RallyPoint Getting Veterans LinkedIn to Each Other

Veterans, active duty military, tap social media network for support
FoxNews.com
By Brian Mastroianni
Published March 02, 2015

Around last April, LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke was approached by Yinon Weiss about supporting an interesting twist on the social media networking model that he helped introduce back in 2003.

Weiss, who served for 10 years on active duty as a Marine Corps scout and sniper platoon commander as well as an Army Special Forces officer, met with Guericke to discuss RallyPoint, a professional network for active duty members of the military and veterans alike.

Weiss founded the site back in 2012 alongside Aaron Kletzing, another veteran, when they were both students at Harvard Business School. In fact, the idea literally was formed on the back of a napkin in a Cambridge, Mass. restaurant.

The two men saw their project as filling a big void for military personnel – both veterans transitioning to civilian life and individuals serving on active duty often express frustration at not having guidance and networking in navigating life in and outside of the military.

Flash forward three years, and the site has grown beyond networking.

It is a social forum that has become an online community, sounding board, and professional guide for over 500,000 veterans and active duty men and women serving in the military.

The site’s growth has made it an indispensable resource for individuals hailing from a very specialized career who didn’t necessarily find the guidance and social connections they needed from sites like LinkedIn or Facebook. With the announcement last week that Guericke was joining RallyPoint’s board of directors the site has further established itself as a go-to social networking venue.

“One of the big problems for people from the military is that they don’t build a strong network,” Weiss told FoxNews.com. “It’s not really part of the culture of the military – you don’t have a resume, you don’t practice job interviews, you typically get assigned to places, and you don’t have much influence over that. So, when you transition to civilian life, it leads to intense frustration.”
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