Veterans Resources and Programs

The Georgia Manufacturing Alliance is committed to supporting our veteran community and we have chosen the Veterans Empowerment Organization (VEO) as our charity of choice for 2018.  VEO provides housing and resources for veterans in transition and helps their residents complete their Self-Sufficiency Model.  This program focuses on taking the “invisible veterans” off the streets and providing immediate and long-term housing, treatment and recovery for addiction, healthy meals, and basic necessities, as well as, medical care, mental health counseling, life-skills training and workforce development support.  To learn more www.veohero.org.

VEO's mission is simple...

"To Enhance The Quality Of Life For All Veterans On Their Road To Self-Sufficiency."

To learn more, please visit www.VEOHERO.ORG

Patrick Ballard - Veterans Liaison for the Georgia Manufacturing Alliance

Patrick Ballard, Colonel, USAF(ret) is leading our Veterans Initiative within GMA.  He is the Senior Vice President of VFG Leasing & Finance which is a certified Veterans Owned small business.  Feel free to contact Patrick if you have any questions related to veterans at patrick@vfgusa.com.

Resources and Links:

Please click on the titles of each resource below to learn more about these important resources for Veterans and their families.

1) GI Jobs

GI Jobs has a lot of great online tools for vets. They have hotlists for veteran career and education opportunities, a pay calculator that will help you figure out what salary you’ll need in your civilian job to equal your military pay, and they also have a job board that lets you search by location and your military specialty.

2) Feds Hire Vets

Interested in a federal career after your service? Use this website for finding resources and information to help you on your way. This site isn’t just for veterans; they also support service members still in transition, as well as family members of active duty military and Veterans.

3) Veteran Employment Center

A division of the US Department of Veteran affairs, The Veteran Employment Center helps you to translate your military occupational codes into civilian skill equivalents for a powerful resume, and to help you learn about potential related civilian career paths. They offer tools like a military job translator – a tool that will help you to find career options that best utilize your training, experience and capabilities. They also help out with building a great resume – which can be a stressful endeavor. They will help you create an online profile so that employers can find you more easily, as well as helping you create a downloadable resume for you to use offline.

Publishing your profile on the VEC website instantly connects you to thousands of employers looking to hire Veterans, transitioning Servicemembers as well as family members. You can search the Veterans Job Bank of over 1.5 million jobs, in addition to all federal jobs – including status positions reserved especially for Veterans. Find out about employers that have a good history of hiring veterans, and get connected to other informational resources like their new DoD SkillBridge pilot program that promotes civilian job training for transitioning Servicemembers.

4) LinkedIn for Vets

LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for hearing about job openings, and helping you appear in search results when potential employers are seeking out people with your skillset. LinkedIn also provides a free 1-year Job Seeker Premium subscription ($360) and courses at Lynda.com to all U.S. Veterans and Service Members! Lynda.com is a really valuable offering – they have courses in design, photography, web, 3D animation, business and more. This is a great offering that you should definitely take advantage of.

5) Hire Heroes USA

Hire Heroes works to help veterans find jobs, with more than 60 veterans confirmed hired every week. Their services are provided at no cost to the transitioning military member, veteran or spouse. They provide workshops, career coaching and employment counseling.

Veterans are individually partnered with a Veteran Transition Specialist who works with the veteran to create a tailored civilian resume and translate military experience into civilian terminology. They help you learn effective job search strategies, as well as networking and interviewing techniques. Perhaps most importantly, they help you get connected with companies who want to hire veterans.

6) HireVeterans.Com

The place to go once you have your resume in order, Hire Veterans connects veterans with employers and job opportunities – you can apply right on their site. They offer Employers access to your resume and they offer you the good and relevant jobs by companies in the USA and abroad.

HireVeterans.com has established its brand as a top e-recruiting site for the veterans of our armed forces.”

