Veteran Recruitment with Intel's Rob Polston

After spending 8 years in corporate finance at Intel, Army Reserve Officer Rob Polston was deployed to Afghanistan. Upon his return to the company, he eagerly jumped on the opportunity to be a part of the veterans recruiting and staffing program that Intel was developing. Since then, Rob has continued to set new standards of excellence for hiring and retaining veterans.

Rob presented at both the 2013 and 2014 DirectEmployers conferences. We had the privilege of sitting down with him during one of the events to discuss how employers can create successful veteran recruitment initiatives, his role at Intel and what keeps him up at night.

Check out the video from our interview:

Veteran recruitment essentials for employers to keep in mind:

Figure out why you want to hire veterans. What is it that they bring to your organization?
Work with your business groups and find the jobs that would be a good fit for veterans.
Find hiring managers who are veterans or will champion the cause. It's not always intuitive and may take some education and coaching to help business groups understand where veterans may fit.

Our Employers Connect events and Annual Meeting & Conference give you the chance to learn from and network with awesome people like Rob. Check out the Employers Connect and DEAM15 websites to learn more.

Comment by Keith Halperin on June 6, 2014 at 7:34pm: Very good. How many honorably-discharged veterans has Intel committed to hiring in FT, well-paid, well-benefited positions?

-kh

Comment by kpfled on June 9, 2014 at 12:31pm: Hi Keith! We didn't discuss those details in our interview, but I can say that Intel is fully committed to hiring military veterans for a variety of different roles within Intel. Over the last 3 years, Intel has hired the equivalent of almost one veteran per day. Their hiring manager and employees truly believe that military veterans make Intel stronger.

Comment by Keith Halperin on June 9, 2014 at 6:23pm: Excellent! What percentage of all hires were those? Do you have a breakdown on what jobs these ~1000 vets were hired for? Were they FT, well-paid, well-benefited positions? Is Intel committed to continue hiring that many in those kinds of positions just mentioned, and to possibly challenge other major employers to hire as many or more vets for decent jobs?

Comment by kpfled on June 9, 2014 at 6:33pm: Great questions, and I apologize but don't know those details. Here is a link to their Veterans Career site: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/jobs/careers/veterans-milita...

Thanks!

Comment by Keith Halperin on June 9, 2014 at 6:53pm: No need to apologize. I need to apologize to you. There are many companies that say"We support our troops"and"we help our vets" but they won't actually get around to committing to hire them for thee decent jobs mentioned, and when a company does in fact hire vets, they may be hired at low-end, not very decent jobs.

I think our vets deserve better than that- IMHO, they're ENTITLED to a decent job because of their service.

-kh

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