It's Here! Mission: Career Transition is Now Available

We're going to take a moment today to announce to our blog readers that Career Search America has officially launched Mission: Career Transition!

Mission: Career Transition is our newest e-product, created to guide veterans through the steps of the military to civilian career transition process. Maybe you're planning to leave the military in the near future, perhaps you've already left. Either way, if you're a veteran looking for career advice, we've created Mission: Career Transition for you.

Regular readers already know that we believe in taking a proactive approach to career transition, and we've carried that through in this product. Mission: Career Transition is available completely online. Wherever you can get online, you can access it. Find out more about the product here!

Here's a preview of what's inside:

• 151 Pages of Expert Guidance - A 10-briefing guide that will teach you how to complete a successful transition.
• 30 Worksheets - The worksheets take you through the steps of your transition - career searches, resume writing, interviews, salary negotiation - using what you've learned in the text.
• 13 Supplemental Videos - Career transition expertise directly from our founders, Jean & Margey. Plus, tips on using online tools to aid your career transition.
• 2 Transition Case Studies - When it helps to know how others have made their transition, listen to these case studies.

Are You Keeping Up With Military to Civilian Transition News?

Ideas are being turned into legislation, bills being introduced, and funding sources identified for new, expanded or increased military to civilian veteran transition programs.

So, what's going on? With veteran unemployment levels taking what many believe to be a temporary dip earlier this year, to 7.6%, federal officials are bracing for a return to higher-than-civilian numbers sometime soon. Rather than reacting to the numbers after they are official, Business Week (and other publications) have noted that Congress has,

passed a new tax credit worth up to $5,600 for employers that hired unemployed veterans [and] doubled the tax credit for employers that hired disabled veterans out of work at least six months, moving it to $9,600. Federal agencies have also stepped up the hiring of veterans and partnered with the private sector in conducting job fairs.

Good news to be sure, as these measures should continue to make veterans, who we all know are already highly-qualified, even more attractive in the job market. Also going on now is a TAP overhaul that seeks to expand the program's reach. Read more about it here.

So the general theme seems to be more of everything: incentives, programs and funding. And that's a good thing. But even with incentives and priority hiring, we encourage veterans to stay on top of their career change. At the very least, visit our Transition Toolbox. After all, you still need to make an impression in front of your next hiring manager to help launch your next career!

Simply Hired Supports Job Search for Veterans on NRD.gov

SimplyHired.com®, the world’s largest job search engine, on Monday announced that it will support the job search function of the National Resource Directory’s employment site, NRD.gov, by giving veterans access to more than 500,000 job listings from employers who have human resources policies in place that are favorable to former military personnel. SimplyHired.com will populate the Veterans Job Bank with jobs currently available from its Veteran-Friendly Companies job search filter (www.simplyhired.com/veteran). This tool allows veteran job seekers to view job listings from DirectEmployers Association member companies who take affirmative action to employ veterans in conformance with federal laws and regulations.

In August, President Obama issued a challenge to the private sector to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans or their spouses by the end of 2013. As part of the Joining Forces Initiative, the First Lady and Dr. Jill Biden will lead this effort, urging employers to commit to the Veterans Job Bank initiative by pledging to hire or train veterans. SimplyHired.com will populate NRD.gov with the jobs available in its database that have been labeled as veteran-committed; and, as more employers undertake to become part of the Veterans Job Bank, Google will index these new job listings to help increase the available jobs for veterans on NRD.gov.

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010, the unemployment rate for veterans between 18 and 24 years old was 20.9 percent,” said Gautam Godhwani, co-founder and CEO, SimplyHired.com. “In response to this problem, SimplyHired.com has been committed to helping veterans find a job that they love while taking advantage of their unique skill sets through our Veteran-Friendly Companies job search filter. We are thrilled to join forces with NRD.gov and Google to take this responsibility one step further by helping veterans to access veteran-committed jobs in an intuitive and efficient manner.”

Veterans have an unemployment rate higher than the general population because many U.S. companies, and sometimes veterans themselves, do not know how to translate military experience into civilian job skills. In providing military veterans with access to employers who are committed to hiring veterans, SimplyHired.com is making the transition from service to employment as seamless as possible by bridging the gap between civilian employers and military experience.

