Angela Guidroz, a Recruiting Manager at Sodexho, wrote an excellent article today for ERE,"Getting Good at Military Skills Translation - The extra effort is worth the challenge."
http://www.ere.net/articles/db/6E598783BF0A43848961916D29E0A221.asp


I encourage recruiters to read the article and pass it on. It raises some great ideas and answers questions about how recruiters can make a difference in their chosen profession.
I was especially pleased to see that Angela gently reminded readers to ignore their "inner voices"- the ones that whisper that you shouldn't have to make the (MOS) translation and that the job seekers should be the ones to make the effort to write their profiles so a civilian could understand them.

I have been less gentle in holding up that mirror in times past as I'm convinced that when it comes to military...and other under served groups, especially the disabled, that too many of our colleagues have little energy for reaching out and "considering" them (and often ignore potentially great applicants who never, surprise, actually make it to the applicant pool)...unless of course they are specifically told to target them by the hiring manager.

(I'm also sure these recruiters don't ignore good candidates out of spite - essentially they are simply burning out over heavy req loads, worried about their job - especially if they spend too much time evaluating low probability hires that might require high touch.) In the end there are few professionals in any function that willingly go down the tougher path.(I've several stories on the subject which I'll save for another day)

The point is I wanted to thank Angela for writting about the military on ERE.
And since I am compelled to privately thank folks who write interesting articles several times a month I did what I usually do when I don't know someone, I use the internet tools at hand to track down their phone number and call them directly (I've been doing this since well before the internet).

The reason I'm outing Angela is that while it took me only a moment, I found her contact information on a job posting to a job board devoted to the hiring of disabled military, Warriors to Work. https://wtow.woundedwarriorproject.org/index.php?option=com_jobline...

Her posting on this job board included her email address as well as her phone number. She could have simply linked those interested back to her ATS. She didn't. Kudos.