Look for the military door. As a military sociologist and Military.com's transition master coach, the one piece of advice I give when it comes to finding the top employers for veterans, spouses and military in transition is to look for companies with a military door. The military door is one of the 10 mind-blowing things top employers do.
When it comes to military hiring, I know that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. During transition, you can get hired faster by looking for a job with companies that have a consistent record for hiring veterans and feature what we call "a military door. "
What Is a Military Door?
A military door is any prominently featured indicator on the company website that this company recognizes military members are transitioning into a new field and thus do not have the kind of network civilian workers have. It is a sign of the company's willingness to accept your military service in lieu of a referral.
The indicator could be a formal veteran hiring program, a picture of a veteran and/or spouse employee, a military translator, an email address for a dedicated veteran recruiting team or a story about how the company is participating with one of our brilliant veterans service organizations or veteran hiring programs like Hiring Our Heroes or SkillBridge.
How Do You Find the Top Veteran Employers?
To help you find these employers quickly, I put together this list of our 25 Top Veteran Employers for 2022. Each one has a military door and a track record for hiring veterans and/or spouses that is a mile long. We have awarded each of them our Military.com Top Veteran Employer logo, so that may help you spot these employers quickly.
It would be impossible to rank them against each other since there are so many factors at play. So this year, the employers are listed in order of which has the highest percentage of veteran or spouse employees.
Although veterans make up only 6% of the American workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, each of these companies have a workforce of 10%-47% veterans. (FYI in case you were wondering, at Military.com, 55% of our employees are veterans or spouses -- exactly what you would expect from a military-centric business like ours.).
We truly appreciate what these companies do for veterans and spouses who are looking for work. I've linked each to its veteran hiring page.
Here Are Our 25 Top Veteran Employers for 2022
- American Systems
- ManTech International
- CACI International Inc.
- Veterans Affairs
- Southwest Airlines
- Amentum
- SAIC
- Navy Federal Credit Union
- USAA
- Northrop Grumman
- Lockheed Martin Corp.
- Advanced Technology Services
- Leidos
- ASRC Federal
- General Dynamics Mission Systems
- Peraton
- BAE Systems
- Boeing
- Verizon
- Raytheon Technologies
- Johnson Controls
- Naval Nuclear Laboratory
- Clean Harbors
- Southern Company
- Aerojet Rocketdyne
Finding a top veteran employer with a military door is not a free pass to a job. You still have to do the work of writing a checklist resume, applying to the right kind of job at the right level, interviewing like a champ, networking and negotiating. We teach each of those subjects for FREE in our Veteran Employment Project Master Class Video Library.
Rachael Hubbard contributed to this article.
Jacey Eckhart is Military.com's transition master coach. She is a certified professional career coach and military sociologist who helps military members get their first civilian job by offering career-level Master Classes through our Veteran Employment Project and on her website SeniorMilitaryTransition.com. Reach her at Jacey.Eckhart@Monster.com.
Get Paid What You Are Worth
To get more tips on how to get the biggest paycheck ever, sign up for one of our FREE Military Transition Master Classes today. Our newest class is Next Level Negotiation: How to Get The Biggest Paycheck Ever. You can view previous classes in our video library. Questions for Jacey? Visit our Facebook page.
