How the Development Sector Can Be Better at Hiring Veteran Talent

USAID implementing partners have a unique challenge in the federal contracting sphere: achieving U.S. veteran hiring targets while simultaneously bringing forward the global talent that allows for true locally led development. While the two are not mutually exclusive (U.S. permanent residents and dual citizens serve in the U.S. armed forces), veterans’ choice of military service instead of entry-level roles in humanitarian aid/international development or pipeline programs like the Peace Corps can create systemic challenges that hinder veteran hiring. However, veterans are an inherently intersectional and purpose-driven group sharing key values with each other and the development sector: honor, integrity, courage, duty, commitment, and service above self. Their shared crucible experiences tend to make veterans particularly good in certain environments, especially ambiguous ones with resource constraints. Focusing on veteran outreach and recruitment — not as a demographic target, but in recognition of the support they need to integrate effectively — therefore offers many advantages to the development industry.

At Chemonics, we believe that hiring veterans means hiring innovative, complexity-aware people who are responsible and accountable for their objectives. Our veterans accomplish the mission while putting people first, capturing lessons learned, feeding those lessons back into staff training and program design, and finding creative, holistic solutions to persistent problems. Ultimately, veterans in development reinforce our mission, enhance the delivery of services, and strengthen our impact.

Over the past several years, Chemonics has refined its approach to veteran outreach, moving beyond career fairs to providing targeted insights to small groups of veterans. Along the way, we have reinforced our methods by becoming certified through the state-run Virginia Values Veterans (V3) program and benchmarking against peers in the VETS Indexes survey. Using the strategies below, Chemonics is now a 3-Star Employer with VETS Indexes.

Strategy One: Monitor and Evaluate Hiring and Outreach Data

Without data and a structured MEL analysis, an implementing partner can only guess at the bottlenecks for veterans. Our employee resource group for veterans and military families, ChemValor, is full of people who stumbled into development without being particularly aware of the industry during their time in service. We thought we needed to show transitioning servicemembers that this is a career worth considering, until quantitative data showed that the first bottleneck for veterans was actually when recruiters screened their resumes. Qualitative analysis showed that veterans were misunderstanding the career fields and rank structure of the development industry. Similarly, their resumes often assumed a baseline familiarity with the soft skills required in standard military positions — a familiarity that development recruiters and hiring managers simply didn’t have.

In 2023, Chemonics expanded an internal talent acquisition dashboard simplifying access to hiring and outreach data to include a view specific to self-identified veterans. This dashboard means that individual recruiters and workforce managers can actively monitor their veteran hiring data and adapt their approach. Some have proactively phone screened candidates to probe deeper when there is an apparent mismatch between a candidate’s experience and the role they’ve applied to, as when a personable retired civil affairs officer from the U.S. Army recently applied for an operations coordinator role. His resume showed plenty of experience working alongside USAID, something helpful but unnecessary for an entry-level role. By reaching out, we were able to pair him with a mentor inside Chemonics that could help guide him.

Strategy Two: Open Internal Networks to Veteran Candidates

We quickly found that one of our most effective tools was the network of the veterans already at Chemonics — a network that we could leverage because of the ethos of never leaving a fellow soldier behind. Chemonics offers a dedicated resource page on our website for veterans, where they are able to connect directly with ChemValor. These veterans on the inside connect them with allies across the company and other members to give informational interviews, review resumes, take the mystery out of the hiring process, and talk generally about career paths in the development sector. Often, these internal allies take an intersectional lens, speaking directly to challenges and opportunities relevant to marginalized groups. When Chemonics presented at the Fall 2024 Employing U.S. Veterans Conference, senior outreach specialist Quita Keller framed this as networking: in informational interviews, “you can be more of a collaborator with veteran talent and help to showcase specific skills and experience and how that aligns with the business needs of the organization.” To date, 75% of our veteran hires in 2024 had networked through ChemValor.

These networks can help refine a veteran’s message and shift it toward development-focused language, too. One logistics officer prepared a cover letter talking about development as an arm of American soft power, not realizing that the hiring team worked from the perspective of USAID’s locally led development policy. After an informational interview reframed the context, he was able to connect his previous work getting supplies into the hands of the troops that needed them most to the job description for a health supply chain position, where he now helps deliver health commodities to communities and people working to reduce transmissible disease.

Strategy Three: Develop Structured Networking Events

Through these personalized encounters, Chemonics teams noticed consistent skill gaps, where we could potentially both offer clarity to a large group of veterans at once and expand their network with internal military-friendly hiring managers. In 2024, we launched a series of virtual veteran engagement events to dive deeper into these topics. As part of our Veterans Day programming, we invited 10 internal hiring managers and 30 high-quality veteran candidates to a session focused on resumes. Our panelists explained what they were looking for in resumes for Chemonics, giving tips on using a summary bullet section up top to sell applicable experience, while managers offered personalized and generalized feedback on candidates’ summary bullets in the chat. Our first session, on navigating the hiring process, helped one candidate get hired.

Chemonics knows that the work doesn’t stop with hiring, and that a truly military-friendly company has camaraderie, recognizes industry-switching expertise, and develops supportive, easy-to-navigate policies. These events strengthen connections with veteran candidates, but also internally, keeping veteran employees engaged with ChemValor and providing meaningful connections to non-veterans across the company. Thoughtfully showcasing our own veterans and the transferable skills hidden on a traditional resume, the events open further professional opportunities for veterans, including those from underrepresented groups.

Collaborating for Impact

At Chemonics, we see the outstanding quality and quantity of veteran candidates. In many cases, we even know they would be better suited to a specialized role elsewhere in development, like one U.S. Navy Seabee reservist interested in managing water and sanitation infrastructure building projects. The veteran candidates need targeted assistance, though, for USAID contractors to meet those federal hiring goals for veterans — and by extension, hiring goals for other underrepresented groups. With an industry-wide approach to veteran outreach, development can be better at hiring veterans and using that talent to navigate increasingly ambiguous and complex global issues, such as promoting resilience, addressing cross-border conflict, and supporting health.

Posts on the blog represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Chemonics.