Each year, an estimated 200,000 members of the military transition out of active duty into the civilian workforce. The tech industry, for one, is a pathway to opportunity. Annual job openings in the industry are expected to number around 356,700 for the ten-year period ending in 2033, with employers challenged to find workers with the needed skills.

When it came time for 25-year-old Soleil Morrison to leave active service in the U.S. Air Force, she turned to a recruiting and training program run by SkillStorm for help making the move to a tech career. After 16 weeks of training from the company, she walked away with several credentials and a job as an associate cloud administrator.

“They helped me showcase my skills and my skill set to potential employers who are looking to hire which helped to land me my position today,” explains Morrison. 

Launching Tech Careers for Veterans and Military Spouses

“What we try to do is we try to build a pathway specifically for the veterans, transitioning service members, and spouses. We try to build a pathway to employment,” says John Tansill, director of veteran affairs at SkillStorm.

Tansill estimates that SkillStorm has trained 120 people through its program last year, noting these kinds of programs are contingent upon a federal budget.   

This summer, SkillStorm was among eight companies contracted by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to partner with its Veterans’ Employment and  Training Service (VETS) working on three dozen Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy installations in the U.S.

The company is now part of the DOL’s Employment Navigator Partnership Program (ENPP). 

Here’s How It Works

As a first step, SkillStorm offers an introduction to coding class that covers basic Java and SQL (Structured Query Language) to see if people show aptitude. To be accepted into SkillStorm’s program, applicants take a 30-minute tech screen based on the study material.

Once accepted, the tech training course lasts four months and there is no cost to veterans and military spouses. SkillStorm counts 25 universities around the country as partners in training and graduates earn, on average, two certifications.

Tansill says SkillStorm graduates are ready for entry-level jobs including cloud engineers and cyber analysts. Most of those roles usually require a bachelor’s degree. However, there are some cases in which a college degree is not required for military veterans.  

As part of its contract with the government, SkillStorm has 100 days to find meaningful IT work for the participants. To do that, SkillStorm works with partners that include 100 enterprise and government agency clients.

Tansill explains that veterans bring qualities to companies beyond their technical skills such as being able to meet demands of corporations looking to have an agile environment. 

“The U.S. military has been working in an agile environment since Washington crossed the Delaware and so, they’re very adaptable. They’re very good at pivoting,” he says.

Where the Jobs Are

One fast-growing field where graduates land jobs is in cybersecurity, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects will grow 33% in the 10-year period ending in 2033. The average salary for a cyber analyst, according to Cyberseek, is $115,795 with cyber specialists starting at an average $88,149.

Salaries for cloud engineers can range from $85,309 to $197,074, according to Indeed, with an average salary of $129,661. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide a specific outlook for cloud engineers but it does expect the growth rates for computer and information technology jobs to outpace all occupations from 2023 to 2033.

An Unexpected Path from the Air Force to the Tech Industry 

Pivoting is something Soleil Morrison knows very well. Once studying to become a physician’s assistant, she entered the U.S. Air Force where she served as an intelligence analyst while pursuing a career in data science. When it came time to transition to the civilian workforce, Morrison sought out SkillStorm. 

She liked the fact that SkillStorm had an instructor-led program and the way the training was set up. “It wasn’t going to be just me, alone. I was going to be working with a bunch of other peers who have lived in similar backgrounds with being in the military,” says Morrison. 

The program was eight hours a day with daily homework assignments with a goal of obtaining the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional and the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate credentials.

Hands-On Experience

Three major projects, says Morrison, were done with teams and it was those projects using AWS (Amazon Web Services) that made a difference. 

She now works as an associate cloud administrator at a software company. A job, she says, she loves.

Apart from the tech skills she learned, she says some of the most valuable skills she took from the program are discipline and time management. “It definitely showed me that I’m capable of a lot more and that there’s a lot more that I can do with my time.”

Accelerating the Career Pathway

SkillStorm has other programs for members of the military and military spouses such as VET TEC and certification courses for tech training that do not require a college degree and are eligible for COOL funding and the MyCAA Scholarship.

Turning to veterans transitioning out of the military is a strategy CGI is looking to employ. The IT and business consulting company has developed a partnership with SkillStorm as part of an effort to identify underrepresented groups in the talent pool. 

“Right around the time the pandemic was hitting – with the massive labor shortage that we saw on the market – that’s when CGI was really focused on alternative ways of identifying and growing talent,” says Brian Lane, CGI’s vice president of strategic operations for the U.S. Strategic Business Unit. 

To grow talent, CGI developed an apprenticeship program and counts just under 100 apprentices. Now, it’s working with SkillStorm on a cohort of veterans and spouses specifically focusing on software engineering and Oracle certifications involving Java. 

Lane explains that veterans and spouses who are hired by CGI after completing the SkillStorm program become apprentices for 12 months, earning a salary and benefits. They receive a journeyman certificate from the U.S. Department of Labor and become consultants for CGI. 

Valuing Veterans in the Workforce

Hiring veterans has benefits, Lane says, as they are known to bring organizational skills, are mission driven, and understand clients’ mindsets and make them their own. 

“They listen, engage, and are looking to help solve problems. And again, a consultative mindset for early career professionals is something generally we have to create training programs for. It’s a little bit more innate in the veteran population,” says Lane. 

Overall, the company says 10% of its workforce is comprised of veterans but Lane stresses there is room to grow. 

“The number of veterans that are coming out of the military every month is just a massive opportunity for us to lean into that even further and help address the needs of our veterans to create all new secondary career paths for them.  But it also serves a need that we have in order to serve our clients.”