AMVET Member Creates Organizations to Help Veterans and their Careers

Fellow AMVET Member and 1st Vice Commander for Post 176 (in Richfield), Bryan A. McGown, goes above and beyond the call of duty; wanting to help veterans find a job for transitioning service members, or those who are looking for new careers. After leaving the government sector, he created a business and helped a start-up non-profit, both aimed to help veterans and employers connect as well as connecting military families to companies or organizations who have best practices in place to support the modern military family while driving our economy.

The first is GunnyRet Consulting, LLC. His for-profit company is dedicated to helping train veterans and spouses by providing free unlimited job search coaching. McGown refers his clients to employers in his network through contingent or retained search fees. All of these fees help him continue to provide the unlimited free job search coaching.

"It's important to care for our veterans and their spouses who may be seeking employment," McGown said.

McGown swears to never charge a veteran for his job search coaching services. He feels this training is important to offer.

All of the services through GunnyRet Consulting are found online on the website www.gunnyret.com. First, a veteran can submit their resume to the website then sign up for all their consultations right online. Click on the "Veterans and Military Spouses" tab and then "Make an Appointment".

His consultations work in stages, starting with an assessment of needs, then resume review and upgrade, technology coaching, LinkedIn training and more.

"I put all the tools they need into their toolkit to help them find the right job or career based on their goals and needs," he said.

Gunny McGown offers other services as well. The website has a business directory, where businesses, non-profits, or individual business professionals may list their businesses at discounted prices. This offer is extended to civilian owned companies who want to get in front of more veterans, and support the job search coaching provided by GunnyRet Consulting.

Employers may list jobs available for veterans at www.gunnyret.com, and a basic listing of mostly military-related non-profit organizations that are geared towards helping veterans can also be found on the page. Civilians can get job coaching from McGown as well with low-cost fees.

The second is NEOVETS, which McGown is a founding board member. This non-profit certifies companies whose HR professionals are trained to hire and retain military talent through their Certified Military Talent Employer (CMTE) program. NEOVETS will train HR professionals in any organization and then certify the employers after submitting an approved application.

Currently, there is a growing list of more than 10 companies who have either already been approved, or have pending applications.

McGown said veterans benefit from NEOVETS in multiple ways. One is when an organization becomes a part of the NEOVETS community, they promise they will give feedback to military applicants as they go through the hiring process. This way, they know what they are doing right and wrong for future job interviews. The other opportunity is that veterans become part of a Military Talent Pool that is exclusively available to our Certified Military Talent Employers; who believe strongly in our program. Find more information about NEOVETS on their website www.neovets.org.