Hi, I’m Mo Stern and I’m new to the blog but excited to be posting here. I’ve been helping companies recruit military since the mid ’90s, so hopefully I along with Lisa can answer some of your questions.

For instance, this week a company asked me if there was a “catch” to the relocation benefits provided to military personnel as they transition back to civilian life at the conclusion of their service obligation.

I explained that the government will relocate the individual from their exit location back to their “home of record” (location where they entered the military) or the equivalent distance!

This is another reason why companies find military experienced candidates so attractive as new additions to their staff. Any savings on RELO costs is a huge benefit to a future employer.  Even with some companies dropping relo reimbursement due to economic pressures, the military relocation benefit still makes a transitioning military candidate more “mobile” than a civilian candidate.

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Filed under: Regard, Save Money

In this series of blogs I am exploring some creative ways for employers to “test drive” veterans before hiring military and for veterans to explore civilian careers.  The first blog addressed internships.  The second blog covered on-the-job-training programs. This blog reviews Management Trainee Programs.

If you are not familiar with management trainee programs (MTPs), most follow a basic structure.  Selected candidates undergo:

• An orientation to the company usually lasting 1-2 weeks.
• Rotational exposure over the course of several months to a variety of jobs within a business unit or among different business units within a company.
• Hands-on work / job shadowing of a narrower selection of positions within a business unit or among a handful of different business units within a company, lasting several more months.
• Selection to work in a specific entry-level management job in a specific business unit.  This first assignment may be as a permanent hire or as a probationary hire.

The program may also involve classroom training, depending on company requirements and the nature of the work.  During the trainee period the candidate is continuously assessed and evaluated on his/her “fit” for the various jobs and the business units.  The candidate is encouraged to express their opinion on the type of work they found most interesting and the business unit where they felt most engaged.  Ideally, by the end of the process the candidate knows the type of position where they would be the strongest and the hiring manager for their favored business unit is confident the candidate will be a good addition to the team.

Management trainee programs are offered by many leading companies in a variety of industries:

• L’Oreal (cosmetics)
• Anheuser-Busch InBev (food and beverage)
• Toll Brothers (construction)
• Marriott (lodging)
• Walgreens (retail)
• Fulton Financial Corporation (finance)
• Unilever (home, personal care, and food products)

These programs are typically marketed to recent college graduates or those just about to graduate.  Oftentimes the company’s career web page has announcements of when campus visits will occur and encourages students to contact their university career centers to apply.  Some companies don’t advertise these opportunities on their web sites, simply relying on campus visits to get the word out.

What I would like to see happen in 2010 (and beyond) is more employers making an effort to recruit transitioning military service members, particularly those who are mid-level non-commissioned officers (NCOs – grade E-5 through E-7) and junior-level military officers (JMOs – grade O-1 through O-3), to apply for these programs.  I’d like to see more of these companies visiting the military transition centers and attending military job fairs in an effort to reach out to veterans and to encourage them to apply.

Think about it – veterans already have a great deal of supervisory and managerial experience:

• How many 21-year old college seniors can say they have led a team of nine workers (or more) to accomplish any significant task?  How many of them have been doing it for years and under incredibly challenging situations in austere environments?
• How many young adults have had personal and financial accountability for the people and equipment for which they were responsible?  Few civilians have experienced a report-of-survey and had their pay docked because company equipment was damaged or lost.  Few students have undergone something akin to the scrutiny of an Article 15-6 investigation or a Line-Of-Duty investigation because two of their employees were in an altercation in their living quarters.
• How many students have written performance reviews or coached employees for a promotion?
• How many 20-somethings have developed unit/team training plans and assessed others on the level of knowledge attained?

NCOs and JMOs, who are typically between the ages of 22 and 30, can say they have done all of that and more.

Military service members also have real-world experience in many industries.  Over 80% of the jobs in the military have a civilian equivalent.  There are veterans with extensive backgrounds in healthcare, logistics, transportation, IT, law enforcement/security, emergency management, project management, engineering, intelligence and human resources, to name just a few industries and fields. The area a service member will have the least hands-on familiarity with is in the actual business aspects – how this company makes/saves money – since that is one thing a veteran rarely had to be concerned with in his military job.  However, I suspect business aspects would need to be emphasized with the college students as well, so I still believe the veteran would be the stronger candidate.

