Are you a Reservist? Want to work in defense contracting? Look at these companies first.
We started Friendly Forces for multiple reasons. The main one was to create a way for serving National Guard and Reserve service members to easily identify the employers who are most supportive of their military obligations. Here is where you can view our full list of where to work, contact us for a partnership, and submit your resume to get hired.
At Friendly Forces, being an employer supportive of the military means implementing paid military leave policies that act as a guardrail against service members facing extreme financial and emotional burdens for performing their duty.
We are beginning to take a closer look at different industries to see who within them is “walking the walk” in terms of support to the military. For our first look, we thought starting with the defense contracting industry made sense.
The defense and intelligence contracting industry is a substantial contributor to the U.S. economy. It generates billions of dollars in revenue annually and provides employment to a wide range of professionals, including engineers, analysts, cybersecurity experts, and more. Much of this world depends on cleared individuals. Well, as it turns out, Guard and Reserve service members make up approximately 20% of all DoD clearances.
If you’re looking to recruit and retain from this highly skilled, niche group of cleared professions OR you want to position your company to win more government business (it turns out DoD looks favorably on pro-military policies, weird), we suggest you implement paid military leave policies such as those at the companies listed below.
In 2023, Friendly Forces recommends the below companies for any serving reservist looking to work in defense contracting. For this list, we stuck to bread-and-butter defense contractor types, but we are aware there are many companies doing work with the government. We’ll cover some of these in future posts.
Per our Friendly Forces scale, ratings are based on the existence of, amount (full salary/differential/partial), and duration of a paid military leave benefit. Companies are downgraded if they attach conditions and caveats to benefit use such as employment tenure, distinguishing between eligible military orders, or lifetime benefit caps, to name a few we’ve seen.
5 STAR Reservist-Friendly Employers: Full Salary Continuation for 12 Months or More
• None identified so far.
4 STAR Reservist Friendly Employers: Some Salary Continuation Transitioning to Pay Differential for 12 Months or More
• Accenture
• Parsons
• BAE Systems
• Honeywell International
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• Guidehouse
• GE Aerospace
• LMI
• Rebellion Defense
3 STAR Reservist Friendly Employers: Full Salary Continuation and/or Pay Differential for 6 Months or More
• Raytheon
• ManTech
• KPMG
• Peraton
• Aviation Training Consulting
• Lockheed Martin
• Northrop Grumman
• VSE Corp
• EY
• CGI
• Boeing
• Maximus
• Rockwell Collins
Don’t see your defense contracting company listed above? There’s probably a reason, but this list is not exhaustive and we invite people to reach out if they believe our data is incorrect or outdated.
Check out the Friendly Forces website and search the rest of our database in our WHERE TO WORK section. Reach out to get your employer added—good or bad, and click here to submit your resume today. Knowledge is power!
