Most diversity and inclusion plans start with the same list. Race. Gender. Age. Disability. Those matter. But a lot of teams miss one group. Veterans bring real difference in background, in thinking, and in life.

Veterans come from every race, every region, and every income level in the country. They bring a shared experience that most of your team does not have. They have led people under pressure. They have moved every two or three years. They have worked next to folks who look nothing like them and got the job done anyway.

This article is for the people who own hiring and culture. Heads of talent. D&I leads. People and culture execs at midsize companies. You do not need a Fortune 500 budget to do this well. You need a clear reason and a real plan.

Here is the plan. We will cover why veteran hiring belongs inside an inclusion strategy. What veterans actually add to a team. How to build belonging once they are hired. And where to find them without spinning up a giant program.

Why does veteran hiring belong in a D&I strategy?

D&I is about building a team with a mix of backgrounds. The goal is a place where different people feel like they belong. Veterans fit that goal in a way a lot of leaders overlook.

Start with the obvious. The military pulls from every corner of the country. It is one of the most mixed groups in America. People serve next to teammates from different races, faiths, and home towns. They train together. They deploy together. That is real, lived diversity. Not a poster.

But veteran hiring adds something else too. It adds difference in experience. Take two people at 28. One ran a supply yard in another country. The other never left their home state. They think differently. That gap in life experience is exactly what a strong team wants. Different inputs lead to better calls.

There is also a fairness angle. Veterans can hit walls in civilian hiring. Their resumes use words your team does not know. Gaps from deployments get misread. A skilled leader gets passed over because nobody on the panel could read the resume. An inclusion strategy that fixes that is doing real work.

One more point. Veteran hiring is not charity. It is not a box to check. It is a talent move that also serves your inclusion goals. The best D&I work does both at once. It brings in real skill and it widens who gets a fair shot.

What do veterans add to a mixed team?

You are not just adding a headcount. You are adding a set of habits most teams are short on. Here is what shows up.

First, they have led real people. A team leader in the Army ran a squad at 22. A petty officer in the Navy owned a watch section and the gear that came with it. They gave orders, took feedback, and owned the result. That kind of early leadership is rare in the civilian world at the same age.

Second, they work across lines. The military does not let you pick your team. You work with whoever is assigned. People from different states, faiths, and walks of life. Veterans learn early how to build trust fast with folks who are nothing like them. That is the core skill behind an inclusive team.

Third, they handle change. A service member might move three or four times in eight years. New base. New job. New team. They learn to ramp up fast and stay calm when the plan shifts. That steadiness helps a whole team when things get rough.

Fourth, they care about the mission. The military trains people to put the team goal first. That habit carries over. A veteran wants to know why the work matters and where it fits. Give them that and you get someone who pushes hard for the team, not just for themselves.

Want the full breakdown of the return on this? We made a separate piece on it. Read the ROI of hiring veterans and what military hires return.

Does the data back this up?

Yes. And the numbers are easy to check. Veterans are not a risky hire. They are a steady one.

Look at the labor data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks veteran employment every year. In 2024 the veteran unemployment rate was 3.0 percent. The rate for nonveterans was 3.9 percent. Veterans were more likely to be working, not less. You can read it straight from the BLS Employment Situation of Veterans 2024 annual summary.

The federal government also vouches for veteran hiring. The Department of Labor runs a whole service for it. Their Hire a Veteran resource for employers calls veterans loyal, adaptable, and team-oriented, with tested leadership. That is the government telling you the talent is real.

The point is simple. You do not have to take this on faith. The case for veterans as both strong talent and a fair-shot group is backed by public data. That is rare for a D&I lever. Use it.

How do you make the hiring itself inclusive?

Here is where good intent meets the hard part. You can want veterans on the team and still screen them out by accident. The fix is in how you read and run the hiring.

Start with the resume. Veterans write in their own words. A job title might be a code like 25B or 0311. Duties get buried under jargon. Your screener sees a resume they cannot read and moves on. The skill was there. The reading was the problem.

Train your screeners to look for the work behind the words. A "logistics NCO" ran supply. A "platoon sergeant" led 30 to 40 people. If you screen for degrees only, you will miss strong people who earned skill another way. We wrote a full guide on this. See five myths about hiring veterans, debunked for employers.

