasible is it to change the attitudes of private employers towards veterans? • What attracts HR executives to one pool of candidates over another? • Is there a precedent for the private-sector to lead workforce changes? • Are certain sectors more apt to embrace veterans, or more apt to change their

hiring of veterans? • How can we best identify what the private sector wants to see in veteran

candidates before they enter this market? • What can be done to make veterans a priority on the slate of candidates prepared

by HR executives? • What resources in the private sector are likely to be strengths in changing the hiring

practices of veterans? 6) Marketing Strategies

• Is it feasible to establish a national marketing campaign to the private sector that will significantly improve the hiring of veterans?

• What key strategies could be implemented? • How should the strategies be implemented? • How feasible are the strategies? • How can the value argument fit an entire workforce? • How can the value argument speak across industries? • How do we segment and target the market of jobs? • How do we sell the cause and leverage the support? • How does the government have a role? • What is the role of Corporate America?

7) Group Discussion 8) Recommendations 9) Conclusions

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Appendix I. About The Center for Military and Private Sector In itiatives

The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives is a nonprofit 501(c)(3)

organization that has been working for over a decade to improve employment opportunities for transitioning military personnel, veterans, and their families. The Center was founded in 1995 by Mr. Wesley Poriotis and others for the primary purpose of applying modern job search and placement techniques to the task of helping veterans find quality employment in the private sector.

Mr. Poriotis is also the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Wesley, Brown, and Bartle (WB&B), one of the America’s leading management consulting and executive search firms, and the nation’s premier diversity search firm. WB&B has placed executive personnel in over 300 of the “Fortune 500” largest corporations over the past three decades, many of whom have risen to the very highest echelons of executive leadership.

In 1995, at the request of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Poriotis produced a report analyzing how veterans were faring in their transition from the military to civilian employment. He found that veterans’ employment and career transition services were inadequate and outdated, and made a dozen recommendations to improve federal programs. Subsequently The Center was founded and over the past dozen years Mr. Poriotis and The Center have aggressively pursued implementation of those recommendations, as well as other innovative methods of improving veterans’ employment.

Mr. Poriotis has testified four times before the House of Representatives or the Senate on the subject of improving veterans’ employment opportunities. Mr. Poriotis and The Center were also consulted frequently by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs during drafting of the legislative language requiring the study and report that was included in P.L. 108-454.

For more than a decade, The Center has advocated for improvements in federal policies concerning veterans’ employment, placement, retention and advancement. Through its programs and activities, The Center has already helped thousands of veterans find quality jobs. The Center is able to draw upon its Chairman’s three decades of experience, recruiting and placing qualified individuals with thousands of small, medium, and large businesses and corporations, including more than 300 of the “Fortune 500” companies. Mr. Poriotis’ contacts in corporate America are an incalculable resource that has, and will continue, opening doors of opportunity for thousands of military veterans.

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Appendix J. Background Materials Sent to Study Participants VETERANS BENEFITS IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2004 Public Law 108-454 108th Congress December 10, 2004 An Act To amend title 38, United States Code, to improve and extend housing, education, and other benefits under the laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes. SEC. 211. REPORT OF EMPLOYMENT PLACEMENT, RETENTION, AND ADVANCEMENT OF RECENTLY SEPARATED SERVICEMEMBERS. (a) Contract for Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall enter into a contract with a qualified entity to conduct a study of and prepare a report on the employment histories of recently separated servicemembers. (b) Content of Report.— (1) The study conducted pursuant to subsection (a) shall consist of an analysis of employment-related data that have been collected with respect to recently separated servicemembers. (2) In conducting the study, the qualified entity shall-- (A) determine whether the employment obtained by recently separated servicemembers is commensurate with training and education of those servicemembers; (B) determine whether recently separated servicemembers received educational assistance or training and rehabilitation under programs administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs under chapter 30 or 31 of title 38, United States Code, or under chapter 1606 of title 10, United States Code; (C) determine whether transition assistance services provided to recently separated servicemembers assisted those servicemembers in obtaining civilian employment; (D) analyze trends in hiring of veterans by the private sector; and (E) identify recently separated servicemembers who have reached senior level management positions. (c) Use of Data.--In conducting the study under subsection (a), the qualified entity shall review data compiled and reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and shall collect additional data on the employment histories of recently separated servicemembers available from such other sources as the qualified entity determines to be appropriate. (d) Contract Requirements.— (1) The contract entered into under subsection (a) shall contain such terms and conditions as the Secretary may require. The contract shall require that the report on the study be submitted to the Secretary not later than 2 years after the date on which the contract was entered into. (2) The report required under subsection (a) shall contain the findings and conclusions of the qualified entity on the study and specific recommendations to improve employment

