Soldiers to Software Engineers: How One Company Transitioned Heroes Into Corporate America

It’s truly astonishing that many of our most accomplished military veterans will return home to face one more battle: That of successfully transitioning into the civilian workforce. According to the Labor Department, the current unemployment rate for veterans is 6 percent, and 650,000 are jobless.

While many companies have programs and commitments for hiring veterans, Epicor’s program extends to our customers. We know our customers want to hire veterans, but in many cases, they don’t know how to get started or lack the internal resources to support a program of this nature. So we are empowering them with the tools to do so, including assistance, coaching and access to our veteran talent pool. By combining forces with our customers, we can collaborate to front-line the talents of veterans to Main Street USA.

For a veteran hiring program to be successful, there are a number of challenges that must be addressed. Some of it is changing the corporate mindset; HR managers are sometimes hesitant to hire a veteran with no direct experience for a specific job in favor of a “safe” candidate with years of corporate experience in a targeted field.

“We must recognize that veterans’ skills and talents can extend well beyond the military front lines to help corporate America’s bottom line.”

We anticipate extensive training requirements both for our HR managers and for veterans themselves. Since military training is often done in a group setting, we envision that a “boot-camp” type of training scenario may be more effective than individual, self-paced training. Obviously, adaptations must be made to address the unique physical requirements of wounded vets.

However, we see these accommodations as worthwhile to enable us to tap into the wealth of experience in the veteran community. Talent optimization is key to business success; we must recognize that veterans’ skills and talents can extend well beyond the military front lines to help corporate America’s bottom line.


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