Continued Mr. Godhwani: “A commitment by employers concerning veteran hiring is a key component of the Veterans Job Bank initiative. But, by offering an improved and more effective job search experience, SimplyHired.com is accelerating the initiative and helping veterans gain access to these jobs so they can find employment faster.”

The NRD is a partnership among the Departments of Defense, Labor and Veterans Affairs. For more information about the Veterans Job Bank initiative, please visit NRD.gov.

About SimplyHired.com
With over eight million job listings, Simply Hired (www.SimplyHired.com) is the world’s largest job search engine -- 25 times the size of the biggest job board. Servicing 15 million monthly users across 24 countries, SimplyHired.com powers jobs on more than 25,000 network partner sites, including LinkedIn, CNNMoney, Washington Post and Bloomberg Businessweek. Reaching passive as well as active candidates, the SimplyHired.com network delivers millions of targeted job applicants and boasts one of the lowest cost-per-hire rates in the industry. The company is based in Mountain View, California and is funded by Foundation Capital and IDG Ventures.



The Valuable Transferable Skills Veterans Bring to Employers

A career in the military is not your average career. Because of the military’s unique working environment and mission, veterans acquire unique skills and qualities that employers desire – and that give them an advantage in a career search.

Veterans are some of the most sought-after people in the workplace for a number of reasons. Perhaps the three most prominent reasons include their code of ethics, reliability, level of education.

• Code of Ethics: It is difficult to conceive a better-vetted group of individuals than veterans. Veterans often have incredible clearances. This means they’ve already gone through a rigorous process of background screening and character evaluation. Now, whether a company chooses to utilize an individual’s clearance isn’t really as important what the clearance says to a potential employer. It clearly marks the veteran as trustworthy and able to handle high-level information that wouldn’t be given out to many individuals. This, clearly, is an asset for veterans seeking a career change.
• Reliability: Veterans are exceedingly reliable. They come from a culture and workplace that values action and follow- through. Consequently, if they say they’re going to do something, they’re going to do it. If a timetable is established, it will be followed. Of course these are real advantages in the military workplace, but they are also highly sought after traits in the private sector.
• Education: Veterans, as a group, are highly educated. Veterans at all lengths of service have hands-on technical skills and advanced education. Quite often veterans hold advanced degrees. In particular, 15-20 year veterans increasingly go beyond their bachelors degrees and acquire and masters or doctorate-level education.

Unique Working Environments, Unique Skills
Employers know well that veterans have numerous other advantages as employees in addition to the quality character traits, and technical and managerial skills listed above. With the diverse needs of the military come diverse military jobs, and so various veterans will find their specialized skills are also highly valuable to potential employers. Because of this, don’t forget to highlight these skills as well. In the end, though, the unique characteristics fostered by a career in the military that might seem run-of-the-mill to an individual surrounded each day by other dedicated service members may just be the characteristics most valued by a potential employer.

The Self-Marketing Job Interview: How to Effectively Market Yourself to Your Next Employer

Our newest whitepaper was just added to the Career Transition Toolbox! Join our email list today to gain instant access to our veteran to civilian career resources!

The Self-Marketing Job Interview: How to Effectively Market Yourself to Your Next Employer

Why are job interviews so intimidating? There are many reasons, but here’s a big one: it’s an artificial situation.

Even when an interviewer does her best to put the candidate at ease, the job interview is still an artificial situation. Most job-seekers, who don’t go in with the right mind-set, posture and strategy (and that’s most job seekers), see themselves trapped in an “underdog / overdog” situation. The hiring manager has all the power and the needy applicant is at her mercy. They are unprepared. They don’t know what to expect, and whatever self-confidence they have evaporates completely as soon as the conversation begins. Time to shift your perspective!

Jumpstart Your Career Transition! The Jumpstart Session is designed to give you the feedback, advice, guidance and confidence that you need to succeed in your career transition. What’s more, the Jumpstart Session is priced at an affordable $149. A limited number of Jumpstart Sessions are available. BOOK YOUR SESSION TODAY!