Lessons Learned for Vets
Lessons Learned for Vets
Tackling Veteran Underemployment through The Call of Duty Endowment with Dan Goldenberg
Struggling to translate your military experience into civilian success? Dan Goldenberg's journey from Naval officer to leading the Call of Duty Endowment offers a masterclass in veteran career transition done right.
When Dan took over the Call of Duty Endowment in 2013, he transformed it from a traditional "big check and handshake" foundation into a powerhouse of veteran employment support. By implementing accountability measures and focusing on quality outcomes, the Call of Duty Endowment has helped place over 150,000 veterans in meaningful jobs at just 1/15th the cost of government programs. "The fundamental thing that differentiates us from other approaches is accountability," Dan explains, describing their quarterly performance reviews and commitment to continuous improvement.
The conversation tackles a critical misconception head-on: veteran hiring isn't charity, it's simply smart business. Data from Fortune 500 executives shows veterans are 3% more productive and 3% more likely to stay with companies throughout their careers. Yet many companies miss this opportunity, while many veterans struggle with underemployment because they leap at the first job offer rather than finding the right fit.
Perhaps the most valuable advice comes when discussing job search strategy: "I'd rather invest in 100 conversations than sending 100 resumes." This networking-focused approach not only builds connections but provides critical self-discovery. Dan also highlights the current crisis facing veterans cut from federal positions, who receive none of the transition support offered to military members, underscoring the urgent need for specialized employment assistance. You can find the article here: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7323717975612567554/
Whether you're a transitioning service member, a veteran seeking better employment, or an employer looking to build a stronger workforce, this episode delivers practical wisdom and proven strategies for success. Check out callofdutyendowment.org to connect with their grantees for free employment support or to support their mission financially.
You can connect with Dan Goldenberg on LinkedIn here: www.linkedin.com/in/dangoldenberg92/
Subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://tinyurl.com/llforvets22
SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A FIVE-STAR REVIEW and share this with other veterans who might need help as they transition from the military!
The Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast is sponsored by Seek Now and their Drive Academy. Seek Now is the property inspection industry's leading business and they created Drive Academy DoD SkillBridge and CSP internships to teach transitioning military service members and veterans skills that prepare them for lucrative and rewarding careers in the property inspection and insurance industries. You can learn more and apply today at www.internwithdrive.com.
The Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast is sponsored by Seek Now and their Drive Academy. Seek Now is the property inspection industry's leading business and they created Drive Academy DoD SkillBridge and CSP internships to teach transitioning military service members and veterans skills that prepare them for lucrative and rewarding careers in the property inspection and insurance industries. You can learn more and apply today at www.internwithdrive.com.
Welcome to the Lessons Learned for Vets podcast, your military transition debrief. I'm your host, Lori Norris, and I've helped thousands of military service members successfully transition out of the military since 2005. Thanks for tuning in to hear the after action reports and real stories of your fellow veterans, who are here to help guide, educate and inform you as you navigate your own military transition. By the way, if you find value from today's episode, please share it with others, Leave us a review and post about us on social media.
Speaker 1:On today's episode of the Lessons Learned from FETS podcast, I am welcoming Dan Goldenberg. Dan has led the Call of Duty endowment since 2013. He is a retired US Navy captain and has held leadership roles in the business world that include Activision, Blizzard, Deloitte, Frost Sullivan and CEB. Dan serves on the Board of Governors for USAA's foundations and on the Bush Institute's advisory board. Under his leadership, the Call of Duty endowment has become the largest and most impactful funder of veteran employment, leading to more than 150,000 job placements and $9 billion in economic benefits for this community. Well, that was quite an impressive bio and I just want to say welcome. Thank you so much for joining me on the show, Dan.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me, Lori.
Speaker 1:So we talked about it in the bio a little bit right. But you kind of had a unique military career. You were active duty Navy and you told me there was nothing much going on in the world. So you took a break to complete your MBA and then after 9-11 happened, you went back to service, served another 18 years and now have been out also in the business world for many years as well. So when you think of like you know firsthand the challenges that veterans face, you're out there, you know, leading the charge to support them.
