EP 3: Venturing Beyond the Camo: Finding Purpose and Fulfillment in Civilian Careers

EP 3 -  Venturing Beyond the Camo: Finding Purpose and Fulfillment in Civilian Careers, featuring:  Derik Clark, Steve Cotone, William Allen, Brandi Brickler

Episode 3 presents a riveting exploration of diverse paths taken by veterans post-military service. Join us as we dive into the journeys of exceptional individuals who are looking ahead, or have successfully navigated the complex shift from military to civilian careers.

First up, we meet Derik Clark, a Reservist currently navigating the intricate 'soup' of transition. Derik is not just transitioning; he's proactively laying the groundwork for his future behavioral analysis business. His story is one of foresight and determination, with valuable insights for your post-military course.

Our expert segment features recruiter Steve Cotone. Steve provides an insider's perspective on what recruiters truly seek in candidates. His expert insights illuminate the qualities that make veterans stand out in the civilian job market and how they can effectively present these traits.

We then shift our focus to William Allen, a veteran who made a bold leap  into the world of Venture Capital. On the outside, William's story is one of seamless transition, but on the inside, he shared that the transition process 'can suck' and the programs and process in place aren't the greatest.  Will has tapped into a deep desire to learn the VC market, and as a fellow Podcaster for Frontsight's  "America Builds" he can fuel, and refuel his unwavering ambitions. He shares his experiences, challenges, and the lessons learned in this high-stakes industry, providing inspiration for those considering a similar path.

Finally, we hear from Brandi Brickler, a five-year military veteran and former military s

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the Military to Civilian Career Transition Power Hour, let us know. Go to www.xchangepodcast.com and click connect. A producer will read your request and get back to you. Thanks for your support!

Learn more about host, Cheryl Cross and her book, "CIVILIAN MISSION: The 3-Year Guide for Military Professionals Planning Civilian Careers" available for order online.

Transcript

Introduction: 0:00

Thanks for listening to the Military to Civilian Career Transition Power Hour One hour of tips from experts and real stories from people just like you. For those thinking about what lies ahead, for those going through the job search and those who have paved the way to their next career after the military. These professionals are dedicated to helping you move forward successfully to the next phase of your career after the military. Welcome to Xchange.

Cheryl Cross: 0:37

So, Derik, you were great at giving us resources on the folks that you were reaching out to, and I like that. You mentioned that you wish you may have started a little earlier asking for help and collaborating. You can do a lot of mentoring and I'm sure, through Vederati, at one point when you are fully on your own, you're going to return that service by being a mentor. Your posts on LinkedIn are so interesting to me because you truly are creating content that is something we can use all of us today. Why don't you give us some of the things you're really passionate about, things that our listeners can leave, go home, start working on or start working on today? What would you recommend?

Derik Clark: 1:24

I think the things that I like to talk about is just stuff that you can apply. I mean, there's a difference between here's what a body language signal is, and then here's the application. Can I tell a story? Sure, please tell all stories.

Derik Clark: 1:40

So the other day I was at the dentist's office and I walked in and I just opened up the door and for some reason, my as I opened the door, my arms swung open so they were away from my body. Now, that's generally when I'm in presentation mode. If I'm standing in front of an audience, then I'll open up my arms a lot more. So I was open already and then, when I was in the lobby, I saw, like I don't know, there's like 10 people in there in the waiting room. I was like, oh my gosh, there's an audience and I just kicked in to presentation mode. So I like stood a little taller and I showed them my palms. I was like here you go, here's my palms, I'm a presenter. And I was just like hello, everyone, welcome to the waiting room. And like, so like some people looked up and they were quizzical and some people smiled and some people you know one dude had like his phone and he was like really I'm busy here, and I was like I did what I do. I just sized up the room and I was like, yeah, all right, there you go. And the receptionist responded with the same type of energy. She was like yes, it's Friday, come on in. And I was like I own this room right now. I just own it.

Derik Clark: 3:06

And then I went over and I talked to the receptionist and she said but oh my gosh, you're an hour early and you know. So I just made a show of myself and everyone is now watching me. So you know, I did what I do and I turned to the audience, my new audience, and I was like I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry. I was supposed to come in and say hello to the 11 o'clock crowd. Not you guys. They all laughed at me. But here's the thing that's what I do. I present and I stand out and I look for those opportunities to engage people. But right after I did that, there was this woman that said oh well, I'm not in a hurry. If you need to go right now, you can. And I think that's the power of connection.

Derik Clark: 3:58

I connected with this group of people and at that moment she was like you know what? Maybe she was like I'm afraid of needles, I don't want to go in there, I don't know, but she offered this to me and I think that's where connection comes in. Now am I saying that you have to be grandiose and silly in order to make a connection with people? Absolutely not, but those are things that I do. So what I'm saying is do what you do. Your strengths are your strengths, so use them how you would use them to make a connection with people. If you're introverted, then use it to listen to people and help them through something, whereas someone extroverted like me would be like hey, hello everyone, what's going on?

Cheryl Cross: 4:44

I'm here. I'm here. Welcome to this show. Yeah, being an extrovert. My mother has a great saying If we were all the same, it would be a really noisy place, and I agree that we need extroverts and introverts and those who do not identify as either or any of those three. And you might be one one day and something else the other. You might be completely burned out from being an extrovert, not feeling extroverted, it doesn't necessarily feel introverted.

Cheryl Cross: 5:16

Yeah, and it's a lot of energy to put yourself out there, and I speak from as a super user. You give yourself some rest Interviewing. Let's talk about interviewing, because I know you're focusing a lot of your work on that, right? What are some of the things that you're coaching folks about now? The interviewees, not the interviewers. The interviewees, the folks that are listening to our podcast today. What are they waiting for? Top two or three or five or 10 or 20? However many you want to do. What do you think are some of the biggest issues, other than the fact that a lot of them those folks listening have not interviewed before?

Derik Clark: 5:55

So you're talking about, just like people who are interviewing for a job or Yep. Okay, I think some of the key factors are going to be starts from the beginning. Just realize that it starts from the time you show up in the parking lot. Really, Because how you show up, how you walk in, it sets a tone. How you say hi to people, it sets a tone. You have a chance beforehand to dry your hands, make sure the nuts wetty to breathe in and just control your breathing beforehand. So once you get in, make sure you're confident, you walk tall, increase your space without to have someone else's space. So there's a difference between my being confident and large and me taking up other people's space and invading their space. So be cognizant of that. But show your center of your body. It's what I call the vulnerability triangle, Basically the area between your eyes to your genitals. That's where your vital organs are. So when people are uncomfortable, they will tend to cover those areas up somehow.

Cheryl Cross: 7:15

Good truth. Yes, kind of yeah, like you're covering yeah.

Derik Clark: 7:21

You bring your head down into your body.

Derik Clark: 7:24

You show that you're uncomfortable and it's okay to be nervous in your interview, but you want to pray confidence and you do that by opening up that vulnerability triangle. One of the ways you can remember that is to keep your arms away from your body, so sitting a little closer than it was before. But if I can show you my palms, it's like a sign where I'm showing you like I don't have any weapons in my hands, so I'm not a threat to you and people feel more comfortable just looking at your palms. So, wherever you can, if you have your zoom interview, then make sure that you are in a position where you can show your palms. Yeah, except now, now your knife hand. There's my palm, but it's that's an invasion of space. Right.

Derik Clark: 8:13

And so you get really close to the camera. Invasion of space.

Derik Clark: 8:18

So where you can open up, it shows confidence. Where you can kind of keep your feet strong and sturdy, maybe shoulder width, then you're showing confidence. If you're bringing your feet underneath the chair, then it's kind of an escape mechanism. I'm trying to get away. If you're pointing your feet towards the door, you're indicating that's where you want to be. I don't want to be in this interview, I want to be out the door. You're sending signals that you are uncomfortable about being there. Handshake too Sometimes you'll see on like a lot of places you can look up anywhere about how people will. You know all the bad handshakes that you can do.

Derik Clark: 9:01

I don't want to cover what y'all are. You can look them up, but they happen, and sometimes they happen accidentally. So sometimes if you get a bad handshake, someone closes down on your fingers just a little bit too soon or you close on their fingers too soon. It's okay to reset and say wait a second, that didn't work, Let me try it again.

Introduction: 9:22

I think some people feel like they have to stick with it.

Derik Clark: 9:26

Especially in a job interview you want to get that good contact palm to palm which releases endorphins. If it's not right, fix it, then they know at least you're a person who wants to do things correctly. Okay.

Cheryl Cross: 9:42

I had a great tip that I want to share with you.

Cheryl Cross: 9:45

Someone I interviewed recently said that his commanding officer put everyone through a handshake test and would mentor people for 20, 30 minutes an hour, however long it took until they got to the right handshake to take out into the civilian world, and I thought that that's a nice commanding officer. I wonder what they were up to the other 40 hours of the week, and they were really appreciative of that, because to have someone that they admired, that was already a victim mentor, to give them that and to get that feedback. I think we learn so much on our own. Do it, and we look to YouTube, we look to LinkedIn, we look to things we can do in a quiet time on our own to learn. But I really want to explore what can you do, maybe with other people, not just your significant others or your children or your sister's, brothers, parents, whoever, or maybe your colleagues in your battalion or your fleet or wherever you are? How might you really start using these skills of working on them person to person? Do you have any tips for that?

