Legion signs job-portal agreement with Military.com

The American Legion has signed a memorandum of understanding with the country's foremost provider of online services to veterans and servicemembers.

At its national convention in Charlotte, N.C., the Legion reached an agreement with Military.com, an acclaimed provider of military news and resources, enabling Legion.org to feature a portal that will include Military.com's Military Skills Translator and other job-related services and tools provided by parent company Monster.com.

"The American Legion is getting access to an extremely powerful job-search tool that is normally sold to private-sector corporations," American Legion National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger said. "Military.com has put a great deal of R&D into their Military Skills Translator, which is state-of-the-art and the premiere job-search tool out there for the military community to use."

A new American Legion landing page that will host the Military.com features is planned to launch at www.legion.org within the next 45 days, according to the agreement. The skills translator for that page was developed specifically for users with Armed Forces experience.

A team from Monster and Military.com went through job descriptions, matching them with major career fields in the private sector, examining resumes of successful job applicants, and determining the most important skills for each civilian job.

"When users type their military job titles into the translator, they see not only familiar skills listed," said Terry "T" McCreary, president of Military.com. "But hopefully it will draw out skills they weren't necessarily aware of - for instance, the skills of a transportation specialist include logistics and risk management.

"We wanted to develop a tool that would help people go beyond their own impression of what their abilities were, dig deeper into their work experience and expand the number of career possibilities for them."

The skills translator also taps into the Monster.com database of job openings. The database asks users to enter their skills, then returns a "live" list of all the jobs they could apply for in the private sector - jobs that are weighted in favor of training and experience gained in the military.

The landing page will also include a link to Military.com's Transition Center, which provides services and information designed to help servicemembers re-enter the civilian world.

Dellinger said with the addition of Military.com's powerful online tools, "The American Legion now has the opportunity to link our members, and anyone who uses our website, to a state-of-the-art job-search engine and the largest available database of job openings."

"There are a lot of skills translators out there, but we think we've developed the best one for the military community," McCreary said. "Being involved and associated with The American Legion is important to Military.com in continuing to be a resource for veterans and military families."