Employment Assistance Programs Are Looking for Veterans!

Executive Director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program and Call of Duty Endowment partner, Kevin Schmiegel was recently featured in a Fox Business article encouraging veterans to take advantage of benefits and assistance programs when looking for employment. According to Fox, a recent government audit of veteran job training programs found that nearly 60,000 slots were unused.

Curtis Coy with Economic Opportunity at the Department of Veterans Affairs also points out that less than half of the applicants approved to receive assistance from the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP) have actually enrolled.

Schmiegel explains that although many organizations offer veterans employment support, the usefulness of these tools depends on a veteran’s initiative to take advantage of them.

Are you a veteran looking for employment assistance? Check out Hiring Our Heroes’ new ResumeEngine.org, which helps veterans refine their resumes.

Opportunities for Veterans Looking for Civilian Work and Training

Are you a veteran looking for civilian employment and/or training? Read up on an Endowment-sponsored career fair below. Interested in starting your own business? Check out UConn’s entrepreneurial boot camp below, designed specifically for disabled veterans.

• The Call of Duty Endowment is a proud supporter of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring our Heroes career fairs. The Casper Star Tribune recently reported on one of these local career fairs, to be held in Casper, Wyoming today. The article highlighted that “more than 25 employers are expected to participate, with jobs available for veterans and military spouses of all ranks and levels of experience.” To learn more or to register for free, visit www.hoh.greatjob.net

• The Hartford Business Journal featured an interview with Michael J. Zacchea, program manager for the University of Connecticut’s Entrepreneurship Boot Camp for Veterans with Disabilities. In it, he explains that “our program is really an intervention into the economic life of the veteran, by which we give him or her the tools to create self-employment and financial independence. This creates a positive-reinforcing loop for stable housing and mental health.” To learn more, visit http://ebv.business.uconn.edu/

Hiring our Heroes August Career Fairs

Are you a veteran or military spouse looking for a job and need some help? Try attending one of these Hiring our Heroes career fairs, coming to a city near you in August:

August 7, 2012 – Lake Charles, LA

August 9, 2012 – Camp Lejeune – Miltary Spouse Event

August 9, 2012 – Rollinsford, NH

August 9, 2012 – Houston, TX

August 11, 2012 – Great Falls, MT

August 13, 2012 – Quantico, VA

August 14, 2012 – Albuquerque, NM

August 15, 2012 – Sioux Falls, SD

August 16, 2012 – Richmond, VA

August 16, 2012 – Palm Desert/Indio, CA

August 16, 2012 – Dover, DE

August 16, 2012 – San Diego, CA

August 21, 2012 – North Scottsdale, AZ

August 21, 2012 – Statesboro, GA

August 21, 2012 – Romeoville, IL

August 22, 2012 – Modesto, CA

August 23, 2012 – Columbus, OH

August 23, 2012 – South Hill, VA

August 23, 2012 – Huntsville, AL

August 23, 2012 – Miami, FL

August 24, 2012 – Warr Acres, OK

August 24, 2012 – Greensboro/Winston Salem, NC

August 25, 2012 – Indianapolis, IN

August 28, 2012 – Los Angeles, CA

August 28, 2012 – Chester, WV

August 29, 2012 – Fort Belvoir Wounded Warrior Event

August 30, 2012 – Fort Bragg, NC Wounded Warrior Event

For information on these events, or the US Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring our Heroes initiative, check out their website: http://www.uschamber.com/hiringourheroes

Bipartisan Policy Center Event May 22 Will Feature the Endowment’s Gen. Jim Jones

The Bipartisan Policy Center will be holding an event Tuesday, May 22nd from 2:30-3:30pm called “Training Tomorrow’s Workers Today: How the Right Investments Can Make a Difference.” The day’s discussions will focus on the value of hiring our veterans.

Former United States National Security Advisor and a retired United States Marine Corps General, the Call of Duty Endowment’s General Jim Jones will be a featured speaker, along with Kevin Schmiegel, Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Executive Director of the Hire Our Heroes Program, which is an Endowment partner.

According to the invitation, some questions that will be addressed from both the private and public sector perspectives include:

• How do we bridge the divide and provide unemployed workers with the skills and competencies these opportunities require?
• How can industry collaborate with government to fill the gap when federal resources for job training programs have declined by 18 percent since 2006?
• And as we prepare to celebrate national service on Memorial Day, how can we ease the transition of veterans back into the civilian workforce?

The event will be moderated by former CNN correspondent, Kathleen Koch. For more information visit their website’s RSVP page, located here.

Companies Taking Notice: GE Plans to Hire 5,000 Veterans over the Next Five Years and Comcast launches “Hire a Veteran on Demand”

Veterans continue to struggle with high unemployment rates, but some leading corporations are stepping up to help.

