Despite risking everything to serve their country, veterans often face a tough road in returning to civilian life. The unemployment rate for veterans is higher than that for the general population despite the fact that veterans have valuable skills and experience. The U.S. federal government created the Veterans Job Bank to assist veterans from all services in their quest for employment.
In many cases, veterans suffer from emotional and other impediments that can make it difficult to readjust to civilian life and to find and keep a job.
Major job search websites work together with the government to match veterans with jobs based on their skills and experience. A special search tool allows the veteran to enter their military occupation specialty or code (MOS or MOC) in order to search for related job openings.
The Veterans Job Bank partners also match up job seekers with employers that have committed to help by employing qualified veterans. Participating sites receive training on how to make suitable job listings more visible to veterans and how to post jobs specifically for veterans nationwide.
The Obama administration hopes that the Veterans Job Bank will help alleviate the problem of unemployed and homeless veterans. The number of job postings specific for veterans is increasingly rapidly as the more people learn about the program across the web.
Here are some examples of how partner sites help out with the job bank network:
• LinkedIn – The professional networking platform allows tagging options that help job seekers identify employers with veteran hiring commitments.
• Google – Provides search support to the job bank through a custom search engine.
• Monster – One of web’s largest job search sites, Monster provides tagging options that help veterans quickly find employers with commitments to hire veterans.
• Twitter – Provides easy access to job openings through TweetMyJobs.
In addition to providing help with job search, the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) program website at http://www.vetsuccess.gov also offers other tools and services that help veterans in successfully obtaining employment. For example, the Military Skills Translators helps identify civilian or federal government jobs that match specific military occupations. The translators also help vets list the skills associated with their particular MOS or MOC.
The VetSuccess website additionally provides counseling and training that can help veterans make the transition from military to civilian life. The site offers tutorials on resume writing and cover letters, how to fill out job applications and how to successfully interview for job openings.
Veterans have access to abundant resources on how to conduct an online job search including articles on how to increase online invisibility and how to find a job by networking online. A number of widgets, gadgets and other tools that help with online job search are also available.
If job seekers need more education or training, resources are available that will help them find the right educational institution along with information on using veterans’ educational benefits. Disabled veterans can also apply for vocational rehabilitation services at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs.
In many cases, veterans suffer from emotional and other impediments that can make it difficult to readjust to civilian life and to find and keep a job. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) syndrome, for example, is a very common problem for veterans returning from war zones. The VetSuccess site provides services that can help veterans make a smoother transition so that they can conduct successful job searches.
The Key to Career Success website sponsored by the United States Department of Labor also provides assistance to veterans looking for jobs. The site, located at http://www.careeronestop.org/, provides a number of tools including a military to civilian skills translator.
The official Veterans Job Bank search engine is located on the National Resource Director website: https://www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov/jobSearch/index. The technology is still in beta testing, but it now allows you to search by keyword, MOS/MOC, location and by the time of posting.
Job listings at the job bank page link to other job search websites like Monster.com and simplyhired.com. You may need to register at these sites to view the full job description or to apply online for an opening.
The Veterans Job Bank search engine is a useful tool that allows job seekers to scan through the databases of leading job search sites simultaneously. The tagged listings come from employers who are committed to hiring veterans. The search engine also makes it easy for vets to find jobs based on their specific military occupation by entering in their MOS/MOC along with appropriate keywords.
By using this new free tool, veterans can save time and energy by finding targeted openings faster. They also have easy access to other veterans job services.