How Hire Heroes USA Helps Veterans Get Back to Work

If you’ve gone to a baseball game or listened to a stump speech, you’re familiar with hearing “support the troops” as a general slogan. But if you work or volunteer with Hire Heroes USA, it’s your mission. Established in 2007 and based out of Alpharetta, GA, Hire Heroes USA helps get U.S. military members, veterans and military spouses back into the civilian workforce—at no cost to the job seeker.

Hundreds of thousands of servicemembers transition back to civilian life each year. According to the organization, job placement and assistance is their number one request. Surveys show that many veterans find their return difficult—that includes financial troubles like paying bills or finding healthcare. A steady, well-paying job can make all the difference.

Cheryl Ewell, the organization’s Director of Development, says that this process begins with their team engaging with clients. “Clients work one-on-one with a transition specialist, who works as a mentor, career coach and accountability partner.” The transition specialist will help the client create a job search plan, create and customize necessary materials, like their resume or online profile, and connect them with additional resources they may need.

Clients also have access to other Hire Heroes USA team members, like referral and training specialists, volunteer coordinators and employment specialists. These team members work together as a cohesive unit in order to get their client the job that’s right for them.

Of course, as Ewell points out, their clients aren’t a hard sell; they’re undeniable assets to the organizations they join. “It’s widely believed that companies should hire veterans, service members and military spouses because it’s the right thing to do—and it is,” she says, “but that belief in and of itself misses the bigger picture: it’s good for business.”

Ewell points out that the military and veteran community is “diverse and comes to the workforce with knowledge, skills and abilities to succeed and positively impact the companies that hire them.” A Council on Foreign Relations study found that there are 1.3 million active-duty members of the military, and that a number of branches are more racially and ethnically diverse than the civilian workforce.

“The value they bring to their employer cannot be overstated,” Ewell notes.

For the donors and partners who feel the same passion for U.S. military members, Ewell says that their contributions are like “the proverb of teaching a man to fish.” It’s not simply providing a service, Ewell says, it’s “giving our clients the ability to feed themselves and their families over their lifetime” by helping them find the stability and security a good job can provide.

To date, Hire Heroes USA has helped more than 60,000 clients get hired. Over the years and thousands of hires, Ewell says that each client makes a significant impact on the nonprofit’s staff: “We celebrate each and every hire…we know that success is the start, not the end, of their stories.”