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opportunities for veterans recently separated from service in the Armed Forces, including, if appropriate, recommendations for— (A) the establishment of networks of contacts for employment of such veterans in the private sector; (B) outreach to private sector leaders on the merits and sound business practice of hiring such veterans; and (C) additional methods to facilitate communication between private sector employers and such veterans who are seeking employment. (e) Funding.--Payment by the Secretary for the contract entered into under subsection (a)-- (1) shall be made from the Department of Veterans Affairs appropriations account from which payments for readjustment benefits are made; and (2) may not exceed $490,000. (f) Definitions.--In this section: (1) The term ``qualified entity'' means an entity or organization that meets the following requirements: (A) Demonstrated experience in conducting employment surveys of recently separated servicemembers, including Internet-based surveys, that meet such quality assurance requirements as the Secretary determines appropriate. (B) Demonstrated familiarity with veteran employment matters. (C) Demonstrated ability in developing plans to market veterans as employment assets. (D) Demonstrated ability to acquire services at no cost from other organizations, such as technology, staff services, and advertising services. (E) Demonstrated ability to develop relationships, establish employment networks, and facilitate interaction between private and public sector leaders and veterans. (2) The term ``employment history'' means, with respect to a recently separated service member, training, placement, retention, and advancement in employment of that service member. (3) The term ``recently separated service member'' means any veteran (as defined in section 101(2) of title 38, United States Code) discharged or released from active duty in the Armed Forces of the United States during the 16-year period beginning on January 1, 1990. VETERANS RESEARCH STUDY PROPOSAL Task One–I. Recommendations

For this task, we propose to work with our subcontractor, The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives. This task will begin in December 2005. The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that has been working for over a decade to improve employment opportunities for transitioning military personnel, veterans, and their families. The Center was founded in 1995 for the primary purpose of applying modern job search and placement techniques to the task of helping veterans find quality employment in the private sector.

Subtasks One-A through One-H above set up and analyze employment history data, including job advancement of veterans. This subtask extends this research and

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investigates the ways in which employment opportunities for veterans can be enhanced. In order to make recommendations for improving the employment opportunities for veterans, we examine how the private and public sectors implement their outreach and hiring programs. In the discussion that follows we describe how we will research potential barriers to employment that veterans may encounter and make recommendations on how these barriers might be overcome.

Together with The Center we will do the following: 1. Analyze networks, such as college alumni associations and professional organizations, that provide entrée into, and mentoring within, private sector employers, and assess the feasibility of establishing new or changes to existing networks for employment of veterans in the private and public sector. 2. Conduct a series of high level meetings with major employers in key industry sectors to understand how they make hiring decisions and how they can enhance the hiring of veterans; and 3. Draft recommendations on the feasibility of undertaking a campaign to “brand” and market veterans as a competitive business asset. 4. Research and Draft Recommendations on the Feasibility of Developing a Veterans’ Peer-to-Peer Career Network

We will conduct original research regarding the feasibility of developing an alumni-style, peer-to-peer network of former military service members in order to improve their job placement and advancement opportunities.

In order to judge the feasibility of this endeavor, it will be necessary to examine several existing models of college alumni networks, as well as other similar networks that provide entrée into, and mentoring within, private sector employers. The Center will arrange for a minimum of six (6) alumni and peer-to-peer consultations, three (3) of which will be with successful college alumni organizations, and three (3) of which will be with other types of fraternal, professional, or business organizations. We will examine the internal structures and operational activities of each organization to assess whether a veterans’ peer-to-peer network could be similarly structured and operated.

This work will include engaging groups that target the same age/category/job

classifications in the market place, such as college recruiters and campus placement specialists.

Conduct a Series of High-Level Meetings with Major Employers in Key Industry Sectors to Understand How They Make Hiring Decisions and How They Can Enhance the Hiring of Veterans

In this stage, we will identify former service members who have reached senior positions within private sector companies. Using its direct contacts in the corporate world, The Center will access senior executive leadership, including human resource heads, who can help identify recently separated service members within their companies. For example, The Center personally met with magazine publisher Steve Forbes, who agreed to modify his annual survey of CEOs of the “Forbes 400” largest companies in America to include a question about their military service backgrounds.

The Center will also lead a series of seven (7) corporate field visits, each of which will include components to assess the feasibility of establishing peer-to-peer networks for veterans. The Center has identified six major sectors of the economy that hold great

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potential for improving veterans’ private sector employment opportunities. These are presented in Exhibit 1. We will review this list with the VA at the start of the contract. Using its extensive contacts, The Center will select employers in each of the sectors, representing different regions of the country, and schedule two-day field visits with each selected company.