Yes, companies could be attracting great candidates with supervisory/managerial experience and real-world industry experience versus candidates with little to no supervisory/managerial experience and primarily book-knowledge.  So – why don’t companies market these training programs to veterans? Most companies focus on college students because they don’t realize there is another resource of young talent with industry knowledge.  Most employers are unaware of the breadth and depth of experience our military men and women have.

If your company has a management trainee program that is not currently being marketed to veterans I encourage you to consider adding military hiring to your recruiting strategy.  If you need more information on where to find veterans or how to market to veterans I invite you to register to attend one of my web seminars on these military hiring topics.

I also recommend those employers with existing MTPs consider their choice of career site language.  Phrases like “offers recent college graduates”, and “use your degree” discourages non-commissioned officers who have not completed a degree from applying.  Unless there is a strong reason why a college degree is required (versus desired), employers are encouraged to also accept applicants with relevant experience.

Here are some examples of great organizations that do make the effort to market to military and recruit military into their management trainee programs:

1. General Electric’s Junior Officer Leadership Program, commonly known as JOLP.
2. The US Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) agency.
3. Con-Way

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Filed under: Recruit

Dear President Obama –

I posted a link to Executive Order #13518 “Employment of Veterans in the Federal Government” as a discussion item in about two dozen different veteran groups on LinkedIn.  I was curious to see what kind of response news of this order and its “Veterans Employment Initiative” would generate.  Reaction fell into one of three categories:

1. Roughly 10% of the respondents were very excited to hear this news.  I’ll call this group “The Inexperienced Innocents.”  This group was comprised primarily of service members who will be transitioning from the military in the next few months and looking for employment.  They have not yet tried to navigate the federal job world, but they trust that, somehow, this order will make the federal job hunt experience one that is simple, expedient, full of feedback, and generally not frustrating.
2. Almost 80% of respondents fell into the category of “The Scorned Skeptics”.  These veterans have “been there – done that – couldn’t even get a d*mn t-shirt because I never heard back from anyone regarding any job I ever applied for on USAjobs.”  Phrases like “lip service”, “smoke and mirrors” and “just trying to look like they support veterans” were common.  The tales these veterans told of frustrated job searches were soul crushing.  Somewhat surprising was the number of former service members with easily transferrable experience (i.e., healthcare, transportation, and logistics) who were unable to find a job within the government.
3. The final 10% I’ll call “The Reservedly Optimistic”.  That is the category into which I fall.  The folks in this category tended to be those who currently work or have experience with corporate recruiting practices.  We know the current system does not work well for veterans (or, arguably, anyone who doesn’t already have a federal job).  However, we also know that systems can be improved.

I know personally of the frustrations veterans experience with breaking into the federal job scene.  Back in 2005 my husband spent almost 9 months applying for government positions before he gave up.  If someone with solid technical/IT/telecommunications skills (both military and civilian), a current top secret clearance, and Washington DC area residence couldn’t find work anywhere in the federal government, what hope should anyone else have?

So, President Obama, the burning question all respondents want to ask is “What will be done differently this time?”

As evidenced by my depressing statistic of 80% Scorned Skeptics, simply coming up with a slick marketing campaign that tells the veteran community “the government wants to hire you!” is not going to persuade us that this is more than lip service.  Change does not come easily to those who are entrenched in a comfort zone. You will have to convince, nay, motivate, the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Office of Personnel Management, and all 24+ members of the Council on Veterans Employment to think “outside the box”.  They must be willing to look for and try best practices from corporate recruiting and retention initiatives, in particular those veteran hiring initiatives that civilian companies have undertaken that have had much success.  If the companies listed on G.I. Jobs “Top 100 Military Friendly Employers” and CivilianJobs.com’s Most Valuable Employers (MVE) for Military can figure out how be successful at hiring military veterans, I think the federal government can be open to learning something from them.