Derik Clark: 10:57

So one of the things that I always do is first you go somewhere, anywhere you go, just watch, just look at people. I think we do this more often than not. We got the phone when as soon as we get somewhere and to avoid boredom, then all of a sudden I'm looking down, I'm looking away. We've been socially distancing at points in our lifetime and I think because of this, and maybe even with, as we see, more AI integration, we're going to lose out on a lot of our human to human skills. So first observe, like when you go places, watch people and see what they do, see what reactions they do as you hear their conversation, ask yourself why does their face look like that whenever they say this? You don't have to know what each signal in body language means. Even experts get them wrong sometimes.

Derik Clark: 12:05

What they notice is deviations from a baseline, deviations from something that is normal. So until you know what normal is, then you can't notice when there's a problem. And that may be a problem with PTSD and there may be a problem with just social anxiety.

Derik Clark: 12:34

Or even like you notice that there's a predator around a small child. You don't notice those things until you know what normal looks like and if we're forgetting that is. So, yeah, first thing, observation and then second, it's just like these, a lot of trial and error, like if you have trusted friends, if you see something that looks uncomfortable, sometimes we don't want to address it because we're like, oh well, that's just how they are, I don't want to get into their stuff, I want to leave them alone. There isn't anything wrong with saying I noticed you did this, what were you thinking when that happened? And because a lot of times you might pick up on something that you should pick up on and that you should talk about and sometimes you're misinterpreting the signal, but by asking about it, then they can explain a little bit about their thought process and then you can match that thought process with the next time you see that type of behavior.

Cheryl Cross: 14:00

Interesting. You said something about being uncomfortable and maybe think of something. You know we talk about creating both lines. The behavior panel talks about it a lot and it reminds me of your training and I realize now that you didn't say the word early in your introduction, but I know you've done interrogation. So when you're interrogating folks and you're interviewing folks, rather you're collecting information. You're a collector. As you're collecting information, you are trained to go deeper into something. If you see something, you say something because that might give you more information.

Cheryl Cross: 14:37

Now I try and teach people to do this in the interview. If there's something that they aren't quite sure of say a recruiter or a hiring manager is saying something that is a little ambiguous or if they speak really quickly, pass something please feel free to raise your hand and say you know you brought something up, but Rilu picks my interest. Can I ask you more questions about that? Or you mentioned an acronym and even though in the military you're living the world of acronyms, that acronym might not be something that you're familiar with. I think one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself is to ask those questions and not just to show that you're supposed to get through the interview. It is not your job to just muscle us through something. Now, if you know that we're not going to work for this company and you're just basically going through the motions, then let's not put this. But if this is a company you've researched, if this is somebody, a company that maybe one of your friends who has departed the military is working in your high referral, then you're going to spend as much time and energy showing interest and asking those questions.

Cheryl Cross: 15:45

Now, derek, you do the second liter because this has been your ex amount of years in the military. You do this for everybody. But let's say somebody's been working in finance or driving trucks, or just you know infantry. They're not really in the collection space, they're relying on Wu folks. How might they just really gain these skills? I don't mean in a hurry, I don't mean in a hurry but how might they start working on these things ahead of their transition timeline?

Derik Clark: 16:13

So I think you know I love the word that you used was interview. I actually I've never done a single interrogation, I'll tell you that right now. Not a single one, because I called it interviews. I say, you know, let's have a talk, you know like like whether it's an adversary or whether it's, you know like someone that's willingly giving me information. For me it's all the same, it's someone that is interviewing and we're just we're having a conversation and I think one. You have to just be willing to have those conversations. Just, you know, sit down.

Derik Clark: 16:53

We talked a little bit before about extroverts and introverts, but in either case, as you have, as you talk to people, then each one brings something to the table. So you're as an extrovert, then I want to, I want to get people talking all the time and I'll say things to get people talking, whereas introverts are more like like they're just good listeners and people can pick it up right away, like if I start talking, this person is going to listen. So, either way, you have your interactions and in those interactions, one of the things that you're going to want to know is and we talked about comfort and and and and uncomfort recognize that there's two things, that this is kind of binary body language For me. I just like to like to say that it's binary, and sometimes I talk to, like coders and stuff and I say that and it clicks for them because people are either comfortable or they are uncomfortable. Now, that comfort may vary in in you know, from from slight to extreme, but it's it's either or, and so if you notice discomfort in any degree, then it's for a reason. And so you I mean you just decided at that moment do I want, do I need to know the reason? Is it important to know the reason for for us to build this relationship or to get this job done? Or, if and if not, maybe it's. Maybe you hold up, hold up, but but keep it in your head, there's discomfort there.

Derik Clark: 18:26

When we talked about you mentioned finance, when we talked about a particular budget, like you're going to get this much budget, and then you see the discomfort.

Derik Clark: 18:36

Okay, address it, address it like.

Derik Clark: 18:39

Like, address it when you see it, because if you don't address it, then then like someone's going to be concerned about it for a long time and they won't think of, they won't be paying attention to anything else that you're talking about, and later on down the road when you're like, okay, we all agreed on this budget, then someone's going to side swipe you and in the next meeting and be like wait a second, we have some other things, we have some other issues, so, but there, but there, and it all stems from that discomfort that you're getting this much budget.

Derik Clark: 19:12

So once you, once you see like you throw out a particular point of interest that may cause issues, like I did when I went into the, the dentist office, like like I started sizing up my audience, like you know, this guy was smiling, this guy adjusted to see what, what you know, to see me better. This guy looked over and he was like, hey, I'm, you know I'm busy on my swipe and left on my phone. So now I know I have to work with swipe left guy, I have to. I have to figure out what his issue is before we can really move on, because he's not paying attention.

Cheryl Cross: 19:47

Until that point happens, and you're going to see that. We know it was true there's especially especially now that we go back in person. You're going to have people sitting in front of you like a panel, and I believe, just from the folks that I've talked to in the military, when you, whenever you're sitting in front of a panel of people, it's usually not a good thing, right, you're being, you're being investigated, you're being asked, you might be promoted, but it's, it's stressful. So if you've ever been in that situation in the military, it's not normally good. So let's try and erase that from your memory.

Derik Clark: 20:23

So everyone's been in the board where you're like oh my gosh.

Cheryl Cross: 20:26

Yes, and you know, sleep the night before I mean it's similar to an interview You're probably not going to sleep the night before. You're going to be doing your research. You're going to be looking everybody up on LinkedIn. You're going if you have the names of the people. I think it's really important that and I present a lot too I always find the people that aren't paying attention and I focus my attention on them. I never say it out loud.

Cheryl Cross: 20:49

I'm the president of a women's organization for this this current year and I have to stand at the dais and introduce our speaker and and talk about the business, the housekeeping, things like that. And you know this is a comfortable group. But there was a couple of women recently that were like chit chatting and I I just patient my way to them and then I started looking at them and speaking to them and they stopped. And that's a you know. I'm not saying that you're there to teach or school the people that are. You're more than you. But if you want to command, like Derek has taught us, the room you really have to show and I want to say this is a great way to show confidence Is that you slow down and that you focus your efforts maybe making eye contact, practice making eye contact and also, you know, speaking to the people that might be looking at their phone, not to make them uncomfortable but to let them know that you see them and that you are paying attention. I think you know I noticed that a lot two to three people, usually in interviews for my past clients and I do.

Cheryl Cross: 21:57

Then I do then coach the interviewers to make the interview needs feel more comfortable, especially if they're transitioning out of the military because they might not have those skills. We're really here to get to their functional technical expertise and then tell them about the company. So, while I do think corporations are shifting to the got you, to the welcome, we know you have choices. There's going to be those folks that are trying to get you, so be prepared for get you and then, if you get a welcoming interview team, wonderful. I make friends even if you don't get the job. What else would you like to add? I could talk to forever, derek, and I know our sevens are shorter, but I would love to have you back on the show as you progress in recruiter. Why don't we start by letting folks know how we can find you, maybe on LinkedIn. You know very unusual spelling of our first name, so why don't you go ahead and spell it out for the folks that aren't watching us?

Derik Clark: 22:54

So I do post regularly on LinkedIn just with some content that is like here's how the body language fits into everyday life, or how it fits into if you're an interviewer or if you're an interviewee. I kind of try to mix it up, but that's, it's a D E R I K, dot, c, l A R K, and you will find I, like I mentioned it, like the title say body language alchemist, and but also like I have a website that's called body sites. That's that's my company name, and is it S A, t, e, s or S?

Cheryl Cross: 23:34

H, g, h T S like yeah.

