Executive Summary:
Over 650,000 veterans are pursuing higher education often with one primary goal in mind: finding employment afterwards. But there is often a disconnect between higher education and employers looking to hire student veterans. While veterans say that finding employment after their military transition is one of their primary concerns, except for individual schools and specific motivated career services representatives, there have been few coordinated or systematic efforts to connect student veterans to employers through university career-based services.
Created through the generous financial support and collaboration of Prudential Financial, Inc., this guide is designed to be a hands-on product to help employers and student-services professionals working with student veterans. It is the result of interviews with employers, student services professionals, and veteran serving organizations.
Key Findings:
Our findings are the result of interviews from select employers, human resources (HR) representatives, career services professionals working at higher education institutions, community-based organizations, and student veteran organizations. Three key findings include:
- Higher education professionals (often via career services) work directly with student veterans to connect to employers and vice versa. Our interviewees said that having someone dedicated to working with student veterans who had specific knowledge of veterans or was a veteran themselves was especially useful but noted that it was not the norm.
- In instances where community-based coalitions existed, they served as a conduit between higher education and employers, sometimes sharing job opportunities, qualified candidates, and generally providing a bridge to connect student veterans to jobs.
- Student veterans often ‘go-it-alone’ when looking for a job, occasionally working with one of the entities (higher education, communities, or employers).
Inside This Guide You Will Find:
- Strategies used by select companies to engage and recruit student veteran job seekers.
- Strategies used by select higher education institutions to connect student veterans to employers.
- Best practices and engagement strategies from key employers, higher education professionals, and community and state-based initiatives.
- Resources available to support employers looking to hire student veterans.
- Do’s and Don’ts for employers recruiting student veterans