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From Chris Cortez, Vice President of Military Affairs
10 years in the past we created the Microsoft Software and Systems Academy (MSSA) program to attach the dots between the scarcity of technical expertise and the abundance of under-employed army expertise.
I and a core workforce of Veterans working at Microsoft acknowledged the immense impression our army expertise imparted in our method to technical gross sales, engineering, and enablement. We understood that each skilled begins from fundamental expertise and builds from there, and we knew from our personal army careers the work ethic and insurmountable grit that army professionals possess.
We got down to design basic coaching that would get a service member’s boot within the door to an entry-level profession in IT—a discipline involved about discovering sufficient IT professionals to fill demand. With help from Frank Shaw, Corporate Vice President for Communications at Microsoft, we pitched our answer to Microsoft’s expertise scarcity to Microsoft management.
Months later, and after exploring feasibility with the Department of Defense and garrison commanders at army installations, Microsoft launched MSSA’s first cohorts at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. After course completion, we celebrated this milestone second alongside Microsoft President Brad Smith and U.S. Senator Patty Murray (WA). Based on the enthusiastic reception from veterans and the Department of Defense’s SkillBridge Program, we expanded to school rooms supporting army members at bases and installations in California, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia. By 2019 MSSA established school rooms on 12 army bases spanning 7 states, together with Schofield Barracks on Oahu.
But it hasn’t all been easy crusing.
We’ve tailored to many curveballs over the last decade, reworking to remain true to our mission. Just after we appeared to get it proper and grasp the method, COVID occurred.
Transformative adjustments in IT demanded revamping of our technical curriculum, which we develop and evolve to satisfy hiring calls for. We’ve often refreshed and created studying paths that replicate hiring traits and enterprise wants, and guarantee they equip MSSA members with the fitting information and expertise to carry out a profitable job search.
When a worldwide pandemic made in-person educating unattainable, we pivoted our school rooms from in-person instruction delivered by educational establishments to reside digital school rooms led by material consultants from Microsoft licensed studying companions. This flexibility enabled us to stay open as a SkillBridge program all through the coronavirus emergency.
As international markets rebalance within the wake of a tepid recession, we centered on creating a complete skilled improvement curriculum—together with job search ways, interview expertise, {and professional} goal-setting—enabling veterans to be extra aggressive and empowered of their job search.
At the identical time, Microsoft and the MSSA Hiring Partner community proceed to recruit MSSA expertise to start out their tech careers with them.
MSSA graduates information our program with their resilience and proceed to exceed our expectations within the impression they’ve had in a whole lot of firms and merchandise within the IT house.
After 10 years of impression within the army and IT communities, the outcomes are in.
After 10 years, 3,603 army veterans and transitioning service members have efficiently accomplished our grueling 17-week coaching. We have labored with active-duty members and reservists from all branches of the armed forces and army veterans from all 50 states.
Hundreds of Microsoft workers have been employed straight from MSSA, with numerous extra rejoining the corporate later of their careers. We’ve recognized >1,000 firms we’ve labored with to position veteran expertise of their group, and practically 200 forms of IT jobs.
We’ve labored with graduates like Phuong Baguyos—an Army veteran who, after 10 years out of the workforce whereas elevating her household, adopted her husband’s footsteps and joined considered one of MSSA’s cybersecurity cohorts in 2018. With encouragement from her cohort and Microsoft mentors, Phuong fought for a aggressive function as a help engineer and has been thriving in that group for practically six years. Phuong and her husband—an Army veteran and 2016 MSSA graduate who right this moment works as a buyer engineer—have earned at the least one promotion apiece over their tenures and stay up for their 6- and 7- 12 months anniversaries with the corporate in 2024.
We additionally labored with 2017 graduate Dave Porter, a veteran of the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment, who leveraged his time at MSSA discerning his pursuits as a technologist within the protection house. Dave landed a job at Microsoft as an account government on Microsoft’s U.S. Army account workforce, the place he helped safe HoloLens enterprise with the Army, travelling to Afghanistan a number of occasions to develop the know-how and enhance its utility and wearability for the troopers who’d use them. He’s now a senior director supporting the U.S. Air Force and Space Force.