Derik Clark: 23:37

So so it's kind of a almost like a play on play on words with, because they're like the symbol has like a, like a, like a site post for a rifle, but then there's like a person with it as well. So because because like I want, I want people to be able to use this as a weapon, kind of to protect themselves, not no weapon to hurt other people, but you know, like understand how, how body movements are affecting you, how they, how they protect your, how you can use them protect your finances, your emotions, your, your physical person, your physical person and and and so that kind of that's. That's kind of where where that goes. But body sites of calm is where you can find some more information.

Cheryl Cross: 24:30

You're awesome. Thank you so much for your time and energy, Derek. I look forward to seeing how you grow in your business and really appreciate all the things you shared with us today.

Derik Clark: 24:41

Thank you for having me. I'd be happy to come back and talk to you anytime.

Cheryl Cross: 24:45

Oh yeah, you absolutely will. Thanks, have a great day. For those of you, listening would be right back.

Cheryl Cross: 24:54

Welcome to exchange. I'm Cheryl Cross. I'm so pleased to have one of our experts join us today, Steve Cotone. He is a 20 plus year veteran of the recruiting industry, but he didn't just come from recruiting. He has a background in both manufacturing and the defense contracting industry. He's going to bring us so many relevant things and things you can take away from the segment, but today we're going to be talking about resumes. Welcome, Steve. How are you doing today? I'm great. Thank you for having me. Oh, I'm so excited. You have so much information and I know you and I have had discussions and we've been planning this for a minute. What are your thoughts? What do you think the most important thing is for resumes? There's a lot of misinformation out there, but how might someone like the folks that are listening really do the best thing as they move forward to find a new job?

Steve Cotone: 25:49

Yeah, you know, I would say the number one thing is to make sure your resume is specific to the job or interview or company that you're looking for. That's you can have a master resume, which is great. You'll pull information from that, but being specific to what you're looking for and the job you're looking for is is the most important thing you can do.

Cheryl Cross: 27:04

How could someone who's got a lot of acronyms military service, non-civilian speak, information on their actual military resume, pull it over to a civilian speak type of resume?

Steve Cotone: 27:17

Yeah, I know, that's that I mean. That's great. We talk in acronyms all the time, but once you're outside of the military, those acronyms they don't translate to civilian life, just like individual industry speak doesn't translate outside of that industry. Skills are transferable, but the language isn't. So really think about again as you are beginning to really personalize your resume. Think about the person on the other side of the table that's looking at that. How might they see your resume and what might they understand and what might they not understand? If they don't understand your resume, your chance of getting in front of them goes way down. Yeah, so, oh, please, please, please.

Cheryl Cross: 28:07

No, I think you said something that's important your chance of getting in front of them. We need to talk about that a bit because I think that's one of the greater fears. But specific to resumes, I'm curious resource wise. I know, having worked in the military space for for a minute. There are resources available to these folks, to the folks listening. They are the military family support centers. Each base should have them or each branch of the military should have access to someone, even if you do a zoom call or a phone call, but I think that a lot of folks aren't taking advantage of this.

Cheryl Cross: 28:45

There's a ton of information on the internet. I learned something new, Steve. I don't know if you knew this. There are some companies that are taking an MOS and translating into what might work for their company big companies, telecommunications companies, ones that have both manufacturing Not, I would say, defense, but you know interior work, not going out and doing the work in the field. So I like that companies are starting to norm towards. How might we accommodate you? That's only a few companies. You brought something up about acronyms and I could go down the rabbit hole on acronyms forever. The military is famous for them. You use something about smart metrics in our show notes. Can you talk about smart as it as it, as it goes to this and what you met by smart and the metrics and using that in the resume? Thank you, I like that attitude. How might I help you? How might my skills lend to your organization? I think that's missed. We're so worried about putting all the good things that we did into a resume and it does burden it.

Cheryl Cross: 31:34

It's important to a hiring manager might not be exactly what you've done, but you do want to show that you have the skills that lean towards it.

Steve Cotone: 31:44

That's a great point. That's a fantastic point, and maybe we can set on that for just a second because it's so important. How might a hiring manager see what your ability is to help them? It does come down to relationships at the end of the day, but your resume is the story of how you can help them to get you in front of someone. That's the key, I agree.

Cheryl Cross: 32:14

Resume and for the folks that are listening and I say this a lot a resume is to get you to the next step. It is not to get your job, it's to get to the conversation of the job. The conversation of the job gets you the job. The interview gets you the job, but you got to get to the interview, and the resume is the key for that locked door. Since this is so important, I know you believe this too. Specializing a resume for each job. That feels like a lot of work, but why is that important to see?

Steve Cotone: 32:46

Yeah, a couple of reasons and it's really not a lot of work. It's research upfront. Know the company that you're interviewing or would like to interview with. That can be done online on their website. Know what they do. Know the role and you're looking at the role and then your resume. What are the skills that you have, what have you accomplished and how are they relevant to the requirements and position? And you'll pull those over. It's important for a couple of reasons. It shows you understand what you're applying for. It shows that you understand how to transfer your specific skill set into what they're doing outside of the military and then becoming personalized, going further down into your resume.

Steve Cotone: 33:44

We talk about, you want to talk about. You know the things that you know your school clubs, that you're engaged in groups that you're a part of. Well, who might be reading that resume? Din is a great tool for that to find out who's the hiring manager, who's the HR manager, If you are in that same club or you've got a connection. You have the same hobbies, anything to make that connection on your resume. Get it in there, because you've got two pages to make that initial connection, to try to get in front of them. Know the job, Show them that you can understand what they're doing and transfer your skill set in writing cohesively and concisely. And then you try to hit a relationship point, to make a connection.

Cheryl Cross: 34:38

We talked about the 11-page resume and then you talk about a two-page resume. I love that, the greatest one of the things. When I do my speaking and presentations, the one thing I tell people is please, please, try not to stick everything on one page. I don't care if you have only four years in the military, try and move it to at least two and brag a little bit about yourself specifically for the job. Don't try and get everything on one page. I found and maybe, steve, you found this too a lot of people are leaving things out because they have this bad myth, this urban legend, that every resume should be one page, and I think that's fine if you're just getting out of college or high school, but certainly not if you spend any amount of time in a specialty field in the military and you're looking to translate that to civilians.

Cheryl Cross: 35:28

What do you think about that?

Steve Cotone: 35:29

Yeah, I agree, and you can stretch it a little bit. But, just like the military, what's the end point up front? You want to know what the end point is up front. What are you trying to accomplish? Same thing with the resume In your chain of command. Do you want to hand someone six pages to 10 pages of what you're going to do, or do they want to see exactly what the smart activities are to accomplish the goal quickly? So yeah, if you've got a long story career, three pages ish. But I heard one and I don't know, I can't recall where I heard this. It was a training class. Brevity is confidence and if you can confidently say what you need to say and you can say it in brief, specific and measurable, you're exuding confidence and that's important.

Cheryl Cross: 36:27

Let's say that the folks that are listening don't have access to their career counselors or they're not getting the information they need. Where would you direct somebody? Could they work with you specifically, or how does that work exactly? Yeah, there's a handful of this?

Steve Cotone: 36:43

Yeah, absolutely. There's a handful of things, a handful of ways to engage. There are professional resume writers. You can pay someone to help you with your resume and they'll spend a lot of time with you in building out your resume. They do a great job and it's a service that is their job specifically. Absolutely, I work with folks all day long and I help them with their resumes. There's no cost to it.

Steve Cotone: 37:11

My goal is to get talented people in front of companies that need talented people, and we're matchmaking for the right position, finding the right person for the right role, and it's all part of it. So, yes, so I would say you can pay someone to do it. I'm happy to do it. Recruiters will help you. Most recruiters will absolutely help you with that, and there's a lot of great recruiters out there. And use the resources online.

Steve Cotone: 37:40

That's pretty social LinkedIn, linkedin, google, how to write a resume, but I would stay away from getting too fancy with your resume. It's more about the detail. Think more about the detail and less about the format. Formats change all the time, but oftentimes, when applying for a job, you're dropped into a computer program and oftentimes those computer programs may not keep up with the changes in formats of resumes. So, for example, a lot of programs that I'm, some programs I should say that I'm aware of, don't capture information on the left and the right side of margins. So if you've got your name, that looks beautiful on the right hand side or the left hand side of the margin no one will ever see it and you'll get shuffled right along and you'll miss the boat and not know why.

Cheryl Cross: 38:43

You know that's interesting, so you bring that up. I was using a wonderful ATM or CT it's called CRM system at one of the companies, and if somebody put their information into a header or a footer it wouldn't pick it up, so I would get a lot of blank resumes. Yes, how do I? And so I have to then take it out of the system, open it into my word program, hope that that, because it really it thinks it's part of the page, is what it does? I think it embeds it but it doesn't show up, and I don't know that everybody knows that. So thank you for bringing that up. I had forgotten about that.

Steve Cotone: 39:20

Yeah, it's important and in times of low unemployment resumes that companies are getting them in stacks, or high unemployment I should say flip it. But when hiring manager is seeing 50 resumes and one's not formatted properly, they'll just move on to the next.

Introduction: 39:45

It's a time They've only got so many hours in a day.

