Veteran & Family Hiring Confusion: Chris (Founder of V&B Consulting) recently surveyed 50 Hiring Managers across several industries, while also attending numerous hiring events designed to attract top Veteran talent. He asked one very specific question: "why do you want to hire a Veteran?" The answers were not uniform in nature, were full of assumptions that will bleed money in the long term, and most had trouble answering the question right away in person. Most of these recruiters were not even the Hiring Managers or potential first line supervisors a Veteran or their Family Member might actually work for!

Chris knows the following concerns apply for most employers:

Turnover: The average employer spends 33–200% of a departing employee's salary to replace them. That's before lost productivity, knowledge drain, and team morale costs. Our pre-screened, mission-matched veteran placements are specifically designed to reduce first-year turnover — the most expensive turnover of all. When we get the match right up front, you save tens of thousands per hire. Structured support reduces Veteran turnover in the first year by 66% according to according to recent U.S. GAO reporting and IVMF Syracuse University.

Built-in Leadership: 77% of companies don't have enough leaders in the pipeline. 40% of current leaders are considering quitting. CEOs rank finding and developing talent as their #1 or #2 challenge. Veterans are the only talent pool in America that has been professionally trained in leadership from day one — in environments far more demanding than any corporate setting. The question isn't whether you can afford to hire veterans. It's whether you can afford not to. The Society for Human Resource Management also finds that 91% of HR professional's rate Veterans higher than their civilian counterparts higher in employer satisfaction for work ethic, teamwork abilities, and leadership skills. 

Mission Driven Culture: Building a mission-driven culture is one of the most cited yet least solved challenges facing American employers today. Studies consistently show that fewer than 30% of employees can accurately recall their company's mission statement, and even fewer see it reflected in daily operations — revealing a painful gap between what organizations say they stand for and how they actually operate. While only 15% of employers reported company mission was relevant to employee resignations, 62% of employees reported it was — representing the largest disconnect between employer and employee sentiment in the study. The consequences are measurable and costly. Your biggest culture problem isn't your mission statement — it's finding people who already believe in something bigger than themselves. Veterans don't need to be taught purpose. They've lived it. When you hire a veteran, you're not just filling a role. You're injecting mission-driven DNA into your organization at a time when 70% of your workforce has checked out.

Drug-free, security-clearance eligible: Getting a Top-Secret clearance can cost over $40,000 and take nearly a year. Many veterans arrive with active or transferable clearances — meaning you skip the wait, skip the cost, and deploy mission-ready talent in weeks, not months. That's not just a hiring advantage. That's a competitive edge. Your company may not require a Veteran with a clearance, but wouldn't you trust someone more if they were vetted already?

Work Opportunity Tax Credit: The Work Opportunity Tax Credit — which provided employers up to $9,600 per veteran hired — expired December 31, 2025. Congress has renewed it multiple times before, and reauthorization is actively being discussed. Vine and Branch is monitoring this closely and will alert our employer partners the moment it is reinstated — so you are positioned to capture every dollar available when it returns.

Adaptability & Resilience: 73% of your employees are suffering from change fatigue. 75% of your managers aren't equipped to lead through it. The civilian workforce is struggling with the very things the military trains for every single day. When you hire a veteran, you're not just filling a seat — you're injecting resilience, adaptability, and change leadership into an organization that desperately needs it.

Diverse Skills & Perspectives: Diverse teams make better decisions 80% of the time. Cognitively diverse teams are 58% more likely to get high-stakes calls right. The most overlooked source of cognitive and experiential diversity in America isn't in your current talent pipeline — it's in the veteran and military spouse community. These are people who have led across racial, cultural, and socioeconomic lines, solved problems with nothing but training and instinct, and built teams from scratch under pressure. That's not a DEI checkbox. That's a competitive advantage.

Military Spouses Also Represent Untapped Talent: Military spouses face a 25% wage gap compared to their civilian counterparts, with frequent relocations hindering job placements, career advancements, and tenures regardless of their education and experience. 80% of HR professionals are eager to hire military spouses — yet only 16% of HR teams have a strategy to recruit and retain them, and less than half feel they understand this group's unique challenges. There are 12 million military spouses in America. They are better educated than the national average, battle-tested in adaptability, intensely loyal, and desperate for an employer who will commit to them. Yet they face a 21% unemployment rate — five times the national average — not because of lack of skill, but because most employers have never built a strategy to reach them. Vine and Branch does. We bridge that gap — connecting you to one of the most overlooked, highest-value talent pools in the country.