Veteran Spotlight: Herb Congdon

In continued celebration of Orion’s 20th anniversary, this week we profile Herb Congdon, a former Navy Nuclear Submarine Program Officer placed with Siecor in 1991. Congdon was commissioned in the Navy following his graduation from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he earned a Bachelors of Electrical Engineering degree. During his six years on Active Duty, he spent time on a fast attack submarine out of Charleston, SC, and Portsmouth, NH, and as a Squadron Operations Officer (shore tour) in Charleston, SC.

Congdon decided to start his civilian career with Siecor (now known as Corning Cable Systems) partly because of location, and partly because of the technology—at that time fiber optic communication was still in an early growth stage with a visibly approaching boom. Also, he liked the fact that Siecor targeted JMOs, so there were already several former officers rising through the ranks of the company.

Congdon felt that his military experience translated well into his position as a Process Engineer with Siecor. “The military career taught me a lot about myself –what I was capable of doing, how to take appropriate action, and how to be calm in a crisis. Further, it put a lot of other experiences before and after into perspective. It was, undoubtedly, a very high-stress environment. However, that made ’routinely’ stressful situations much easier to handle. Further, it strengthened my organizational skills, competency, and sense of responsibility. As I often say, I wouldn't recommend it to just any person, but I became a much stronger individual and performer for the experiences I survived!” says Congdon of his time in the Navy.

While Congdon started out at Siecor as a Process Engineer, he felt could better use his customer presence and presentation skills in a more customer-focused role. With this in mind, he took a position as an Application Engineer supporting the Japan market, a very demanding role which required several trips to Japan. Congdon’s success positioned him to be promoted to a supervisor role in applications engineering, which he feels was truly a great position that took advantage of his Navy-built leadership skills while letting him focus on the customers.

After eight years at Siecor, Congdon transitioned into a technical marketing role working for Tyco Electronics (now TE Connectivity), where he became "the" fiber guy. From that position, Congdon moved onto a global product management role and then back into technical marketing with global responsibilities. And while he does not conduct the actual hiring at TE Connectivity, he has had opportunity to conduct many interviews. Congdon has found those with military experience to be more mature, more responsible, and to possess a greater sense of initiative than candidates without military experience.

Congdon advises hiring managers to hire veterans. He also advises them that JMOs, in particular, are very aware of career paths and movement, so some time should be spent talking about how long they should expect to be in that role, what opportunities exist for advancement, and what kind of time frame is appropriate.

Congdon’s past success at Siecor and continued success at TE Connectivity is yet another testament to the value that veterans bring to civilian organizations. Stay tuned for another profile of an early Orion placement.

Outrageous Resumes

In today’s world, hiring managers often have resumes piling up on their desks. Unfortunately, some stand out for all the wrong reasons. CareerBuilder.com recently released a survey of the most memorable things hiring managers have seen on resumes. Below are some of the more outrageous answers.

• Candidate listed God as a reference.
• Candidate listed her hobby as alligator watching.
• Candidate claimed to be a direct descendant of the Vikings.
• Candidate’s email address had “lovesbeer” in it.
• Candidate listed “Master of Time and Universe” under his experience.
• Candidate started off the application with “Do you want a tiger?”
• Candidate specifically pointed out that he was not a gypsy.
• Candidate’s condition for accepting the position was being allowed to bring his pet monkey to the workplace.
• Candidate pointed out, “I’ll have your job in five years.”
• Candidate sent a 24-page resume for a 5-year career.
• Candidate put a picture of her cat on top of her resume.
• Candidate declared himself “the LeBron James of table games.”
• Candidate sent a video trying to hypnotize the HR manager into hiring him.

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President Obama Announces Additional Veteran Hiring Initiatives & Tax Credits

At an event at the Washington Navy Yard on August 5, President Obama announced proposed tax credits for hiring veterans, and recognized Siemens, among other companies, for their veteran hiring program. Additionally, he challenged more private companies to hire veterans. This comes at a time when The Veteran Opportunity to Work (VOW) Act of 2011 and Hiring Heroes Act of 2011 are pending in Congress.

According to a White House Fact Sheet, Obama’s proposed tax credits include the Returning Heroes credit and an extension of the Wounded Warriors tax credit. The Returning Heroes credit is proposed for 2012-2013 and gives companies up to a $2,400 tax credit for hiring veterans who have been unemployed for at least four weeks. If the veteran has been unemployed for six months or more, the tax credit increases up to $4,800. The two year extension of the Wounded Warriors tax credit would give companies that hire service disabled veterans up to a $4,800 tax credit, which increases to $9,600 if they have been unemployed for six months or more. Both credits require congressional approval.

While announcing these proposed tax credits, Obama also announced that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs will lead a new task force to develop reforms to ensure that veterans receive essential training, education, and credentials needed to transition to the civilian workforce or to pursue higher education. These reforms include a “Reverse Boot Camp,” which will extend the transition period to give service members more guidance.