As I have spent the last two years educating civilian employers, federal hiring managers, and college/university human resource professionals on how to develop and implement a military hiring initiative, I feel uniquely qualified to offer you some of my personal suggestions:

• Allow federal HR professionals to more aggressively search for the right candidates.  This is opposed to passively posting a job opening on USAjobs, waiting for 400 applications to come in, and then sifting through them to find the one diamond in a pile of coal.  Civilian recruiters actively seek out (though the use of social networking sites, Internet Boolean searches and data mining multiple resume databases) potential ideal candidates for their openings and “push” jobs to them rather than using the “pull” method described above.
• Allow those companies with extensive experience in placing military veterans with civilian employers to assist you in this effort while you train your current HR practitioners/recruiters how to do that kind of work.  Corporations know that when they don’t have a particular knowledge area or ability it often makes good business sense to bring in outside experts (short or long term) in order to ramp up quickly and get the hiring machine moving.
• Motivate federal recruiters and hiring managers to utilize the hiring tools they already have. The government has veteran hiring preferences, several special approval authorities just for veterans and special schedules that allow a tremendous amount of flexibility when traditional competitive hiring procedures are not feasible or practical.  Hiring managers can choose to use any or all of these to simplify and bypass the standard route to employment.  The number of veterans hired under these approving authorities is quite low.   Is that condition because hiring managers don’t know they have these tools, don’t know when to apply them, don’t know how to apply them, or is it because they choose, for whatever reason, not to use them?   Human beings are motivated by two things: fear and reward.  Civilian companies figured out a long time ago that incentivizing their employees to do things increases compliance and productivity.
• Add creative training experiences, such as internships and on-the-job training programs, designed just for veterans as vehicles to bring them into the federal government.  Civilian employers have been using these kinds of programs for decades, with the shift in emphasis now going to “experienced” applicants vs. the more traditional college students.
• Invest in creating better career websites for the agencies.  Include things like “chat with a recruiter”, informational web seminars on “working at Agency X”, videos on a “day in the life at Department Y”.  How about a skills cross walk – “if you did this in the military, you may want to consider these careers in Agency Z”.
• Come up with a comprehensive campaign to market federal jobs to the military. Outreach takes on many forms.  Take a look at your own military service recruiting sites (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps) for great examples on how to go “above and beyond” the norm to recruit.  And, really work with the Veteran Service Organizations to get the word out and to develop a pipeline of referrals.  The VSO’s will either be your strongest allies or your worst detractors, depending on how you approach and integrate them into the initiative.  And, don’t forget to include the professional military associations such as the Military Officers Association of America and the National Guard Association of the United States.
• Change the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) policy that places a time limit on how long a veteran can use the services of transition centers.  Currently, active duty service members (or reserve component members who are on active duty) have 180 days after separation to use the services of a transition center.  Given that it takes 6-12 months on average for veterans to find jobs, why is the service window so short?  Take a lesson learned from colleges and universities – generally their alumni can use their career service centers indefinitely after graduation.  And, why don’t we have career services support for reserve component members who have not recently served on active duty?  Lack of close access to a transition center can easily be mitigated.  Many civilian career counselors/coaches offer their services virtually (i.e., via web seminar, over the phone, via computer/chat/IM, etc.) so, inability to council Guard and Reserve members face-to-face should not be an excuse. 
• Provide more robust services in the area of military resume writing, especially federal resume writing.  Feedback I’ve received directly from transitioning military members is that they are not getting the guidance they need and the follow up they want so desperately from the transition centers.  And the “military friendly” recruiters I’ve spoken with say that the quality of the resumes is still very poor.  That those recruiters are still able to successfully find and hire great military candidates is due in large part to the effort they have made to educate themselves on the military and how to translate an un-translated resume.
• Implement sponsorship and integration programs to help the service member adapt to and thrive in a civilian workplace.  Creating a federal “veteran networking group” (affinity group, affiliation group) would be a great start.  The precedent has already been set with Young Government Leaders.
• Start tracking the retention statistics on the number of veterans hired.   Include that data on the annual “Employment of Veterans in the Federal Executive Branch” report.  Is anyone else besides me curious about the retention percentage of veterans hired under those above mentioned special authorities after the initial authorization period expires (generally 1-2 years)?