Cheryl Cross: 39:48

And you know it's. I know your background is in contracting, both on the manufacturing the defense industry, so worked around a lot of folks who will form a military. You're certainly bringing military talent to your clients, which are numerous. By the way, steve is an independent guy, he is an entrepreneur and his company, global recorder, global recruiters of state line in Illinois is a mouthful, but I know he's expanding his presence. You and I met on LinkedIn and you met. You mentioned the power of networking and we will be talking about that in another segment. Let's go back to resumes. One of the things, one of the questions that comes up for me and we have about five minutes left is government resumes versus industry resumes.

Steve Cotone: 40:36

The main difference is the length of the resume. It really is, and oftentimes in government resumes you know it, we, we see that and everything is put into that resume and and that's okay. That's why you have the master. It's you know, it's understanding what the person on the other side of the table is requiring or wants to see. So that's the main difference. I work with and with industry, and industry norms are to shorten that up a little bit and make it two ish pages, but it really is, you know. The difference is what's the expectation from the person on the other side of the table, and the expectation in the government is different than it is in industry with regard to the types of resumes and the size and the amount of information that's put in.

Cheryl Cross: 41:32

Well, I'll tell you this even if defense contractors are looking at resumes, they're sometimes. I saw a lot of those really long form GS type resumes that the federal resume banks kind of dictate. You know they, they work you through a system and I believe they're changing that. But until they do, I mean you can upload up to seven resumes into the government's website and that, you know, kind of plays to your let's, let's do specific resumes for specific jobs. But when I saw a government resume it made me realize that they didn't take the time to look at the company I was representing or really put the flavor. So I can't emphasize enough to the folks who are listening If you have, just take, take 15, 20 minutes and make sure that something isn't there that you refer to another company, really do some housekeeping, keeping on it.

Cheryl Cross: 42:28

And if you, if you aren't good at that stuff, find someone within your family or within your trusted circle, or maybe you know someone who's retired already, who's mentoring you, that can do that Certainly ask for help, like Steve, if you're going to take on a client and represent them to your, to your companies. So by client I mean a candidate. So if you were to take any one of the people that are listening today as they transition out of the military. You certainly would go through that with them, right, you would do resume prep.

Steve Cotone: 42:57

Absolutely Yep. So we will. We prep at every, at every step of the process, and the resume is a very large step of the process.

Cheryl Cross: 43:08

So, yes, Before we wrap up the show with our expert, Steve Cotone, I wanted to ask you, Steve, a little bit about certifications, education, your objective statement. These are important things on the resume. We talked a bit about format, but can you go into more detail on these things and where you like to see them and where your clients like to see them?

Steve Cotone: 43:30

Yeah, an objective statement right at the top. That's your, that's your first thing, and and three to four sentences, maybe five. Just a small, you know a small snippet of what your objective is Tells a little bit of a story. So I am X, y and Z, whatever your expertise is, you know here's I'm a 20 year expert in logistic supply chain and whatever that might be. Or I'm a 20 year veteran in engineering and and whatever that might be. I would like to be a part of an organization that allows me to.

Steve Cotone: 44:07

And from certifications, you know, oftentimes it it's most common that I see and I think it fits well as right below education. So you've got your education at the bottom of the page. And then certifications, you will see if you're an engineer. An engineer resumes are a little bit different, not not a whole lot different, but sometimes project work on an engineering resume is in the timeframe of where that project work happened. So that can be, that can be sliced in there too, as long as it's clear and it's concise, and that's just fine. Again, less about less about format, more about detail. On both of those things.

Cheryl Cross: 44:59

On certs. I want you to talk about acronyms. Since we've talked about acronyms, these are acronyms are important because search engines are recruiting, search engines are finding these things. So just keep in mind for the folks that are listening, and I'll say this as many times as I can to remind you the folks that are looking for your resumes need specific information. So if you write, let's say, you have a certification, security plus and you write out security plus well, a recruiter who's been recruiting and they say it or engineering space, they might put sec and then the plus sign and look for that. So sec and the plus sign is not going to pull up security plus if you write it out. So what do you recommend, Steve? Should they do both? Should they put security plus and then sec plus? What do you think?

Steve Cotone: 45:47

I would do both. Should they put the acronym and then in parentheses what that acronym is? Yep, absolutely Do both. The person understands it and the systems catch it. You're absolutely right.

Cheryl Cross: 46:01

Okay, personal contact information. I work a lot in, or have worked a lot in, the defense industry with cleared personnel, and a lot of folks in the military serving the DOD are cleared. My biggest beef is to get a resume be handed, a resume that has all of your personal details on it your address, your physical address, where you live, your clearance level and I really think the most important thing if you're applying to clear jobs is your clearance level, not your street address. Now, keep in mind folks, if you're applying to a job, you're putting that information into their system. So your thoughts on keeping the street address off the resume, steve.

Steve Cotone: 46:50

Phone number, email address, LinkedIn. That's all you need.

Cheryl Cross: 46:56

Zip code. So if they're.

Steve Cotone: 46:59

If you can, not really. You can put city and zip code if you'd like, but the three main things are there because if you're applying for a job and you're in their system, you're going to have to put all of that information in there anyway, so that's going to be in their system On your resume. If you are applying for the job in a specific location, you could deduce that you're in the area in which they're looking for you to work or you're willing to move there. So I see a lot of resumes that don't have City, don't have personal addresses. It's how you contact people and it's becoming more common with really those three main things. If you've got a LinkedIn, absolutely put your LinkedIn in there, a way for them to contact you.

Steve Cotone: 47:52

Phone number and email address and I think that'd be a great shape.

Cheryl Cross: 47:57

Thank you. Transition time I'm going to put this in every segment. If you are at least one year ahead of your transition time, you want to put that in the resume. We will have specific segments on when you should apply your TAPs or E-TAPs. Classes will also talk about this. If you get too far ahead of a company, you might not be considered because those jobs are usually need to be filled now. Working with folks like Steve who can keep you warm and work with you throughout the process If you are six months to a year out, you really have a sort of a recruiting coach on your side. That's a real plus. I think we've really cleared a lot of ground and, steve, you're such a wonderful person to talk to and bring such a unique knowledge base to this show. Is there anything you'd like to say before we knock off and go to the next expert or the next person who's going through this transition process?

Steve Cotone: 48:53

Thank you, cheryl, for having me. That's it. You know when people are out there to help, you know. Feel free, reach out to me anytime. Reach out to people that you trust, reach out to people that you don't know, that you want to network with because you're building relationships. It's all about relationships.

Cheryl Cross: 49:09

I just got goosebumps. Thanks, steve, we'll be talking to you soon, thank you. Welcome to Xchange. Welcome back to the show. We've got our I've done it. I'm doing it well segment. Somebody who's been out of the military at least five years, who and Will, you're probably going to correct me on this who's got it all figured out? Welcome to the show, will Allen. Yeah.

William "Will" Allen: 49:59

Thanks so much for having me. Yeah and yeah, let's kick this off by telling everyone that I really don't have it figured out, but happy to answer all these questions.

Cheryl Cross: 50:07

Is transition a forever thing? Do you think coming out of the military, getting into this, into the, or back into the civilian world? What are your thoughts?

William "Will" Allen: 50:16

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, transition for me was actually really tough, and that's because I didn't realize I was transitioning when I was in the middle of it. I had no self perception around the issue. It actually took a while for me to realize that these stressors that I was feeling which I think are pretty natural for anyone that's been to war zones and back were totally natural. I felt like I was in control of the things in my life.

William "Will" Allen: 50:46

But I wasn't, and I had a hard time admitting that, and so transition really sucked for me, and it took the perspective of my wife and my parents, my family, to help me see that and understand that. And you know, and I had all the faculties in life resources, schooling, right like a fancy education, a loving family to fall back on. And so now when I think about transition, I think about other vets. I always think about the guys that get out and don't have those things and about how transition for them is is going to be extra challenging and how we should be extra understanding in their, in their situation.

Cheryl Cross: 51:30

You bring up a great point. You know when all these stressors are hitting you and getting a job is a full time job? It really is. It's an eight hour a day thing. You're going to put out hundreds of applications, potentially thousands and you may not hear back from a quarter of them. If you've got stressors in your life, if things aren't really rolling in the deep, you might have challenges during the process.

Cheryl Cross: 51:52

How did that?

Cheryl Cross: 51:53

affect your career transition. How did these things happen? Yeah, I mean impact.

William "Will" Allen: 51:58

Yeah, I mean. I mean, I think that, like like any other veteran right, I got out and I too was applying for everything under the sun and I damn near fell back on just becoming a cop or firefighter, which are fine things to do, but it just seemed so obvious, like I carry a weapon for a living and so why don't I just keep doing that? And so I applied to every police department that I thought would be cool. I applied to federal agencies. The lead times on those were very long, though. You know, I had to go through polygraphs and background checks, and you know, my TS clearance didn't didn't transition from one agency to another, or whatever it might be. You know, I had the. I had the challenge of going into local police departments and they're, you know, look at me suspiciously and I'd be looking at them like you've never been under fire. And this became this, this measuring contest between people who have no business doing that, because we're all on the same side.