Speaker 2:So what do you think has been the key to your own post-military career success? Yeah, I think initially it was knowing, you know, to the unknown self be true, knowing what my needs really were. And I knew that I didn't know much about the civilian world. I knew I wanted to work in the business world initially, but because of that I said, look, it makes sense to take some time to build my network, get to know the language of the business world, get some marketable skills. What I did in the military, coming off activity, wasn't at the time ostensibly directly marketable. So I went to business school. That was, for me, my transition vehicle and it worked out great, great. I, you know, built my confidence up, built my network, built my skill set, gave me an opportunity for internships, especially for those in the professional side of of the. You know the career, career pathing.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of folks, especially when they're older, they're in the get out. They say internships that's for kids. No, it isn't, it's as a professional. It's almost necessary coming out of the military to get that. It's honestly a great try before you buy opportunity. For instance, for me I went right into consulting while I was in business school, my first internship and I realized I loved the work of consulting but I didn't like the lifestyle at the time. You know, back then you were looking at four, four and a half days a week on the road and that's not the kind of person I wanted to be with my kids. And you know that, honestly, that's one of the reasons I got out of the Navy was I didn't want to be away from my family that much. So, you know again, kind of really knowing what's important to you and taking action on it. You know, and of course you know, talking to those who know being receptive to advice, especially advice that may not be things you want to hear Super important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't always like what comes back to us, but it is important to at least listen to it and consider it right. So I'm curious you said what you did in the Navy didn't really translate all that well into the business world. So you know, obviously going out getting your MBA was a great step in the right direction. How did you help them see the value of your Navy experience, along with your MBA?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, like most people, you know, I made this the transition off active duty over 20 years ago, so things were different, the resources were a lot thinner back then. But what I came to learn during business school and through my internship and everything else was the value of being, having been, a leader and having responsibility for a large number of people large, large, dollar value equipment. It was really unusual for my, for my civilian peers, to have had that. In fact, I never ran into anyone who did. Closest thing would have been people who are plant managers, things like that. But even that wasn't at the same level.
Speaker 2:And, you know, in the right organization, especially if you want to continue to be a leader not everyone does. You know that is prized, but you have to know how to position it properly. You know, when folks learned that I'd been you know my 20s in charge of 30 people initially and more later on, they were surprised. And you know, in fact, almost so much that someone will be like well, you might only be in charge with three or four people. Are you okay with that? It's like sure, yeah, sounds easy.
Speaker 2:That sounds great, but you know they're like oh, you know you don't want to go down the rabbit hole of being overqualified, quote unquote. So you have to be a little careful with that. But I think I think what's borne out as true to me over time is that leadership is a hard thing to acquire and a hard thing for companies to train and teach people, and they don't. Most companies don't invest a lot in training. The military happens to and it's you know, it's great for the military, but it's also great for the civilian sector and I think many companies realize that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think sometimes it's about, like I talk a lot about numbers and metrics and the importance of that, because I don't think that most people understand really, at 21, 22, 23, 23 years old, the scope of the impact that you're making. I love to have a class that I teach companies about the value of veterans and that's one of the things I talk about. How you know, at you know, three years in, they're overseeing people and budgets and projects and just that, that intensity of the experience that you come out with, I think is just so valuable that most people don't understand how to translate that.
Speaker 2:And it's unusual. You know, many employers are very, they have low tolerance for risk and so you know, giving someone who's very young a lot of responsibility in some quarters is seen as risky. You've de-risked things for an employer. When you come out and say, look, I have five, 10 years of experience doing those things that you want people to do. You know, another really interesting thing a good friend of mine once said is companies hire on skills and they fire on values, and I think that's an underrated thing.
Speaker 2:It's a little hard in the context of an interview to convey that because you don't want to come up across as morally superior, but the fact is, someone who's honest, someone who's diligent, someone who's on time, you know someone who's going to be analytical, probably more analytical than they are political. All those things again are valued by companies. And if you get off to a good start, we could talk about that, because I think that's an underrated area we talk about is onboarding in general. It's super important to get off to a great start with a company. But you know, if you understand the culture and how to apply you know what you learned in the military in the right way, you can be very successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate that. So back in 2013, when you took over the Call of Duty Endowment as the leadership it was about four years old at that time and you completely changed how the organization operated right. So you told me a little bit about those changes when we talked. But can you take us through the changes that you've made and just like how that has really changed the impact the organization has made since then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so, and I was brought in to make change. That was, you know what, what the board of the foundation was looking for, and and so, early on, the Call of Duty Endowment looked like a lot of corporate philanthropic efforts A big cardboard check with a picture and a handshake. The difference was there was an expectation from the board at the time and still is who are all Fortune 500 executives that we would receive a return for the grants we're making. It was, you know, it was an investment, just a social investment, a social impact investment, and we were expecting a return in terms of, you know, veterans placed in high quality jobs for a reasonable cost very reasonable way to approach philanthropy, in my opinion. And so when that didn't happen, the board was unhappy and they said we've got to find a better way to do this, and so that's why I was brought in to come up with a way where we could fundamentally drive accountability to impact for veterans. So it took us a few months, but we created this program. We co-created it with Deloitte, called the Seal of Distinction. Today it's called the Seal of Distinction approach, which is all about vetting and validating partners that we'd fund and work with to put vets in jobs and keeping them accountable to high quality impact, and so that's the model. To give you a sense of how well it's worked. I call it our hockey stick moment, but not very originally, but that's kind of what it looks like on paper, which is those first four years you mentioned we'd funded the placement of a thousand veterans. Since we implemented that system, we'd funded the placement of 1,000 veterans. Since we implemented that system, we've funded the placement of 150,000 veterans and at the time when the program was put in a place, we were placing vets at about the same cost as the federal government's programs. And today we're doing it 1, 15th of the cost per placement with higher quality outcomes. So the cost per placement with higher quality outcomes. So you know, it's really the thing.
