Aaron Kletzing meeting with Iraqi leaders, 2008.
By now, we must be in “stanza 10” of a song that’s been playing on repeat for years.
Each stanza, although worded with its own flavor, tells the same story: service members risk their lives for our country; they inevitably leave the military (you can’t stay in forever); many have a hard time finding work; and then in its final chords, the stanza crescendos with a promising new solution that can change all this.
Only it ends up becoming the next Band-Aid for a problem that needs a root remedy instead. To date, no one has created an efficient way to leverage the collective wisdom of our 24 million veterans. Why not?
Earlier this year, the latest stanza trumpeted a new digital “translator” that would take in a military member’s nomenclature and generate civilian job opportunities for which he or she is a good fit.
My experience, which is very common, shows the inherent flaws in such translators, although most of us do admire their creators’ intentions.
Like many in the military, the skills I actually developed in the Army are shortchanged by the military “specialization” code that runs these translators. In my case, being a captain and field artillery officer in the Army (which I was until 2011) I input my Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) code and pay grade: 13A and O-3. As everyone in the Army knows, the 13 represents the Army branch of Field Artillery and the A means I am an officer. The O-3 defines my pay grade and implies my rank of captain.
Sifting through thousands of “targeted” job listings the translator found for me, I learned that I’m well qualified to both manage a beauty salon (seriously) and work for one of the Big Three consulting firms. Why?
As every stanza of this song has reiterated, it’s hard for civilian hiring managers to understand people in the military – culturally and skills-wise. It’s hard for translators, too. Heck, even sailors in the Navy have no idea what a 13A O-3 in the Army does — and vice versa.
But you know who does understand?
The thousands of 13A O-3 veterans who have already transitioned to civilian life, and who are working in companies across the U.S. Companies whose hiring managers may want to recruit these military personnel someday, if only they understood how they should best be utilized.
That’s where veterans who have successfully transitioned should come in.
Since launching last November, RallyPoint.com, a free online network sometimes called “LinkedIn for the military,” has added tens of thousands of active military personnel as members who use the site to connect with other Department of Defense personnel and influence their military careers.
This Memorial Day, RallyPoint is expanding to include veterans and retirees, bridging the gap between those who are still in the military and those who have already transitioned to civilian life. Now active military personnel can connect in private with veterans who are just like them, years before even beginning the military’s transition processes.
For example, this means a 13A O-3 serving in the 25th Infantry Division can now connect with former 13A O-3s who served in the same unit, but are now working at Amazon, General Electric, and other companies. Later this year, 13A O-3 veterans across the U.S. will be able to apply skills “tags” to an actively serving 13A O-3, for skills that their companies’ hiring managers can understand. No artificial translators needed. Companies can better leverage their own best resource in identifying new talent: their own employees with armed service experience.
There are currently more than a million unemployed veterans. Meanwhile, an estimated one million military members will leave the service in the next three years, many entering the work force without the relationships or knowledge necessary to jumpstart a private sector career.
Giving this next generation of veterans the professional network they need to succeed will change this tune permanently.
Aaron Kletzing is co-founder of RallyPoint.com and 13A O-3 (Ret.)