Veterans the Hiring Process

Chapter 2 – Literature Review

Name

Institution

Table of Contents

Review of the Literature        2

Summary        17

Review of the Literature

The Hiring Process

One of the most effective methods suggested in aiding veterans with disabilities to secure employment after discharge is the need for addressing such challenges by developing and implementing various approaches such as vocational training and conducting awareness about employment techniques in the civilian environment. However, although some initiatives such as Veteran Rehabilitation and employment (VR&E) alongside the VA program are effective in providing structural support for veterans, O’Connor et al. (2013) maintain that such programs are still inadequate in providing consistent support for competitive employment.

Some researchers also argue out that lack of professional understanding of the challenges facing veterans coupled with poor recruitment strategies jeopardize veterans’ ability to secure employment after discharge and find success transition into the civilian life (Hall et al., 2014). With this realization, the majority organizations’ efforts in addressing the issue of employment and veterans have been putting emphasis on recruitment instead of focusing more on managing veteran employees after the hiring process (United States, 2010). Consequently, these efforts are likely to fail since employers should be ensuring the allocation of resources to the recruitment process as well as activities such as veteran career development and rehabilitation. This approach is likely to improve the retention of veteran employees as well as ensuring high levels of performance.

The hiring process employed by most HR professionals is characteristic of generalizing civilian candidates and veteran candidates. This method of hiring does not consider the fact that some veterans would be suffering from mental disabilities such as PTSD. As such, these veterans require special treatment considering their disabilities as well as the fact that their skill transition from military duties to the civilian workforce might need training. Furthermore, a successful transfer of military experiences into the corporate world might be significant for employers to understand as something that need effective hiring processes that take care of these veterans. For instance, the structuring and the design of interview questions targeting veterans should be effective in avoiding situations that might remind them of the challenges they faced in combat, thereby preventing situations that are likely to increase their negative emotions.

Veterans with mental and physical challenges also find it difficult in transition to the civilian life (Smith, 2014). In fact, veterans with health problems acquired because of military services are likely to come up with greater employment concerns such as inability to find or maintain employment as opposed to veterans with no health issues (Faberman and Foster, 2014). In a survey conducted by Prudential (2012), the findings indicated that have psychological or physical challenges high levels of unemployment (23%) as opposed to 18% of veterans without any health challenge. The same findings also show that a veteran with lifetime diagnosis of PTSD are less likely to find employment and those lucky to have one are more likely to have reduced hourly wage when compared to those without PTSD diagnosis. There are also reports that mentally challenged veterans, especially those with PTSD, are among the most crucial concerns for employers since they are wary of meeting the PTSD costs in the workplace (Kleylamp, 2013).

Skill translation is also a challenge for many hiring companies and veterans alike. Although many organizations have different military skill translation tools while others hire third-party translators for the same, there is still a high level of lack of satisfaction in the degree of skill translation. Companies also consider the need for depending mostly on the significant contribution of informed recruiter. Additionally, veterans lack the ability to present themselves and their skills in the most effective ways that meet the requirements of the civilian employment environment since they lack the ability to present themselves as customer-service experts.

Lack of Advertising of Outreach Programs

Veterans also face employment challenges due to poor outreach and lack of professional networking. This implies that veterans do not have an adequate exposure to employment opportunities, inability to write resume that meet civilian qualifications, poor career advancement, and inability to access the necessary information on employment opportunities, thereby impacting their possibility of matching their military skills and experiences to the civilian professions as argued out by Prudential (2012).

The idea of poor outreach also relates to the point of challenge for organizations in reaching out to veterans. In fact, it is evident that many veterans do not have the knowledge and information of where to go and connect with organizations in order to find jobs. At the same time, many organizations and HR professionals are characteristic of struggling to connect with veterans due to lack of the understanding of the right channels for reaching out to the veterans that meet their employment requirements and demands.

The policy that defines the ability to qualify the services offered by VA also prevents some veterans from using the programs and services provided by the department. This is because the eligibility for each service offered by VA varies. However, veterans have to meet a certain length of service for active military to qualify for most of the VA programs. To enjoy the programs and services, veterans also have to meet the discharge criteria as well as having more than 10% rating of disability to be eligible for VA programs (Collins, 2012). With these policies, some service members are likely to fail in realizing the benefits of VA programs and services. Although there have been recent changes to the policy that saw the number of benefits veterans under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, many services members that fail to meet the eligibility criteria still find themselves unable to enjoy the VA programs. Those excluded veterans are arguably more susceptible to challenges such as inability to be employed as well as experiencing other problems such as homelessness and health concerns.