EP11: Fine Tune Your Vet Career with Personal Stories and Personal Branding

In Episode 11, we explore the transition from military to civilian careers with insights from:

• Theresa Carpenter, a Navy communications officer and podcast host of S.O.S. Stories of Service, discusses planning her civilian transition, advocating for change, and her post-military plans.
• Kait LeDonne, a personal branding expert, shares targeted strategies for veterans to stand out in the job market, emphasizing storytelling and individualized advice. More on Kait: kaitledonne.com
• Charles "Charlie" Wells, a retired Marine and MIL2CIV influencer now living in the interior of Alaska, reflects on his transition to civilian life, the importance of networking, and finding adventure post-service. Connect with Charlie here.
• George Bernloehr, CEO of Military Talent Pipeline and a Navy veteran, talks about leveraging military discipline and skills in civilian careers, and his personalized approach to talent acquisition.

Join us for valuable stories and strategies on navigating this significant life change.

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

VO: 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: 0:53

Well, hello there, so excited to have our first segment of our Power Hour. And it's always somebody who is in the decision making process of leaving the military, or what I call in the soup. They are making decisions, they are trying to figure out what this all means. They could be one year, two year, three years in advance. Some people like. Our next guest is going to have a couple options on the table, but I'm going to let her tell her story. I'd like to introduce you to a 27 to be year veteran, now a Naval officer, teresa Carpenter, and also a podcast host. She's going to talk about that too. Hi Teresa, thanks so much for joining us today.

Theresa: 1:34

Hi, cheryl, thank you so much for having me Such an honor to be on your broadcast and I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Cheryl: 1:40

Thank you. Before we hit the record button. We covered a lot of ground and I just want to hand the mic over to you because you have so much to share on how you're planning. You're leaving the military, you have a couple things ahead of you. Why don't you just go ahead and launch off onto where you are and what you're planning to do, if anything?

Theresa: 2:00

Sure. So, as she said, I've been in for quite a number of years and I'm a Navy commander and public affairs officer at NATO Maritime Command. It is the maritime lead for NATO and it is an amazing duty station where I get to be on an international staff and lead the communication strategy for four standing naval task forces, year long security assistance patrol and then nearly 500 people on our staff. So it's been an incredible and very challenging and dynamic opportunity, but one where I made the decision to not retire from this job. I was pretty convinced at this moment that I have my pension. I've done my service, I was ready to leave and I got a little bit of inspiration and a little bit more motivation and a little bit of gas left in the tank and decided to continue on. So I'm headed. I'll be announcing on my podcast next month where we're going. But I'm really excited for one more duty station. But that tour can only be maybe a year. Once you've served overseas in the military, you only have to serve one year up to one year state side to retire. So I have a big decision to make. Come next year around this time I'll be deciding to either drop those retirement papers and retire that following summer or continue on. So that's where I'm standing in my transition journey.

Cheryl: 3:39

So obviously there's challenges baked into this. What are you finding the most difficult and what are you finding that's quite easy?

Theresa: 3:48

I would say the part that is easy about the process has been, for me, some of the medical overseas, and that's because thankfully or not thankfully for some, I suppose I'm not near a what we call a fleet concentration area and so sometimes there's a lot of backlogs and there's a hard time for people to get into medical and be seen for some of the things that they need to be seen for. But when you are not near a fleet concentration area or near a military treatment facility, rather you're able to use the local medical system. So in my case I use what's called TriCare SOS International and I'm able to go to private health care providers. So that has been wonderful. I'm getting everything documented that I need to get documented. For all the health issues that I've had for the last 27 years, I would say that's probably the easiest. The most difficult would be it's very difficult from London to do job searches or to prepare or to even know what arena you want to go into, because you're on a different time zone with everybody else. Overseas transitioning is not impossible and they've made it easier as the years have gone by, but it's still something that I think a lot of folks who serve in the military struggle with because the things that the services and the resources that they need to process out are not as available as they would be if you were in the United States. So I'd say finding those connections state side are a little bit more difficult. But yeah, I would say those are the two easy and hard things.

Cheryl: 5:29

Okay, tell us about your podcast.

Theresa: 5:30

Thank you. So for the past almost three years I've hosted a show called Stories of Service it's SOS for short, so if you need help and it's designed to help people understand how they can move past trauma and unleash their full potential. So I started it because of my own childhood trauma and things that I had struggled with, and I wanted to give people a place where they could share, be authentic, even talk about hard things and talk about struggles that they've had, and so I feature people from all walks of life. Sometimes it's leadership coaches and people who are in the healing profession. Sometimes it's even people who help with your military transition. I've had a few transition coaches on the show. Alfredo Torres comes to mind as one. I can't remember the other gentleman his first name is Matt he'll kill me, but he's on my show as well. So I've had a few transition coaches on the show. But I also really like having whistleblowers, so I like to have people on who saw something in their respective organization and had the courage to come forward and to talk about it. And those are my hardest podcasts, because I have to really dig deep into the issue and kind of see where the what, the focus and the aim ought to be and what comes next and what should be the focus, and so that those are the hardest ones to do, but they're also the most rewarding that your communications professional within the military and your teaching and your modeling outspoken.

Cheryl: 7:07

it's just amazing to me as a civilian that you're doing this. So tell me what the impetus was for this and why you decided to create a podcast for this.

