Exploring Veteran Career Pathways in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Using Sequence Analysis
Date: Sunday, August 8, 2021 | 1:30 PM to 3:20 PM
Authors: Joanna Schroeder, Joshua Randall Goldstein, and Sallie Keller
Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Defense and National Security
Abstract: We explored the career pathways of U.S. Army veterans in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC using Burning Glass Technologies resume data. Existing literature provides a methodological foundation for the use of sequence analysis to classify career pathways. We apply these methods to study career pathways using web scraped resume data and identify factors associated with career mobility. We implement a disciplined process of tuning parameters for clustering of sequences based on measures of cluster quality. Our findings include that veterans (compared to non-veterans) and officers (compared to non-officers) more often had careers characterized by more education, training, and experience. Our results imply that Army veterans, and officers specifically, may have training or experience that results in greater career mobility in this region. Our research is part of a larger project with the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences that seeks to develop predictive models and metrics to describe the career pathways of Soldiers to inform new quantitative approaches to Army personnel planning and talent management.