From Chris Cortez, Vice President of Army Affairs
10 years in the past we created the Microsoft Software program and Techniques Academy (MSSA) program to attach the dots between the scarcity of technical expertise and the abundance of under-employed navy expertise.
I and a core workforce of Veterans working at Microsoft acknowledged the immense impression our navy expertise imparted in our strategy to technical gross sales, engineering, and enablement. We understood that each skilled begins from primary abilities and builds from there, and we knew from our personal navy careers the work ethic and insurmountable grit that navy professionals possess.
We got down to design basic coaching that might 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, Company Vice President for Communications at Microsoft, we pitched our resolution to Microsoft’s expertise scarcity to Microsoft management.
Months later, and after exploring feasibility with the Division of Protection and garrison commanders at navy 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). Primarily based on the enthusiastic reception from veterans and the Division of Protection’s SkillBridge Program, we expanded to school rooms supporting navy members at bases and installations in California, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia. By 2019 MSSA established school rooms on 12 navy bases spanning 7 states, together with Schofield Barracks on Oahu.
Nevertheless it hasn’t all been easy crusing.
We’ve tailored to many curveballs over the last decade, remodeling to remain true to our mission. Simply after we appeared to get it proper and grasp the formulation, COVID occurred.
Transformative adjustments in IT demanded revamping of our technical curriculum, which we develop and evolve to fulfill hiring calls for. We’ve commonly refreshed and created studying paths that replicate hiring traits and enterprise wants, and guarantee they equip MSSA individuals with the best data and abilities to carry out a profitable job search.
When a worldwide pandemic made in-person educating not possible, we pivoted our school rooms from in-person instruction delivered by tutorial establishments to dwell digital school rooms led by subject material specialists 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 growing a complete skilled growth curriculum—together with job search techniques, interview abilities, {and professional} goal-setting—enabling veterans to be extra aggressive and empowered of their job search.
On the identical time, Microsoft and the MSSA Hiring Companion 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 lots of of corporations and merchandise within the IT house.
After 10 years of impression within the navy and IT communities, the outcomes are in.
After 10 years, 3,603 navy veterans and transitioning service members have efficiently accomplished our grueling 17-week coaching. We now have labored with active-duty members and reservists from all branches of the armed forces and navy veterans from all 50 states.
Tons of of Microsoft workers had been employed immediately from MSSA, with numerous extra rejoining the corporate later of their careers. We’ve recognized >1,000 corporations we’ve labored with to position veteran expertise of their group, and almost 200 kinds of IT jobs.
We’ve labored with graduates like Phuong Baguyos—an Military veteran who, after 10 years out of the workforce whereas elevating her household, adopted her husband’s footsteps and joined certainly one of MSSA’s cybersecurity cohorts in 2018. With encouragement from her cohort and Microsoft mentors, Phuong fought for a aggressive position as a help engineer and has been thriving in that group for almost six years. Phuong and her husband—an Military veteran and 2016 MSSA graduate who at the 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- yr anniversaries with the corporate in 2024.
We additionally labored with 2017 graduate Dave Porter, a veteran of the Military’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. Military account workforce, the place he helped safe HoloLens enterprise with the Military, travelling to Afghanistan a number of instances 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 Drive and House Drive.
These are solely a handful of the 1000’s of proficient professionals who obtained their begin in IT, partly, by means of MSSA. Learn extra in regards to the impression MSSA graduates are having in IT in our collection ‘10 heroes for 10 years’, the place we profile an MSSA graduate from every year of our program.
The MSSA neighborhood has enduring impacts in IT, past the know-how they construct and affect.
Right here at Microsoft, MSSA individuals and alumni led the best way to reinforce our Veteran-ready practices:
Since 2017, 687 Microsoft workers have volunteered to mentor MSSA individuals—monitoring almost 40,000 mentor hours. Mentor hours helped fund the development of a brand new residence for the Gary Sinise Basis RISE recipient Ian Prescott, a 2022 MSSA graduate. A overwhelming majority of MSSA mentors proceed to volunteer for extra cohorts, and some even take into account it a spotlight of their job.
MSSA alumni helped to originate the Army@Microsoft Worker Useful 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 navy neighborhood illustration in self-reporting initiatives that help navy inclusion in our annual Variety & Inclusion report. Advocating for navy neighborhood illustration as a demographic helps Microsoft to know its neighborhood make-up and lead the trade in advantages like job safety throughout prolonged navy deployments for navy reservists.
Our graduates additionally served as a proof level in our advocacy for Microsoft to think about equal expertise as equal to schooling necessities in job adverts and recruiter screenings, eradicating limitations for veterans coming into the workforce.
And within the IT house at giant:
MSSA’s revolutionary curriculum and hiring fashions have been acknowledged as a ‘greatest observe’ within the veteran skilling sphere, extending past the Microsoft and MSSA Hiring Companion neighborhood to have a constructive impression on veterans’ profession transitions. We work intently with Microsoft’s Worldwide Studying group to outline and provide to MSSA individuals particular studying paths, courseware, and credentialing alternatives centered on IT roles which might be in demand throughout a various set of industries. Our coaching and hiring mannequin have additionally been leveraged by town of Los Angeles, which launched a first-in-the-nation Los Angeles Veteran Expertise and Coaching Academy in 2021—adopted by town of Chicago and Prepare dinner County, Illinois with Chicago Prepare dinner Expertise Academy in 2022.
We’ve additionally cultivated a Hiring Companion community of over 1,000 particular person corporations that interview and rent MSSA individuals immediately 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.
Once we set out on this journey in 2013, we made a guess that navy expertise was greater than outfitted to talent up and fill the IT abilities hole then rattling the IT trade. What we didn’t foresee is the dedicated and impressed community of advocates for navy expertise we’ve developed on this decade.
We’re grateful to the over 1,000 Microsoft companions that infuse navy expertise all through our trade by bringing MSSA graduates onto their workforce to start out their civilian careers. Firms like Southwest Airways, a Microsoft associate who developed their Warrior Rent program to onboard MSSA graduates to their engineering programs, proceed to spend money on veteran expertise alongside Microsoft.
Wanting ahead
Roughly 200,000 service members depart the U.S. navy every year. Every of them embarks on a profound private and profession transformation crammed with thrilling changes, decisions, and alternative.
As we glance again on a decade of the Microsoft Software program and Techniques Academy, we’re honored—and so proud—to have served every of the three,604 navy 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 Community. We’re enthusiastic to proceed to fulfill 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.