To those leaders from DOL, VA, and OPM charged with implementing the Executive Order – I have more ideas if you are interested in hearing them.  I’ll be attending The Advisory Committee on Veterans’ Employment, Training and Employer Outreach (ACVETEO) Open Meeting on December 2^nd.  Let’s chat.

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Filed under: Government Contracting / Defense Staffing, News of Note

What does a veteran know about business? Turns out former military members often do quite well as business owners because of our discipline, respect for and adherence to processes and procedures, and our determination to see things through to the end. Perhaps you are considering becoming a veteran entrepreneur.  Whether you decide to become a franchise owner, build your company from scratch or take ownership of a family business, you should consider whether your company offers goods and services that the federal government wants to buy.

The truth is the government buys just about everything you can think of.  And it’s not just the obvious items such as general contracting/construction, training development, office supplies and vehicles.  Here is a sample list of recently requested items that may surprise you:

• Aerobics and fitness instruction
• Document storage and reproduction
• Trash removal and recycling
• Shoeshine kits, hairbrush and comb sets, lint brushes
• Cosmetology instructor
• Lodging and conference services
• Meeting facilitation

As a bonus – being a Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB) or Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) is an advantage.  Federal agencies have procurement goals for doing business with VOSBs and SDVOSBs.

So, how does one “do business with the government”?  As someone who is going that route herself, here is the down and dirty list.

1.  The SDVOSB is a certifiable designation, so you have to go through a formal process to attain the designation.  It’s not hard to do, but you do have to do it.  The Department of the Veterans Affairs VetBiz page has a good explanation of the process

2.  Get a DUNS number .  It is a unique 9-digit identification number assigned to a business.  It is free to obtain.  You’ll need it for the next step.

3.  Register with the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) website.  You cannot get a government contract if you are not in the CCR.  It is free to register.

4.  Figure out which North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes are related to your business and make sure you associate them with your profile in the CCR.  For example, if your company does junk removal and recycling you can look up NAICS codes for those services using “recycling”, “sanitation”, “hauling”, “garbage”, etc. as keywords.  Be very thorough and pick as many NAICS codes as necessary even if it just touches on what you do.  Read the next tip to find out why.

5.  Once you are in the CCR, register in Federal Business Opportunities (commonly known as FedBizOps).  You can set up watch lists for your various NAICS codes so you get daily/weekly emails with any Requests For Proposals/Presolicitations, etc. that are newly posted to FedBizOps.  Agencies sometimes send out a blast email to companies with a particular NAICS code in their profile to alert them to an opportunity coming down the pike, so it is a good way to find out information early.

6.  Contact your local Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC).  They can give you advice, training, and help you make connections and introductions in the federal government.  Most of their services are free.  Some of their classes may cost a minimal amount ($25-100 depending on the topic).

7.  Contact the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) for each federal agency you want to do business with.  They are very helpful and it is their job to help you make connections within the agency and to explain “how to do business” with that agency.

8.  Search each agency’s OSDBU web page to see if the agency has a “vendor outreach” day or other event where SDVOSB/VOSB’s can come to the agency and meet with various contracting officers from that agency (sort of like speed dating for contractors).  There are also a lot of conferences you can attend (two good lists are at http://www.osdbu.gov/general.html and at http://www.fbcinc.com/search.aspx)  to do a larger-scale meet and greet with a lot of federal agencies and other small businesses and learn something from the seminars offered at the conference.  A lot of these events are in the Washington, DC area but several are held in other locations.  Two big ones you should try to attend: 20^th Annual OSDBU Procurement Conference, April 21, 2010 in Chantilly, VA (near Dulles Airport in the DC area), and there is a really big one just for veterans called the 6^th Annual National Veteran Small Business Conference and Expo in Las Vegas July 19-22, 2010.

9.  Decide if being on a General Services Administration (GSA) schedule is right for you.  There are many different schedules, covering lots of different types of products and services.  You can search for schedules by keyword at GSA’s eLibrary.  For example, recycling services are covered under 9 different schedules.  You can be on more than one schedule, and that eLibrary site will display which companies are registered under each schedule (a good way to check out your competition).

