Filling the skills gaps in your workforce: is the solution closer to hand than you think?

Ex-military personnel become an ever more attractive recruitment option as skills shortages persist

With every major survey on employment and recruitment continuing to show that businesses are finding it hard to recruit staff, a valuable source of skilled and motivated people is out there, ready to bring their expertise to local companies: members of the armed forces who are getting ready to leave the armed forces and pursue their civilian careers.

Alan Mitchell, Chief Executive of Fife Chamber of Commerce, said: “With so many businesses having to work so hard to try to recruit many job vacancies, it is vital that they are considering every potential source of new labour and pro-actively putting themselves at the front of the queue to attract them. One source of potential new recruits that I sometimes think is overlooked is members of the armed forces who have left the service or are preparing to leave and enter the civilian labour market again. That is a big motivator for Fife Chamber to be a founding partner in the ChamberFORCE project. We want to create those links and relationships between military units and personnel and local businesses to facilitate the smooth transition from military to civilian employment and, quite frankly, we want businesses in Fife to be leading the way and getting the pick of the best candidates coming out of the military. That is why we will be actively pursuing a full programme of ChamberFORCE events. The first ChamberFORCE event takes place on 7^th October at Cluny Activities, so if you want to learn more about the value in employing ex-military personnel and have some fun with other local businesses, why don’t you join us at this free event by clicking here.”