Thank you very much for hearing me.
My name is Thomas Harrison, and I'm a chief warrant officer currently serving on my way out on a medical, 34 years in. I'm in education transition right now and that predominantly triggered me to talk to this committee.
In my year and a half worth of looking for work in the federal government I'm finding that I am very unsuccessful. I have it fine-tuned down to education. We have a lot of skills, but we don't have degrees. Can I go into a university class? I am doing university right now and excel absolutely, but I don't have that degree. I'm in six pools right now. I've been turned down in one and I have been retained in five, but I've been retained for the last two years without a whisper, as we say in the army: crickets. That's all I hear is crickets.
I'm not doing this search with a priority referral number, and I think that's significant. I think that any veteran has sufficient skills to be employed in the federal government one way or another, and shouldn't need a priority referral to get in the door. We have the skills. We work with the Canadian government every day.
I'm very disappointed in the process. Some of the tasking is certainly skewed towards a civilian approach, and I totally get that because the bulk of the recruiting is coming from civilian society. However, when we're doing things like judgment testing, we in the forces use very much a direct method. We use firm, fair and friendly in conflict resolution. When you start using those types of skills that you've learned over 34 years and put it into a judgment test, you can fail considerably in the judgment test because that's not what they're looking for. They're looking more for friendly and go to the supervisor all the time, not self-help, stuff like that.
In summary, my main point for being here is that I think all veterans have sufficient skills to stand alone and be employed within the federal government. However, a lot of us are getting screened out or just put in the queue never to be phoned again, and that's where I stand and that's why I'm here to talk to you today.