Speaker 2:The fundamental thing that differentiates us from other approaches is accountability. So it's not just accountability in vetting organizations, it's. You know, we sign one-year agreements with them. We evaluate performance quarterly. This is not a name and shame kind of effort. This is let's understand how you're doing on a quarterly basis. Are you on target? If you are, fantastic. If you're not, let's diagnose, let's together figure out what's going wrong and let's find out what you need to get back on track and we work really hard with them coaching, mentorship, additional resources, whatever it takes to get them back on track but at the end of the day it's accountable. You know it's an accountable practice.
Speaker 2:So if the organization still can't get back on track after a year of this, we don't work with them anymore. We move on to someone else. There are I wouldn't say there's many good organizations out there, but there's enough where you know our giving, which is anywhere from 10 to 12 million a year, can find organizations that can very responsibly find that and I don't want to leave you the impression that we churn our partners. Our average partner has been with us for about eight years. So you know, occasionally things don't work out, but generally they do and I think you know there's we have a long track record of showing that accountability drives improved performance and I think a common trait of the nonprofits or the partners that we work with, that we fund, is they're all constant improvement organizations. They're always looking to improve. We're generally not the first person to suggest they should change something. It usually comes from within.
Speaker 1:OK, and so the value that you're wanting them to deliver to veterans is really job placement right. It is actively helping them land those roles correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not just jobs right, it's high quality jobs. Perhaps the most important thing for both the veteran and the employer is high quality fit, because you know, someone who's unhappy in the job isn't going to do well in the job, which isn't good for the veteran, it's not good for the company. So it's in everyone's interest to have a high quality fit. I think sometimes we forget that. I think one of the reasons veterans have very high underemployment numbers you know the Penn State calls it around 61 percent, so that's people working below their objective, skill set and experience compared to their civilian counterparts is because this notion of I have to get a job, I don't care what it is, but I have to be bringing money and I have to be doing something. And so sometimes veterans will leap or leap before they look and you know, and grab, grab about, grab a job that's ultimately not the right fit and they end up unhappy. There's a false number that's been floating around for years, despite the source organization trying to disavow it, that says half of veterans leave their first job in the first six months. It's absolutely not true. It's an incorrect number. In the first six months, it's absolutely not true. It's an incorrect number. It's just hard to kill that.
Speaker 2:Veterans actually even veterans or transitioning service members they tend to actually stay a little bit longer than non-veterans. In their first job and over the span of a career veterans definitely stay longer. They're more loyal. They're more likely to stay. Corporate executive board data or Gartner data shows that, linkedin data shows that. But the bottom line, the better the fit initially, the less likelihood of churn, the more happiness for everyone. And you know, focusing on fit is so important.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things our partners are really good at is having that hard conversation with a service member. You know, I understand you want to be in a rock and roll band, but you have no musical talent. You should try something different or you should go get lessons right. Somebody needs to be able to tell them that. You know, the best thing, of course, is the convergence of what someone wants to do with what they're able to do, and when that happens, that's wonderful, it's magical, it's rare, but it happens.
Speaker 2:Usually there's gaps Either. You know, someone has the skill to do something, but they're really not excited about it. We know half the service members end up working outside what was their skill area in the military. When they go in the civilian world, half of them don't literally don't want to do the same thing, but but others, you know they, they really want something but they're missing training or experience. And so you know a good counselor will get with them and say okay, let's map out a way to get you to fill those gaps. Maybe it's an internship, maybe it's an apprenticeship, maybe it's education, maybe it's training, but let's create a roadmap to get there. It's going to take a little more time, but in the end you're going to be more happy and more successful.
Speaker 1:I'm really glad that you are addressing and really trying to combat underemployment, because I think you know I talk about it a lot on here that you know we can't just look at the employment rates, because you know again, another is, like you know, getting a job is not a check box item. That doesn't mean oh, transitions over for me, and I do feel like you're right, they'd grab for that because they feel like that means they've made it right.
