There's no "coffee badging" in the military, so companies are increasingly looking to hire veterans, according to a Nov. 9 article from The Wall Street Journal.
In an era where 60% of employees worldwide are quiet quitting, workers who give their all and are "willing to pay their dues" are harder to find, per the Journal. Around 200,000 people leave the military every year, equipped with skills that appeal to employers — such as hard work, humility and detail-orientation — and void of traits that do not — such as entitlement and aversion to criticism.
As a result, employers are jumping at the opportunity to hire veterans. The most recent jobs report showed the unemployment rate for former service members at 2.9%, one point lower than the overall U.S. rate. And demand for the Pentagon's SkillBridge program, which connects veterans to companies, has grown so rapidly that the Department of Defense had to temporarily halt applications over the summer. In 2019, the program had 150 participating employers; now, it has more than 3,800.
The practice of hiring veterans can include a learning curve on both the employers' and employees' side, according to the Journal. It can be difficult to explain how military experience will translate to the private sector, and new hires may be lacking in some hard skills.
To help bridge the gap, Meta created a military-skills translation tool that allows veterans to enter their armed-forces title and be matched with a corporate role that could be a good fit. And employers are increasingly looking at applicants' personal qualities, not their skillset, to determine if a person is right for the job.
"Ability is not teachable and values are often not teachable, so the qualities that we are least able to influence are the things we often find in veterans," David McCormick, former CEO of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, told the Journal.