Nonprofit tapping social networking to help ex-soldiers nab civilian jobs

In the face of astonishingly high unemployment rates among enlisted military personnel returning to post-war life, a nonprofit group is empowering soldiers with social networking savvy to help them transition to the civilian workforce.

Using the community and social networking features of YourMembership.com and online relationship management services donated by Salesforce.com, Hire a Hero is combating a 22% unemployment rate among junior enlisted personnel looking for post-military employment.

Last month, the group updated its 18-month-old effort with software donated by XAware, open source tools that provide automated data integration to speed the flow of information exchange. XAware CEO Tim Harvey is a veteran having served in the Marine Corp.

Hire a Hero is a nonprofit initiative founded in January 2007 by Internet entrepreneur and Gulf War vet Dan Caulfield as part of the Armed Forces Support Foundation. Hire a Hero has been used by some 180,000 people with 10,000 active community members at any one time.

The site has been described by Caulfield as a "MySpace meets Craigslist," and is taking advantage of a wave of military personnel plugged into computer-based social networking.

"We are talking about people between 22 and 24 years old," says Brac Selph, executive director of Hire a Hero. "They are well versed in using tools like Facebook and are very tech savvy. They know about social networks and are the first generation that is able to use the tools without us having to teach them."

Selph, who speaks passionately about the effort, was once struggling to make the transition out of the military. The first job he landed came about after his resume ended up thumb-tacked to a company's bulletin board. He got an interview because one person who saw it was intrigued by his military title: rifle platoon commander.

"I was told I was interviewed out of curiosity because it was so odd. We hear that a lot," Selph says.

But it also presents problems because civilians don't know how the skills associated with military job titles transfer to the civilian working world.

One goal of the program is to link up with those trying to break into the civilian workforce with vets already there, volunteers who coach resume writing and interview techniques, and corporations, management associations, staffing companies and trade unions.

XAware automates the linkage between the profile information that transitioning soldiers enter into YourMembership.com with the CRM features of Salesforce.com. Hire a Hero specifically is using the XAware plug-in for Salesforce.com.

"Up until last month, we had to do that [linkage] manually," Selph says. "We had to download a file, post it somewhere and then manually import that. We had to do that for each category of person in our community – military, employers, volunteers. Now we have enterprise-type CRM with workforce rule, automatic ticklers, e-mail campaigns."

Users get alerts when their resume is stale and needs updating, prompts to join groups that help with interview skills, and matchmaking services among themselves, volunteers and employers.