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely. You know it feels like you know it's like an anxiety, right it's. It's an anxious feeling that like all of a sudden, I was, you know, working hard, getting a paycheck every two weeks, um, you know, as a productive member of the military community, and now all of a sudden I'm not doing anything. That just feels wrong and so I have to be doing something. Um, I think you know there's a balance right, like we have to be realistic. Taking a year think you know there's a balance right, like we have to be realistic Taking a year off is probably not a good plan for anyone, unless it's taking a year off to do something really productive.
Speaker 2:But you know it's, I think, like my career and many others careers, you know it's been a little bit of a zigzag, I think that's you know, and hopefully, every time, if you don't get it quite right in the first, the first placement and that's okay too, you know, learn from it to make sure that next placement is that much better. And you know, every time, you know you're getting a little closer to to, you know that perfect world where what you want to do and what you're good at is the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know there is nothing wrong with making a change in your job, your employer, your career. It's common, you know it is. It's something that we all go through in terms of our changes, and we're just talking. Don't do it every six months, right and so. But if you have to in the beginning to figure it out, that's okay too.
Speaker 2:So I think. I think employers understand that you know, for a while, maybe the first job or two, and then they're looking for, you know, people are going to be productive and loyal. So you know it's. It's much cheaper for a company to keep a productive employee than to go hire a new one. No question about it.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely so. We talked about your career earlier, right, and you kind of alluded to it, like you had the title, you had the pay, but you didn't necessarily love what you were doing when you first transitioned right absolutely.
Speaker 2:I had a a like an sv global svp title in my previous job prior to running or leading the endowment um, and it was truly what it sounded it. It was a global job with SVP level responsibility. But I'd wake up in the morning I have a hundred emails from Europe. I'd work all day to get caught up on them, take care of my US stuff, and when most people were knocking off, then my emails from Asia would start coming in and I was in a place where they were never gonna resource me properly to handle this, to build the kind of team I needed. But I was so loyal I just stuck it out and stuck it out and one day it just dawned on me what I was doing wasn't particularly, in my judgment, meaningful and at the same time was killing me. I wasn't spending time with my family, you know, it just wasn't. If I'm going to put in those kind of hours, I want it to be for something that means something to me, something honestly that I can probably explain to my kids. And I was really fortunate. You know I've. I think the last time I applied for a job was 20 years ago. I think you know, and I'm sure, lori, you've heard this a hundred times if not, but how many times do you hear a service member or veteran say you know, I threw a hundred resumes over the wall and I haven't ever heard back? And the answer usually is well, you probably should have only sent three resumes and those resumes should have been put in the hands of people who knew you or who you'd networked into for the right kind of job. It's like if you're doing that sure sign, you're doing your job search the wrong way. So most of my jobs came from you know people who referred me by name, who got to know me or people on my network with. And what happened in this case was a former, a Navy friend had a headhunter, approached him about a job, what ultimately became the executive director and now president of the Call of Duty Endowment. That sounded really cool, but not something he was interested in. But he said I know a guy and that's how I got introduced to the search firm and ultimately landed in the job and I am very pleased to say, almost 13 years down the road in this position. It was as advertised.
Speaker 2:I wanted a very one thing I learned about myself was I love entrepreneurial roles, creating, building new organizations within an existing organization. That's something. So at the time it was building this, you know, this foundation, within the context of a larger corporation, uh, that that I really admired quite a bit. Um, and knowing that they were going to be the resources necessary to do it and the freedom to do what I want, what needed to be done, and that's exactly how it played out. Just incredible support from the leaders in the company, both from a budgetary and staffing standpoint and, honestly, from a timeline standpoint. They gave me time to do the job right and those things were all really important and compelling to me, and I think we talked a little about this before the call.
Speaker 2:But there's this thing I call the leather jacket fallacy. And when I was early on in my Navy career, when we picked what we were going to do in the military after graduation from in my case, going to do in the military after graduation from, in my case, the academy, you know people tend to fall in love with the idea of doing a job. So you know the top gun, you know I'm going to be an aviator, I'm going to get a leather jacket, but despite having spent one week with the squadron, you know it's sort of as the Navy's version of an internship many years ago and getting to fly a train. They had to do all the fun stuff, but you really didn't get a sense of what it meant to be an aviator. And once I got through all my training and got out to the fleet, it was very different than what I expected. Um so much so. I mean I liked it. I would do it again in a second but I was like, oh, this isn't the thing I probably wanted to make a career out of.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think in any job, the lesson is don't fall for the leather jacket, Don't fall for the idea of the job. Find out what doing the job is, do informational interviews, talk to people who are in the roles or have been in the roles and always ask them what's a day in the life, a week in the life, a year in the life, like, what's the best thing about the job and, most importantly, what's the worst thing about the job? And then try and put yourself in that role. I think most people don't do that work and that's unfortunate. The other thing I'll say is you know it's trite but true. They say people don't leave companies, they leave managers, and everything you can do to find out about what it's like to work for the person you're going to be working for is really helpful as well. Sometimes it's not possible, but doing your due diligence and a lot of this comes back to due diligence can really pay off and, you know, cut off a bad situation from development.
