Life doesn't handout participation trophies and earning the right to be called a "Veteran" was attained through sacrifice and hard work.
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The relentless pursuit for excellence and the eternal dedication to defend our freedom and protect the American way entitles one to be deemed a Veteran. We are an organization that was built by Veterans through hard work and a passion to change the hiring mindset and promote a "Veteran first mentality". To accomplish a change of this magnitude, we had to understand what core competencies employers identified as skills that they would not compromise on when hiring new employees. They provided us a good baseline of skill sets that their top performing employees possessed and that they felt led to successful employees within their organization. There were many variations of abilities or traits that they pointed out to us and all of them varied slightly depending on the industry but, for the most part, they were all fairly similar in nature. Here is what we found when talking to business owners and 'C' level executives in the areas we define as our niche industries:
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Key traits of successful employees
- Manufacturers - They require a team that operates like a well oiled machine. Production personnel must communicate effectively and adapt quickly to operate at extremely high levels this industry demands. Time is money and they can't spare a second.
- Distributors - Our research found that companies that are in warehousing, transportation, logistics or any hub in the supply chain look for employees that have a combination of accuracy and efficiency that only a team of tremendously attentive and detail oriented personnel can accomplish.
- Engineers must posses the ability to take an idea and transform it into a structure, object, diagram or system that is either constructed, fabricated or executed in a very complex manner with precise and minute detail. .
- Industrial maintenance and repair requires an acute capacity to troubleshoot, diagnose, develop solutions and improvise with what's immediately accessible. Most often these repairs are extremely time sensitive to the operations of a companies primary mission and are typically performed in less than desirable conditions.
- Sales and Support - A sales force must be resilient when faced with rejection and confident in their abilities to perform under pressure. Additionally, all sales professionals must have exceptional communication skills and the aptitude to quickly identify a customers problem or need and then create an effective solution.
Employers need good hard working people
The biggest issue that we did not outline above because it was a topic that nearly every company talked to us about, is work ethic, or the lack there of. 99% of the company executives we met with expressed their frustrations with lazy candidates and/or employees. The Executive Vice President of Human Resources for a large distribution company here locally elaborates on their frustrations
"When we hire an employee it's because they left an impression that we were hiring a team player. Three weeks later we hear from their supervisor that they're doing the bare minimum to get a paycheck... It's frustrating how difficult it is to find people that want to work."
This is our take on the information we gathered
The core competencies that we discovered from our experiences meeting and working with the decision makers, hiring managers and business owners in each of these industries aren't taught in a college classroom. These are intangible skills that are typically personality traits or they have become ingrained within a person to the point they're instinctual. This could be the result of their upbringing, parental guidance, culture or the product of a repetitive application of these competencies as either a survival tool, or under extreme levels of stress. A strong work ethic, reliability and putting forth your best effort is a product of structure and discipline. Being accountable for your actions or accepting the consequences of poor choices has not been reinforced and without these basic values in place the definition of hard work gets blurred by a sense of entitlement. It's not exclusive to the lower wage workforce either, but is definitely more prevalent in that area.
Our point is this...
work ethic and the intangible abilities or personality traits outlined above in each of the respective industries define the very core competencies of nearly all Veterans regardless of branch. Lack of work ethic is not even a point of discussion in the Veteran Community. Discipline and structure are a way of life to those that have served and I can personally attest to how difficult it was to get accustomed to the absence of structure when I transitioned into the private sector. 0500 P.T. and then 0630 muster, 16 hour days 6 days a week and 8 month deployments for 10 years of your life will make you appreciate those that are still actively serving. These core competencies do not only pertain to those that have been exposed to combat situations, these competencies encompass the vast majority of Veterans because of the perpetual training regiment they are subjected to. To remain mission capable, active duty and reserve personnel are constantly training on rapid response and the precise execution of that response. The readiness of a unit or squadron is paramount in every branch of the military.
Who Gets The Larger Percentage of Job Offers, Military Veterans or College Educated Candidates With Non-Specialized Degrees ?