Basically, being on a schedule makes it easier for the government to do business with you because you are already “pre certified” in their eyes.  Many agencies will look to schedule holders first when announcing opportunities (schedule holders have their own website where opportunities are posted that are not posted in FedBizOps).  If it makes sense for your business, all the steps for the process and even video how-to’s are on GSA’s web site.  However, the more specialized your product or service, the less sense it may make to be on a schedule.  It is great for commodities (i.e., pens, lumber, gravel, office supplies) and highly competitive general services (i.e., janitorial services).

You can “get on the schedule” yourself and it is free; however, it is a 4-8 month process and a lot of writing and paperwork to get on a schedule, so don’t think you can do this in a weekend.  Know that once you are registered in the CCR there are companies who will send you emails and snail mail offering to “help you get on the schedule”.  They generally charge anywhere from $6,000-20,000 to do it.  Many of them do offer free seminars on “how to do business with the government”, and those can actually be fairly helpful (some more than others).  The PTACs also offer those kinds of classes for no or low cost and GSA has those classes for free as well.

Last but not least:  the most important thing to keep in mind when trying to do business with anyone/any agency is that your status as a SDVOSB/VOSB is NOT what is going to get you a contract.  You have to have a product or service that an agency needs, and you still have to sell yourself as the best provider of that product or service.  Being a SDVOSB/VOSB is the “icing on the cake” because agencies do have goals for doing business with disadvantaged businesses.  However, they aren’t just going to hand you a contract because of your status.

I just came back from a conference in Tampa for SDVOSBs and VOSBs and I cannot tell you the number of business cards I was handed that said something along the lines of “Bradley and Company – a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business” and NOTHING ELSE.  One day from now when I am going through these cards I am not going to have any idea what Bradley and Company does.  Are they a general contractor?  A records and documents company?  A seller of office supplies?  One tidbit I learned in a class was to put my status (I am a VOSB and a WOSB – a Woman Owned Small Business), my DUNS, my CAGE code and all of my associated NAICS codes on my business card.  I printed up a bunch of labels with that info and plastered them on the back of my existing cards.  I also made a tri-fold prospectus for my company and put all that info on the back of the prospectus as well.  I use those cards and marketing materials when I attend the vendor outreach days/conferences so the contracting officers know what I do from the front of the card and how to do business with me from the back of the card.

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Filed under: Government Contracting / Defense Staffing

In this series of blogs I am exploring some creative ways that employers can “test drive” veterans before hiring them and that veterans can explore civilian careers. The first blog addressed internships. This blog reviews on-the-job-training programs.

Every company has certain categories of positions that are in constant need of filling. Whether those positions are computer programmers, help desk technicians, quality assurance inspectors or warehouse and distribution specialists, it becomes frustrating when your company and your company’s competition are both fishing in the same ponds for the same people. How long does it take you to fill these positions? And, do you have to pay more to get these people in order to beat your competition, or are you constantly losing out because you can’t match the salaries offered by your competition? Did you have to bring on workers with H-1B visas to meet the demand? Is there a better way to build a pipeline of qualified applicants to fill the constant demand? Is there a different “pond” you could be fishing in for underutilized talent? There is – read on!

As mentioned in my last blog, more than 80% of the jobs we have in the military have a civilian equivalent. Generally, the main differences between the qualifications of civilian applicants and military applicants doing the same work are that the military applicants:

• Might not possess a particular certification or required license. This occurs because the military doesn’t require them to have the civilian certification/license in order to do the job in the military.
• Might not have working knowledge of specific commercial applications used by civilian companies. This is because, given some of the unique requirements we have in the military, many of our military applications have been custom built for us. So, if you ask the veteran with 12 years of human resources experience whether he/she has used Taleo (a talent management system), he/she will say “no”. But he/she will be very familiar with the military’s custom built version of a talent management system, and will have a deep understanding of the full talent management lifecycle.

These surmountable differences leave us with a huge military talent pool every year who have most of the knowledge, skills and aptitudes needed to do a great job for a civilian company. More than 200,000 veterans leave the service each year (due to retirement or end of contract) and most struggle for months to find a job commensurate with their abilities and level of management/supervisory experience. This is a talent pool that is grossly underutilized and that would be a bounty for any savvy employer who was willing to try this idea to recruit veterans.