William "Will" Allen: 52:53

But you know, I was in grad school and I really felt lost in terms of, like outside of carrying a weapon. What can I do? What should I do? You know I was in New York City at the time. I was blocks away from Wall Street and, aside from walking onto Wall Street, I had no idea how to get on a Wall Street. You know, like I had no idea how to get a job there, but I could. I could walk to it. It wasn't self evident to me and I felt like I was kind of like, you know, walking in a dark room, just kind of like feeling my way along. So in terms of like being in the soup, if you will, I was in. I mean I and we're talking about somebody who is a Marine officer Again, loving family, loving wife, marine officer, ivy League education and I felt completely lost in the process.

Cheryl Cross: 53:42

What was some of the scaffolding? Aside from family, what helped you the most?

William "Will" Allen: 53:47

It's a great question. You know what helped me most? I think that there was a force, a forcing mechanism, which maybe veterans have it. Maybe all vets get to this point, maybe they don't, I don't know. The forcing mechanism was pure frustration in that I had taken a job. I was deeply unsatisfied.

William "Will" Allen: 54:08

You know I've got some funny stories about working at this place where I treated it like the Marine Corps and like they threatened to fire me because they were like you know, you can't force your subordinates to run at 5am in the morning, you know, and I'm like, but it's good for them and it's good for their life. And you know, and they're, you know, and they're fat and they're like you can't say fat. You know, and I'm like, what do you mean? Like you know, this is how we do it. Like you know, this is good for them. And you know, I'm not hazing them, I can't haze myself, I'm doing it with them. You know it's like it was like you know my seemingly obvious logic. And but then I had gotten to the point when I was working for this large, you know, multi-billion dollar consulting firm, where I literally just got in a truck, drove to California until I hit the ocean and I said I'm starting over and you can either fire me or keep me hired if you want, but I've hit a breaking point and that's what happened. And so it was almost out of pure desperation that I realized that I needed to break away from for me, this is my story Like I needed to break away from the corporate structure. I needed to break away from those expectations wearing a suit every day, putting a tie on you know, and I needed to break out and get into entrepreneurship, someplace where I could be my own boss and I could run or walk as fast, as low, as I wanted to.

William "Will" Allen: 55:24

And you know, I heard Ash Carter. I attended a talk with Ash Carter at the Center for well, what is the acronym? Csis Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. And Ash Carter said in today's world or he said back in the greatest generation, in his generation and then one before him, the greatest generation careers were like escalators You'd get on at the bottom, you'd do your time and you'd arrive at the top and everybody was kind of in order and there was somebody you were following behind and somebody behind you. But that today, careers for Gen X or millennials, it's more like a jungle gym and you can pick and choose the direction and the pathway that you want to take to get to the top. And if you've got the God given ability to jump a few rungs by yourself, you can do that. And I always felt like that was. It was.

William "Will" Allen: 56:14

First of all, it was really nice to hear a senior leader ie somebody I trusted express and articulate something I felt like I was seeing but couldn't articulate myself Like why am I on this escalator? It's so frustrating. It never goes faster, it never goes slower, it just goes. And then when he said that, I was like you know, I don't think I should be apologizing for these feelings. I feel like I should get in some open space, like in soccer, and start running and the ball will come to me. You know, let's develop the play in open space. You don't develop it in between players. Does that make?

Cheryl Cross: 56:45

sense it does, and you know, when you talk about the escalator, it reminds me of the military, because you start at the bottom and you rank your way up. You continually go your way up. I'm wondering, though you know you're a vetrepreneur, you're an iconoclast, you're definitely 100% a Marine and once a Marine always a Marine.

William "Will" Allen: 57:07

Yeah, I think that just means I'm wow thanks. Thanks for that, no not at all.

Cheryl Cross: 57:13

But you have the hallmarks of what is the number one performance measurement for anybody entrepreneur, vetrepreneur and that's determination. You're determined not to fit in an uncomfortable box For the folks listening, and maybe not everybody has your style, your personality, or was even in the Marine Corps. What would you suggest to them to kind of break out of that? I'm going to stand on the escalator and wait for it to take me to the top. I'm going to enter a company or I'm going to expect that the world today is going to start me at the bottom and pull me up to the top, just like the military did.

William "Will" Allen: 57:50

Yeah, I mean I think that it's a lot of. I mean there are basic military like kind of values that I learned in the military which I think are applicable here. There are others that I learned in the military which are not applicable, that kept me in the box or kept me on the escalator. Well, the expectation that real jobs come with suits and ties and fancy socks, and you know what I mean. Like I felt like that was obviously what I should be doing, because any self-respecting Marine officer should be playing a serious game in a serious city like Washington DC, and all those fakes out in LA are not real. You know they're worried about Kim Kardashian and so I would write that off and be like that's not real, that's not right. But I came to find out that that's not true.

William "Will" Allen: 58:37

Some of the best things that I learned in the Marine Corps were like if I want to develop a situation, I can attack you know we have this phrase in the Marine Corps called recon by fire. It's like, well, what is over there? Let's go shoot at it. Sounds a little dangerous, but you know, if it shoots back, then great, there's bad guys. If it doesn't shoot back, then you know we can reasonably assume we can occupy that space.

William "Will" Allen: 58:54

So you know, when I was on the escalator, I was very worried about not appearing or not or doing things that might get me off the escalator. And then I realized that, like when I was successful in Silicon Valley or in California, let's say, in the startup space, it was exactly those things, kind of like not lashing out but like doing non-traditional things that would get me ahead. Like you know, for example, you don't have to be nice to everyone. Like I used to be a basically people pleaser, because when I was in the Marines I wanted all of my Marines to like me and I wanted to get along with all the officers and I wanted my seniors to give me great fit reps. I want to be on the Christmas tree, I wanted to be ranked really high on the Christmas tree, and so I was a people pleaser and so that's just how it was and I felt like that's what it meant to be a professional or to get ahead. And then you know I'm not advocating anyone to be rude but the second you meet somebody who's not value accretive to what you're doing but actually a drag on what you're doing. You got to cut them out, you cut them out and you move on viciously, like it's the violence of action, which is like a great way to describe Again, like I learned, the violence of action in the Marine Corps.

William "Will" Allen: 1:00:00

But I also learned how to be a people pleaser in the Marine Corps for careers of purposes, and so I was only listening to one part of my brain, which was that like professionalism side, and I wasn't listening to the aggressive side of my brain, which in entrepreneurship, it's all about maneuver warfare. Complacency kills. You know you always have to be. You know reconning by fire, always be attacking. If you know, if you feel like you're in a safe position, you're about to get attacked, like time to move to a new position, even if you, even if there's no threat, like because you're probably getting ambushed at that point. And all of these same attributes apply to entrepreneurship and maneuver warfare.

William "Will" Allen: 1:00:38

And I think the greatest founders that I've either invested in or served with in California have all had that same mindset and what I'm most impressed by is that they have that attack first mentality and they were never in the Marine Corps, and so that's really cool to see that some people are just born forward leaning, born, as you know, as people that don't settle, and so I think we learned both of those skills in the Marine Corps. There's a time to be on the attack and there's a time to be reserved, and when you get out and you get into the corporate world of you know whatever management, consulting or banking or whatever you think you got to put a suit on and be reserved, negative, negative, high to the right, go on the attack and all of a sudden your life will go from zero to one, one to two, so on and so forth, and I think that that's powerful stuff.

Cheryl Cross: 1:01:24

Give me a story where that sort of attack mindset didn't work outside of maybe your VC background venture capital background.

William "Will" Allen: 1:01:32

Well, I mean, I definitely, I mean I definitely have. You know, it's kind of like a game of operation. You know, when you've got the little tweezers and you hit the edges and the shocks, you are whatever, being being an outside the box thinker or being creative, or maybe being a little crass around the edges and, like you know, sometimes, sometimes you hit the edges and I've had an opportunity where, you know, I thought I was being efficient when really I was being rude and it didn't land me in hot water, but somebody I respected was like, hey, that's not cool. And I was like, oh shit, okay, that you know that's. There's the left and right lateral limits of what you can do to be effective.

William "Will" Allen: 1:02:15

And then there's a point where I mean, and then people exist like this in Silicon Valley, trust me, I know them, they're just so crass, or so you know rude if you will that they think it's being efficient, but everyone around them is like, yeah, that person's, I would never work with that person. And so once you hear people say that you're like, okay, well, like so, I get it like there's forward leaning and then there's rudeness. Let's know the difference between the two of those and make sure that, like we're always ethical, moral, kind, respectful, but also not a chump, and I'm not going to hang around if somebody's you know dragging me down. Does that make sense?

Cheryl Cross: 1:02:51

Exactly, exactly. I think that's going to be the name of your book. Well, hit the edges. Hit the edges.

