Notes From The Edge - Military Times Edge

Did you know that the Veterans Affairs Department provides free educational and vocational counseling? Probably not, according to a Government Accountability Office report released in March.

“Most of the students and veterans service organization officials we interviewed were not aware that VA offered this service,” the report stated.

Little wonder: Education program officials admitted to GAO investigators that they have not done much to promote this service beyond posting information on the GI Bill online.

Now, VA is pushing to promote one source of counseling: its VetSuccess on Campus program, which provides vocational rehabilitation and peer-to-peer counseling. Through emails, posters, college newspapers and social media, VA is spreading the word at the eight campuses where the program runs:

* Salt Lake City Community College

* Community College of Rhode Island

* Rhode Island College

* Arizona State University

* Texas A&M University

* University of South Florida

* Cleveland State University

* San Diego State University

Schools are not just sitting back, either. At the University of Iowa, for example, that counseling is provided by a college staffer. Read how retired Sgt. 1st Class John Mikelson went from full-time student veteran at the university to full-time student veteran adviser here.

One chart in a recent poll on recruiting and employing veterans caught my eye.

The Society of Human Resource Management asked HR professionals what they considered the benefits of hiring military veterans, and the pros gave vets high marks for responsibility, leadership, work ethic, professionalism, problem-solving … I could go on, but you get the idea. In a nutshell, they have a high opinion of your intangible skills.

This is not what surprised me.

What intrigued me was how the responses were broken down. Respondents were divided into organizations that had hired veterans, organizations that had made an effort to hire veterans, and organizations that had not made an effort to hire veterans.

The poll showed that HR managers at organizations that had not made an effort to hire veterans value vets? skills just as much as those whose companies have actually hired vets. In fact, they rated veterans more highly in 12 of the 16 criteria.

For whatever reason, it seems that a high opinion of veterans as employees does not necessarily translate into tangible efforts to employ them.

Do you have any ideas why hiring managers who are not actively recruiting veterans would have an even higher opinion of vets than those who do?