Consider creating an on-the-job training (OJT) program and market it to veterans. OJT programs can be designed for any kind of job, from human resource specialists to business analysts to security guards to any manner of technical positions. The benefit to the employer is that they can build a pipeline of heavily skilled, easily trainable quality candidates who will be groomed in exactly the way needed for the jobs in highest demand in their organization. The benefit to the veteran is an opportunity to either build on the training he/she has already received in the military or to pursue a new career in the civilian workplace.

So, maybe right now you are thinking that an OJT program could be a good way to tap into that pool of transitioning service members and help build your pipeline, but you are holding off because you know your company’s training budget has been severely reduced. The good news here is that there is a way for employers to recoup much of the costs to produce the training by structuring the training such that it qualifies as an approved education or training program eligible for the G.I. Bill. This means that the veteran can use his/her G.I. Bill benefits to pay to participate in the OJT program, thereby allowing the employer to recoup some of the cost to produce the training (i.e., instructional designer’s fee, facilities rental, material production, etc.)

Here are a few basic things to know about creating an OJT program that qualifies for G.I. Bill reimbursement:

• The new Post 9/11 G.I. Bill does not cover OJT programs. Earlier versions of the G.I. Bill (i.e., Montgomery G.I. Bill and Reserve Educational Assistance Program or REAP) do cover OJT programs. View a comparison chart of the types of training covered by different versions of the bills.

• Veterans who are eligible for both the Post 9/11 and one other version of the G.I. Bill have to make an irrevocable decision if they want to take advantage of the very generous Post 9/11 G.I. Bill. So, the earlier you market these OJT programs to the military community, the greater likeliness you will find those veterans who have not yet made the irrevocable decision to switch to the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill.

• The G.I. Bill benefits are paid directly to the veteran, who in turn pays you. They are generally paid one month in arrears. So, for example, if they begin training on September 1st, they will receive their benefit check for the month of September in October. Keep that lag time in mind as you determine your tuition and payment plan.

• In order for your training program to be declared G.I. Bill –eligible it must first be approved by your State Approving Agency. State Approving Agencies approve the programs within their borders and determine which programs are appropriate for veterans to enroll in to utilize their VA educational benefits.

• The program must include an employment objective (i.e., “Help Desk Technician” or “Computer Software Engineer” or “Storage and Distribution Manager”)

• Hint: go to O*Net Online and type in your position name. It will display a number of related occupational titles with associated Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Systems codes.

• Select the occupational title(s) that most closely resembles the position for which you are designing the OJT program and review the lists of tasks performed and tools used by that occupation.

• Incorporate those tasks and tools into your training design, plus any other specific requirements.

• In order to be classified as an OJT program, the training must be for a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 24 months in length. 6 months equals 1,000 hours of training if the OJT program is full time.

• The OJT program must have an associated incremental pay scale. This means that while the costs of the program can be offset by the G.I. Bill, the employer is still required to pay a wage to the trainee. The starting wage can be minimum wage (or higher). The ending wage should be equivalent to the hourly wage you would pay if you were hiring someone who was already fully qualified. There should be at least one incremental pay increase between start and finish for a six month program and more if your program is longer than 6 months. Pay increases can be tied to training milestone achievements (i.e., pass this exam or assessment) or to program duration milestones (i.e., every 4 weeks).

• The OJT program must include a detailed training plan. So, for a 6 month training program, what will you cover during the 1,000 hours of training?

Once you submit your training plan for review, the SAA approval can be granted in as little as 2-8 weeks if you’ve met all the criteria and have structured the program correctly. If you would like assistance in designing an OJT program, please contact me. There are minor record-keeping requirements that must be kept on file and also reported so that the veteran will be paid. Your SAA will provide you with those details.

Once you get approval for your G.I. Bill –eligible OJT program, you need to market your program to veterans. But where should you promote your program to get the attention of the military member? There are at least a half dozen avenues you can use to get the word out to the veteran community, from military transition centers to social networking sites. If you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to register for my web seminar entitled “Military Applicant Sourcing Options” (now available on demand).

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Filed under: GI Bill, Retain, Save Money