Legion participates in career fair at Camp Pendleton
Veterans and servicemembers attend the Hiring Heroes career fair at Camp Pendleton on July 15. Photo by Jon Endow

Legion participates in career fair at Camp Pendleton

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American Legion National Headquarters staff joined Department of California Legionnaires in support of a career fair hosted by the Department of Defense Hiring Heroes Program at U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, Calif., on July 15. As the nation's largest veterans service organization, The American Legion prioritizes helping new veterans transition back to the civilian world.

"We are veterans, too, so we know what these men and women are going through," said Verna Jones, an Army veteran and executive director of the Legion's office in Washington, D.C. "​That's why we're here working individually with these servicemembers who gave so much for our country. It's our turn to help them. We'll help them craft resumes, connect with veteran-friendly employers, and understand the benefits they earned while in the service."

The Hiring Heroes Program conducts career fairs to provide job opportunities for wounded, ill, injured and transitioning servicemembers, veterans, spouses and primary caregivers.

“Our focus, since we began in 2005, was wounded warriors and assisting them in their search for employment,” said Karen Hannah, Hiring Heroes Program founder and manager. “We were only going to do one event. My boss said, ‘Go to Walter Reed (Army Medical Center) and put on a career fair.' Seventy-two events later, here we are."

New this year for the program is a networking event the night before a career fair where employers meet with job seekers in a casual environment.

“We are always trying different things," Hannah said. "We have an evaluation that we give the employers and the job seekers asking how did it go, do they have any comments, any suggestions, and we make changes based on that. We have a great team that is very passionate about helping military men and women, as well as their families, find good jobs.”

The career fairs provide employment opportunities with federal agencies and private sector companies.

Seann Hogan, who served in the Marine Corps and is now a security staff agent for the security firm Gavin De Becker & Associates, said that the company employs "60 percent veterans. One of the most important career events that we are going to have in our entire year of recruiting is going to come out of Camp Pendleton. We are looking to put 60 people into our next academy in August, and there are more to follow. We are trying to grow those numbers even more.”

Hawthorne Cat had success hiring from the Camp Pendleton career fair last year, and they were back again looking for transitioning servicemembers who already have experience with their equipment. “We are always looking for people who have experience working on heavy equipment so it’s a really good way for them to transition to the civilian world but still apply the skills they learned in the military,” said Erica Mulcahey, human resources assistant at Hawthorne Cat.

For veterans thinking about farming or who are already in the industry, Marine veteran Virginia Biase was onsite at the career fair representing a horticultural training program started by a veteran – Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training (VSAT), which is now a certificate program backed by California Polytechnic State University.

"We want (veterans) to be a farmer growing hydroponically, organically," Biase said. "This is all about working smart, and not hard. If you grow a similar crop in the ground you get about seven crops a year. Growing hydroponically, you get 17 crops a year on 93 percent less water. So this is a huge factor during the drought.”

Wells Fargo had three recruiters available to discuss job opportunities within various parts of the company.

“One of the challenges in finding the job is you go through the application process and you just hope it goes through. At a (career) fair like this, you get that valuable face time,” said Patricia Perez, recruiting consultant for Wells Fargo. “At Wells Fargo, the candidate experience is one of our top priorities. It they are a good fit or not, we want to respect all of our candidates and make sure they have a good experience.”

Joe Sharpe, director of the Legion's Veterans Employment & Education Division, said The American Legion's presence at the Hiring Heroes career fairs is important "because the Department of Defense job fairs tend to be larger and have a greater impact on the veteran community. We do as much as possible to reach out to these transitioning veterans. A lot of these veterans aren’t even aware of their benefits, or the importance of things like service connection, and aren’t aware of organizations like The American Legion who provide services."