Kelly Pigott, Senior Manager – Enablement
By Kelly Pigott, Senior Manager – Enablement at DailyPay
“We hire military veterans because they make great employees. They bring proven technical and leadership skills. They understand teamwork, and they’re adaptable. Bottom line, hiring veterans is good for business.” — Randall L. Stephenson – Former CEO, AT&T
In honor of Veterans Day, I wanted to reflect not just on the skills, but on the very character that veterans bring to the workplace. This is a topic I feel passionate about. Based on my six years in the Air National Guard, my 13+ years as an Army spouse, and the countless roles I’ve hired, I’ve consistently seen three qualities that deeply resonate and make veterans stand out: resiliency, adaptability, and teamwork.
These aren’t just bullet points on a resume; they’re the foundations of success forged through experience, uncertainty, and absolute commitment to the mission. Let’s look at what that really means for your organization.
Pigott, Serving in Air National Guard
Resiliency
Resiliency is about more than bouncing back; it’s about returning to a functional baseline after a major change, while acknowledging that the baseline itself has shifted. Veterans are rigorously trained to develop coping strategies and problem-solving skills to manage complex, high-stakes events. Their focus is always on speed and effectiveness, rapidly processing an event so they can move on to the next critical task. When a crisis hits in the corporate world, they aren’t the ones delayed by the new reality. They’re the ones already identifying the quickest path forward.
Adaptability
Veterans are conditioned to perform at a high capacity in any condition and ever-changing environments. This demands swift, thoughtful, and targeted responses to the specific conditions of that moment. They’re often doing all of this while remaining cool, calm, and collected, a kind of focused persistence born from intensive training. There’s a military phrase that sums this up perfectly: “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!” This translates into an employee who doesn’t need a perfect process or the ideal environment to deliver results. They simply find a way to get the job done.
Teamwork
Every role and rank in the military demands effective collaboration and teamwork, whether you’re a finance specialist managing pay and travel or you’re a civil affairs officer working to build trust with local tribespeople in an area of operation. These relationships are put to the ultimate test when you introduce stressful, sensitive situations like combat environments and major deployments. The team dynamic must thrive and perform under pressure. To achieve this, military members build a deep foundation of trust and camaraderie that allows them to succeed. They know the mission fails if the team fractures.
A Final Note for Hiring Managers
People leaders and hiring managers: these skills are only the beginning! Yes, reading a service-member’s resume may seem daunting because the military terminology can look foreign compared to a standard job description. I strongly encourage you to review these resumes with a renewed perspective and lean into finding these transferable skills. The truth is simple: You can easily teach and coach the hard skills of a specific role, but you cannot easily teach the innate resiliency, adaptability, and teamwork that a veteran brings. Open your doors, trust their training, and watch your organization immediately become stronger.
