'They'll go above and beyond': American Legion Convention job fair promotes opportunities for veterans
Marine Corps. veteran Reginald Jones walked from table to table checking out the employers that attended the job fair hosted by the American Legion Convention.
“I’d like to see transparency with an employer,” Jones said. “No crazy backroom deals that are going to affect the little guys.”
Jones served in the Marines from 1984 to 1988 and for the last 17 years has been a longshoreman at Port Milwaukee.
Jones was seeing what openings are available and will possibly stay in the shipping and logistics field.
Roughly 40 different employers attended the job fair with the American Legion Convention late last week looking for potential employees.
“Military personnel generally have a strong sense of camaraderie amongst themselves and it’s like steel sharpening steel,” Jones said. “We know each other’s strengths, weaknesses but we all have the same mission — to get it done.”
The convention in downtown Milwaukee closes Wednesday.
A $7,500 signing bonus
Chandra Plears is a talent acquisition specialist for Sysco a food production company.
“We would love to have more people from our military in our supervisory positions,” Plears said. “We are definitely looking for more military people to work at Sysco.”
Plears said the company has several dozen jobs open for different departments from transportation to the warehouse to “food selectors” and was offering a $7,500 signing bonus for employees.
“They definitely last longer than your usual applicant,” Plears said. “I think it’s because of the training that they’ve had... They know how to do the work and go about their day.”
Army veteran Joel Harris almost worked for Amazon but a miscommunication caused his start-date to get canceled.
“I’m trying to reapply to Amazon and I may try to get on the food service team,” Harris said. “I was a dishwasher at the UW hospital and the VA hospital. I did a little food prep.”
Harris is unemployed and, like Jones, was seeing what options were available.
“I haven’t been to one of these in a long time,” Harris said about the job fair.
Harris talked with officials with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development who were pushing their apprenticeship programs.
“They got (apprenticeships) for different areas depending on what you want to do,” Harris said adding he might try to see which apprenticeships he’s most interested in. “It could be something to keep me busy instead of sitting around the house all the time. I’ll see where it takes me.”
Kelly El-Yaagoubi, human resources business partner at Holtger Bros., Inc., which works in telecommunications infrastructure, said their company is looking for people who “want to do hands-outdoor work all year round.”
“There’s so much work available, I’m not sure I have a limit (on job openings), which is awesome that the company has so much available,” El-Yaagoubi said.
Like Sysco, Holtger Bros. offers signing bonuses for some positions, but they also pay workers to get their commercial drivers license through the company.
El-Yaagoubi said veterans offer a higher level of consistency of work.
“Veterans tend to come with a very high level of discipline,” El-Yaagoubi said. “They’re going to be there day in and day out regardless of the conditions or what’s going on. They have such great training that can be applicable in so many ways and probably the biggest thing is their leadership that they come with.”
But while there seems to be openings at nearly every company in every field, those who work with veterans understand some of the problems they face with finding and maintaining employment.
Veteran employment issues
Lisa Harmon works for the Center for Veterans Issues in Milwaukee which helps homeless veterans or those who are at risk of being homeless.
Harmon was there to get more information that the Center for Veterans Issues could use to help their veterans get a job and to know what openings are available.
Harmon said transportation to work has become a major issue for the veterans they serve and even prevents them from getting jobs in certain areas of southeastern Wisconsin because they can’t get to the job.
“Some of them don’t have cars,” Harmon said. “We do provide transportation but if they’re on the bus, some buses don’t go to certain places and areas.”
And some have issues stemming from their time in the military.
“They may get the job but they’re dealing with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder),” Harmon said. “Sometimes they might not keep (the job) long because of their issues. So we do get a lot of them that come back and we try to help them again.”
Harmon said the Center for Veterans Issues helps roughly 60 veterans per month with jobs.
Beverly Fitch served in the Army from 1990 to 2020 and now is the third district commander for the American Legion in Chicago. She’s also a employment transitional manager for Operation Job Ready Veteran.
Fitch said some companies could pay veterans better.
“I think (companies) lowball a lot of veterans with their starting salary and they get discouraged,” Fitch said. “And especially the younger veterans. That’s what makes them jump from one job to the next, someone offering $1.50 more, ‘I’ll go work here.’ If on the front end, they would offer more money that would entice a lot of veterans based on their skills and not always lowballing them.”
Angela Baskin, who also served in the Army from 1987 to 2005 and now works at the Edward J. Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Illinois, concurred with Fitch.
“Those salaries, compared to the civilian world and with us and the VA, there is a big difference in that salary range,” Baskin said, adding increased wages would be helpful. “A lot of people retire out of the military, and they are at a higher ranking, so being able to be comparable to that would be helpful when soldiers are transitioning to the civilian world to where salaries are comparable to being able to sustain that same lifestyle coming off of active duty.”
Fitch said companies that hire veterans receive workers that are fast learners, disciplined and dedicated
“You take care of your veteran, your veteran will take care of you,” Fitch said. “You take care of your employees who are veterans then they’re going to do a lot for you. They’ll go above and beyond.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: American Legion Convention job fair connects veterans with employers