Speaker 1:And I think you know that is those are extra steps, right the going out and doing the informational interviews and the digging in to see what you can find out about your potential manager. But I think that that is time so much better spent than sending out a hundred resumes a week. Right, like you said, send out three. I mean I always say, like you shouldn't be able to apply to more than five jobs a week. If you're doing it, right, because you've got to take time with each one and stop wearing it like a badge of honor. Like I sent out 140 resumes and got only one call. Like that's not good. So we've got to try a different way and I like these ideas of other ways that you could productively spend your time instead of just hitting the send button on the same resume, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know a veteran I know who's a very successful executive search professional. A headhunter told me you know he very generously advises because headhunters don't work for people, they work for companies and so a lot of them will shy away from helping individuals in their job search. But he's been always great about giving veterans advice. As a veteran himself, and one piece of advice he gave me in a career transition was talk to 100 people, basically 100 informational interviews, which sounds like an unbelievable commitment of time. But I'd rather have 100 conversations than send out 100 resumes. And a very interesting thing has happened and I've passed that advice on to others resumes.
Speaker 2:And a very interesting thing has happened and I've passed that advice on to others is you start to get a really strong sense of where you're meant to be and how to get there after those hundred conversations. And you may know 10 people to start with and you have that conversation, but pretty soon you're asking them at the end of every call is there anyone else I should talk to? They give you two or three names and what you've done is you've learned about yourself, you've learned about opportunities and you've built a network because you're connecting, hopefully, with every one of them on LinkedIn. We know veterans tend to have very insular networks. You know the veteran network tends to be other veterans and that's not always helpful in a career search. So this is a great way to kind of expand beyond your network as well, beyond that insular network. That is and honestly it's one of the best piece of career advice. So, like I'd rather invest in 100 conversations than sending 100 resumes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that advice. I think that is that is the. That's going to be our headline, right? So I think that's great. You, you know there's a little something going on in our federal government right now, uh, and you wrote an article not too long ago I know it's, I think it's pinned to your LinkedIn profile and in that article, you talked about what you called the coming tsunami of unemployed veterans, right? So in the article, you mentioned that more than 30% of federal employees are veterans and with what's happening in our government, we could see like 80,000 veterans losing their jobs from the federal government.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean honestly, 80,000 are already on the street. You know, if you go with that math, that math comes from the federal office of personnel management. So, while they haven't specifically identified veterans, it's a pretty reliable number. You know, in some areas of the government it'll be more, some will be less, but ultimately that's where we think we are and, as you know, staff contracts in the federal government. We should expect more of it and you know those people are in a very different place than your typical transitioning service member, if you think of it. First of all, the way the layoffs are being done, the government is the easiest way to get rid of someone in government services is if they have probationary status. Who has probationary status? New employees, usually in the last two years, and people who were recently promoted, arguably your top performers in an organization. Yeah, so the newest employees, the government and the top performers are the ones who are being cut. I think a lot of people's head like, oh, we're getting rid of those intransigent bureaucrats, but in fact, most of the people who are being forced out are some of the best people, or some of the newest, shiniest people who are coming in to do to serve with high hopes and lots of aspirations, not the jaded, stereotypical bureaucrat. So that's the population we're really talking about here.
Speaker 2:To begin with, because of you know, I'm not a huge fan of the TAP program in general. I think it's gone from awful to bad over the years. So it's not, you know, it's not worse, but it's definitely not great. But it's something right it's. I think the fair way to describe it is it's a one-on-one. It's a necessary but insufficient step. But when you have a hundred Marines in a classroom with one facilitator, you're just not going to be able to give them the individualized kind of attention they really need. Because even if you know two service members look the same on paper, they can be very different people with very different needs. But it's a one-on-one and you know at least there's something, there's resources. They go through the muscle movement at least to think about how to create a LinkedIn profile and a resume, to think about what's next.
