Anyone Can Send You a Résumé. Knowing Who Belongs on Your Team Is the Work.

The Challenge

There's a well-worn model in recruiting, and it works about as well as you'd expect.

Aggregate a stack of open roles, gather a stack of candidates, match them on keywords, and push them out. “I've got jobs, who wants them.” Or run it from the other side, sign up as many companies as possible and move volume through the pipe. Speed and scale are the whole game.

Let me be clear about something. The people running that play are not the enemy. Supporting the Veteran community takes a village, and there's real value in volume when a company simply needs seats filled fast. We need those folks doing their work.

But that model was never built to answer the question that actually matters to you: will this specific person still be thriving in this specific seat, on this specific team, a year from now.

That question is the entire reason Always Forward VTA exists.

The Data

Get the alignment right and the return shows up where it counts. Veterans placed in a role that truly fits more than double their retention and their job satisfaction over time.

Get it wrong and the bill comes due somewhere else. By SHRM's math, a single mis-hire runs 50 to 200% of that person's annual salary once you count the ramp time, the lost momentum, and the second search you never should have run.

The capability is a given. Fit is the work, and fit is a process, not a coin flip.

Volume matching optimizes for filled. I optimize for fit.

Why Always Forward VTA

Reading both sides takes a lifetime in both worlds. I grew up in a military family, served as an Armor Officer, and spent 26 years in corporate leadership without ever stepping away from the military community.

Experience like that isn't academic. It's lived.

We start with the role, not the resume. Before I bring you a single candidate, I do the work to understand your company beyond the job description.

What does success actually look like in this seat six months in. What is the culture really made of, not the careers-page version, but how decisions get made and how people treat each other on a hard day.

And what is the ecosystem around the role, who this person will lean on and who will lean on them.

A job description gives me the tasks. I'm after what great looks like.

I do the same work on the other side. When I sit down with a transitioning Servicemember, we don't open with what job they want. We open with who they want to be.

What they're passionate about. What their unit called on them for when it mattered. What they're known for. What sets them apart from the person next to them, hard skills and soft skills both.

Here's how it actually plays out. When I've done that work on both sides, sometimes I have a candidate who maps cleanly to a role I already know. Sometimes I don't.

When I don't, I don't force it. I go find the person with the potential to thrive in your seat. I work directly with military installations and their Transition Assistance Programs (TAP) to connect with Servicemembers exiting the service anywhere from 1 to 18 months out, across specialties and across the country.

And when I'm carrying a Veteran with a rare mix of skills, I go find the companies that would be better with them in the building. Every person I put in front of you is someone I can stand behind. And I don't disappear at the offer letter.

The relationship does not end at the offer letter.

Because what I'm hunting for is the profile companies say they want and struggle to find. Leaders, not managers. Doers, not sayers. Selfless, not self-centered. Tireless, not tired.

The person their team didn't describe by title. They described by name. Not “go find someone.” “Get me that person.”

That's the part I need you to hear. Hiring a Veteran, done right, is not a charitable act.

Doing right by those who served is real, and it matters to me. But that's the side dish. The main course is that you get an “A-player”, the kind who raises the level of everyone around them. That is a Strategic Advantage, and it's the reason I'd ask for your time.

So, here's my ask, and it's a simple one. You don't need an open req for us to start. I'd rather get to know your company, your culture, and what great looks like on your teams now, so that when the right Veteran crosses my path, I already know they belong with you.

The best matches aren't made under deadline pressure. They're made because the homework was done long before the seat opened. Let me be on the lookout for your next great teammate, starting today.

I'm paid only when someone is placed. So, I have exactly one incentive: to be right about the fit.

Always Forward.

Sources

Cost of a mis-hire: SHRM, 50 to 200% of the employee's annual salary, scaling with role level (entry-level 50–75%, mid-level 100–150%, executive up to 200%+).