The Labor Department will help transitioning veterans find federal jobs as part of its extensive veterans assistance programs.

"We have access to the supply — about 150,000 transitioning service members who come through [Labor's] Transition Assistance Program every year," Raymond Jefferson, Labor's assistant secretary for veterans' employment and training, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday. "We will be mobilizing to make unemployed veterans and transitioning service members aware of this new opportunity."

President Barack Obama signed an executive order Nov. 9 creating the Veterans Employment Initiative, a program that requires federal agencies to create plans to hire more veterans.

Jefferson said Labor plans to promote examples of best veteran-hiring practices to other federal agencies. The Homeland Security Department's new veteran outreach Web site, www.dhs.gov/veterans, is a good example of what agencies can do, he said. That site provides information on veteran assistance programs, contracting and volunteering opportunities, veterans preference and the hiring process, and job vacancies.

"We're looking at all the different steps each department is making to get the most impact on this mission and communicate those throughout the federal government," Jefferson said.

Jefferson said Labor hopes to improve its employment of veterans through more community outreach. Labor's human resources office is also reviewing hiring processes to make sure they are veteran-friendly, he said.

One problem Labor wants to address is that many veterans find it hard to explain the skills they learned in the military on a résumé in a way that employers can understand. As a result, employers assume veterans' skills won't translate to civilian positions and they miss out on jobs. Labor's Employment and Training Administration has a pilot program that helps veterans translate their military skills for civilian employers, Jefferson said. Labor also plans to work with the Society for Human Resource Management to find new ways to help veterans translate their skills.

"This is a huge opportunity, and one that we're excited about," Jefferson said. "We want veterans to make it easy for employers to know how to leverage their skills."

Labor is also piloting accelerated hiring programs at its Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and Job Corps program to make it easier for them to hire veterans, Jefferson said.

"Such pilot programs will allow us to refine and validate an operational model and identify best practices that can then be applied more broadly to other veteran hiring initiatives," Jefferson said.