Speaker 2:All that these government employees don't get that. They get none of that. There's none support and other programs through the VA as an example, like Voc Recap, they may or may not be eligible for them and they're certainly not being provided that information in a proactive measure. So these folks need help At the same time, especially those who've been in government. They actually bring a lot of skills. So these folks need help At the same time, especially those who've been in government.
Speaker 2:They actually bring a lot of skills, but these are government skills and, just like being a veteran or a service member, these need to be translated. They need help to make them applicable to commercial sector or state level organizations. So you know, it's the same. You know, if I'm only allowed to give one piece of advice, it's get professional help with your resume, slash LinkedIn and with interview practice. We know for sure from Penn State research that you're three times more likely to land a high fit job if you get help with those two things Professional help with a resume and LinkedIn profile and professional help with interview practice. That's like there's a lot of other important things, but those are the things that correlate to good outcomes and these folks from the government. They need and deserve this kind of support.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, federal resume is so completely different. I mean, we used to write 10, 15 page, then we got down to five page and now I think just last week they announced that they're gonna cut it to two pages with some essay questions. So you know, I think, that there's so much up in the air right now about the federal government, in addition to all of the cuts that are happening, that that's a completely new ballgame too. I've helped several people who are coming out of the federal government and they made the decision Right. They took the opportunity. Some of them have been cut, some of them chose this path, but they don't know how to navigate the private sector employment.
Speaker 1:You gave in your article and I would love for I'll put a link to that article in the show notes because I think everybody should read it. You gave us some suggestions. I know you know there were many of them. I think there were more than 10, if I remember correctly. But give us some highlights. What are some other things that can happen to help smooth that transition for these tens of thousands of veterans that find themselves in a very different place than even when they transition out of the military?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I think the number one thing is always get help right. It's very hard for veterans to ask for help culturally and you know, like through the Call of Duty Endowment, our grantees provide extraordinary help and it's all free. You know there's lots of different ways to get help, but that's one we recommend. It's obviously what we pay for. That's where you know all of our funding goes we pay for. That's where you know all of our funding goes. That's the first step. Like in any big problem, it's like recognizing you need help. You've done it, you're doing it. Once the people who provide help have done it hundreds, if not thousands, of times, they've learned a few things and for sure do that. I also think that you know the federal government. It's really interesting. The number one thing transitioning service members ask for is help with employment. Yet less than 1 10th of 1% of the federal veteran budget goes to employment, which is kind of crazy when you think about it right. So I think more resources for sure should be directed there and it wouldn't be that hard for a top like program. I would love to have it completely refreshed and rebuilt from the ground up, led by the commercial sector. No offense to the federal government. But very few people in the federal government knows what it's like to work in the commercial sector. So having them build a program for employment doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me, you know. I think it would be very much about bringing private sector inputs into the curriculum, but I think there should be a program for them. I think they should get help. I think the federal government should pay for it.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, over and over again, we see if we have a rapid placement into a high fit job, so many other challenges veterans face are mitigated, you know, especially in the mental health arena. You know, if you have a high fit, high quality job, you're going to have benefits. You're going to have health care mental and physical health care, dental care, vision care. You're going to have colleagues, you're going to have people around you. You're going to have purpose.
Speaker 2:These are all things that lead to a happier life. You're going to have a sense of fulfillment because you can feed your family and put a roof over your head. These things matter a ton and you know if they're not, you know if they're not addressed early on, bad things tend to happen. Veteran. You know, high cost veteran resources are used, the system gets clogged up and no one gets good service. That can be mental health, housing, education, whatever it is. But you know, like the same approach generally I would take for a transition service member applies to this group as well. There's a lot we can do here.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so some of your program grantees do provide services to these displaced workers, then All of them do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have in the US, we have eight in the UK too, just FYI organizations. Some of them tend to work with what I in high volumes with transitioning service members, like Hire Heroes USA not to be confused with Hiring Our Heroes, different organization, so Hire Heroes USA or VetJobs. Vetjobs is a particular. Both of these will help any military, former military member or current member of the Guard or Reserve. Just Hire Heroes USA has a deep, deeply developed set of relationships with bases. They're out there on bases all the time.
