WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 23, 2016) -- A new mentoring partnership to assist women in their transition to civilian life was launched between the Army Reserve and non-profit American Corporate Partners at the Pentagon, March 21.
Created in 2008, ACP has 2,500 service members and veterans currently paired with mentors nationwide. Some 7,000 men and women have completed mentorships with more than 60 Fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses in a wealth of industries ranging from the financial sector to manufacturing, education and defense.
ACP's Women's Veterans Mentoring Program, in conjunction with Soldier for Life, will connect veterans with female entrepreneurs and business leaders for one-on-one, year-long mentorships where they'll be guided on topics ranging from building civilian-friendly resumes, refining leadership and networking skills, to managing work-life balance, officials said.
Eligibility to ACP's nationwide mentoring program is open to all currently serving and recently separated veterans who have served on active-duty at least 180 days since 9/11. The program is also open to those who were unable to meet the six-month requirement if injured while serving as well as to surviving spouses and spouses of severely wounded post-9/11 veterans.
ACP founder and chair Sidney Goodfriend, who spoke at the ceremony, said service members still on active duty but slated to separate or retire in a year are welcome to file applications and that ACP can find a mentor for them before their transition from the military. He says even if separation was two years ago and the veteran took the first job that came along and is finding the position not very meaningful or challenging, that's where ACP can help.
Goodfriend clarified that the initiative is not a formal job-placement program, rather it's a tool for networking and long-term career development.
"The women's program will focus on women veterans who will get women mentors who are seasoned executives from all types of different big and small companies around the country," he said. "It's totally nationwide… if the veteran lives in a rural area such as a small town in southern Georgia, their mentor may be in Tampa or Atlanta so their relationship will be largely 'virtual.'"
A retired investment banker, Goodfriend said even mentoring in big-city America can be via eye-chat and Skype, and he encouraged recording mock interviews.
"It's one thing to practice the interview process, but it's another thing to watch yourself being interviewed in a pretend interview -- if you're making eye contact, speaking in complete sentences, if you're prepared and really show a sense of commitment to the interviewer on why you want to work there," he said. "And here's why: after 10, 15, 20 years in the military, many service members have never been through a private-sector hiring process before."
As an example, he relayed the story of a Soldier who submitted a five-page resume with more than a handful of acronyms to an ACP reviewer. The reviewer told the Soldier that an interviewer with a Fortune 500 company doesn't have time or inclination to wade through a resume that's more than one page -- "we've got to get it on one page," she said.
Unyielding, the Soldier said, "Ma'am, I've talked to the smartest people I can find -- you can't get the computer printer to print that small."
"Get it on one page, but to him that meant font size, not editing," Goodfriend said. "Some people like me think that's unusual… how do you not know how get your resume on one page. But the response back to me is, 'well, do you know how to clean a rifle?'
"I've never received training in that and I shouldn't be embarrassed that I don't know how. I just never had the training, so why should we expect our Soldiers or members from other services to necessarily have the same type of training I've had?" he said.
"So we work with people in different ways, depending on what their needs are," he said. "Some people have no idea what they want to do. Some people are thinking of going back to school and don't know what to study; some people are starting their own business and don't know anything about financing that business, so we work with service members to find out what they want to achieve."
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