4 Strategies To Attract Veterans And How Veterans Can Leverage Them

If you’re a veteran re-entering the civilian job market or a company looking to maximize opportunities for veterans, using recruitment marketing strategies to your advantage can greatly increase your odds of being or finding the best talent.

What Is Recruitment Marketing?

Recruitment marketing is a multifaceted practice designed to maximize recruitment and retention using proven strategies such as branding, analytics, and marketing to build your brand in the military community.

When it comes to recruiting and retaining veterans, there are a few specific ways recruitment marketing can help you be more successful.

How Can You Use It To Attract Veterans?

Veteran Testimonials

If you wish to have a steady flow of veterans in your pipeline, add a section to your website or social media posts that include written or video testimonials from current employees who are also veterans. Building rapport in this manner shows veterans that you value their services and celebrate their contributions to your organization.

Military Skills Translation Tool

Having a military skills translation tool on your company’s career site is a practical way to help veterans determine how their experience can add value. While many larger career sites already use such a tool, having one available on your online job board goes one step further in allowing veterans to see how their skills translate specifically to available jobs at your company.

Leverage Relevant Websites

A major recruitment marketing strategy innovative organizations have at their disposal is using analytics to determine which of their marketing strategies have the highest ROI. Naturally, these analytics show that the greater your online presence, the greater your return, so why not partner with relevant websites to showcase your job opportunities? Having a careers tab on your company gives you limited exposure but investing in job ads on recruiter websites can help you cast a significantly larger net.

Social Media

It’s no secret that the fastest way to spread information these days is by using social media. Recruitment marketing can help you tailor your posts by using military-friendly hashtags in employment posts. Is your company having a job fair and wanting to attract veterans? Add a hashtag to your post. Perhaps your company has a job opening that would be a great fit for a disabled veteran. Advertise it using a hashtag. Social media allows for worldwide exposure and tech-savvy vets will be on the lookout for veteran-friendly posts.

How Can Veterans Leverage This Find Great Career Opportunities?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2020, veterans accounted for almost 6% of the total workforce and the overall unemployment rate was 6.5%.  Statistics show that employers are making greater attempts to recruit veterans now more than ever. If you’re a veteran transitioning to the civilian workforce, here’s how you can use recruitment marketing strategies to your advantage.

Use The Tools

While there are currently millions of open positions available in the job market today, it’s your job to put forth the effort in ensuring a position is a good fit. Using a company’s military skills translator can help. If you can’t find this tool on a specific company’s website, try broadening your search to larger recruitment sites or simply google military skills translator to find one best suited to your needs.

Open A Social Media Account

One of the largest tools at your disposal is social media. Companies and recruiters often use social media platforms to advertise jobs and career fairs and they use military-friendly hashtags to do so. Creating a social media account allows you to search for specific words or organizations based on certain keywords. For example, if you’re looking for a position in Wisconsin, you can search “jobs for veterans in Wisconsin” and a whole host of groups created by and for veterans in the area will populate.

Revamp Your Resume

When you exit your military service contract and re-enter the workforce as a civilian, it’s important to revamp your resume. Companies and recruitment marketing firms use artificial intelligence to track keywords and phrases on applicants’ resumes to help them draw specific talent to their organization so having a resume that includes related terms will put you in front of relevant employers much more quickly. If you use a military skills translator, it can also help you identify what words and phrases employers are looking for.

Another tip is to have multiple working resumes and each one should be tailored to a specific job category. For example, if you were an educator in the military, have a resume that highlights your teaching skills. If you were also an IT person, create a different resume with these skills at the top as relevant experience.

No matter if you are an employer or a veteran, recruitment marketing strategies are useful and you should know how to use them to your advantage in today’s competitive job market.