Speaker 2:Vetjobs, they have a very highly developed set of relationships with the Garden Reserve. Again, both organizations get incredible outcomes for veterans. They have different, I would say, core competencies, but those two are great nationally. Then we have others that are working with more higher barrier to employment veterans, ones that tend to have problems with housing, addiction, criminal records, things like that, to get them kind of fixed and flying right and then help them find that right fit job. So we kind of cover the gamut of service members, but all of them provide the services I laid out and then they help you figure out what the right fit is. They help you prepare your resume and LinkedIn. They help you prepare for interviews and it's all free.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. One of the statements in the article that I really liked is you said stop treating veteran hiring like charity. Yeah, and you believe that hiring veterans isn't just the right thing to do, it gives companies a competitive edge. Like, talk to me about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not even what I believe. It's what I know because I'm a quantitative person and the data, over and over again, shows us that. So, as an example, ceb slash, gartner data of a million Fortune 500 executives shows that veterans are 3% more likely to stay at a company over their career and 3% more productive. You take those two numbers and you have a quantifiable business case why it makes sense to hiring veterans. So it just makes sense. They're going to stay and they're going to get more done. That's what the data across a million employees, tells us. So like it's not even debatable, right? What I will say is there are. There are things that can be done to ensure a high fit, which we've talked about already. You know, counseling, honest counseling, gap filling, you know, with training, internships, education, et cetera. Obviously, help with resumes, linkedin and interview practice. But then also and again I mentioned this earlier companies don't put enough emphasis on it and it's really too bad. And that's onboarding. Onboarding is so important to get someone off to a fast start. That's onboarding. Onboarding is so important to get someone off to a fast start. Most of the organizations I mentioned I think all of them actually they don't just say good luck, you have a job now. They actually provide some coaching to get off to that fast start. Because, again, it's in their interest that the veteran's happy and successful and the company is as well. Right, because if the company's happy, they're going to come back and they're going to want more veterans. Right, because if the company's happy, they're going to come back and they're going to want more veterans. And so you know.
Speaker 2:I can think of two examples from I won't name the companies, but one company. I'll just say a company in the consulting business. They were very active in hiring veterans but they noticed after their first project, which they tended to do very well on, they didn't do so well. The big metric in consulting is is billable, being billable? So they found that they were the saying goes, on the beach, they weren't being on billable projects, which can be a career killer. And so they did as a consulting company would. They did some analysis and they found like, why is this happening? And the reason it was happening is veterans did great work on that first project and then they didn't know how to market themselves internally Because it turned out to get staffed on a project. You had to be known, you had to build relationships with consulting partners who would staff you like. Great, I want that person on my next project. And so what they did? So as they looked at veterans as a diversity group, they were one of the lowest retained groups in the company, which is too bad because they put so much effort into hiring veterans. So they took half day as part of onboarding. They pulled the veterans aside and they taught them how to market themselves internally in the company to get staffed on projects the very next year.
Speaker 2:The most retained group in the company were veterans. They found the problem and they created a special onboarding program to solve it. Another program a huge manufacturing company, similar problem. They had what's called a hypo program, a program for high performers, and guess which group was doing the worst amongst the best at getting promoted? It was the veteran groups.
Speaker 2:And it turned out that these hypos were pulled out. They were given these projects and they go do a great job on the project and they say great on to the next thing. Your typical employee in this program was doing what they needed to to toot their own horn within the company to make people aware of their work. And so what they did for these veterans is they cultivated opportunities for them to present their projects in the senior executives. Guess who the most retained group of hypos was? I'm sorry, the most advanced group of hypos was the next year Veterans. It just needed to find out, like, where was that, you know, ish? And, by the way, like common theme here, the ability to self-promote right Like not great, something that a lot of veterans, you know when warranted, need to need to know how to do in a corporate setting. It's an unnatural act in the military Right, it's a necessary act in the corporate world.
Speaker 1:I. You know, I was just seeing I was smiling over here. You can't see me on the podcast, but I was smiling because I know exactly. The problem is that they've no one has ever taught them how to market themselves. It's a we, not an I or a me, and you know you're. You have someone self-promoting you, you have someone managing your career, you have leaders who are motivated to promote you in the military, and it's just such a different setting for you when you get out of the military. And I think if there's a way that we could teach that better I'm trying to do a little bit here on this show, but I think that would really make an impact.
Speaker 2:Like that's the kind of thing that's not taught in TAP, right? And some of these lessons I mean to be fair to those who are on TAP, a lot of the service members they're just not in the right mindset to absorb it at the time. It's too intangible for them, it's not right in front of their face and you know like I'll figure that out later. Well, no, you kind of need to know this going in, and some people have to learn the hard way, unfortunately. But I think also a great way to convey this is with one-on-one counseling. You know, I think you're more likely to believe someone when they're telling you something directly to your face than when you're in a classroom setting.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think you and I talked about this, I used to facilitate TAP. I started as a volunteer, didn't need a job, but I really loved that interaction and really helping to turn those light bulbs on for veterans. So I kept teaching for the department of labor for a while and it, you know, there we everybody kind of likes to meet up on on tap, but I think to some extent it's about who is teaching it right and I think they tend to hire veterans.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come teach it right. And so you're hearing from someone who just transitioned out and they've never really worked in industry. They just went into teaching tap or they're. They're hiring military spouses spouses because they're and they've not lived that process either. But but also tap, that five days is just a fire hose of information.
