Operation: Employment
By Rachel Howell
The poor economy is not news. Most have dealt directly or indirectly with job loss or the recession and have made adjustments in their life accordingly. According to the Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for the United States in December of 2009 was 10.0 percent. Though Texas’ unemployment rate was below the national average at 8.3 percent in December 2009, the national unemployment rate for veterans was 9.5 percent for the month of February. The veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were at an even higher rate of 12.5 percent in the same month.
The Texas Veterans Commission has seen the national trends and is working hard to decrease the number of veterans who are unemployed or looking for a new job.
Since VES transferred from the Texas Workforce Commission in 2006 to the Texas Veterans Commission, job development has been an important part of the program. A job development refers to matching a skilled veteran with an employer in need of those specific skills. The veterans employment representative (VER) contacts businesses in his community and takes note of the needs of those businesses.When a VER meets with a veteran who matches the needs of one of those businesses, the VER will reach out to that employer and secure a referral on behalf of the veteran. The employer does not have that specific job listed in
WorkInTexas.com, and the employer’s permission to accept the job seeker’s contact is required as well as the veteran job seeker’s acceptance. After contact has been made between the employer and the VER, an interview between the veteran job-seeker and the employer or the agreement of the employer to accept the veteran’s resume, phone call, e-mail, or application is required.
Outreach to businesses in communities around Texas is important in making these job matches. With more contact to the businesses in the community, the more chances the VER has to secure job matches with those businesses.
More VERs are utilizing outside resources to find jobs for veterans when no new jobs are being posted to WorkInTexas.com. In 2009, Mark Gentry, a VER in the Disabled Veterans Outreach Program at the Fort Worth Northside Workforce Center, made 380 job developments with 58 resulting in employment.
The Texas Veterans Commission also saw the need for a dedicated staff member to do business outreach and recruitment. As a result, Texas Veterans Commission hired Kevin Smith as the Business Outreach Coordinator. Since November 2009, Smith has secured 78 jobs from 23 different employers.
Smith’s process is very simple: contact businesses that are growing or have a history of hiring veterans and let them know about Texas Veterans Commission services. Most companies don’t know that this service exists and that it is provided to them for free.
One of those 71 jobs was secured when Smith started researching growing companies in the Houston area. Satterfield & Pontikes was on that list, and he called them to create the relationship. After about a month of talking on the phone explaining that the Texas Veterans Commission’s services are free and educating them on the many benefits of hiring veterans, including tax incentives, Smith met with their management and toured the main facility.
After that, he started getting positions sent directly to him, and in turn he sent those out to VERs along with specific protocols for them to follow to ensure the best possible submission.
“Ultimately, I began getting resumes from [VERs],” Smith said. “I forwarded the prescreened candidates’ resumes to the [Human Resources] manager for review, interviews and offers.”
William Covington started with Satterfield & Pontikes on Feb. 10, 2010, as a Construction Superintendent at management level.
Smith wants to guarantee that Covington’s story is not the last of its kind.
“The success [of Texas Veterans Commission VES] is dependent upon continuing what we have started,” Smith implores. “Keep pounding the pavement, keep building a veteran-friendly groundswell and be persistent with initiating and educating new companies and also selling the opportunity to them. The more we are out there the better and more prevalent the Texas Veterans Commission’s reputation will become.”
In addition to Smith’s Business Outreach Coordinator position, VERs are also reaching out to veterans and employers. Not all stories have a happy ending immediately though, as Jillayne Jordan, a VER in Fort Worth, discovered. A veteran she had helped find a job, Ryan McMahon, was laid off two months after he had used the Texas Veterans Commission services.
McMahon had called her in response to a service letter that was sent out to all new and reactivated veterans. Jordan scheduled an appointment to see him as a result of that phone call. He came to her office on Nov. 9, 2009, to receive counseling and resume services before he was hired on Nov. 18, 2009. Technical Diagnostic Services hired him as a Business and Training Consultant through a posting on Work In Texas. His last day of work there was Feb. 15, 2010.
“I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciate the time you spent with me,” McMahon said in an e-mail to Jordan before the layoff. “You probably don’t receive much recognition, but you did a great job and you were very encouraging to me when I needed someone to be kind. Bless you.”
McMahon was not discouraged though.
“Ryan already has a lead on another job and completed some personality tests for that job,” Jordan said at the end of February 2010. “He’ll be coming in for more assistance from me on [February 25].”
Though the economy is still struggling, the Texas Veterans Commission is committed to bringing jobs to veterans through whatever means necessary. Becoming a headhunter and actually connecting veterans to employers makes the VES program in Texas unique and successful. Click here to find your local office.
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