These are solely a handful of the 1000’s of proficient professionals who acquired their begin in IT, partly, by means of MSSA. Read extra in regards to the impression MSSA graduates are having in IT in our sequence ‘10 heroes for 10 years’, the place we profile an MSSA graduate from every year of our program.
The MSSA group has enduring impacts in IT, past the know-how they construct and affect.
Here at Microsoft, MSSA members and alumni led the way in which to reinforce our Veteran-ready practices:
Since 2017, 687 Microsoft workers have volunteered to mentor MSSA members—monitoring practically 40,000 mentor hours. Mentor hours helped fund the development of a brand new house for the Gary Sinise Foundation RISE recipient Ian Prescott, a 2022 MSSA graduate. A overwhelming majority of MSSA mentors proceed to volunteer for extra cohorts, and some even contemplate it a spotlight of their job.
MSSA alumni helped to originate the Military@Microsoft Employee Resource Group and advocate for firm sponsorship for community-building occasions and programming—making Microsoft a extra Veteran-ready place to work.
Our alumni efficiently advocated for Microsoft to incorporate army group illustration in self-reporting initiatives that help army inclusion in our annual Diversity & Inclusion report. Advocating for army group illustration as a demographic helps Microsoft to know its group make-up and lead the trade in advantages like job safety throughout prolonged army deployments for army reservists.
Our graduates additionally served as a proof level in our advocacy for Microsoft to think about equal expertise as equal to training necessities in job adverts and recruiter screenings, eradicating obstacles for veterans getting into the workforce.
And within the IT house at giant:
MSSA’s progressive curriculum and hiring fashions have been acknowledged as a ‘best practice’ within the veteran skilling sphere, extending past the Microsoft and MSSA Hiring Partner group to have a constructive impression on veterans’ profession transitions. We work carefully with Microsoft’s Worldwide Learning group to outline and supply to MSSA members particular studying paths, courseware, and credentialing alternatives centered on IT roles which can be in demand throughout a various set of industries. Our coaching and hiring mannequin have additionally been leveraged by the town of Los Angeles, which launched a first-in-the-nation Los Angeles Veteran Technology and Training Academy in 2021—adopted by the town of Chicago and Cook County, Illinois with Chicago Cook Technology Academy in 2022.
We’ve additionally cultivated a Hiring Partner community of over 1,000 particular person firms that interview and rent MSSA members straight from their cohorts—a community that channels MSSA expertise to Microsoft companions and buyer organizations.
We’re not solely profitable—we’re infusing our success all through the IT trade.
When we set out on this journey in 2013, we made a guess that army expertise was greater than outfitted to talent up and fill the IT expertise hole then rattling the IT trade. What we didn’t foresee is the dedicated and impressed community of advocates for army expertise we’ve developed on this decade.
We’re grateful to the over 1,000 Microsoft companions that infuse army expertise all through our trade by bringing MSSA graduates onto their workforce to start out their civilian careers. Companies like Southwest Airlines, a Microsoft associate who developed their Warrior Hire program to onboard MSSA graduates to their engineering programs, proceed to put money into veteran expertise alongside Microsoft.
Looking ahead
Approximately 200,000 service members go away the U.S. army every year. Each of them embarks on a profound private and profession transformation stuffed with thrilling changes, decisions, and alternative.
As we glance again on a decade of the Microsoft Software and Systems Academy, we’re honored—and so proud—to have served every of the three,604 army veterans we’ve been in a position to work with as they embark on the following part of their profession journey. We’re thrilled to deepen ties with our 3.6k-strong community of MSSA Alumni by means of the MSSA Alumni Network. We’re enthusiastic to proceed to satisfy the problem and duty of working with this unbelievable inhabitants to attain significant careers in IT—and open the doorways to new cohorts of veterans when our subsequent cohorts start in January.