Military and Veteran Job Search Accountability-It Goes Both Ways

As a continuation from my 1st quarter article, “How are you Holding Yourself Accountable in Your Job Search”, our second quarter appears to yield similar results.

There remains high interest and outreach from the Military & Veteran community, but the follow-up to engage and network is still significantly low. For those of you that are not hearing back from employers, I’d encourage you to further engage, along with opportunities through 50strong , and the 50 Strong Mentor platform ( since inception last year, I’ve completed 146 mentor sessions, and we have 19 employee mentors representing C&W). The preparation, networking, and informational interviewing can be highly beneficial in this continued competitive market.

For those that completed our Veteran & Military Spouse interest form since the first of the year, we’ve received 1,073 inquiries (as of June 30th), all of which received follow-up details, preparation resources, and next steps to engage in the process. Of those, only 282 replied (26%).

For our active duty Skillbridge interest, we’ve received 913 inquiries this year (as of June 30th), all of which received preparation resources and detailed step by step instructions on how to engage, and only 127 (14%) have replied. Keeping in mind, we align Skillbridge to full-time open positions within 90 days or less due to immediate hiring needs. Many service members may be engaging 6 months out or longer.

If we combine the two together, that’s 1,986 inquiries, all of which received follow-up details, prep resources, and next steps instructions, with 409 responding ( 20.5%).

This doesn’t account for the 13,515 direct Veteran employment applications that have applied to open positions this year.

There can be many nuances to the job search process from location preferences, required skill sets and experiences aligning to our client needs, the volume of applicants applying, salary expectations, and the overall timing of when the job was posted and how quickly the hiring team initiates their selection process.

As we push onward and upward with a combined 250+ Veterans and Military Spouses hired this year, what can you do differently to stay positive, engaged, network, and set yourself up for a more intentional job search?