The First Edition - Mil-Employers Unite!

It is no secret that military talent is a competitive advantage. However, this talent pool is largely under-penetrated. In fact, a recent McKinsey & Company report found that “Veterans represent a source of labor potential that is untapped relative to the breadth of experience and depth of skills that they acquire and develop during their service. And the economic potential of unleashing the value of veterans’ work experience could be almost $15 billion over a ten-year period”.

With the huge opportunity that military talent represents, and the ~200k transitioning service members each year growing the pool, why hasn’t every HR team at least considered how they can attract and retain these candidates?

We think there are a few reasons, but one of them is there isn’t enough open discourse about creating effective military hiring and retention programs. It is hard to benchmark your programs, hear unbiased feedback from military job-seekers, and find best practices by yourself.

That’s where we come in.

Whether your company has a team of military recruiters or you are just starting to hire from the mil-community, you’ll find value here.

So without further ado, let’s get into it!

Living Up to Promises - Amazon and T-Mobile See Major Successes

In 2021 Amazon vowed to hire 100,000 veterans and military spouses worldwide by 2024 (~14% of the people at the company as listed on LinkedIn - I know, a rough metric but to add some context). What was considered an extremely aggressive goal at the time by outsiders has been surpassed with flying colors by the Amazon team, passing the 100k in January of this year with 11 months to go.

In 2019 T-Mobile vowed to hire 10,000 veterans and military spouses by 2024 (~12% of LinkedIn employees) and this May they announced they passed their goal!

We add the percentages for some context for two reasons:

1. These organizations hire veterans at double the pace they naturally occur in the U.S. population (6-7%).

2. These internationally-acclaimed companies are doing A LOT more than talking about military hiring. They took action, built military hiring programs, and have built a MASSIVE competitive advantage over those who haven’t.

The best part? You don’t need the scale of Amazon or T-Mobile to launch an effective military hiring program, but you can take lessons from the great work they’ve done.

What were some of the things these companies did to attract military talent?

1. Amazon created a policy requiring all veterans interviewing for roles to have at least one fellow veteran on their final interview.

2. Amazon launched a 12-week military spouse fellowship, providing spouses training, networking, and events, while gaining hands-on job experience.

3. Amazon offered various fellowships, campus programs, and a pre-paid tuition program for high-demand roles.

4. Amazon has a Global Military Affairs Team, with individuals devoted to enablement, program design, recruiting, and retention.

5. Amazon has an affinity group Warriors @ Amazon, with over 600 chapters, boosting the sense of belonging at the company and retention metrics.

6. Amazon launched the Military Mentorship Program, connecting veterans who are new to the company with those who have been at the company for some time.

Want to read more about Amazon’s strategy to attract and retain military talent? Read their release here.

Now how about T-Mobile?

1. They built deep partnerships with non-profits serving the military community, plugging them into a large talent pool and subject matter expertise immediately.

2. Help with relocation

3. Free counseling sessions with mental health professionals

4. Learning and development opportunities to support members throughout their entire career at T-Mobile

5. Established devoted military recruiters with a deep understanding of military-connected candidates

You can read more about their strategy to attract and retain military talent here.

Opportunities to Hire Military Talent - Fill Your Talent Pipeline in a Day!

Are you reading this newsletter and feeling excited to hire some amazing military candidates?! I know we are!

If your company is just starting to hire military candidates or if you’ve been doing it for years, our events provide you with an invaluable opportunity to meet 700+ candidates in a day, receive resumes and data for each, and hire amazing candidates.

From Fortune 500 to Federal Agency to SMB, our team has welcomed companies across the country with amazing success hiring military talent. Through our targeted outreach, our team can reach into our military talent pool and bring your desired candidate type to the event, anything from cleared technical talent to retail team members, we can help.

For 2025, we have the following military hiring events, and also allow companies to host devoted webinars with Boots to Books where we bring 100+ military candidates interested in your company:

1. February 28th - Virtual Hiring Fair

2. April 25th - In-person Hiring Fair in Maryland (Maryland Live! Hotel and Casino)

3. May 30th - Virtual Hiring Fair

4. August 29th - Virtual Hiring Fair

5. October 2nd - In-Person Hiring Fair at the Military Influencer Conference (Details TBA)

6. November 14th - Virtual Hiring Fair

Want to reserve a booth today before space runs out? Shoot our team an email today or grab a time here.

Email: [email protected]

Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot Program - 370 Employers!

Hiring Our Heroes is facilitating the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot, or MSCAP, program, where spouses are matched with participating companies and DOD pays the salaries of the spouses during the 12 weeks. The program is actively seeking more employers to participate and you can find more information on how to do so below.

According to Military Times, 370 employers were participating in the program, 3,000 spouses were registered, and 870 have been placed into fellowships as of September 23rd.

Humana Launches Refreshed Military Hiring Strategy and Success Metrics

Humana administers health benefits for almost 6 million service members and retirees nationwide and is a major employer of veterans, having hired ~6,000 to date.

However, Humana recently released a refreshed military hiring strategy, and there is a lot to learn from how they measure success.

Here is the short and sweet (Source: Lane Report)

1. A promise to hire 2,000 military-connected employees by 2032

2. A retention goal of 75% for year one of employment, then 90% for years 2-5.

3. Offering job transfers, remote opportunities, flexible hours, leave for changes of duty station, and a military spouse fellowship program through the Hiring Our Heroes 4+1 plan.

If your company is just standing up your military hiring program, how would you expect your metrics to compare to these? Does the size of the company impact year one retention? These are questions to answer for yourself, to measure diligently, and to optimize both quantitatively (retention cohorts) and qualitatively (input from military team members and sensing sessions).

What Do Military Candidates Want?

The million-dollar question that isn’t very hard to answer! From surveys our team has conducted to date, we generally find the order of importance landing here:

1. Purpose - A mission, goal, or change the individual can see themselves partaking in. Busy work or tedious repetition typically won’t speak to someone who thrives in a fast-paced, high-stress environment.

2. Total Compensation Package - Generally, the total compensation package arises second in terms of importance. We say total compensation package because military candidates typically consider far more than the base salary number, and will draw comparisons between their current healthcare and your plans, research what benefits exist for families, and seek out educational benefits to keep growing.

3. Learning and Development - This has been an omnipotent factor in military candidates’ decision-making calculus. The growth mindset embedded in the military carries over to your organization, and military candidates will seek out and take advantage of learning and development opportunities. In fact, they’re often asked about as one of the first questions during our events.

4. Community - Individuals in the military community are leaving a workplace that was truly “like family”. While they don’t expect that camaraderie to be replaced in a normal private-sector workplace, a company devoid of culture or without any employee resource groups will struggle greatly to attract military candidates and will fail horribly at retaining them.

While these are just a few generalities about hiring military veterans, we’ve got some exciting news!

In the next edition, we will be launching our first Military Candidate Survey! Through the ~250k impressions our team generates via email, social media, and partners each month, we will be distributing a survey to candidates to determine what factors carry the most weight during employment decisions and more preferences regarding employment. Make sure to stay tuned for the full survey results!

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