Theresa: 7:16

That's a great question, cheryl. I started by my advocacy for pets, so I started with protesting puppy mills. Actually, I used to be part of an effort when I was in Hawaii. That's where I started. I was stationed in Honolulu, at Pearl Harbor, and there were a few pet stores that sold from puppy mills and commercial non-regulated breeders and I got a boxer dog and I absolutely loved my dog. I got him from a breeder and I started learning that there were this movement from the breeder community not to be regulated and I thought why wouldn't you want, like your business or your hobby, even to be regulated in a way that prevents animal welfare abuse? And it just astounded me. I'd go to these dog shows and I'd see these amazing show breeders and the handlers and I was all wrapped up in that. You know what I consider almost pomp and circumstance now, but I really loved it and I loved the people and I just couldn't believe they didn't want to be regulated. I couldn't believe it and so I ended up becoming friends with a lobbyist with the Humane Society of the United States, inga Gibson, and she and I just fell in a friendship. Over the course of about two or three years. We would go to the state Capitol there and testify on animal protection bills. I went to city council. In fact, gabby gosh, what's her name, the lady that ran for Congress she was actually the city council chair when I was, when I was testifying, and Tulsi. Gabbard yes, tulsi Gabbard and I remember I met her and it was just. It was such an incredible experience and it kind of got the advocacy bug in me, like. After that I was like, oh my gosh, this is such so rewarding to be a part of a coalition of people who are just as passionate about reform reform as you are. And so from there I just continued to do it. I had a pet store seller write my chain of command say I was, you know, doing this illegally, which I wasn't but it taught me so much, like it taught me about how not to trigger a troll. It taught me a lot about how to go back and forth with people in a way that's respectful, in a way that doesn't degrade your position. And from there I just started taking what I was doing for animals and I thought, well, I can do this in any arena. And I got an offer to as I was being active on social media about other issues to write a book chapter. So I did that. And then I started doing webinars for a volunteer organization and I thought, well, gosh, I could probably do this on my own during COVID and I thought this is something that I could interview people myself and talk about the causes and the things that I'm passionate about. So I started with and I even have a still to this day of a lot of animal welfare people on my shows, probably about six or seven people that are in animal protection, and I love having them on because I understand their causes a lot of times and it's just such a neat group and it's it's. I think that's part of what I love about me having a podcast is that you just you feel like you're a part of something, you're a part of these causes and you're able to just give their, give their organizations and give their plight of voice. And I want to give a voice to people that didn't feel like they could speak up.

Cheryl: 11:07

Giving someone a voice is a very powerful thing, and I'm realizing, even though I'm just about 10 shows in, that this is a very important podcast and platform, so I'm going to take your lead. You said something that I really enjoyed before we hit the record button, and that was you wanted the ability to speak truth to power in uniform and outside of uniform. Can you elaborate on that?

Theresa: 11:32

Absolutely. I think there are a lot of people who feel that because they serve on active duty, they're not able to speak up about the things that have happened to them, and I think that's really unfortunate. And I think that as you become very familiar with how to communicate responsibly and respectfully online or at, let's say, a congressional hearing or at a city council meeting, you learn that these are tools that this country was founded upon. I mean, our freedom of speech is so sacred and I thought why would we not want our active duty to speak up and speak out? I know that when I've got somebody working for me and they speak up about something and it's really the wrong way to go about something, they deserve to be heard and we can't always go every way that everybody wants, but you always give someone that opportunity to feel heard and it just doesn't make any sense to me that we can't have open conversations about things online. If you're lodging a personal attack, no. If you're trying to overthrow the government, no. But why aren't we giving our active duty the tools and the encouragement to respectfully speak truth to power? It just makes no sense to me and I see that, sadly, our DOD is not doing that, so I've put together videos on how to do it. I have a whole blog that I keep wanting to get published and hasn't been published in a third party outlet, so I'm probably just gonna publish it. But it is all about how I did this and how I tell stories, how I post out, because I think that if there were more people doing this, there are so many issues that would be exposed, and so, like I say, that's really the aim of this is hopefully people will hear this and say you know what this happened to me, and not only do I want change for this one particular thing, I want other people to know that they're not alone, that they're not the only ones that experienced it.

Cheryl: 13:52

You've lived in Hawaii. I live in Hawaii. Talk story is something we all do here the respect to give someone the space. In the Native American Indian culture it's having the talking stick. Whoever has the talking stick is the person that's being heard and you respectfully give your time and energy to that. Here, a talking story is. It took me a minute to get it Because, coming from Los Angeles and elbowing my way through like 9 million people and just barking to be heard, it was a big step for me to sit back and listen and to absorb and that this was a very big part of the culture. With that said, and one of your podcasts was on my list of people that I needed to check into because you were telling stories and that's what I'm doing. It's stories. It's the power of a hundred voices, a transitioning story. You know, just hour and some odd. It's turned into now an hour and a half. I have to rename the show, but stories are very powerful. Tell me some of the things that you've seen. Move past just the story and maybe, if you can find one, into the advocacy, or maybe you've helped someone by putting them on your podcast and they've achieved a goal because of it. Do you have anything to relate to?

Theresa: 15:07

that that's a great question. At this point, I'm not sure. I guess this will be an interesting one. One of the ways, sadly, that scammers take advantage of people is by using their likeness. So, as a person who's got a public presence, I've gotten my likeness used many, many times and I decided at some point like I need to address this. So I found Colonel Brian Denny, which is a active duty or, I'm sorry, he's now retired Army Colonel, who's literally like the most downloaded, the most stolen likeness. I mean like if you Google his name or you look him up, look up any of his pictures. They've been used and scammed more than anybody and he's been all over Nightline in 2020. All those shows about you know the Nigerian scammers, because I mean they are. Most of them are from South, they're from Africa and there's this entire business that has been set up around doing this and they feel very entitled to doing this fraud, and the fraud completely is ignored by Metta. It's ignored by all the big tech companies. In fact, they're making money off of it, really, with all these verified accounts. So I had him on the show and after I had him on the show, I'll tell you, cheryl, I had countless people who wrote me to say thanking me about it, telling me that they found my YouTube broadcast about it and that's how they knew that they were being scammed. You know, it is one of those things where I got to share a blog posting on his you know, brom advocates against romance scammers and I was able to share my story and now there's legislation in Congress that's hopefully going to help to clamp down on some of this. So I think that's a success story that I was able to use what had happened to me and what, and to this day I still like. Yesterday I got another email from someone. Now they're going on gay and lesbian sites and I'm having women contact me and basically be and they're devastated. These people they write me. You can just tell like they really got taken for quite a number of weeks before they did their research and realized that they weren't talking to me and it makes me break my heart. It's so sick what's going on, but being able to give light to that has been very satisfying.