7) Military.Com Veteran Jobs

Part of Military.com, they are the largest military and veteran membership organization with 10 million members. Come here to search job listings, learn about military-friendly employers, get help building your resume, and check out their articles about career advice.

8) Vet Jobs

Vet jobs is one of the leading military-related job boards on the Internet. They work to assist employers in identifying transitioning military and veteran candidates. In 2000, The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States sponsored and purchased ten percent of the company.

“The VetJobs vision is to meet the shortage of qualified candidates in the civilian sector with highly trained veterans who can offer employers technical skills, management expertise and most importantly, leadership.”

9) Fastport

Fastport is a veteran focused job hunting service, helping you find great trucking jobs, without having to dig through hard to navigate listings. They’ve created FASTPORT’S Job Maps, that shows you a snapshot of the jobs that match your experience best, and the ones that go through your hometown. As you review search results, you can pick favorites – the more you do, the better the system will be able to show you jobs that you could be interested in. They also offer a live chat option on the website, to get help from someone in real time! Worried about what the job will actually be like? Read reviews from past and current employees of that job, and see for yourself. Once you find a job you’re interested in, you can reach out and apply right on the site.

10) Military Hire

A military hiring network, militaryhire.com is another resource to connect you with veteran friendly employers.  Once you post your resume, you can search for jobs and narrow down your search terms so that you only see jobs you might be interested in. You can click to apply to these jobs right on the site, and you can set up an automated search that will let you know when a job that fits your search terms has been posted.

There are many great sites for helping veterans on their job hunt. Job Hero.com has a really great career guide page – there you can find even more resources available to you on your hunt for the perfect job for you.

11) Hire Purpose

Developed in 2011 by a group of veterans, Hire Purpose has been addressing the gaps that exist within the process of transitioning military servicemen and women to civilian careers. In order to help get more successful results, you can find help for building your resume, interview tips, explore and discover new career ideas – even browse open jobs and apply for them right on the site. They even follow up with employers on your behalf, and are there with a real person to speak with you for support if you need it.

12) Rally Point

The main goal of Rally Point is to help service members lead more successful and fulfilling lives. They provide a platform that helps you to build out your professional network and connect with your peers, as well as allowing you to explore career opportunities both within the military sector and in the private sector. Founded by military veterans at Harvard Business School, Rally Point is a prestigious military network and veteran support tool. You can create a profile that highlights your military career, and allows you to get involved in conversations in the community – on anything from sharing your experiences while in the military, to discussing good job-hunting skills.

13) Hiring Our Heroes

Hiring Our Heroes, a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, launched in March 2011 as a nationwide initiative to help veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses find meaningful employment opportunities. Working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vast network of state and local chambers and strategic partners from the public, private, and non-profit sectors, our goal is to create a movement across America in hundreds of communities where veterans and military families return every day.

14) Military Skills Translator from the VA

Convert your military experience into civilian language that hiring managers can easily understand.

15) VETLANTA

 VETLANTA is a club operated exclusively for veteran social and business networking and community service purposes. Our purpose is to foster collaboration among Atlanta area businesses to support veteran-orientated initiatives. We seek to strengthen the community of Atlanta through empowering veterans, recognizing their individual and collective skills. We network with Atlanta area businesses (including non-profits, education institutions, government agencies), to find those organizations with like-minded values who may have opportunities for veterans. To maximize our impact on current efforts, VETLANTA may become involved with local volunteer opportunities in order to facilitate camaraderie and give veterans a chance to network effectively.

16) Bunker Labs

Bunker Labs—a national non-profit—was created by military veterans for veterans to start and grow businesses. 25% of transitioning service members want to start a business and they need places inside their community where they can connect with the people, resources, and support they need to start and grow their businesses. Bunker Labs’ network is designed to fill that space.  (Atlanta is not up on the site yet but will be soon)

A portion of this information sourced from http://hiringamerica.net/news/12-great-online-resources-for-veterans-looking-for-jobs/