Each year, approximately 200,000 military service members leave active duty and face unique challenges when transitioning into the job market, including translating their military skill set to civilian job applications.
That’s why we’re partnering with the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employment Navigator and Partnership Pilot (ENPP) — a program that offers transitioning service members and their spouses one-on-one career assistance before leaving the military. Google will support these efforts by offering training with our Google Career Certificates and Google Cloud trainings and certifications at no cost at select military installations worldwide, including Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Drum in New York and Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.
The Google Career Certificates provide training to help service members and their spouses develop job-ready skills and earn a credential in the fields of data analytics, digital marketing and e-commerce, IT support, project management and user experience (UX) design. Those who complete the Google Career Certificate program have access to a consortium of over 150 employers interested in hiring our Certificate graduates. They can also choose any of the Google Cloud certification preparation courses, then pursue a certification at no cost to prepare for roles like cloud engineer, cloud developer and security engineer.
Thousands of Google Career Certificate graduates are service members, military spouses or veterans, like Michael Pollack. Despite having strong skills from his time in the Marine Corps, Michael found it difficult to land a job in data analytics without a related degree. To become more competitive for job opportunities, he enrolled in the Google Data Analytics Certificate and within one month of completion was employed as a healthcare data analyst. Michael says he’s confident the skills he gained through the certificate will help him continue to grow his career.
To help military service members transition to the civilian workforce, in 2018 we launched a special feature in Google Search to make it easier for them to find their next job opportunity. Service members can search “jobs for veterans” on Google and then enter their specific military job codes (MOS, AFSC, NEC, etc.) to see relevant open civilian jobs that require similar skills to those used in their military roles.
This program builds on Google’s ongoing work to help the military community find promising careers after service. Last year Google.org gave a grant to Hiring our Heroes to launch Career Forward, to provide 8,000 veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses with no-cost access to Google Career Certificates and wraparound services including training, job search support and opportunities for paid fellowships.
The DOL ENPP program and Career Forward are just a few ways that Google is supporting the U.S. armed forces, including providing modern communication and collaboration solutions through Google Workspace to 250,000 military personnel.
By partnering with the Department of Labor’s ENPP to provide access to the Google Career Certificates and Google Cloud training and certifications, we are building our efforts to increase economic opportunity for military families as they transition into civilian life. You can learn more about the work we’re doing at grow.google/veterans.