Speaker 2:That is, you know, like just everything you said I agree with. You know so much so that eventually word gets out on who the good facilitators are and people will try to travel to other locations which I don't know if you still can do, but for a while you could on permissible orders to where the great, and of course those classes would fill up very rapidly when folks knew who was teaching it. But you know generally, you know the sergeant first class you know a month ago was in uniform, is now telling you what it's going to be like in the civilian world doesn't really carry a lot of weight, right? So they're just sticking to the script and you know the practical values that someone like you brings is lost, unfortunately. So I have strong points of view on how transition should work. You know we have a 20th century solution of. You know, one to many instruction for a 21st century labor market.
Speaker 2:Assess people, figure out what their needs are. You know, regardless of what their, their resume or their I shouldn't say the resume their MOS, their, their, their service specialty, whatever it was NEC was, and their, their education. Really look at them, you know, by assessing their needs in employment and housing and education, mental health, physical health and creating a customized tap for them. A lot of people don't need one-on-one. They kind of know what they want to do. They've got the right set of experience. You know. If you're logistics and you want to go work at supply chain in Amazon, it's not a particularly difficult transition, you know. But we have the ability with technology today to provide a much more tailored approach and, at the same time, identify the people who really do need that one-on-one coaching, are really going to benefit from it or, for that matter, aren't even ready to talk about employment yet they have other challenges that they need to work through first. We have the ability to do that. That's what a smart tap would look like, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:I just think like bottom line is we're letting our service members down and you know we spend so much time, energy, effort, funds, resources making them into military service members and then we just leave them hanging and somebody's got to step up and fix that 100% right and you know, the public knows this.
Speaker 2:You know we did at the end of last year we did a study with Ipsos trying to get under the reason why we are having the hardest time recruiting new folks into the military that we've had since.
Speaker 2:We've been measuring it so since 1983, there's a study called Jammers and it measures willingness to serve and willingness to recommend service for and among high school age kids and we're at the lowest level we've been since they've started measuring in 1983.
Speaker 2:The only time it was ever this low before was during the surge in Iraq when body bags were coming home and people were seeing that side of service. And civilians are left with this notion after 20 years of war that if you're a veteran, bad things are going to happen to you, including bad economic outcomes. By the way, statistically it's not true, but that is the belief that's set in and they think mental health, physical health and economically that you're going to have a bad outcome and it starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the same time the recruitment poll is shrinking and the needs are increasing. So it's a bad place to be and we do, you know. At the end of the day I like to say you know, veteran employment is a national security imperative because if we can deliver great economic outcomes for veterans, that will carry through too. We can remind people that the military is actually a great place to be for your life, for the long term.
Speaker 1:And it sets you up for success today and beyond right. And you know, I don't know. I know you're a busy man, dan, but I think you better come back and we better talk about that issue, because we really didn't even get to scratch the surface of that survey. I would love to talk about the onboarding process, so maybe we can we can make arrangements to get you back on here one of these days so well, I knew that we were going to have a very passionate discussion.
Speaker 1:I loved your. You know how much you care about this topic. So, just so people listening, how can people learn more about Call of Duty Endowment and possibly support your continued efforts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, lots of ways to support. So the Call of Duty Endowment they can visit our site, callofdutyendowmentorg. If you go to com, you're going to see our partner, the video game, so callofdutyendowmentorg, and that's a great place. We're on X, facebook and Instagram as well, and, of course, linkedin. So you know, if you're a vet looking for help, click on the veteran support tab and we'll link you up with one of our grantees who can help you out. If you're looking to support financially, there's opportunities there as well. And if you're an employer, there's a button to press too if you want to help hire veterans. So we're there in every step of the way. Our mission is to place as many veterans as possible in the high quality jobs and help employers understand why it's in their interest to hire veterans. So anything to support that we're on board with.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you so much for being on the show and just sharing everything with us. I really, really enjoyed talking with you today.
Speaker 2:Back at you. Thanks for everything you've done for our veterans. Lori Really appreciate it, Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to today's episode. My goal is to give you actionable strategies to help you learn to market your military skills and smooth your transition to the next phase of your career. If you learned something valuable today, share it. Subscribe to our podcast and our YouTube channel, leave us a review and write a post on social media about the lessons that helped you today from this episode.