Cheryl Cross: 1:02:56

Definitely, definitely hit the edges, and I think a good point for our listeners is don't be afraid to hit those edges, because if you are working in a good environment, you're going to get feedback, hopefully, and from people that you can develop relationships with. Some of the best advice career advice I got was on the job and it was not in a book. It was not at a conference I spent 10 grand going to. It was from somebody who said you know, you might want to rethink your style. Or someone coming back to me and saying you know, I don't like to be talked to that way. Being transparent is great. Radical honesty is all in vogue right now, but guess what? It doesn't work for everybody.

William "Will" Allen: 1:03:33

Yeah, well, you know the person that told me hey, that's not okay. He didn't hold it against me either, he just counseled me and moved on. And I was like, all right, he's a pro, you know. Because I feel like you know, maybe if that was somebody else and I know Marines that would definitely do this they would counsel me. Then that's like what they would remember.

William "Will" Allen: 1:03:51

Yes, but he did right Like he counseled me. I learned, we moved on. We've worked together later on in life and like that's been fantastic. So it was a learning experience, but I wasn't like damaged by it, right.

Cheryl Cross: 1:04:04

So I love it. You're giving me gold nuggets, man I love this so tell me a little bit more about your podcast. Talk about it as you're introducing it.

William "Will" Allen: 1:04:15

Sure, yeah. So I run a podcast called the America builds podcast. It's predicated upon the belief that the national security apparatus and Silicon Valley founders and investors are actually aligned and incentivized to work on the same projects. I think for many, many years, people assumed in the Valley, and, of course, outside the Valley, that DoD and Silicon Valley were not aligned, but in reality, historically, in fact, silicon Valley got much of its original funding from the federal government and in fact, on one of our recent shows we're talking about the history of Sherman Fairchild, who is somebody who has owned many, many companies, like 20 or 30 different companies, and his name is on the venerable A10 Warthog aircraft, the Fairchild Republic aircraft. He's also somebody who was responsible for building the cameras that went on the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the moon. He's also one of the pioneers in the semiconductor industry, and so a lot of what Silicon Valley has to give thanks to is actually government spending, and I don't just mean like fat IDIQ contracts, I mean folks that get out of World War II, use the GI Bill, got into the tech, lived in California, had a relationship with the government and we were doing exciting things like going to the moon, and so, of course, silicon Valley was involved there.

William "Will" Allen: 1:05:37

Since then, the narrative has created this huge. There's been a divide in the narrative where people don't want to work for the federal government, they're afraid of AI, they don't want to work for the joint you know, the Jake the joint AI center. There's been some like high level news coverage on this, and though I hear their concerns, you know, I think more engagement with your government, especially if you're distressing of the government, is a good thing. You know, civilians should take responsibility for what the government's doing, not bifurcate and build a divide between it, and so I bring on investors and founders and also government folks who are interested in bridging this divide and working together on some really incredible stuff, inspirational stuff, and so that's that's what it's focused on. It tries to tell the stories of people who are in the trenches, literally in some cases and metaphorically in others, that are trying to, yeah, build this bridge between Silicon Valley and Washington DC. Does that, does that make sense?

Cheryl Cross: 1:06:32

Absolutely. Thanks so much for focusing on those people. They're in the dark. A lot of the outside world I'll say outside of the DOD or the US military doesn't understand that the power of the R&D behind the DOD that they are, they're really ahead of the curve on some things, behind the curve on a lot of other things too for sure I saw your post on quantum computing.

Cheryl Cross: 1:06:55

It's like when is the military going to march in? When are we going to kick Google's ass? When? How might we get ahead of this? And technology? I'll say this just as a user and somebody who is also in that space. You know, I see a lot of opportunity for people to go and assist governments because there are those technical talents. They sometimes sit in within the government as GS, sometimes they are military, a lot of times they're consultants. But a lot, of, a lot of really cool tech is coming out of the military and you just don't hear about it.

William "Will" Allen: 1:07:27

Well, you know so. So the post that talks about marching right. So let's just add some perspective here. Basically, google created a quantum computer that has 70 qubits and now can instantly compute something, any equation that would otherwise take a traditional computer the most powerful traditional computer in the world 47 years to compute. So 47 years of equations can be done instantly by this quantum computer. Pretty, pretty incredible.

William "Will" Allen: 1:07:53

And so the comment that I made on on LinkedIn, of course was when is the government going to exercise their marching rights? And so marching rights is the federal government's right, its ability to literally commandeer a technology that is seen as strategic for any way, in any way, shape or form. So what's interesting about the government's relationship with Silicon Valley is that entrepreneurs will tell you well, that scares me. If I build something that's so incredible, the government can just come in and take it, and the simple answer is like both yes and no. Originally, marching rights were developed because, in World War II, because if a company was manufacturing a strategic manufactured good, let's say out of an airplane or a piece of an artillery shell, and then it went out of business, the government wanted the right to go in, take the IP and continue producing it, even if it didn't have rights to it, so it had developed marching rights. So if you ever do work with the federal government, you're typically asked to sign an agreement to march in rights so that they can take that if they ever need it in the future.

William "Will" Allen: 1:08:51

It's never been enacted in the history of the Department of Defense They've never marched in to take in any company's technology.

William "Will" Allen: 1:08:59

So this is where maybe a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous, because it's like oh, I know what marching rights and I would never work with the government and sign that contract. Well it's, they're not trying to take over Tinder, they're not trying to take over your technology. It's just something that people agree to, just in case the end of days is here. And so I think sometimes talking about marching rights can be an exciting topic, because it's like what are we doing with TikTok? What are we doing with Huawei? How does the government exercise its power through ITAR regulations or CFI regulations? They've never had to go to a marching right and actually commandeer a company, and this includes companies like General Motors and GE, who were basically commandeered by the federal government for production rates during World War II to produce all of those tanks and trucks and all that jazz. A lot of vehicles and then consumer goods were just stopped from being manufactured. So even in those dire times we didn't exercise marching rights.

Cheryl Cross: 1:09:58

Good to know. It is more of a partnership. I've seen it, I've worked in those spaces and I agree, while you are on fire, man, I love it, I want you to. We're going to skip to another question because I'm going to do this one just separate. I want to talk to you about I want you to keep that energy high and really come at the listener with what I wish I knew then, that I knew now and just go, just riff.

William "Will" Allen: 1:10:25

About the transition, career transition. Yeah, I mean, you know, one thing that I wish I knew, that I later found out, is that like there's this false sense of authority, it's a real authority when you get into the US military, if I don't show up at my sign place of work and I'm UA, or after 30 days I'm AWOL, they find me going to put my ass into jail. That's just how it works, right? Or I'm going to be in a lot of trouble. At least I'll be on restriction. I won't be able to drink alcohol. You know, they've got their. They've got their, their dials. They can dial up and dial down to make a Marine's life hell.

William "Will" Allen: 1:11:02

But when I got out, I realized I was pretty compliant with people whom were idiots, and I guess I don't want to sound rude, but like I just started working for people and I was like I know that I can outrun you, not literally, well, yes, literally too, but like I know I can run circles around you. And why am I on this escalator that goes at this speed, when I could be going at a different speed? And so I didn't have a sense of agency, like, oh, I have accurate self perception, I have the ability to make a decision about my career. I have the ability to run at the speed that I want to run. And guess what? It's okay. It's okay if you don't wear a tie, a suit and tie. It's okay if you don't wear suit. You know fancy shoes with your suit. It's okay. You know you're, you're you're you're especially in the Marine Corps.

William "Will" Allen: 1:11:52

This is an interesting comparison. You know how I know if somebody's a good Marine if they have great sleeves like the way we roll our sleeves, you've got nice tight sleeves you can make it's good Marine. If he's got really trashy sleeves, you're like that's a ship back, like everyone knows. That's like when you walk into a room you can tell who the good Marines are and who the bad Marines are, based on their sleeves. Ask any Marine that. Just it's the way they observe Marine Corps. Order 10, 20, 34, golf, which is in the Marine Corps, is order on uniforms, like do you look good in your uniform or not?

William "Will" Allen: 1:12:20

And I thought that that's like your value in the civilian world you look good, you got a, you got a good job. It wasn't. I wasn't getting rewarded for my ideas in the Marine Corps. I was getting rewarded for dumb things like showing up at 7am and looking hot in my uniform, like that's, that's what I was getting rated on. And you know, among other things, obviously there's a leadership piece to this, which certainly the Marine Corps is great at, like making leaders and judging those leaders, and I think that they do a decent job at that, especially creating leaders at the MCO, at the EnsoRig.

William "Will" Allen: 1:12:51

But when I got out I realized that I had to break from those chains and I had to realize that, like my value, my self value, was not tied up in the way I looked, the way I spoke, you know the job title that I held and I had to break away from that.

William "Will" Allen: 1:13:06

And you know, working in DC was really challenging because the entire industry placates that escalator, the entire industry.

William "Will" Allen: 1:13:15

It's like you will be in DC for 20 years doing chores and errands for somebody for just just for the chance to talk to the congressman, just for the chance to be, to talk to the partner at the lobbying firm, just for the chance to work for this managing director at Deloitte.