Obama urged private companies to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans and their spouses by the end of 2013. By way of example, Obama praised Siemens Corporation, who, at the launch of the White House’s Joining Forces initiative in April 2011, committed to reserve ten percent of its more than 3,000 open positions in their clean tech industries for veterans in a program called Siemens Initiative to Support Military Families. Siemens has since surpassed their goal, and it was announced at this event that they will expand their program by reserving an additional 150 positions for veterans.

According to a Siemens press release, this announcement means more than 450 veterans will have new jobs with Siemens by the end of the year. "The comprehensive technical training and experience gained in military service is extremely valuable in today's workplace," said Mike Panigel, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Siemens Corporation. "Veterans possess a unique skill set in technical areas that are a great match with many of our over 3,000 open positions."

Siemens has partnered with Orion International in support of Siemens Initiative to Support Military Families. The recruiting partnership fills a large volume of positions across all segments of Siemens Corporation within the United States. Orion has placed nearly 600 veterans into careers at Siemens and is the exclusive provider of military talent to Siemens in the United States.

Hire a Hero applauds the ongoing effort to provide more employment opportunities for veterans and applauds Siemens as they work toward their goal of hiring even more veterans.

Keep the Quitters Out

Every company from time to time deals with turnover. When an employee quits, the cost of recruiting and training new employees takes its toll on the company’s books, as well as wastes valuable time. Luckily, Ryan Zimmerman, an industrial psychologist and management professor at Texas A&M University, has been studying the personality traits of employees. Zimmerman has discovered there are patterns in the personalities of those employees that are consistent quitters and those that stay at their jobs.

Zimmerman’s research examined three key characteristics that can be measured: agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Those that tend to be agreeable are less likely to walk away from a job because of their ability to go with the flow. People who are more conscientious have strong work ethics and are dependable and reliable. Emotionally stable employees are less likely to quit their job because they are more calm and secure.

"By focusing on hiring individuals who are higher on these traits, organizations can reduce the amount of turnover they have," Zimmerman advises. "An organization can actually avoid turnover before an employee is even hired by looking at the personality traits ahead of time."

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Veteran Spotlight: Kelly King

Hire a Hero recently sat down with Kelly King, a former Adjutant General Captain in the Army recently placed by Orion International with Kansas City Southern Railway Company as a Director of International Rail Operations Support to discuss her transition experience. Her new position has presented King with a lot of responsibilities, including ensuring optimal levels of productivity, providing timely information to ensure a quality transportation product is delivered, providing coaching and mentoring of both Collective Bargaining Agreement and professional workforce in a 24/7/365 operation, and pursuing best-in-class operational excellence.

King is finding a lot of similarities between her new position with KCS and her prior military experience. "The similarities between the railroad industry and the military are really quite striking. My experience in the military prepared me to work in an environment that operates 24/7, address many challenges and issues simultaneously, and communicate with many groups on multiple levels to achieve a common goal or company objective. The military was great at preparing me and training me to multi-task. The ability to address multiple projects and requirements within a specified timeline has proven to be invaluable, especially in an industry where multiple variables affect the overall performance of the organization," explains King. Additionally, King finds that team leadership (or people skills) and the ability to execute a plan are two military skills that serve her well in her new career.

Hire a Hero was also interested to get a veteran's perspective on how hiring managers should approach hiring prior service members, and King suggested that these managers should make their best effort to find that connection between military skills sets and whatever positions they are looking to hire. And, King points out, while it might not be easy to make the correlation to between an Infantryman and Plant Manager, for example, "More times than not, it’s the qualities, character, discipline, and personal skills that are developed while in the service that makes veterans more appealing. Veterans are dependable and come from a work environment where people count on them (oftentimes, with their lives) to follow through on not only their word, but with their actions," states King.

You can read more about King, her new position with KCS, and the role veterans are playing in the transportation industry here in this Military Times Edge article.

CNN OpEd Discusses Why Veterans Make Great Employees

In his recent OpEd on CNN.com titled “Why military veterans make great employees”, Rye Barcott, a former Marine Corps Officer, explores how the current employment rate for veterans, which is higher than the national average, is counterintuitive when considering veterans’ vast skills. He discusses this topic in the context of the recent Los Angeles area military job fair attended by Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on July 10.

Barcott points out the irony of the fact that while the military “equips most men and women with skills that translate well into private, public and nonprofit sector careers”, veterans are among the most unemployed. He explains that the military is an empowering place and illustrates this by describing what he calls the "strategic corporal." Strategic corporals are the lowest-ranking noncommissioned officers and are generally in their early 20s, yet they are often in positions of heavy leadership in command of small teams. These corporals have been equipped by the Marine Corps to make quick decisions in high-stakes situations. Because of this, Barcott points out that employers should realize that veterans are often far more effective in stressful situations than their civilian counterparts.

The question is begged, then, why the high unemployment rate? Barcott posits that it is because less than 1% of the population serves, and, therefore, few hiring managers truly understand a veteran’s value to their company. And while hiring veterans does have a goodwill aspect to it for the hiring company, Barcott reminds us that “hiring veterans is not a matter of charity. For those organizations looking to excel in the world, it is pure, enlightened self-interest.” In addition to building teams and getting results, service members have been called “force multipliers” by Colin Powell, and what better employee to have than one that brings these skills to your company.

Click here to read the OpEd.