America’s Top Employers Help Match Jobs to Veterans

Published on Thursday, 26 May 2011 16:38

By Chad Sowash

DirectEmployers Association (www.directemployers.org), a non-profit consortium of over 600 leading U.S. employers, has announced an extensive online program to assist transitioning military personnel in all branches of our armed forces, their spouses, dependents, and caregivers in quickly and efficiently finding employment.  The program is available free-of-charge to all employers and will provide military personnel and their dependents access to more than 860,000 employment opportunities from over 90,000 employers nationwide. 

The Association announced that over 5,800 dot-jobs (.jobs) domains have been added to the .Jobs Universe (www.universe.jobs) to create employment services for returning veterans (www.veterans.jobs) and their families.  The domains use the Military Occupational Classification (MOC) Crosswalk to assist military personnel in transitioning from active duty to employment opportunities in the civilian workforce.  Transitioning military personnel can enter their MOC plus .jobs into their browser to locate civilian occupations requiring the same or similar skills as their previous military job (e.g. www.42F.jobs, www.25B.jobs, www.2891.jobs).

The .Jobs Universe also includes a Military Family (www.militaryfamily.jobs) feature.  This is designed to help military spouses, dependents and caregivers quickly locate employment while their loved ones are serving our country.  Military families can enter the name of their military installation plus the intuitive .jobs suffix into their browser and receive a list of employment opportunities on their assigned base or in surrounding cities (e.g. www.CampPendleton.jobs, www.NewportNewsShipyard.jobs, www.FtKnox.jobs).

“Unemployment remains high for our nation’s veterans, yet employers are picking up the pace of hiring and there are more open positions available than at any time since the downturn began,” said Bill Warren, Executive Director of DirectEmployers Association and an early pioneer in online recruiting.  “The U.S. military needs a more centralized, efficient way of connecting employers with veterans and their families and the .Jobs Universe provides this.  By expanding the .Jobs Universe to include Military Occupational Classification Codes in addition to geographic locations and career specialty keywords, we are adding the capability for veterans to easily search for employment opportunities based on their location and area of expertise. “

Tom Embrescia, Chairman & CEO of Employ Media (.jobs) said, “This new effort to assist our veterans and their families is further demonstration of the value and benefit of the .jobs platform.  It is free for both the employer and the job seeker, and it is organized to fit the way people use the Internet to search for jobs and the way companies go about attracting specific skills and experience with no artificial barriers in between.   With the extra steps taken to ensure that only legitimate job listings from real companies are included, veterans and their families can have confidence in using this service to submit their background information over the Internet.”

“This is a great program for the entire human resource community as well as our transitioning military and their families. I am very proud to be a part of this exciting initiative in support of those who have unselfishly given so much for our nation,” states Rhonda Stickley, a six-year U.S. Army veteran and current human resource executive at Seattle-based Providence Health & Services.

DirectEmployers Association’s new military .Jobs initiative expands the potential of an already established and robust partnership with the public sector, the National Labor Exchange (NLX).  Offered in partnership with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA), the NLX is a job-search engine feeding job openings into 50 publicly-funded state job banks.   This has substantially increased offerings to all job seekers, and especially veterans.  Since March 2007, the NLX has provided over 9 million unduplicated, current jobs to state workforce agency staffs dedicated to serving veterans.  The NLX uses no federal funds for operations, research, or development.  Rather, this unique public-private partnership leverages private, non-profit-owned technology with existing state workforce agency resources to enhance offerings to veterans.

The NLX partners are looking forward to continuing their work with the Obama Administration and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS) to offer comprehensive, coordinated services to returning service members and military families.  DirectEmployers shares VETS’ vision and commitment to expand career opportunities for Veterans, transitioning service members, and their families.

Alicia Wallace, EEO Program Consultant for WellPoint and a military veteran whose husband is a retired infantry officer, says, “I salute all companies supporting these outstanding military programs. As a nation, we should do all we can for the gallant men and women who serve in our armed forces. These individuals and their families have made great sacrifices for our country and deserve all the gratitude and support we can provide.”

The .Jobs Universe, owned and managed by employers through a nonprofit trade association, has continued its explosive growth by adding over 5,000 participating employers since its mid-January launch.  The seamlessly integrated Internet employment platform with over 40,000 industry, occupational and geographical domains ending in the intuitive .Jobs suffix had over a half million visitors in its first three weeks of operation.

“Absurdly Intuitive”, as described in a recent publication, the .Jobs Universe allows job seekers to simply type a location or occupation into their browser, for example: www.universe.jobs, www.seattle.jobs, www.nursing.jobs, www.seattlenursing.jobs, www.engineering.jobs, and receive employment listings from employers across the U.S. and worldwide.  It provides a quick, easy and direct connection to the hiring employer resulting in a faster, more efficient hiring process.

In addition to free job listings, the .Jobs Universe offers all employers in all industries low-cost premium placement and branding opportunities.  It also offers an amazing suite of web analytics and integration with social media.  Job seekers use the .Jobs domains as entry points to vetted, trusted and relevant employment-related job content.  Employment listings are real jobs from real employers free of scams, duplicate job listings, and old or expired jobs.   

Simon Evans, SRA International Vice President for Recruiting and Internal Mobility, states, “We fully support this innovation in Internet recruiting where all employers can participate. The .Jobs Universe provides a single, unified platform that allows all employers, regardless of size, to list their jobs free-of-charge.  It is especially effective for smaller employers who cannot afford to post their employment opportunities on traditional job boards.”

Human Resource executives from over 600 leading U.S. employers, including some of the largest employers in the world, have joined with DirectEmployers Association to develop the .Jobs Universe and transform how people use the Internet to quickly, efficiently and economically locate valid employment opportunities.

Chad Sowash, VP of Business Development with DirectEmployers Association, is a leading authority in the online recruiting and marketing space. He additionally has 20 years of experience in the U.S. Army and U.S Army Reserve, where he attended many leadership schools, worked as an Infantry Drill Sergeant and is a combat veteran.

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