Hiring Our Heroes is a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation that aims to help U.S. military veterans and spouses find meaningful employment.
MissionWe have significantly expanded our efforts in our third year with a goal of hosting 400 hiring fairs, the establishment of a stand-alone program for military spouses, and a sustained campaign to enlist the commitments from the small business community to hire veterans and military spouses by the end of 2014.
General InformationHiring Our Heroes, a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, was launched in March 2011 as a nationwide initiative to help veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses find meaningful employment opportunities. Working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vast network of state and local chambers and strategic partners from the public, private, and non-profit sectors, ourgoal is to create a movement across America in hundreds of communities where veterans and military families return every day. Early on, our team adopted two overriding strategies: (1) grassroots engagement and (2) public-private partnerships. Through our commitment-based engagement of the business community, more than 700 job fairs held across the country, and a suite of free online career tools, we’ve worked with our partners to help hundreds of thousands of veterans and military spouses find jobs.To date, more than 23,000 veterans and military spouses have obtained jobs through Hiring Our Heroes job fairs. More than 1,500 businesses of all sizes have pledged to hire 411,000 heroes as part of the Hiring 500,000 Heroes campaign. Of those commitments, 255,000 hires have been confirmed with thousands more in the pipeline right now.Our digital resources include distinct resume builders for veterans and transitioning service members as well as military spouses; a jobs portal that allows veterans and service members to search for employment opportunities in America’s fastest growing job markets and industries; and a virtual mentorship program that connects veteran and spouse protégés with experienced mentors. These online tools have also been integrated into the employment workshops that take place at hundreds of our job fairs. Our goal is to ensure veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses are able to utilize our resources to connect with employers no matter where they are in the world.