William "Will" Allen: 1:13:36

And what I realized when I left DC is that everyone outside DC thinks that's a joke and that like it's a big nasty joke where a bunch of people who get out of the military or have fancy Ivy League degrees work for pennies on a hamster wheel and they devalue themselves. And the second I got to California and I started telling people like well, you know, I went to a great school and I, you know, and I was in the Marines and, blah, you know, folks in the investment community were like what? That's incredible. You've traveled the world, You've led people in complicated and stressful environments, you've got a nice degree, which means you could probably put two thoughts together and articulate it verbally and in a written form. And I started to get rewarded for those things where in DC, it was about who was I doing errands for.

William "Will" Allen: 1:14:23

Who was I doing errands for and who do I know? And so the joke is, of course, when we meet somebody in DC, they say what do you work for? It's like the first question that comes out of their mouth. And in Silicon Valley it's like well, what do you do? It's like very different things, you know, and maybe the most important question is like not what do you do, but how do you do it Like? Do you do it with passion? Do you do it with love? Do you do it with intensity? Do you do it with integrity? You can get rewarded for those things in places other than Washington DC, and so that's how I broke the chains.

William "Will" Allen: 1:14:51

My story is obviously tied to DC and me like breaking from this corporate structure, military structure in DC and going to California putting on a pair of sandals and trying to get rich, like. That's obviously like what my trajectory has been. You know, that's another, I think, kind of like thing to talk about, which is I stopped hiding what it is I wanted to do, like in DC I felt like, well, I want to climb up the corporate ladder, so how do I do that Like? And in Washington, when I left it and went to California, it was more about like, well, how do I create value? Which I thought was really interesting. It's like a new way, a new paradigm of like looking at that into my new found agency as somebody who could just do anything, walk into anywhere, talk to anyone, Like I didn't have to ask permission to talk to the boss, if you will.

William "Will" Allen: 1:15:35

Another great example and then I'll stop here just for you to react to some of this is like when I was in DC, there was this guy I worked with who would call generals like general officers and admirals by their first name and he would be like oh, jim, jim Mattis, or Steve or Tom or whatever it might be, and I remember being like you are so disrespectful. You haven't done what they've done, you haven't been where they've been. You haven't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and, to an extent, right. Like we can, we can respect our elders, we can respect people who've been there and done that. No doubt, however, I was using these ranks, this rank structure in the civilian world, as a set of chains to keep me back. I mean, I'd meet a colonel and I'd be like, oh, colonel, this blah, blah, blah, blah. And immediately he saw me as a lieutenant or as a captain and I was subservient to them.

William "Will" Allen: 1:16:22

When I got Silicon Valley, you know, I literally had like investors just telling me like you sound like a chump, guy's name is Jim, it's called Jim, it's called Jim. And it was like okay, so then I'd go into a meeting and be like hey, jim. And you'd be like, hey, will, how's it going? Yeah, I was like what the fuck? We're on the, we're on an even level, we're on an equal playing field. All of a sudden, like holy smokes. And then I had Jim.

William "Will" Allen: 1:16:47

This guy was a four-star generalist. Like wow, you know, I haven't been in the private sector as long as you have. So maybe you can help me do this and I'm like, am I your mentor? Like holy smokes, like you know, it just like totally changed the paradigm, because I refuse to now play by these rules. And I think, true story, I've worked with several general officers and admins in an immense amount of respect for all of them and I say that I say you know, if you don't mind, I'm just going to call you Jim or whatever. The only time I called somebody's sirs, when actually Jim Matt has called me, and I picked up the phone and I was like, hey, sir, how you doing? And he was like call me Jim. And I was like I'm going to stick with sir.

Cheryl Cross: 1:17:23

The patron change of Quantico.

William "Will" Allen: 1:17:25

You know like sir sir, yes sir.

Cheryl Cross: 1:17:28

Yeah, yeah yeah, I completely understand. You know he always carries a book around with him. I'm a big fan of Mad Dog Mattis. Same story I was working at a government contracting company and we had hired an advisor, former four star and one of the only African American four stars in the army and I was terrified, absolutely terrified. Nobody was in the office. I was supposed to give him a gift. I live in Hawaii. I was supposed to give him a lei, which is, you know, women will 'lei' the men and men will lei the women. So, giving him, I'm running around the office with these flowers in my hand, like what do I call him? Former Mr General, the stat that, that. So I barge into a Marine Corps fellow and I said, hey, what do I call so and so? And he said his first name. We go by first names here and I thought that's going to be so strange. I tried so hard, dude, I couldn't do it.

Brandi Brickler: 1:18:22

I can do it.

Cheryl Cross: 1:18:24

Hello, sir, how are you today? It kind of you know. Here's your flowers Aloha. Welcome to Hawaii. Sir Former Generals, you know it was struck in so fight. Now he's been there for five years and I'm still a consultant for them. But I see him and I'm like dude Dennis, how you doing.

William "Will" Allen: 1:18:44

It takes a minute, it takes a minute.

Cheryl Cross: 1:18:46

Thanks so much, Will. You're a rock star and I could talk to you all damn day long, but we're definitely going to keep in touch and I'm going to be following. America Works, or sorry, America Builds.

Derik Clark: 1:18:57

America builds builds and you can find it on Spotify.

William "Will" Allen: 1:19:04

Spotify and www. americabuilds. com and my LinkedIn, which, if you just Google like Will Allen and Marines, Harpoon or Columbia any of those keywords you'll find me. Yeah, there's a lot of William Allen. You're right, I didn't play in the NFL, though there's an NFL player named William Allen, and we're just. You know, we look very different, so yeah, I like it.

Cheryl Cross: 1:19:24

I like how you've differentiated it, differentiated yourself. You're a rock star. Thanks so much for being on the show We'll be in touch, thank you. Welcome to exchange.

Cheryl Cross: 1:20:00

On this so many times. I, if I could put a salary talk in every single segment, I would, and I probably will, because this is the number one thing that I feel is really hitting. You're hitting a wall when you get to the salary negotiation part. Brandi, you've got experience not only as a former Navy vet, but as a military spouse and now a civilian who is in their own business and making their own income, and you mentor people who are coming out of the military looking to get into your industry. Tell me a little bit about your frustrations when you hear the salary talk.

Brandi Brickler: 1:20:36

Well, my frustration, mainly in most recent times, was as a military spouse. So as we transitioned out of the military, my husband knew how much he would be making for retirement and obviously he got a little bit for disability as well. So when the salary conversation came up, when he was looking for a job, he was calculating how much he was making for disability, how much he was making for his retirement and how much he needed to make or felt like he needed to make with the other job and I think, probably devaluing himself, as you know how experienced he was and what he was asking for because he said well, this is fine, that amount is fine, because all together I will be making XYZ. But he had 26 years of military service and a master's degree in management, so I mean in the workforce, very valuable and probably should be a pretty close, if not definitely a six-figure earner. But because he had these other incomes, he felt like he could, I guess, step down as far as compensation.

Brandi Brickler: 1:21:48

So military members don't really know how to negotiate their compensation because they have never really calculated all the bonuses that they're getting. So that's, healthcare, housing, all of those bonus incomes that you get that are not actually on your W2. I mean, you see that you made like 60,000, 70,000 last year, but it didn't really account for BAH, bas, all your other income. So when you add that together and you think about your salary on the outside, you have to make sure that you're negotiating for the amount that you need to pay your bills, of course, but also pay for healthcare if that's a necessity of your families, put some money aside, contribute to a 401k. So it's very important that you put all those pieces together when you're negotiating your future salary.

Cheryl Cross: 1:22:42

Agreed Now. You obviously had an impact on your spouse at the time. Don't tell me a salary, but were you able to help him reframe after you brought this to his attention?

Brandi Brickler: 1:22:54

Absolutely 100%. We definitely had this exact same discussion. It was exactly do not account for this other income. That doesn't mean anything to your employer at all. This is what your value is. So you need to actually negotiate your value of what you're bringing to the table. You are not a new employee who just graduated college. You have 26 years of managing people and that's important to this organization. So make sure that you put value on that and you don't discount yourself because you have not worked in the civilian world, because it's a little intimidating and I think we all probably tend to devalue ourselves.

Brandi Brickler: 1:23:37

It does take a lot of people to talk us up and say you know, you do bring something to the table, you are important, but when we're really stressing about getting the job, you kind of will take anything, and that I think that's where I think you and I had a conversation earlier where most people will change jobs at least three times after they exit the military. Like the statistics are so high that you are going to change employment again. So you really don't want to bank everything on that position, and I think the other thing that I have to say about that is a lot of times we'll base them off of an equivalent government job or GS position. So we'll say this is how much I would make in that position. But those are also underpaid because there are some other benefits.

