Vets Need to Access ‘Hidden Job Market'

By Marga Lincoln
Published Nov. 18, 2007 in Helena Independent Record

“People hire the people they are comfortable with, that's why the disabled don't get jobs,” said Richard Pimentel, a Vietnam veteran and a nationally renowned speaker on disability employment.

Pimentel was a keynote speaker at a weekend conference, Clinical and Community Support for Veterans and Their Families, at the Red Lion Colonial Hotel. Pimentel is a senior partner of Milt Wright & Associates, Inc.

The conference by the Montana Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers was dedicated to veteran care and post traumatic stress disorder.

Over the next two years, tens of thousands of veterans are expected to be returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many will be seeking to enter the job market or to return to their previous jobs.

Pimentel urged counselors and therapists not to rely on sending vets down to a Job Service office to seek jobs. It's one of the least effective ways to find employment, he said.

The job bank “wasn't created to serve the unemployed, but to serve employers. It was created to protect them from people like your clients.”

“The decision not to hire is done within a minute,” he said. It's all based on first impressions.

And veterans with post traumatic stress disorder “may not make the best first impression,” he said. “People with visible disabilities may not do well in the competitive job market.

“We need a better course than how to sign up at Job Service, we need to teach them how to access the hidden job market.”

The hidden job market is the way 80 percent of people are hired, said Pimentel.

“You want veterans to get directly to supervisors to have informational interviews,” he advised. Then the supervisor may think of the vet when there's a job opening.

Vets should also meet for informational interviews with people who do the type of work they want to do.

“Co-worker referrals are the number one way people are hired,” he said. Thirty-five percent of jobs are filled through co-worker referrals.

Less effective job hunting sources are human resource offices, employment services and newspaper advertisements.

Should disabled veterans bring up their disability during a job interview?

It depends, said Pimentel.

“If it is obvious and will cause concern to the employer, bring it up,” he advised. “An unresolved concern becomes an objection (to hiring them).”

An effective way to do this is to say, “This is my disability. In order to be the best employee for you, this is what I need to do my best.”

“Employment is so important to treatment. Employment is part of the treatment. Without employment, treatment suffers greatly. It needs to be a tool of on-going counseling,” said Pimentel.

The reasons employers are reluctant to hire people with disabilities isn't because employers lack confidence in the person to do the job. Research has found that employers lack confidence in their own ability to work with a person who is disabled, he said. Other factors affecting hiring include that the employer may not know much about the disability, that he or she may make some incorrect generalizations, or that the disability may raise their own thoughts of sympathy for the disabled person.

An employer who thinks the war is rotten may think, “I don't want to feel the pain when I look at you.”

Although federal jobs are supposed to give preference for hiring vets, that's not the case.The federal government is “just as skittish” about hiring those with disabilities as other employers, Pimentel said.

Self-employment can be a viable option. If a veteran has a skill and the temperament for managing a business, he or she should consider it. While the Americans with Disabilities Act was meant to remove barriers to hiring the disabled, there's actually a lower percent of the disabled being hired. Pimentel blamed the courts, saying major employers could afford to hire high-powered attorneys that the disabled could not.