Cheryl: 17:48

Well, I hope you continue on this advocacy and you know truth to power. Truth to power we say this so off-handly now, but you really are living it. So, wherever you choose the next several years, I'm going to be watching you, and not just your podcast, because I'm really curious to see where this, this passion of yours, is going to lead you professionally. And my podcast is obviously Transition Stories. You being in the soup and so far ahead of your potential transition, it's kind of hard for you to navigate it. But you have a lot of options and what I love about your story is that you've created them all. You're not just relying on what the military you've done for the last 27 years. You're actively going out and you're putting yourself out there in somewhat of an uncomfortable way. I mean. I hope that my likeness isn't on bumble somewhere. And I'm talking to some guy the last six weeks and he wonders when he sees me at. Safeway why I haven't talked to him. Well, it wasn't me, dude, you've been catfished. I'm so sorry. You know that has not happened to me. Give it time. But thank you for being the resource and, honestly, you know, I I being a communications person myself, and not just from broadcasting but from marketing and communications we are the most hesitant people to become advocates because we're the compliance cops In corporations. The HR and the communications teams are the ones that are telling you shut up. Here's your social media guidelines. Don't do this. Don't say that I've received awards and worked for big corporations where the communications team is on the phone with me going hi, can we see your speech? It's like I'm getting an award for being a good professional. It has nothing to do with the company. Can we see your speech? Like they're so? You know you're so cautious and so when you say it's so surprising that people aren't speaking out, it's like, well, we really don't have a culture where we let them. You know, here's a corporate blog. You can repost our stuff, but don't don't break the rules and go out and have your own voice. And if you are we're? gonna monitor you.

Theresa: 19:51

Yeah, I mean, like not to use somebody, that's just crazy. But look at somebody like Elon Musk. I mean, I'm reading his bio right now. I mean that works being yourself, being out there and just doing, being exactly what you need to be to push the needle forward it works. And what if we encouraged our employees to to be authentic, to be themselves and and to fight for change? I mean, why, why shouldn't we be doing that? And it, what it does, is that when we censor other people, we create secrecy, we create toxic environments. You know, like this COVID mandate accountability thing that just got posted, it's getting taken down on Facebook and Instagram. Like how how can that happen? Like it's a petition, I mean, and it's just it is. It is sad to me when I see things like that happening in our country and I want to keep our First Amendment, I want to keep the protections that we have. I don't think that our active duty ought to be bad mouthing their boss online. I don't think they should be discriminatory. I don't think they should be. You know, they shouldn't be extremists. But I do believe that there is a time and a place to be an advocate and I would like to think that there are ways to do that, and I will continue to encourage people to do it and hopefully my podcast provides them at least one avenue in order to do so.

Cheryl: 21:24

Tell us more about your podcast, how people can tune in to you. If you're reachable through LinkedIn for mentorship, how might people reach out to you? Give them the website and spell it, if you can, because there's a lot of people just listening.

Theresa: 21:38

Sure. So my podcast is Stories of Service. You can literally go on LinkedIn and just look up Teresa Carpenter. It is with an H, so Teresa, T-H-E-R-E-S-A, and then Carpenter, just like it sounds, C-A-R-P-E-N-T-E-R. And then if you go to any of the places where you find podcasts, you can just put Teresa, Carpenter and then S-O-S. So S period, O period, S period, that's it. Or you can say Stories of Service. It'll come right up. You'll see this little half-profile of me with this flag in the background and that's how you can find me. Or you can find me on YouTube. I just use my first name, so Teresa Carpenter. Same thing. You'll see all of my shows. They are broadcast live on LinkedIn, my Facebook and my YouTube and also on Twitter.

Cheryl: 22:32

I do have an X account and then I upload the audio and then rebroadcast that later on I'm going to be following all of your shows, as I have been for the last several weeks. Since finding you and our mutual connection, it actually wrote the forward to my book Chase Hughes. I know you two served in the Navy and we were sharing some great Chase Hughes stories of the behavior panel. So I hope that the folks listening are inspired by what you're saying. If they are in the soup, that they are also trying to do something proactive, especially something that they want to advocate for prior to their transition, because I do believe, as a career specialist, that this is also going to be a big mark on your career post-military.

Theresa: 23:15

Thank you, cheryl. I appreciate it. It's wonderful to be on your show and, yeah, if anybody would like to reach out to me, please feel free to do so. I'm always quick to help people build their brand on LinkedIn or decide sort of how they want to approach their online presence and look for opportunities, because I've met some amazing people through what I've been doing online and I'm happy to help anybody with anything that they need, and also to try and find advocacy within your own command, in your own agency, depending on what branch of the military you are.

Cheryl: 23:49

It sounds like Trice is also a great advocate for that as well. Absolutely. Thank you so much. My name is Cheryl Cross. We're going to move over to our expert segment after a brief break. Thank you for listening to the Military to Civilian Career Transition Power Hour. We'll be right back. We're back and as we head into the second segment of the Power Hour, we look to our experts for expert advice on things that can serve you in the corporate world or the civilian workforce. Hi again, I'm Cheryl Cross and I am your host of the Military to Civilian Career Transition Power Hour. I am honored to be here today, thank you. I'm so glad to bring you someone who is really out there a lot. On LinkedIn You'll find her. She is a personal branding expert, former marketing person and someone I think you'll really resonate with. Please welcome Kate Ladon.

Kait: 24:48

Hi, kate, thanks so much for coming, hi, cheryl, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's a delight to be here with you all.

Cheryl: 24:55

Well, I'm so glad you know we were talking before we hit record on some of the things that you see for this community People leaving the military or have left the military and you have a very interesting take and I really want to start the segment this way. You talked about self service versus, or service to others versus being tuned to the self. I'm going to kick it off with that and I want you to just launch. Go for it.

Kait: 25:22

You know it's a great question and thanks Cheryl for asking because it's such a detriment and such an opportunity the way that personal branding is phrased. I say a detriment because the word personal makes you think it's all about me and when you're set up to think that way, it actually becomes really challenging. You have to sit down and think what is all this content I'm going to say about myself? There's nothing necessarily interesting about myself and it becomes actually a block. And trust me, I've worked with some of the most successful fortune 500 CEOs on their personal brand and people who get named in Times Magazine and things like that, and all of them really find resistance to personal branding because, to varying degrees, they have imposter syndrome or this resistance to. I just feel like that's gross, I don't want to talk about me, and so I always tell them the biggest shift that you can realize is that great brands serve their audience. Nothing more, nothing less. Great branding is knowing who you are in service, towards which audience that you're reaching out to, how you help them, and then just continuing to show up on a consistent basis to help them. And when you do that, you actually become so much more engaging, effective, inspirational to those audiences than the people that show up in chest beat, which just feels hollow and inauthentic and sure you could maybe point to, I would say, three people who have actually found sustained success doing that. But I guarantee you in due time people will find out that it's a lot of embers, new clothes and there's nothing really substantive. There's always been kind of a downfall to those. So don't be trapped into thinking, because you see influencers and other people in corporate just talking about me, me, me that that's the way to go. It's absolutely not when it comes to personal branding.