Cheryl Cross: 1:24:23

Right Pensions. The pension for a GS job is spectacular sometimes and it's very similar to a military kind of career path. Now, Brandi, thank you for bringing that up because I think that you know salary is always as a corporate recruiter who's interviewed so many people looking for jobs that are coming directly from the military, admittedly they say I've never done this before and that's okay. We don't expect you to run a marathon if you've been sitting on the couch and you're just going out the door for the first time, but what would you say? You were obviously a great negotiator before your husband left the military and you had eyeballs and you two were working as a team, which a lot of folks don't have. I hear a lot of people say I'll say would you like to go home and talk to your family about that? Nope, nope. And as a corporate recruiter, I was never really able to be that ambassador for the salary. But if they truly undervalued themselves financially for salary, that put them at risk for getting the job because they didn't understand the scope. And that's a real hot topic in the world of recruiting and it makes a big impact on the people that are coming into the workforce. I do think, Brandi, just like you said, people are leaving their first job, their second job, their third job.

Cheryl Cross: 1:25:46

I talked to people on this show, people who have had terrible first job experiences went back in, reenlisted to the guards reserves, got back as far as they could, went through government contracting, because the outside world was so not just unfamiliar. But the pay, the pay didn't really support them in the way that the military did. And for those of you listening, wherever you are on the treadmill, jogging path, in the car, in your home office, in your ear pods I just want to remind you that everybody's got a different journey and you're going to learn this by doing it. Nobody's great at it the first time and you're going to mess up and maybe you have one or two jobs after the military that don't serve you. But the goal is to get you comfortable with the ask when you get there, and the hardest one is what are your salary expectations? I would ask that and people would just hit a wall. An hour-long conversation would just stop and they'd say I don't know. And that's why I created the podcast, that's why I created salary negotiation workshops for my military family support center as a volunteer, because you can't talk about this.

Cheryl Cross: 1:26:55

Enough, Brandi. It's an important topic. I know everyone listening believes this too. What would you give them as a tool? What could they do now, let's say they're ahead of their separation? What could they do in terms of research and you know this from a location specialist job. You know you're dealing with people who are coming to your area for specific reasons, and I know you chose your area for specific reasons. What could they do?

Brandi Brickler: 1:27:20

Well, you know, what's really exciting is that one of the things that I was evaluating when my ex was getting out of service, and one of the things that a spouse can do as well, is attend a TAPS class with their spouse. So you can go to a TAPS class and hear what they're hearing, because two additional ears hearing will help in that whole transition when you're getting out of the service. So that's one thing, and one of the things that they've implemented recently, I guess since I got out of the military, was a budgeting class, and I don't know if you know this about military people, but we all didn't come from amazing financial backgrounds. We probably wouldn't be, probably enlisted had we come from amazing financial background. So we don't join out of patriotism. We join because it's, you know, economically makes sense and we learn through the process of being in the military to manage our finances and some, you know, we fall, we stumble a lot and hopefully, by the time you get to a point of getting out of the military, you would have gotten to a place of financial stability and from that, that's the biggest piece, of course, is getting to that piece where you can take the job that's right for you, instead of taking the first job that's being offered to you, right? That'll help you make some of the better decisions. So making a budget, being financially prepared, are two big pieces that you really have to do.

Brandi Brickler: 1:28:45

And then another piece that I did. I don't exactly remember the website that I went to, but it helped me evaluate, like, what the cost of living was where I was going versus where I was. So we were living in Hawaii, had intentions of retiring in Hawaii. Obviously, the cost of living is pretty high there and we wanted to see comparably, if I moved to Texas, what will that look like. And it would let me know. Like groceries are 40% less expensive in Texas than they are in Hawaii. So when you're doing your budgeting, you can make sure that you take that into account. I wish I knew what that website is. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Cheryl Cross: 1:29:25

Okay, well, and when you do, we'll link it in the comments. So there are a lot of calculators and comparison. I know a lot of realtors have that on their website, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. But I think that that is as we talk about. My goal is for you, the listener, to go into a job negotiation and when you get to that salary conversation, say exactly what you need and not blink, and hopefully you've gone enough into the conversation with a trusted resource, either a recruiter, a contingency recruiter, a corporate recruiter, somebody who's really moving you along, or a friend who works with the company that can guide you. But when you say that salary, it's very important that you know, because negotiation starts when you start saying what you want and negotiation is also. I mean, we can talk about that. Brandi, you're an excellent negotiator. You do it every day for your work. But I want everyone to be empowered to not be afraid of that, because when I saw folks just pull back, and I mean people with 30-some odd years in the industry who come out as technical specialists and they are so valuable, but they couldn't put a dollar amount on their worth.

Cheryl Cross: 1:30:44

Location is so important. Family conversations are so important because, like you said, Brandi, Hawaii I love living in Hawaii. I work very hard to live in Hawaii. I'm very lucky to live in Hawaii because it's beautiful and it's safe and it's clean and it's well. It's Hawaii, right? Yeah, I've lived in other high, high cost of living places New York, Los Angeles. I'm originally from Las Vegas, that's not too cheap, but for folks in Hawaii that's called the 9th Island. A lot of people are going there because it is less expensive and it's also a break. But I would know my worth going to Las Vegas too. It wouldn't be the same level that I need for Hawaii. So again, did you check? Let's pivot for a second. When you were going through this with your family member, did you have a couple locations you were looking at, or was it always Texas?

Brandi Brickler: 1:31:36

No, it was definitely Texas. That was just a place that I had always wanted to live, so it was important to me. But for my business, for me specifically in deciding where I was going to live, Hawaii is a very high cost area. So when I'm making commission, obviously off of selling homes that are a million dollars, where I come to a state where the pretty average is around 350,000, I really need to manage my own compensation expectations. So where I'm located, specifically in Texas, did have a little bit for me personally to get closer to Austin, where the home price is or we're similar to what I was dealing with in Hawaii. So that was important for me.

Brandi Brickler: 1:32:22

Good to know For my husband not so much.

Cheryl Cross: 1:32:25

Yeah Well, I certainly appreciate all the energy you're putting into this conversation and, again, I could talk about this for hours. It's something that it just has so many shades. Every single person is going to handle a negotiation on salary differently. One of the big takeaways I hope that you're leaving with today and I mean you, the listener is that it's okay to try and fail. You are going to get that job. I really do feel that everybody will get a job.

Cheryl Cross: 1:32:57

There's jobs out there. We're in a labor market that is compressed. It is challenging for companies to find good people. The jobs aren't the problem. The lack of jobs are not the problem. It's the ability for you, the listener, to fit into a role where you're satisfied, where your needs are met.

Cheryl Cross: 1:33:18

I'll use the analogy of Hawaii because I've said this so many times. I'm pretty sure when I was working in an office, people next to me could quote me. I would say this I want you to look up Hawaii on the cost of living scale. I want you to do a comparison between where you're living and where you plan to live here, and then come back to me in 24 hours and tell me your salary expectations. If you have not prepared, I want you to prepare and I'd love for you to speak to your family about this when you've fully done your research. I will share that with the hiring managers, because that's the type of people we want to hire. Well, that doesn't always happen in corporations. I've seen corporations that are really apt to underpaying people and they don't care, but they also lose those folks.

Cheryl Cross: 1:34:07

I'm an independent consultant that works with companies on retention. I tell people all the time it has to start at the recruiting. You've got to recruit the people at the right amount and make them happy and train them. That all starts at that conversation. I've gone on a little bit, Brandi. This is your part of this segment. I want to know how people can maybe reach out to you because you are a location specialist. You've had such experience. By the way. How many PCSs did you do in that 20-some odd years? How?

Brandi Brickler: 1:34:38

many places did you live? I think because we stayed in Hawaii for 12 of those years, I think we PCS probably about seven times. That's still a lot. It is still a lot For us civilians. A lot Mine wasn't that much Each one very impactful on our family.

Cheryl Cross: 1:35:03

Again, Brandy, tell us how you can be contacted. I know you have a website and we have your name spelled here. It's brandywithan-i what?

Brandi Brickler: 1:35:12

is your website. Brandybricklerdotcom has all of my information, my email, my telephone number where you can get into contact with me. I'd love to hear from you if you have questions about especially Texas or Hawaii or anywhere. I can help you transition into what it looks like to live in that area. You're financially prepared.

Cheryl Cross: 1:35:35

Great. I so thank you for your information. Not only you are a friend, but you are a great advocate. I appreciate you supporting this show. We're going to have Brandi on as the military spouse career conversations, where we get to talk with her for more than just 15 minutes, but for now we're just going to say goodbye. I know we're going to have you on for another segment of the show. Thanks for joining us today.

Brandi Brickler: 1:35:59

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Cheryl Cross: 1:36:03

I can't believe we're already at three episodes. It's because of you that this journey is continuing on. Thank you so much for asking for voices of transition. My guests today Derik Clark. We had Steve Cotone, William Allen and Brandi Brickler. Hey, thanks so much. I know that you're going to be enjoying all of the episodes and we've got lots of shows ahead of us. But before you move on, I just want to say a special thanks. This show is very, very personal for me my job as a corporate recruiter. I saw so many things and I believe I could give you books or trainings or all of that, but you're going to learn so much more from just listening to the people who've gone through it. So thanks for joining us. Before you leave, I'm always going to sign off with this Just remember you are strong, you are brave, you are skilled and you are trained, and these are all things that the civilian workforce needs. Until next time, I'll see you soon.

Cheryl Cross: 1:37:12

All right.