Harnessing Veteran Talent with a Fast Time-to-Hire
Hiring Veterans Through RecruitMilitary Improves Our Time-to-Hire
On the same November day that Emily’s son graduated U.S. Marine Corps boot camp, her company was awarded the 2023 HIRE Vets Gold Medallion Award. This award is the only federal-level veterans’ employment award that recognizes a company or organization’s commitment to veteran hiring, retention, and professional development.
“As I watch my son become a Marine, I know someone else’s son or daughter is completing their service and will need employment,” said Scheel. “Knowing I work for a company that has supported my efforts to hire veterans at the rate that we do, gives me hope that more companies will strive to the same, and many do.”
Rockford Systems, LLC provides workplace safety solutions with the objective of reducing risk and preventing workplace injuries by providing machine safeguarding training, assessments, and custom engineered integration solutions. Emily, who works in Human Resources at Rockford Systems, sat down with us to discuss how she is finding the military veteran hires that give her company an edge in the market.
What challenge were you experiencing?
Emily:
When I started in this position, the biggest pain point was hiring field service technicians. I searched for qualified candidates with pretty heavy ideologies that I’d be able to recruit for this role without any problem. I was wrong – it is extremely challenging. You can easily spend eight hours a day recruiting for this position and not really get anywhere. I connected with Megan through RecruitMilitary and right off the bat, her level of knowledge and ability to understand what I was looking for was really beneficial for us. We went through so many resumes just trying to understand what skills we really desired.
Why did you decide to recruit veterans for that role?
Emily:
At Rockford Systems, attention to detail is at the core of our services. We ensure that every project is executed with the utmost precision, as well as maintaining our principles of commitment, excellence, and intelligent execution. I started looking into hiring veterans based off of their skill set.
Veterans tend to be precise and work efficiently and effectively in challenging environments. One of the hallmarks of military training is the focus on attention to detail. This level of precision is vital in ensuring the safety and success of military operations. Veterans’ professionalism, communication skills, and experience from their time in service is displayed tenfold when they come to us.
What are the results of working with RecruitMilitary?
Emily:
One of the benefits of working with RecruitMilitary is that you get something that’s tailored to your hiring needs. For me, it has eliminated the days-long search of scrolling through resumes that might not even result in any qualified candidates.
Quality over quantity is very true when it comes to working with RecruitMilitary because I might get four or five resumes, but of those four or five resumes, I’m going to have a hard time picking who it is that I want to interview with or potentially hire because they’re all going to be very qualified individuals.
I can send an email to my rep and and say, “Got an open position for field service tech, let me know what you get.” And then I continue to do the rest of my work because I know within a couple of days, I’m going to have anywhere from two to five resumes sent to me.
I have met some of the most amazing people from RecruitMilitary. I know all of my employees, whether they’re here in the office or out in the field. The ones that come to me from RecruitMilitary are so kind, caring, and passionate about their work. Even before my son enlisted in the Marine Corps, I have always been a supporter of placing our veterans in qualified positions.
Working with RecruitMilitary, I have gratitude knowing my son will one day be looking for this exact opportunity that we provide together. The partnership is so strong. I never doubt whether or not we are getting candidates that will be truly beneficial and positive for our company. Once you’ve hit that level of partnership, I mean you can’t really recreate it.
What should employers know when looking to hire veterans?
Emily:
Remember that these candidates are not coming from high school or college graduation. These are individuals that gave their entire life over to our country. In some cases, they might not check every “box” but you’re going to get an individual that is willing to put everything out there to be your best employee.
Find job seekers from the military community and build your teams with qualified candidates.