Then look at the interview. A veteran might say "we" when they mean "I led this." They were trained to credit the team. A panel that does not know this reads it as low impact. It is not. Ask one follow-up. "And what was your part in that?" Their answer will surprise you.

Setting a real target helps too. Not a quota you fake. A real goal you measure. We cover how to do that without tokenism in setting realistic veteran hiring targets for your team.

How do you build belonging after the hire?

Hiring a veteran is step one. Keeping them and helping them feel at home is the rest of the job. This is where a lot of D&I plans fall short. They count the hire and stop.

A veteran can land at your company and feel lost. Not because the work is hard. Because the culture is new. No rank. No clear chain. Different rules for how people talk and decide. A great hire can drift away if nobody helps them settle in.

The fix is real onboarding. Give them a buddy in the first week. Be clear about how things get done. Tell them who decides what. Veterans are used to clear roles and standards. Give them that early and they lock in fast.

Two tools help most. A veteran group inside the company. And a mentor. The group gives veterans a place to connect with people who get their background. The mentor helps them learn how your company really works.

Start the group small. You do not need ten committees. You need a sponsor, a budget, and a few people who care. We broke down the steps in how to start a veteran employee resource group. For the one-on-one side, see how to run a veteran mentorship program in your workplace.

Belonging is not a soft word here. It is the thing that turns a hire into a long-term team member. And retention is where the real value shows up. More on why they stay in veteran employee retention and why they stay.

How do you measure it without tokenism?

If you cannot measure it, you cannot defend the budget. And if you only count heads, you slide into tokenism. The goal is not a number on a slide. The goal is a fair process and a team that works.

Measure the funnel, not just the hire. How many veterans applied. How many got a phone screen. How many got an offer. If veterans apply but never get past the screen, your reading is the problem. The data points right at it.

Measure belonging too. Ask your veteran hires a few questions at 90 days and one year. Do they feel like part of the team. Do they know how to get ahead. Do they plan to stay. Those answers tell you if the inclusion work is real or just on paper.

One more way to show the work counts. The Department of Labor runs the HIRE Vets Medallion Program. It is the only federal-level award that recognizes a company's commitment to veteran hiring, retention, and professional development. Earning it gives you proof, public credit, and a real edge when you recruit more veterans.

Avoid tokenism by keeping the focus on the work, not the optics. Do not hire a veteran for a photo. Hire them for the skill and then give them a fair shot to grow. The metrics above keep you honest.

If you need to win over a skeptical exec first, we built a piece for that. See the internal business case for veteran hiring.

Where do you find veterans to hire?

You have the why and the how. Now you need the people. This is the part most teams get stuck on. They want to hire veterans but do not know where to look.

The Department of Labor can help. Their Veterans' Employment and Training Service connects employers with transitioning service members through local offices. It is a free public resource. Most teams do not even know it exists.

You can also work with a platform built for this. Best Military Resume runs a steady pool of veteran talent that is hiring-ready. We add more than 1,000 new veteran profiles every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. That is a fresh, growing supply of candidates who have already done the work to translate their experience.

The supply problem is the one thing a strategy doc cannot solve for you. You can fix your job posts. You can train your panel. But you still need a pipeline of real candidates. That is where a partner helps most.

If you want the full set of moves in one place, our veteran-inclusive workplace employer checklist walks every box from hiring through retention.

Start small and make it real

You do not need to overhaul your whole D&I plan to do this. You need a few real moves. Veteran hiring fits inside the work you already do. It just adds a group most teams overlook.

Pick three things this quarter. Edit one job post to say "degree or equivalent experience." Brief your screeners on reading military resumes. Name a buddy for the next veteran you hire. Those three moves cost almost nothing and change a lot.

The bigger point is this. Veteran hiring is a talent strategy that also serves your inclusion goals. It brings in skill, leadership, and a different life experience. And it gives a fair shot to a group that often gets passed over for the wrong reasons. That is what good D&I work looks like.

When you are ready to find the people, reach out about partnering with us. We will connect you with veteran candidates who are ready to step into your team and stay.