Cheryl: 27:26

I love this and you're the first person that's brought this to my attention and made me think this way. But I 100% resonate with what you're saying, because it is about serving others. Going and finding your voice is really how you serve whatever community, whatever company. I love this. Thank you so much. Now you work with people on making this shift to this new paradigm, but it sounds like folks coming from the military kind of already have that. Can you speak more to that they do?

Kait: 27:56

They do. I was telling Cheryl before we started recording that working with members of the military is my favorite, because there's two groups of people that can absolutely get things done and I say this all the time. One is a veteran or a member of the military and the second is a mother. It's like they are both trained and working with chaos and hostile forces and very little sleep and resources, and it's just like I don't care, I'm going to get it done. It's a matter of life or death, like I am leading a troop into success here, and so those are my favorite two categories of folks to work with, and so there's very disciplined and also both are very oriented to service and helping others to understand things. And it's actually harder for me to work with people who come from kind of a capitalistic self-service background, because you have to untrain them that it's not all about you when you're building a brand. You have to reprogram them into realizing that the more you're committed to seeing your audience win, whether your audience is a potential new company that you want to hire you and is looking to meet goals, whether your audience is I'm going into private sector consulting and there's business owners I want to help, whether your audience is maybe other service members that you're working with, when you are more committed to their success than you are your own. That's when you reach that magic moment of personal branding, that tipping point where people really start to follow along. And so you have all of this great experience and skills of thinking of service and we. You just need to now become a vessel and a channel for that to happen through. So you have to give yourself less as a media property or the star of the show and more of the conduit of the information to help that, and that's when you get really good personal branding. So you all are very, very well positioned to do this, and all of my really successful I'm telling you clients are one of those two people members of the military or mothers. If you get a mother who is in the military, you would just say yachty there it is.

Cheryl: 30:17

That's the success. Right there We'll go find them. Only 15 percent of the military is female or identifying as female. So you're going to look at a majority of a male audience. So thank you for saying this. You are such a breath of fresh air anyway, but to hear this and to communicate this here, I'm so grateful. Thank you so much. We talked about self serving, service to others and the benefits, the silver lining to this, and I'm talking about the tenets of personal branding. A little bit before we hit record, go into what you feel that framework is and I'll be honest with you. This is new for me too. I mean, I've been in and around the marketing industry for years, but I always think of personal branding like what's your hairstyle and what are you wearing? I really didn't go deeper.

Kait: 31:07

It's deep jobs and a black t-shirt and a black turtleneck and I'm like that's your brand.

Cheryl: 31:13

Yes, and I feel silly saying this and putting it on my podcast, but it's true. I really never thought about who I am as a person. I just am who I am right. But if I wanted to reframe that or if I wasn't confident, I would still go to someone like you. So talk about those tenets and how you work with people.

Kait: 31:33

Well, I think the first thing from a philosophical standpoint, because I want to be clear in where this thinking comes from and it's a proven thing over time. So whenever I give a presentation to associations or I, you know, I went and gave this to the Air Force in Lackland, texas. It was funny, it was my last speaking gig in person before the pandemic. I've had some sense and the Air Force called me and said we want you to come do a presentation about branding and personal branding. And it's funny, cheryl. I said the same thing you did. I was like isn't your whole motif? Like you shouldn't have a personal brand? Like I'm confused, why are you calling me? He's like no, no, no, many of them are moving into civilian life. This is really good. Like let's talk about leadership and personal branding. And it was, it was lovely and a wonderful, wonderful time with them down there. But whenever I give this presentation, I always talk about Joseph Campbell, and Joseph Campbell studied a lot of different cultures, even down to cultures and remote indigenous tribes who have not had contact with other societies, and the one linking through line he found through all of these societies was the hero's journey or the hero's tale. She's essentially a storytelling mechanism and you can see this prevalent in any kind of narrative or, you know, pop culture, media thing to this day which is essentially there's a hero of the story. They get a call to adventure. They deny the call. Eventually they accept the call. They move into the unknown world. They get help from a mentor. They go through challenges and struggles. There's a literal or metaphorical death and rebirth. They come back to the known world, a changed person, and share their wisdom. So what do we do as personal brands and brands and corporate brands? We think we're the hero of the story. This is our time. It's about us and our history and our challenges. And great personal brands say, oh no, I'm not the hero, I'm the mentor. So I'm not Harry Potter, I'm Dumbledore. I'm sorry, I'm really showing my age with that reference, but if you look at any any different film franchise the Matrix I'm not Neo, I'm Morpheus. So let me present content and present ideas through my personal brand. That's going to help my main audience member. That's the ticket. So I say all of that to set up what I'm about to say about the tenets of personal branding, and I try and simplify things to people as much as possible and I always say use the one, one, one framework, which is identify one audience with one challenge and pick one platform to address, serve, inform, entertain, educate that audience about that challenge on. When you do this, you set yourself up for simplicity, but more so for clarity, because what happens is we try and solve all the world's problems and when you talk to everybody, you talk to nobody. We try and talk about 50 different issues, even if we are clear on our audience, and they can't understand which one we're best suited to help with, and all you're doing is reminding them of all their problems, not how to make progress on one gripping challenge that they have. And then, when you're doing it across multiple properties, whether that's blogging, podcasting, you know, social media, whatever you're distracting yourself and your audience, you're much better served. Your audience will be clear and you'll be clear and you'll build confidence over time. If, every single day, you commit to helping one audience with one problem on one platform, you'll find that you build momentum steadily and surely and very effectively.

Cheryl: 35:20

Thank you so much. I feel like I'm on the right track just from what you said and I hope I know this is resonating with a lot of people. So my book, Civilian Mission, is a three-year guide for military professionals planning civilian careers. I want them to get ahead. How might they use your framework early in their separation timeline to start creating that personal brand, or not even creating it, understanding what their personal brand is? It sounds like what would you tell them.