In our experience many employers that are struggling with the decision of hiring a four year college graduate with a non-specialized degree or a veteran that served four years tend to hire the college graduate. When we say non-specialized degree, we mean their degree is not an engineering degree or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
The facts are this:
- Six Sigma and LEAN manufacturing processes can be taught.
- Creating strategies to improve accuracy and efficiency in the distribution chain through data driven analysis by way of complex spreadsheets... can be taught.
- Engineering and Designing a structure that can support excessive weight in a geographical location that requires detailed topographic foundation analysis prior to design.. can be taught. Very technical and difficult to learn but classes are available.
- Troubleshooting and repairing programmable logic controllers (PLCs) so that 3 miles of conveyor belts will come back online and return a distribution operation back to the 'on' position... can be taught.
- Creating new business revenue through taking a more consultative approach that focuses on listening to the clients needs, identifying solutions and educating them on their options so that you position yourself as a trusted adviser, not a pushy fast talking sales rep..... Can be taught.
The intangible skills that Military Veterans possess Cannot be taught...
anywhere other than the United States Military. Four years of college that produces a Business Management degree does not teach you how to be a Leader! It teaches you to be a Manager!
The Government Will Pay Veterans To Attain Higher Education Degrees That Specialize In Your Most Difficult Positions To Fill -
Here's a great side note that most employers don't even know. Nearly all Military Veterans have G.I. Bill benefits and most of them are nearly unused. Why not hire a Veteran that has college scholarship? You'll get all of those intangible skills and have the ability to cultivate them into your next leader. Think about that process. What if you were able to go to the high schools and find the most disciplined, structured and hard-working kids and convince them to use their four year fully paid college scholarship to specialize in your most technically advanced position. Let them know that while their going to school you'll need them to work for you full-time so they can learn the business. Make sure that you have something in writing that won't let them run off to your competitors once they receive their degree. Or you can invest in the future of your company and hire a Veteran that wants to earn a long-term career opportunity that will allow them to learn and grow.
Hire a Leader by calling us today or you can submit an inquiry online (904) 860-0571
Client Success Story...
Premier Client, National Manufacturer - "Ben through Now Hiring Heroes was able to come into our organization and fill a need with high quality temp to perm employees on time and under our normal budget. We've used multiple staffing agencies but always struggled to find the quality and reliability to meet our technically skilled labor needs . Ben was ahead of the pack in all areas. I highly recommend Ben and Now Hiring Heroes Inc. for temp to hire needs."
If you need a custom designed solution that will help you hire a Veteran Leader we have many platforms for you to choose from. Here are a few examples:
We Recruit, You Hire & They Work For YouOur Direct Hire, Contingent Recruiting and Outsourced Recruiting platforms all take away the burden of finding, recruiting, screening, vetting and everything else that steels the one thing you can't get back... Your Time.
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We Recruit, We Hire & They Work For You.Our Contract Staffing and Temporary to Permanent platforms allow you to assess the prospective employee for as long as it takes you to make a decision to hire permanently or not. Either way we'll guarantee our work.
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You Recruit, We Hire & They Work For You.Let us handle the Payroll, Work Comp & HR functions just like our Temp to Perm platform. The only difference here is we give you significantly lower rates when you find the employee, refer them to us and we hire on your behalf.
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NOW Hiring Heroes was founded on the basis of connecting veterans and their family members to good paying, growth oriented careers in the private sector.
We quickly learned that we needed to do more than just that. It was very important to us to not only create life changing results in the Veteran community, but to be a full service recruiting and staffing agency to our clients. The decision to open up our services to those that had never served our country was a difficult one. Then we realized that honest, hard-working and genuinely good people paid our salaries while we provided our services to this great Country. Every time they came out of pocket to pay taxes to Uncle Sam they paid tribute to us. At least we'd like to believe that our fellow Americans can identify that a portion of that money was what supported our families. Additionally, many civilians provided care for us, our families, spouses and our children when we weren't able to because of our commitment. They've given a lot too us and we want to be able to help them find career opportunities too. That's why we decided to move forward and open up our services. The decision to do this was and has always been very rewarding. We get another chance to serve our Country right here at home and that is our Mission. "We put people before profits and Quality over Quantity".