On February 23rd our guest on the show was BlakeCannon. Blake is a Veteran with a mission, to put other military veterans to work. The show was inspiring and brought to many people’s attention how critical it is to work with our returning vets helping them return to the workforce. One thing that stood out was how out of touch many still are about the situation facing vets. Blake a disabled vet himself and now a recruiter works every day to make companies aware of how vets can be a benefit to them. Blake and his boss Rudy speak to companies daily to try to get them to budget some of their monies to hire vets and also to understand how their skills transfer over to civilian positions.
Clearly passionate about what he does however also frustrated at the lack of attention this issue receives, Blake spoke about some of the daily occurrences he sees and hears on various networking sites or videos he views where there are jobs being shipped to other countries, while we have vets and so many Americans unemployed.
Blake was truly an inspiration to all who took part in the show or who listened in. If you didn’t get a chance to hear the show here is the link GETVETSWORKING
It’s amazing how poor the military outprocessing transition services are truth be told. It’s a volunteer military and you must be responsible for yourself but the level of indoctrination is heavy and coming back from (in many cases) war requires more than a DD214 and a revised resume. Unless you’re going to work for an outfit like Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc, there is a HUGE workplace adjustment to be made. Unless the HR person or Manager is prior military the understanding just isn’t going to be there.
Awareness – like that created by this episode of the show with Blake and his crew – to employers is very important. It’s making me think. My efforts with NEPA Veterans Multi-Care Alliance have been focused on getting Vets jobs and assisting them with resources for the New GI Bill. Now I’m thinking of holding some employer seminars on the value of hiring veterans and what the transition is like.
This show was HOT and so are the plans to do an episode of Extreme Candidate Makeover featuring Vets. ~You rock Paul.