Kait: 35:53

I would. The critical first step you cannot, cannot, cannot skip. It'll always come back to bite you in the butt, I promise you, is figuring out the audience, and you might say I really don't know what that audience is, or this feels unwieldy, or I'm excluding people, and to that I would say the easiest place usually to turn towards is think of yourself about three years ago and you might say well, that can't translate into corporate America or civilian life. Myself, three years ago, I was on a platoon or I was like overseas and I was dealing with something I can right. Maybe there was an organizational challenge your specific team or troops were going through. Well, you learned a lot about that. And so start with the audience, because if you don't know who you're helping, you're never going to create any kind of messaging that's resonant enough. So if I knew that I had a three-year horizon before I had to shift into private sector, I would start thinking about what is the type of work that I want to do. Got it Okay? I'm very clear I want to go into IT and engineering. By the way, I'm like the worst person to do that, but this is a hypothetical example, and I know a lot of you maybe have an engineering background. So here we go. So, okay, I want to transfer from the military to IT and engineering Great. What are the top companies I'd want to work for for that? Okay, great. Who is the actual hiring manager of my ideal job in that position? Is it somebody who works on customer service department, or customer success department, or product engineering department? Great. What are they struggling with right now? Whether it's bringing a project from ideation to market launch, whether it is even just getting well-rounded teams, what is the issue that they're facing with what I would be brought on to be in service of? And then how can I start lending the knowledge and experience I already have as it comes to that challenge through one of these platforms? So that's what I mean when I say if you want to go fast, go narrow, get that audience clear and on paper and defined, because without that, it's almost like aiming a target at nothing I'm sorry, aiming an arrow with no target, like where are you going with it, and then your message gets diluted and any kind of action you make is not reverse engineered from. Ultimately, who's going to make those decisions? So I would be obsessive about that. I still am to this day. I've been in my business for 10 years. Every quarter, we do one exercise without fail, which is let's get even clear on who our audience member is. Let's get even clear on who their audience is. What are they thinking at 3am? That's keeping them up at night and they can't sleep. I want to know this person like the back of my hand, knowing that that is where all of the value is.

Cheryl: 38:57

You're such a marketing nerd I love it. I'm the girl that used to pick up American Demographics magazine back in the 90s when it was $40 put out quarterly and pour through it at Book Soup in West Hollywood when we could stand there and it was like I couldn't afford to buy it. So they finally were like you have doggiered this so much, ma'am, you can just have it. We're putting this behind bars because you're like paging through it. Anyway, okay, marketing nerd, thank you so much. Really, focusing on the audience Now, everything you're saying is I've got all these notes. Go three years back. For those of you who are out of the military, I think this also applies to you. No matter where you were Be realizing what you can pull forward or what you have pulled forward and how it has served you. I think this is an excellent, excellent. I'm so excited I got goosebumps. Okay. So a couple other things that you talked about that I wanted to talk about. You talked about the shift and how people could be better. Self-serving isn't such a bad thing. How you have to serve the consumer. A lot of the influencers in the military to civilian career transition world do talk about how you have to be a problem solver for your people. To your last point. I want you to understand that the military folks come out knowing so much because they've had to do so much that the joke tagline is they can really do everything. So don't think that that means Jack of all trades, master of none. It's not true. It means you really are very capable and, as I tell people before I end my show, you're strong, you're brave, you're skilled and you're trained, and those are four things that are missing from the civilian workforce. So how might you extrapolate on those? How might you put that into a message? How might you work with branding people like Kate and try and figure out what that sounds like? And just another note to the audience. You may think IT, cyber, is what you want to do, but be willing to pivot because in the next three years you may learn something that you want to pull through to your civilian career. That might be the new hot thing. It might not be AI, it might not be cyber, it might not be data. Who knows what the world will happen, what will happen in the next three years? You're wonderful and I could talk to you for the next hour. We've kind of hit our time. How might someone get in touch with you? If they wanted to work with you? How would they find you? Is it on LinkedIn?

Kait: 41:32

LinkedIn is definitely my platform of choice and I will say this for any of you who are out there and thinking oh, personal branding feels so. Linkedin, aside from the fact that it's great for career transition, is truly a productive platform, meaning there is smart and productive conversations happening there. It's largely positive, it is growing at a rate that others have mostly plateaued at, and it is looking for voices and experiences from places. So if you're worried about I don't want to get into divisive commentary and other stuff I see on Facebook, it's not that I mean, they really really keep the platform great and even when you see debates on LinkedIn, it really is that it's not devolving into divisiveness. It's very, very productive debates and so for that reason, I see it as a platform that will continue to be. I really we talked about this before we hit record. Look at things from an evergreen nature. Don't just say the hot trend now. Linkedin is just speak about an organization that's stayed very mission oriented about helping professionals get everything they need. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, it's just gaining momentum. So check me out there and start building there. It's a great place to do everything that Cheryl is coaching and guiding you to do on this podcast.

Cheryl: 42:54

Thank you. I don't consider myself a coach, but thank you so much. Kate, you spell your name a little differently. A lot of our audience is listening just on audio only, so can you spell how to spell your name? Thank you.

Kait: 43:07

Yes, even though it is pronounced like Kate K-A-T-E, it is Kate K-A-I-T. So thank, caitlin. With the L-I-N chopped right off the end there, k-a-i-t. Ladonna is L-E-D-O-N-N-E.

Cheryl: 43:21

Well, kate, you are a breath of fresh air. Thank you. Each one of our experts has brought something very new. I was thrilled to learn that you have served the military community, but I love when people haven't, because they bring fresh perspectives. I know that you're going to get quite a few emails and they're going to be checking you out. So any last here's a military term any last alibis. What would you like to close out with?

Kait: 44:36

I know Cheryl says this to you all the time, but I really mean it from somebody who's been born, bred and trained in corporate America. You all have such enviable experience, such enviable experience that people with and are salivating to hear from, and that is needed. Don't undervalue that and know that there is a market to listen to it. And you're going to think maybe I don't, because I've been quote unquote like locked away in this sector and not in the private sector. It's because of that very reason that you should be putting your stuff out there and, if anything else, I always remind people personal branding. You don't have to have it perfected, you just have to be willing to learn out loud. Share your experiences, share what you've learned, use reflections as the ultimate way to pull other people up. You're going to be successful, despite your best attempts not to you really will be.

Theresa: 45:38

You're trying to get your own way about it.

Kait: 45:41

You really will send the elevator right back down just by doing that.

Cheryl: 45:46

I think you're awesome. I want to bring you back to talk about more things. I know you and I are going to work on a small project here in the future, but thank you so much for being today's expert and this episode, and thank you to all of you for your service.

Kait: 45:58

truly, it is so, so appreciated. If nobody is thanked you yet today, I hope you get thanked every day. I just want to leave you with that.

