‘Ex-servicemen are bringing new skills to business’ reports The Sunday Times, citing Jaguar Land Rover as just one example of the many organisations who recruit from the ex-military talent pool.
The company has employed over 100 Service leavers during the past two years and Operations Director Alan Volkaerts sees a great many benefits in recruiting Service leavers: “There’s the engineering and technical side of it, but also we’re a structured, process-driven company. The discipline and structure means that someone from a forces background fits really well into the way we operate.”
David Duffy, Managing Director at the Career Transition Partnership explains that one of the benefits Service leavers can bring to business is leadership skills: “They’re expected to take responsibility at a very young age. At 23 or 24 they may be in charge of a section of eight or ten people. A young officer out of Sandhurst is probably responsible for a platoon of more than 20. Compare that to somebody of the same age in a graduate scheme.”
The article also features the case studies of former Service leavers Julie Taylor, who now works as distribution planning and strategy controller at Jaguar Land Rover, and Peter Flynn, director of financial services at PwC.