It's Not WHAT you know, but WHO you know.

In a nation of uncertainity during this economic recession, jobs are becoming ever so scarce. We have been in the market for a new career since the military informed us my husband would not be allowed to re-enlist due to the mandatory reduction in forces the Navy was implementing.

With months of preparation and job hunting, we found ourselves in November with a DD214 in hand and still no prospect of a job. We thought things would get better once we returned stateside and were able to actually search for a job.

No such luck.

Was it possible that the news we received while being stationed abroad was all true and not a product of media hype? It appears to be so.

According to an article written in May 2009 by USAToday, the unemployment rate of Veterans was at 11.2% while the mainstream unemployment rates were coming in at 8%. So at the same time we were hard at work trying to find post military employment, we were already being put a step behind civilians.

By September the rate had skyrocketed to a ghastly 17.3% and by December it had reached 20.8% unemployment for Veterans. We are now a part of the statistic.

So I return to my father's words when I was in college, sometimes it's not about what you know, but who you know. This time of economic struggle has led the job market to hire on this philosophy. More often than not those few people that are getting hired are getting hired based on references from people they know inside the company. That is not to say that they are not well educated and qualified for the position. However the fact that they know someone in the company has given them a leg up.

I recently met a mom in my playgroup that happens to work for a prominent San Antonio company, and once we got to talking about work and such, she told me that her company has made a big deal to hire veterans to meet a quota as well as they base alot of their new hires on employee referrals. This just goes to solidify things that I had already suspected about the current job market.

So why are Veterans still so vastly unemployed?

When it comes to WHO you know, networking is a key factor. By being in the military, those that you network with tend to be in the same field as you - military. Going out into the civilian workforce after even four years of military service, you are walking into a completely different forum than it was four years prior. With technological advances of software and even hardware, you could find yourself out of place. Even the people that you knew four years prior are in different places and it is somewhat difficult to network with them.

One of the most common things I heard from being a sailor as well as an Ombudsman is once you join the military, sailors, soldiers and alike return home and find themselves different. They don't always feel like they fit back in with those friends they had prior to joining the military because their lives are so greatly changed by their service. This also leads to networking issues and gives the Veteran workforce a great disadvantage.

I see the bumper stickers, especially around Veteran's Day, Hug a Veteran or Have you thanked a Veteran today : the best way to thank or hug a Veteran today is to help them find a job so they can be as productive in the civilian society as they were when they served.