Why Don't Businesses Hire Veterans

[mmmbeans]

so, you sit around and f*ck off for 4 days a week?

[Jase]

I wish I only worked 40 hrs a week. :(

[mmmbeans]

yea me too.

[Niner National]

so, you sit around and f*ck off for 4 days a week?

No I sit around and fug off for 5 days a week with a couple hours of work sprinkled in each day.

I work on side projects sometimes and spend a lot of time on forums.

I'm generally here 50-60 hours a week because the President is kind of a douche and unnecessarily works 7 days a week. He's the kind of person that just loves to work even when he doesn't have poo to do. Everyone just kinda hangs out late so they don't look like a slacker.

[Scrumtrilescent]

A lot of work is becoming hyperspecialized. If you can't make this widget do one specific thing, then sorry. Not a lot of people have the time, effort, and patience to do OJT when with the workforce the way it is gives you a good chance that someone out there has done that exact task without the need for training.

[Scrumtrilescent]

fugs yeah on that last run on sentence BTW.

[Mrs Pantherfan]

there's an edit button...go ahead...throw in some punctuation for a little fun!

[Brokenbad]

I am a vet.

I think vets don't get hired due to PSTD liabilities (or so civilians seem to think), bad reputations from "vets" who could not cut in in the military and pursued a civilian job because of it, and I think employers see veterans as people who think they are owed something due to their veteran status.

I have had three jobs since I have declined to re-enlist. At each job, your co-workers could give two shits less about your veteran status or how much respect you may deserve. Your boss still treats you like some shithead kid, regardless of how responsible you are.

By the way, my MOS, rank, and airborne status has opened up for prior enlisted to enlist again, you best believe I am sick of this civilian bullshit.

[Doyle]

i think everyone has been struggling to find work, not just veterans.

I think beans summed up this thread.

[SN03]

If they can do the job, I don't care what grades they got in school. (OK, maybe to a certain point.)

Generally speaking, the vets I know have a 100% better work ethic than the Gen Y'ers. (Even Gen X'ers.) I worked with a bunch of younger engineers at IBM that said they were entitled to take 10 sick days a year. To them, that was extra vacation. In the military, you'd better be on your death bed not to report for duty. I have also found that most vets have a strong loyalty to Family, God and Country.

Dating back to WWI, Vets have always had a hard time finding jobs after a war. (I'm not going to go into how poorly Vietnam Vets were treated! I remember my Sister asking a neighbor who had served in 'Nam and she went to High School with and even had a couple of dates with. "How many babies did you kill over there?" F'ing piece of work she was!)

Of course, that doesn't make it right!

I stopped reading when you mentioned God. That should have absolutely nothing to do with a potential employee.

[Squirrel]

It was mentioned early but most vets didn't do good in high school. But there are some other reasons too.

Most aren't prepared for the job market when they get out. They think the job they did in the service

They can do in the real world. Only to realise when they get out that job only pays

Minium wage. When they lived in free housing and received money for food in the service.

[Davidson Deac II]

Speaking as a veteran, I got hired relatively easily. My company was a very veteran friendly company and the group I was hired into were mostly ex military anyway. I was an Intel analyst for the military and went to work for the information security group in the bank. I was somewhat fortunate in that I had experience that easily transferred.

IMO, thats the most difficult issue that veterans have. So many of their skill sets do not easily transfer. For Navy guys, things like IT/network engineers easily transfer because the military uses cisco routers and firewalls, and other equipment that is the similar to their civilian counterparts. But a gunners mate or missile technician skillset doesn't transfer so easily. Even though those guys work with some of the most advanced technology in the world, its might be hard to convince a civilian that the skills would be valuable in the civilian world.

[Carolina Husker]

With a few exceptions, most of the people I knew that went into the military did so because they'd pretty much exhausted all other options at that point.

[Davidson Deac II]

It was mentioned early but most vets didn't do good in high school. But there are some other reasons too.

Most aren't prepared for the job market when they get out. They think the job they did in the service

They can do in the real world. Only to realise when they get out that job only pays

Minium wage. When they lived in free housing and received money for food in the service.

Money for food and free housing? Thats definitely not true. We got paid housing and food allowances based on the area we were stationed (because of the disparity in cost of living when comparing Norfolk to Honolulu), and if we ate or lived on base, they took those allowances away. Thats not free. Thats just eliminating me writing a check to the landlord.