A four-person team of experts will meet with senior executives, division heads, human resources and personnel directors, including those identified as having military service backgrounds. The team will meet with and interview a broad cross-section of each company’s policy-setters who can provide insight into trends in hiring veterans, as well as the internal perceptions of how veterans fit within each corporate structure. In meetings with those who have military service backgrounds, we will not only examine the feasibility of their participation in potential job employment and advancement networks, but will actually begin to collect the practical information and resources that would serve as the foundation of such networks. Each of the corporate field visits will also include meetings with local job placement firms, and small and medium local businesses, in order to provide a broad perspective of the local job market visited. Exhibit 1. Selected Sectors of the Economy to be Researched 1. Banking and Financial Services (e.g. – Wachovia, Schwab, Fifth Third Bank, Bank of America, Prudential) 2. Technology and Telecommunications (e.g. – Oracle, Microsoft, Arrow Electronics, Siebel, Cingular, Symbol Tech) 3. Energy and Utilities (e.g. – Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, American Electric Power, The Southern Companies, Calpine) 4. Retail (e.g. – Target, Ahold, Albertsons, H.E. Butts, T.J. Maxx, Belk) 5. Construction and Heavy Industry (e.g. – Koch, Caterpillar, John Deere, Bechtel, Fluor) 6. Transportation (e.g. – Union Pacific, CSX Railroads, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway)

Throughout the visits, the team will gather information necessary to perform an audit of corporate perceptions of the military “brand” and an analysis of human resources staff perceptions of those involved in hiring decisions. These visits will also serve to foster and facilitate communication among the targeted corporation, job placement firms, and other local employers on the value of hiring veterans. An example of an agenda for these visits is shown in Exhibit 2.

We will produce findings based upon the consultations, corporate field visits, and other complementary activities undertaken during the course of this research study. Drawing from these findings, and taken together with other findings from the prior tasks, we will make recommendations concerning the feasibility of establishing a veterans' peer-to-peer network, including specific recommendations about how to proceed with establishing such a network. Exhibit 2. Typical Corporate Field Visit Schedule Day One Morning: Overview Meetings - Senior Executives (CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, etc.)

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Interviews – Divisional VPs & Business Unit Heads Lunch: Roundtable with Senior Executives, Divisional VPs & Business Unit Heads Afternoon: Interviews – Human Resources & Corporate Communications Leadership Interviews – Directors of Talent Acquisition and Staffing Dinner: Informal Discussion with Executives and Veterans in Senior Positions Day Two Morning: Interviews – Local Job Placement, Executive Recruitment & Employment Agencies Lunch: Roundtable with Local Small and Medium Employers (Chamber of Commerce) Afternoon: Interviews with Veterans in Senior Positions Summary Meeting with Senior Executives and Manageme nt We have provided the VA with a budget for conducting additional corporate employer site visits beyond the seven proposed above. Should the VA determine that further research would provide a broader perspective on Veteran hiring, placement and advancement, this option could be executed. Research and Draft Recommendations on the Feasibility of Undertaking a Campaign to “Brand” and Market Veterans as a Competitive Business Asset Working with The Center, we will conduct original research to help determine the feasibility of undertaking a campaign to “brand” and market veterans as competitive business assets to prospective employers. In order to assess the structure, target, cost, and effectiveness of such a campaign, it will be necessary to conduct a “perception audit” of how corporate America views veterans as valued employee assets. We will hold three (3) “branding and marketing” summits with recognized national leaders in the field of advertising, public opinion, and public relations. These summits will provide us with expert advice and counsel on how to research, review, and make recommendations regarding the feasibility of a national branding and marketing campaign.

The Center’s team of experts will lead these summits, along with experts and executives from leading public relations and marketing firms, all participating on a volunteer basis.

The first summit will be held prior to scheduled corporate field visits and will focus upon preparations for the upcoming corporate field visits. The summit participants will help determine questions and topics that need to be covered in the meetings, interviews, and other discussions with corporate leaders. The second summit will occur after half of the corporate field visits have been completed in order to make preliminary assessments, refocus future field visits, and begin to discuss possible recommendations. The final summit will occur after field research is completed and will focus on developing recommendations regarding the feasibility and structure of a branding and marketing campaign.

Upon completion of the field visit and summits, we will draft findings and recommendations regarding the feasibility of undertaking a campaign to “brand” military service experience and market veterans to private sector employers. Such recommendations will include field-tested messages, targeted audiences, projected costs, potential funding sources, and other information necessary to move forward with this campaign.

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Deliverables At the completion of this task, a draft report summarizing work done under the task will be submitted to the VA for review. Comments and suggestions from that review within ten (10) days will be incorporated and an electronic copy of the final version, as well as five (5) hard copies, will be delivered. In addition, the Center will brief the VA on the task results and recommendations, via a PowerPoint presentation, at an in-person meeting. An electronic copy of the PowerPoint presentation, as well as five (5) hard copies, will be delivered.