On 10 April 2019, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (the Committee) undertook a study on hiring veterans for public service positions. The Committee held six meetings, heard 35 witnesses and received 26 briefs in the course of its study.

This report provides background on the veteran population and on the federal government programs available to veterans. It reviews the priority hiring system and other measures put in place to improve veterans’ access to employment in the federal public service through the Veterans Hiring Act, and addresses some of the Act’s shortcomings. The report also discusses many challenges that veterans face as they transition to civilian employment—such as how to translate their military skills and experience into universally-understood competencies and credentials—and it offers solutions to these challenges. Finally, it analyzes the complexity of the federal public service hiring process and offers recommendations to help veterans secure employment within the federal government.

The Committee identified four main challenges facing veterans who apply for positions in the federal public service:

• public service managers and human resources specialists do not sufficiently prioritize the hiring of veterans;
• the value of veterans is not sufficiently recognized by public service managers;
• military skills and experience are difficult to translate into civilian terms for the purpose of applying for civilian positions, including those in the public service; and
• military members and veterans lack the tools and services needed to help navigate the federal public service hiring process to secure employment.

The Committee makes 17 recommendations in the report. Four of the recommendations address the above-mentioned challenges by proposing:

• the establishment of clear targets for the implementation of the Veterans Hiring Act for each department and agency along with sub-targets for various position levels, and that senior managers be made accountable for meeting these targets (Recommendation 8);
• the promotion of the value of hiring veterans, especially in the federal public service, and the provision of training to public service managers and human resources specialists on the skills and qualifications of military members, so that those managers and specialists can identify civilian equivalents (Recommendation 11);
• the development of a comprehensive, algorithmic, military skill translation software tool to facilitate military members’ transition to civilian employment upon release (Recommendation 12); and
• the improvement of the services offered to military members and veterans to help them secure employment, including career coaching services and public service job application training, and the creation of a veterans liaison to assist them in navigating the federal public service hiring process and support them after they are hired by the federal government (Recommendation 14).