Pederson Receives RecruitMilitary's First Veteran Leadership Award

LOVELAND, Ohio - Sept. 17, 2014 - PRLog -- RecruitMilitary, the nation’s leading military-to-civilian recruitment firm, has named Joshua Pederson, a former Marine sergeant, the winner of the company’s first Veteran Leadership Award. Entrants were asked to upload a photo along with a 150-word “caption” explaining how they embody leadership on RecruitMilitary’s Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/recruitmilitary) page. The contest ran for five weeks and ended on September 1, 2014 and received more than 100 submissions and 20,000 votes. The company’s Facebook audience has grown from 26,000 to 76,000 in the past two years.

Pederson served in the Marine Corps from 2000 – 2004 as an engineer equipment operator, and was among the first wave of troops deployed to Iraq.  He is a current Mission Continues Fellow and Veteran Liaison for the Travis Manion Foundation’s west coast office, and assists fellow transitioning veterans in the foundation’s mentorship and advocacy program for veterans. He is also the Professional Development Committee Chairman of the Veteran Alumni Organization at San Diego State University (SDSU). Pederson is involved in the campus student veteran organization and serves as assistant house manager of the Veteran House at SDSU. He received his bachelor’s degree in financial services and economics from SDSU in 2013, and is currently enrolled in the university’s master’s degree program in financial and tax planning.

Pederson said, “I feel honored to accept this award and am humbled at the amount of support I received. However, I know my story is just one of many in the greater veteran population -- and there are thousands of other veterans just as deserving of such an honor that are leading the charge and doing great things in communities across the nation.”

The time management and multi-tasking skills Pederson learned in the Marines allow him the time to wear his many hats. “Prioritizing and delegation get to be second nature in the military,” he said. “You learn to plan with the end in mind and hit certain benchmarks along the way to measure your progress.”

As Assistant Veteran House Manager, he supervises eight work study students, including scheduling and delegating tasks to keep the house operating smoothly – kind of like running a platoon, he noted. He also oversees VIP and social events for the house, which is situated on the SDSU campus near veteran-occupied rooms, and serves as a rallying point for fellow veterans to network and study. “We try to create an atmosphere of belonging,” he said. “We want other student veterans to walk in and feel like they are in a safe place with others who share a common bond of service, like a brotherhood or a sisterhood.”

Adobe sponsored the social media contest for veterans who embody leadership, and awarded prizes ranging from an Apple MacBook Air loaded with a suite of Adobe products, to career counseling and resume services. Pederson will also be featured in RecruitMilitary’s bimonthly magazine for job seekers (Search & Employ®), on Search-And-Employ® Online, and across RecruitMilitary and Adobe social networks.

As a company that actively engages with its veteran audience, RecruitMilitary has earned accolades for its social media outreach progams, and was recently named among “30 Businesses that Are Rocking Social Media, (http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/07/best-social-media-marke...)” by Small Business Trends, a leading online publication for small business owners, and entrepreneurs. RecruitMilitary was also named among the 2014 CincinnatiBusiness Courier’s “Fast 55,” which ranks the fastest-growing private companies in Greater Cincinnati. Its website has received two consecutive User’s Choice Awards from Weddle’s (http://www.weddles.com) for 2013 and 2014. Weddle’s is a publisher of guides and directories that focus on the employment-related area of the Internet.

About RecruitMilitary:  RecruitMilitary (http://mashable.com/) helps organizations excel by leveraging the talent of our nation’s finest people, our veterans. Founded in 1998, the company hosts hundreds of veteran job fairs around the nation that provide thousands of veterans the ability to interact with leading companies and other organizations (http://recruitmilitary.com/employers/expos).  In addition, the company offers the largest and most complete database of high-quality veteran talent with over 715,000 members (http://recruitmilitary.com/employers/resume-database). The company also distributes Search & Employ^® magazine on American military bases worldwide (http://recruitmilitary.com/employers/search-and-employ).

Company leaders are available to speak and write on any topic related to veteran hiring, job search, and tapping the veteran talent pipeline for organizational excellence.