Virtual job fair helps Westchester veterans get hired
On Nov. 12, when the flag is hoisted back to full-staff, the Westchester One-Stop Employment Center”™s main program for placing military veterans in jobs will go full-ahead.
“Each year, after Veterans Day, we start our virtual job fair online, and we invite all of our vets,” said Donnovan Beckford, director of the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Investment Board, which oversees the One-Stop Employment Center.
Beckford said the main focus of the program is to get businesses to post jobs that vets can fill. “This is our third year doing it, and last year we had over 40 companies,” he said.
“The biggest thing we do is networking,” said Vito Pinto, director of Westchester County”™s Veterans Service Agency, a partner in the program. “We”™ve held the virtual job fairs and events at Empire City and the Rye Town Hilton. We”™ve brought in vets from Wall Street to speak to these guys and try to inspire them.”
Pinto has teamed with Beckford and other agencies to help get veterans into housing and jobs that pay a living wage, about $15 per hour. The groups assist veterans by assessing their skills and helping them decide what the next step in their careers will be.
“They”™re happy to be in the jobs,” Pinto said. “We”™ve got between 50 and 55 vets in jobs now. We”™ve gotten them to jobs at Home Depot and Sodexo, we”™ve gotten them security jobs, and jobs through the Veterans Administration.”
In the public sector, Pinto said, the groups have helped veterans get hired by police departments, fire departments, emergency services and school districts for jobs that mesh with the skills they acquired in the military.
Beckford said he thinks the appeal to businesses of hiring veterans is obvious. “We think vets bring a lot of skills, talent and discipline that businesses want and need,” he said.
Two of Westchester”™s largest corporations actively recruit former military members, hoping to harness the skills and discipline that Beckford mentioned.
Soft drink and snack food giant PepsiCo, headquartered in Purchase, actively recruits junior military officers. PepsiCo was listed as one of the top 100 military-friendly employers by Military Friendly, which ranks cities, schools, employers and franchises on their receptiveness to current and former military members.
The company”™s program seeks former junior officers with at least a 3.0 undergraduate grade-point average, an honorable discharge, preferably within the past two years, and an excellent service record, according to its website. The site profiles five former military officers who have been hired by PepsiCo, in roles ranging from business development to account and category management to warehouse and manufacturing management.
IBM Corp., headquartered in Armonk, also has a website dedicated to recruiting former military members. On ibm-veterans.jobs, veterans can search for jobs by their former military occupation, by state or by city.
PepsiCo and IBM did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.
Going into the third year of the virtual job fair, Beckford said success is measured incrementally.
“I think each year we do a bit better than previous years,” he said. “The labor market has improved ”” last year, we were close to 7 percent unemployment, this year, it”™s much lower. We have a chance to do even better than last year.”
That success, Pinto and Beckford hope, will be carried forward this year, and each year after that veterans need help finding jobs.
“We got 12 vets employed last year, which may not sound like a lot,” Beckford said. “But we consider it a big success, especially when you think about the considerable difficulty vets sometimes have coming back into society.”
“We”™ve had a lot of success,” Pinto said of the efforts to find veterans jobs and housing. “We don”™t get everyone, but we do try.”