Cheryl: 46:08

That's beautiful. Thank you, yes, thank you all for your support, current, past and future. Those of you who are thinking of getting into the military as well we have a very wide audience and wonderful experts. So this is the expert segment. We're going to take a very brief break and then we'll come back. For somebody who's been about one to four years out in the civilian workforce. We're going to hear from them, but just want to say thanks so much. I'm Cheryl Cross. You're listening to the Military to Civilian Career Transition Power Hour. We will be right back. We're at the bottom of the show and this segment is for somebody who's been out of the military between one and four years. I'm proud and honored to bring you someone who I met here in Hawaii. He was serving at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. He goes by Charlie, but Charles Wells. Thank you so much for being with us today. I'm really interested to hear about your transition story. It's been a while since we've caught up. Welcome to the show.

Charlie: 47:17

Yeah, thanks for having me, cheryl, I appreciate it.

Cheryl: 47:20

You are quite a voice on LinkedIn. I noticed the minute that you transitioned out of the military, figured out where you wanted to go, you started doing videos. It's called Round the Bend. Tell us about that.

Charlie: 47:33

Yeah, so my, you know my hashtag is talk to you around the bend, and I don't know where that came from. I think I was just trying to close a video one day and I said it and it stuck and people started talking about it. So now that's, you know the, the, the hashtag you can follow anytime I drop a new video and it's really just kind of life lessons that I've learned the hard way and you know it's kind of a culmination of all of the different, you know, wise men and women that have spoken into my ears over the last you know, one to five years, when I first started transition all the way up until now, and I'll tell you, I've had so many great people put in my path and I feel like I do what I do on LinkedIn because I want to and yeah, it's tripped, we talked about it, you know, just a few minutes ago. It's tripped to say but I want to give back, I want to pay it forward because of all the folks that poured into me and it's, you know, it never stops. People never stop transitioning out of the military and even even big life transitions. You know, now that I'm no longer attached to, you know, active duty, I still seek wisdom from folks who are at the next level that I want to be at. So I think it's kind of human nature to try to figure out what's next, and I think if you've been there, you owe it to everyone else to tell them how you got where you're at and to kind of prepare them to take that next step.

Cheryl: 49:02

I 100% believe in what you're saying. My father is saying for us, as children, was do more, be better, give back. So I resonate with that. And being a former, you're continuing to be a Marine, is it true? Marines are always Marines. You never consider yourself former Marines, is that it?

Charlie: 49:19

Well, you know, cheryl, I tried to convince myself that no, I'm not a Marine anymore because I don't go to formations anymore and I don't go on PT runs. But now that I work for the Army, I find myself always chastising them and comparing them to Marines. So I thought the other day, you know, I said that I'm. You know, I'm not a Marine, I'm a former Marine. That's, that's simply not true. You know, I recently rewatched the movie the Pacific and you know it's a mini series that's part of the band of brothers, but it follows the Marines during World War II and I was opening the, the opening. I was watching the opening sequence in the first episode where the Marines are climbing over the cargo nets at Guadalcanal and getting on the landing craft and the battleships are firing. And I was watching it by myself and my wife came in into the room and she said what are you watching? I said nothing, I was just really getting choked up watching Marines. You know, do what Marines do. So, yes, I believe it is true that you can never get the Marine Corps out of your heart. You can stop going to formations. You can grow a, you know, you can grow a beard, you can do all that. You're always going to be a Marine in your heart, for a fact, and I found that that is a little bit different than some of the other branches. You know, and we've all heard the stories when you're you know when, when you're in the Navy, you're in the Navy. When you're in the Army, you know you're in the Army. If you ask an Air Force guy or gal what they did, they'll say I retired in the military. They won't even say Air Force. Most times you ask a Marine what he or she did, they're going to say I'm a Marine, you know, and here's what I did. And they won't tell you I was an armorer or I was a cook or I was, you know, a truck driver. They'll say I was a Marine. So there's a very big difference and yes, it always is is with you.

Cheryl: 51:09

Once a Marine, always Marine. Well, given that you were and when I met you I was being escorted by you as a favor, because the person that was supposed to do it wasn't there I didn't realize you were such a big deal until the end of the day when we were invited to lunch with you and the base commander and we've talked about this several times. But as a civilian, it was just shocking to me to hear the level of integrity that two people who work together daily had for one another. And, granted, I was representing quite a large company and had some colleagues with me. I know that it was there for show, but it was also, you know, it wasn't just for show. I shouldn't say that it was so impressive. It was so impressive and you have done so much. Tell us a little bit about your service and then what you did, and now what you're doing.

Charlie: 52:03

You know, growing up in southeastern Kentucky, when I did, cheryl, we were always adventurous kids because we were in the country. You could be adventurous Just don't step on a snake, you know or get caught on a fence, and that's the only two things you had to worry about. So my cousin and I, when we were old enough to start wandering the country side, you know, at about eight or 10 years old, our motto was always where our pervading thought was what's over that next hill? So we'd always have to go climb the next hill and see what was on the other side. Well, that's the way I've lived my life. So joining the Marines was was the first hill that I had to look on the other side of. And after I, you know, joined, joined the Corps ranks, every job I took was another method of me looking over the next hill. So when I became a first sergeant, I went to the infantry because I had never been in the infantry. That was the next hill. And then I did about four and a half years in the infantry and did both Iraq and Afghanistan with third battalion, fourth Marines. And once I picked up the Sergeant Major, I said you know what's the next hill? Well, I've never served with helicopters so I'd like to go see what it's like to serve in a helicopter squadron. So I did two different helicopters quadrants and loved it because it was the next hill. And then eventually, of course, when I met you, I was the the base the base Sergeant Major at Marine Corps Base, hawaii and that was the next hill and you know I got to serve with, I got to see what federal employees look like and how they worked and I got to see, you know how a base operated and I got to learn so much that I would have never learned in a regular Marine Corps unit and it really helped me to transition into the position I have now where I work for Fort Wayne right up here in Alaska as one of their federal employees. And boy, it really just helped me to take that next step and to peer over that next hill. So if I can give anybody any advice, it's always look over the next hill and if you don't like what's on the other side, you can always back up and head head another direction.

Cheryl: 54:03

Go find another hill, for sure.

Charlie: 54:04

That's right.

Cheryl: 54:05

Mentoring is sort of the heartbeat of who you are and I. I have Southern folks in my family who, who I love, and I know that they're incredibly genuine. Storytelling is their, their art, but giving back can tend to be a part of that culture as well. You and I talked a lot about mentoring, One of the things that you did right when you left those videos, man. They were very impactful. How are you mentoring folks in your new role? You mentioned this earlier.

