First Lady Michelle Obama Honors Women Veterans

This morning, First Lady Michelle Obama joined more than two hundred active-duty, retired-military, veteran, and reservist women at the Women Veterans Career Development Forum. Today’s career forum, focused on transitioning to civilian life, follows a White House roundtable discussion led by the First Lady which was featured in the November 2014 Redbook issue’s cover story.

The day-long career-readiness forum, held at Arlington National Cemetery, included discussion with private and public-sector employers; hands-on workshops covering topics from financial literacy to resume writing; insights on entrepreneurship from Bobbi Brown, founder and CEO of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics; and a career fashion workshop sponsored by Ann Taylor.

In her keynote address, the First Lady started by thanking the attendees for their service:

But most of all, I want to thank all of you, the service members and veterans who have stood up every time this country has called. And before I go any further, I want to say two words that I don’t think we can say enough, and that is, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your unending commitment to our country.

But I’m here today because I know that simply saying thank you isn’t always enough. We’re here because of women…with distinguished records of service who still struggle to find jobs after they leave the military.

As the First Lady has said, hiring veterans isn’t just good corporate citizenship, but it’s good for a company’s the bottom line. To support veterans in their transition to meaningful employment, the First Lady announced two significant public-private partnerships with LinkedIn and Coursera that will help military members find and land the jobs they want:

• LinkedIn will now provide the ability for veterans to import their LinkedIn profiles directly into the Veteran Employment Center and is providing free services and tools, such as training materials and access to a one-year free Job Seeker Subscription.
• Coursera, an online educational platform, is offering all US veterans one free certificate in hundreds of in-demand courses. Additionally, Coursera and the Department of Veterans Affairs are teaming up to open twenty learning hubs across the country.

The First Lady also highlighted the Veterans Employment Center, a new website that’s changing the way veterans can find jobs in the public and private sectors with more than a million job postings.

It’s a one-stop shop for you to build on your profile, create a resume, find a list of job openings that suit the skills you’ve learned in the military. And already there are more than a million job postings, and it features hundreds of employers that have committed to hiring our veterans. And on top of all that, this website also allows you to view all of your other earned benefits, things like career counseling, the GI Bill.

"You might have your ups and downs," the First Lady said in closing, "but I want you to know that this whole country believes in you, and we’ve got your backs. So we’re going to keep rallying this country to serve you as well as you’ve served us."

Learn more about the Veterans Employment Center:

In support of the Joining Forces initiative, the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Labor, Defense and Education, the Small Business Administration and the Office of Personnel Management, collaborated to design and develop the Veterans Employment Center.

Resources for Employers:

• Veterans Job Bank: Easily post job opportunities that will be visible to and searchable by job seekers. The Veterans Job Bank links directly to the employer’s job listing, so any updates to an employer’s website are automatic and applicants are routed directly to your applicant tracking system.
• Search Profiles: The Veterans Employment Center provides employers with access to a vault of verified career profiles from transitioning service members, veterans, and their families. Employers can search these profiles by keyword and/or geographic location to find the right fit for their organizations.
• Hiring Commitment: Launch your public-relations campaign to hire veterans by making a public hiring commitment on the Veterans Employment Center! Employers even have the option to state the number of veterans they intend to hire and update their status in achieving their goal.
• Other Resources: The Veterans Employment Center provides informational resources designed to help recruit and retain talented transitioning service members, veterans, and their families, such as the new Department of Defense SkillBridge pilot program to promote civilian job training for transitioning service members.

Job Seeker Resources:

• Military Skills Translator: Translate military occupational codes into their civilian skill equivalents and learn about related civilian career paths.
• Profile Builder: Seamlessly import results from the skills translator into an online profile that users can download or publish to employers on the Veterans Employment Center. Publishing a profile on the Veterans Employment Center instantly connects users to thousands of employers looking to hire.
• Veterans Job Bank: The Veterans Job Bank allows users to search over 1.2 million jobs from the private sector and includes jobs in federal, state, and local governments.
• Employer Commitments: View a list of hundreds of employers and organizations that have made a commitment to hire or train service members, veterans, and their families, and then link directly to the employers' sites to get more information, start the conversation, and apply for jobs.
• Other Resources: The Veterans Employment Center provides informational resources designed to help take advantage of special government and partner programs, such as the new Department of Defense SkillBridge pilot program to promote civilian job training for transitioning service members.