GE announced on Monday that the company will hire 5,000 veterans over the next five years. The company also touted its commitment to host 400 veterans’ job fairs this year in partnership with the US Chamber of Commerce’s “Hiring our Heroes” program.  GE currently employs more than 10,000 veterans and has about 100 U.S. employee reservists currently serving overseas.

Comcast also recently announced an innovative new service aimed at helping Veterans. The company launched “Hire a Veteran on Demand” in Massachusetts.  A series of video profiles 26 unemployed veterans talking about their experiences serving, the skills they acquired, and why they would be good employees.  The program features 26 veterans picked by the Department of Veterans’ Services from the over 37,000 veterans that have returned to Massachusetts since 9/11.

As the Boston Globe points out the program is unique in several ways.  Rather than a direct commitment to hire the veterans, Comcast donated its technology and resources to allow veterans to talk about themselves and what they did in the military.  We have blogged before about the difficulties translating military service into civilian terms, and the Comcast program may prove most valuable in this respect.  As the Globe puts it:

The state and Comcast may not put a significant dent in national veteran unemployment rates, but they’ve moved the effort along by trying to overcome a more fundamental challenge: how to translate military assignments into civilian sector needs.

It may not be the universal language of love, but closing the linguistic gap between skills acquired in war and the impenetrable names the military assigns basic functions is no small – in military speak – mission.

The Endowment Offers a Look Inside One of its US Chamber of Commerce Career Fairs

In partnering with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to sponsor 25 ‘Hiring our Heroes’ career fairs across the nation throughout 2012, the Endowment wanted to give you a quick look inside one such fair, to hear what real employers from veteran-friendly companies such as AT&T, Walmart, and Microsoft have to say about veteran employment. Watch it here:

The Endowment Partners with US Chamber to Offer 25 Career Fairs Around the Country

Last year, the Call of Duty Endowment provided a $250,000 grant to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for their Hiring Our Heroes career fair program. As such, over the next year, the Endowment will be sponsoring 25 fairs across the county.

Since March of 2011, the Hiring our Heroes program has connected 80,000 veterans and veteran spouses with 4,000 employers. From that, 6,000 have found jobs. Check out this Call of Duty Endowment YouTube video with Kevin Schmiegel, the Vice President of the US Chamber’s Veteran Employment Program:

In aligning with our priorities and mission, the Endowment is excited to be partnering with such a dedicated organization as the US Chamber, and are especially proud to be able to offer our veterans and veteran spouses such a great opportunity for success in finding employment.

Upcoming Job Fairs and Help for Vet-Owned Businesses

In the coming weeks, several organizations will be hosting job fairs for veterans and military spouses.  One of the leading organizations sponsoring hiring fairs across the county is RecruitMilitary.  So far, the organization has scheduled over 50 free hiring fairs across the country, including two events on January 26th (Las Vegas, NV & Nashville, TN).

The US Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring our Heroes Job Fairs also continue in 2012, with three events remaining in January (Knoxville, TN on 1/24 and Alexandria, LA and Longmont, CO on 1/26). Click here for a full list of scheduled events.

In addition to Veterans and their families looking for work, there may be positive news for Veteran owned businesses as well.  The Wall Street Journal reports that more states are implementing processes to allocate state and local contracts to veteran owned businesses.  23 states currently offer some type of preferential contracting process for veteran-owned businesses and legislation is moving in many more.

If veteran-businesses are able to secure even a small portion of state and local contracts, it can mean bug business.  For example, the WSJ piece reports that, “Between July 2009 and July 2010, California spent $213 million on businesses owned by disabled veterans, or around 3.7% of the state’s $5.8 billion procurement budget.”

In a difficult economy, many veterans are opening their own businesses.  State and local governments will be well served in forging partnerships with these leaders and entrepreneurs.

Hiring our Heroes Career Fair for Spouses This Friday in Washington, DC

Call of Duty Endowment Partner Student Veterans of America Co-Hosts Las Vegas Job Fair

This past weekend the Student Veterans of America, a Call of Duty Endowment grant recipient, partnered with the US Chamber of Commerce and RecruitMilitary to host a Hiring Our Heroes job fair in Las Vegas.

Kevin Schmiegel, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s veterans employment program asked a particularly poignant question regarding our current veteran unemployment crisis: “How are we going to recruit talented young men and women if they see those unemployment data? Why should they raise their right hand and serve in an all-volunteer force if their service isn’t going to be valued or understood when they’re looking for employment after they leave? This is a national security issue.”

The Endowment knows that it is critically important to support organizations, like Student Veterans of America, that are tackling this issue of national security head on.