Charlie: 54:35

You know I get to work with soldiers every single day. So I bet, I bet there's not been a day I've been up here for about a year and a half working for the army. I bet there's not one day that I've talked to a soldier about getting out and starting life. Part two I you know I really focus on senior enlisted folks and my joke with the previous in the army they call base art majors, they call them Garrison command Sarp majors very auspicious title and the last command Sarp major we had for the Garrison I told them I said I'm going to break you eventually I'm going to talk you into getting out of the army. So I always talk to those commands arms major. You know about getting out and what the next step looks like. And you know I tell them, hey, and I have a lot of credibility with them because they know I was where they are. So I tell them hey, look, you know here's what the next step looks like here's. You know, here's how you prepare yourself for that. It's actually had an unintended harmonic. You know them knowing who I was and who I am now, because they'll come to me sometimes just seeking, you know, a sounding board for a problem they're having in their current role as a command Sarp major or sometimes as a first sergeant. They'll ask a question to say, hey, what do you think about this? And they'll, you know, just ask my opinion on it. And you know that's what an honor, you know, and it's humbling because guys recognize, you know, when you care, and I've been able to continue, you know, kind of giving back through my current job and also here on LinkedIn. You know I still enjoy taking phone calls and you know answering emails and DMs when somebody you know reaches out to me, because, boy, at the end of the day, I definitely wouldn't be where I am now had it not been for a couple of people in my life that did that exact same thing.

Cheryl: 56:25

You said earlier that the people who poured information into you. I know people have talked to you about how can you get your reach out there more. Is it a book? Is it a podcast? Is it? Are you just going to continue doing what you do? I know that you live in Alaska for very specific reasons you and your family, your outdoors people. You loved being outdoors, you love hunting. So what's the future, what's the next few years for you? You've only been out three years. What's the next three years?

Charlie: 56:55

Sure. So I actually have a lot of opportunities to to mentor folks and you know some of those are one-on-one opportunities. I've recently had a guy coming to my life who is a very good friend of mine, probably one of the closest friends I've had in years, and he just at his retirement, approved from the Army. He's a first-sardom and you know he he very much listens to a lot of the things that I have to say about transition. Our families are very good friends. He's got an amazing family and I believe you know I'm a man of faith. So I, you know, I believe that God puts everybody in your path for a reason and you know we were put together for a specific reason. But I think the mistake that we often make is walking by those opportunities. So not only do I like to grab those opportunities, but I like to search them out. So there are a couple of ways you could do that. First of all, being involved in the community, no matter where you are. My wife recently talked to me about the VFW. I've got a couple of good friends that go to the VFW here in Fairbanks and that's something I very much like to get involved with, not only to mentor others, but to receive the mentorship from those, you know, old, salty warfighters that go to the VFW, because there's just so many opportunities there in the local community places like that. You know, we actually have a home group that meets in our home each Monday night and it's a Bible study. But we kind of focus on, you know, military families, because that's our bread and butter and not everybody up here was a military family and no one can identify with a military family like a current or former military family, because you, you all, belong to that special club. So that's where opportunities are bound. So we really just, you know, take advantage of where we can. And I have not found my, you know my tipping point yet, I believe right now I always have room for a little bit more, so I'm always looking for more folks just to help out.

Cheryl: 58:46

Well, I know you can reach you on LinkedIn and he's. Is it Charles Wells? You don't go by Charlie on LinkedIn.

Charlie: 58:53

I think on LinkedIn it's Charles. I believe You'll see my dashing. You know countenance when you search Charles Wells. I can't remember what current profile. No, you know what. The current profile picture I use is me standing on a rocky outcropping in Alaska, which is the wilderness behind me, which is one of my favorites. I don't think you need to see my face to connect with me on LinkedIn, but I do have an introductory video on my profile as well, so if you really need to see what I look like up close and you can watch that video. It's about, you know, 20 seconds.

Cheryl: 59:25

Well, you also have a common name. So sometimes when we go looking for people, we find 20 others and it's like I don't know that. I want to find it. I always tell people, just look for the beard. You want to find those transitioning folks find the freedom beards because they're always have the facial hair going. People have talked to you about podcasts, books. I would love to see you on a speaking tour. That's just my. I just like hearing you talk. That's why you're on the podcast. By the way, I've been stalking Charlie for three months now. I pre-recorded before we launched the podcast for a year and he was one of the first people I wanted on the show, so we finally made it happen. Thank you so much.

Charlie: 1:00:04

But absolutely.

Cheryl: 1:00:05

Where are you going to head with this? Are you going to go on a world tour? What's going on?

Charlie: 1:00:09

Well, you know I love podcasts and I'll tell you, cheryl, I really picked up on over the last five years. Jeff Hansher has a great podcast that I've listened to so much. There were a lot of podcasts that folks started about transition and they usually fell off after about eight or 10 episodes. I feel like if I started the podcast I may have the same challenge. I could have about eight or 10 episodes on a podcast and then I just would draw a blank. So you know, I've often considered a book because I do have a few hundred pages about Iraq and Afghanistan captured that I did in the moment. So I've often thought about putting that together and publishing it. You know I'm obviously I have no problem speaking in public. I've actually spoken to many, many non-military crowds over the years and I really enjoy that. I feel like it's a gift. But I've never really seriously explored, you know, any motivational speaking or anything like that. You know my crowd is usually a faith-based crowd, so I've preached in a lot of different churches and a lot of venues and I really feel led to do that and enjoy it. But you know, motivating people, I feel like that's something I can do every day to the people that I'm saying to the left and the right of and I think that's today's message.

Cheryl: 1:01:24

Really, that's what we're norming around is. You know you've continued the mission. You didn't go into a DOD contracting job. You're a GS employee, but you chose a location that is so unique you chose. I think Charlie, you really sat down one day and said I want to know where I'm going to be, looking at outside the window, I want to know what I'm going to be wearing, I know exactly how long my beard's going to be. I want this temperature. I don't like hot because I'm living in Hawaii, it's hot, right. You know you really did the interior work to figure out, to go, and then you went to the weirdest place ever and I so admire that, because not everybody can get a job in very specific niche places. So tell us more about your process on that one. Was it just something you knew over the years?

