Veterans in the workforce: Are they thriving?

AUSTIN, Texas - According to the University of Phoenix, 44 percent of veterans do not see a clear path to career advancement, and 47 percent have no kind of mentor.

FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren spoke about this with Trevor Bogan of the Top Employers Institute.

______________________________

MIKE WARREN: Let's begin with the big picture on veteran employment in this country. Are veterans doing well? Not well? What's the situation? 

TREVOR BOGAN: Veterans are doing okay. And so unfortunately, Mike, in this country, there's some preconceived notions around veterans, the skills that they have and how they can operate in more of a civilian work environment. And so some of those challenges are, you know, veterans don't seem to be able to work in a normal office environment. You know, they're usually on base, are usually out on assignment somewhere. And so how does that fit into, you know, an office environment or hybrid or flex model as well? There are also perceived veterans that have physical, mental disabilities, PTSD, how is that going to fit in with the culture, so on and so forth. And then, Mike, 61 percent of veterans don't have a degree. And so still there's that old school notion that, you know, every opportunity out there requires at least a bachelor's degree or associate's degree to be successful. So there's some challenges, but veterans have some great skill sets that they can bring to organizations. So it's really just making sure that they can highlight those.

MIKE WARREN: What are the challenges that need to be met, and how are those going to be achieved? 

TREVOR BOGAN: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is veterans need more support, and so veterans need to be really aware of openly communicating the value of their service, and how their skills that they developed in the military and service environment, can translate to current and future opportunities. And so, what we find is veterans that do work within organizations, one of the key things is to create what we call an employee resource group, or ERG group, for veterans. And a lot of organizations have them for different genders and race and LGBTQ, but veterans are a part of that diverse group, right? So they have a voice that needs to be heard. They have some ideas. They need to be understood within the organizations, and that will help recruiters and internal talent acquisition teams understand where veterans come from and understand how their skills can really align to a lot of the open opportunities right now. 

MORE FOX 7 CARE FORCE

• Wreaths Across America to lay wreaths on soldiers' graves this weekend
• Organization helps veterans with service dog costs
• Organizations working to make veteran homelessness a thing of the past

MIKE WARREN: Is this something industries are starting to look at? Is it a concern for them, or is this all on the veterans to make these changes and these adjustments?

TREVOR BOGAN: Well, organizations need to look at it as well. And so one of the things is, what they need to look at, is broadening their horizons when they're looking at the candidate pool, because candidate pools are very tight right now. And so you have industries that are very popular with a ton of openings, and those things are really in the health care industry. So you have health service managers, physician assistants, nursing, cybersecurity is really popular right now, construction, biotechnology, and a lot of veterans can fit in those roles very well with the skills that they have. So, organizations are just going to need to get really creative and start looking at the veteran pool, because those candidates can really fill in these roles very well, and they have a lot of skills, and they bring a lot of good culture. You know, you have to remember, they don't have YouTube or Google, so they have to really think on their feet. They have to work with teams that are very diverse, you know, different genders, different religions, economic backgrounds as well. And so that can fit in really well with a lot of cultures when organizations are looking at that piece.