Charlie: 1:02:13

Well, you know, we talked earlier about looking over, you know, looking over that next hill, and sometimes, listen, you can't be an explorer, you cannot be an adventurer if you have to be comfortable while you're doing it. So a lot of folks, when they transition, they have a transition plan, but it revolves around, you know, monkeys, eyebrow, kentucky, or wherever you happen to be from. Somebody says, hey, when I retire I'm going to go to. You know, live five miles down the road from my mama's house in monkeys, eyebrow, and work at the local Pigley Wiggly, all right, well, that's not much of a transition plan because your mama, one day, you know she's going to die. I hate to tell you this If you've not heard it before. You heard it here. First it's appointed, for every man wants to die, and then the judgment. So what happens to you and monkeys, eyebrow, after you've hooked your entire future to that place and you have a fallen out with your family or, you know, a bunch of die off? What are you going to do now? So my wife and I and I blessed to have her because she's also an adventurer and she always likes to look over the next hill with me and you know we decided that a place that we would really like to be, just to see what life is like, is interior Alaska. So when I got the job offer up here, we came up for a week in March of 2022 just to see and I'll tell you, cheryl, from the second we stepped off the plane until the time we got back on the plane a week later, we knew that we were Alaskans at heart and we had to be here. Now, not everybody's like that. I mean, it does get all the way down to about negative 60 here. I've only seen negative 40, but it's gotten negative 60 a few years here and it's not super uncommon. So you have to be willing to be a bit uncomfortable. But I'll tell you, in that discomfort, man, there are just so many blessings that you come across every single day. And you know me, being able to serve with the army is man just such. It's so enjoyable. See, I couldn't work around Marines anymore because I told you, you know we always are Marines at heart and if I saw young Marines, you know, misbehaving even as an old retired guy, it would stress me out. So I work around soldiers. You know they're not really my tribe. We're like first cousins, we're not brothers. So if I see a soldier doing something crazy around the post, that's not my problem. That's how I still have all this dark hair on top of my head. I don't work with Marines anymore.

Cheryl: 1:04:34

So getting a federal job can take up to 400 days. I'm curious how you networked. I mean people are like, oh no, you just put your resume in USAjobsgov. It's not, that's not, that is the way you do it. But how did you network to get that job? Again, weird place, very specific. I mean someone had to know to bring your awareness to it, or were you researching? What was it? I really kind of want to know, like the ingredients of the soup.

Charlie: 1:05:04

Yeah. So that's a great question. My first federal job was with the Navy, right there at Pearl Harbor, and I got direct hired. So you can be direct hired for a federal position only if you're currently a non-DOD employee. Once you get a DOD, you can no longer be direct hired. So I was, you know, a SART major. I was still the base SART major and I saw a job on USAjobs working at naval facilities in AFAQ, Hawaii, and the lady that was hiring I had worked with her for about two and a half years on the housing at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, because one of the things that Boogie allowed me to do, you know, Colonel Inez, he allowed me to completely be the command liaison with family housing and with unaccompanied housing. So she and I had a very close working relationship over those two and a half years. So I just called her and said Sophie, I see you're hiring and I'm going to be retiring in a few months, and she was surprised that I was going to stay there and that I would consider a federal job. So she direct hired me for that and the way that I got into that role was simply networking. You know, if Sophie and I didn't know one another. If she didn't know the kind of worker that I am and the kind of heart that I had for housing and for, you know, really important service members, she would have never considered me. So the most important thing to know about federal hiring is that it's a lot like any other hiring. It's about networking, so you can certainly network your way into a position. It's really no different than what happens outside the gate. Now, the way that we ended up in Alaska, we stayed in Hawaii until our oldest graduated from the University of Hawaii and as soon as she graduated, our plan was to leave because of the high cost of living there. We did leave and I found out about the Alaska job because one of my great mentors and you see him here on LinkedIn all the time is a man named Dave Tripp. David Tripp you can find him on LinkedIn. Just such a you know, such a father figure to me and just he's like part of our family, to be honest with you, and he and his wife still live here in Fairbanks, but he came up here to work in housing for the Army and he told me one day he said hey, I'm going to be hiring folks up here in the next few months you might want to keep an eye open. Now, the kind of man that Dave is, you know, and he's just truly a man of integrity because he knew me, he completely excused himself from the hiring process and I had to do it all on my own. And, you know, I'm thankful for that because the only you know, he just he just let me know a job would become an open. He didn't, you know, have anything to do with my hiring and I appreciated it, but that's how I came to know about this job and you know, the guy that actually served on my hiring panel is now my boss and he was really like a big brother to me once, once I got hired on. So it's just been one amazing, you know, experience after another up here. So we came, you know, to the next hill and we peered over the edge and we liked what we saw. So I think it's this hill that we're going to, we're going to pitch our tent on, and Alaska has enough hills to look over that I don't think we'll ever leave.

Cheryl: 1:08:14

I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy. I've been looking forward to this. We've been trying to arrange this recording time for a long time and when it happened today, something happened this morning and I looked at my schedule and I saw that you were on it. It's like it's all going to be okay, Cause I get to talk to you. You're like a warm hug. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Charlie: 1:08:33

Thank you, Cheryl.

Cheryl: 1:08:35

Any last alibis before I, I locked down this segment and we move on to the next one.

Charlie: 1:08:39

You know I'm always available. Just reach out to me. Please DM me. If you ever want to talk about, you know, transition, if you ever want to talk about your life now, outside of the military, please reach out. You can. You know you can catch all my videos. My hashtag on LinkedIn is talk to you around the band. Please, please, please, don't hesitate to reach out, because you know you're not an interruption in my day. You're the reason for it. I'm here to serve and I'm here to help and you know, don't, let, don't, let that go, don't let that, that that blank spot on my Saturday morning go unfilled. Please reach out.

Cheryl: 1:09:12

I love it. Thank you so much, charlie. I'm Cheryl Cross. I'm your host, a very proud host, of doing this podcast, the Military to Civilian Career Transition Power Hour. You'll find it only on Exchange Podcast Series. We're going to shut down this series and go just a brief break and head into our five plus year vet. We'll be right back as we round out all the episodes. On this episode we have, I think, one of the highlights Somebody who's been out of the military at least five years. Now there's sometimes that I make an exception because I don't like it when people have been out more than 10, I think they forget about their transition. But if they're deeply integrated into the talent space meaning somebody who's supporting you, folks just like you who are getting out of the military or looking for jobs, they, they get a pass. And one of them is one of my favorite people. He's been a mentor to me for many years and we've had the honor and the privilege to work together. I'd like to introduce you to George Bernlauer. Hey, george, thanks so much for being on my show.

George: 1:10:29

Hi Cheryl. Thanks for the opportunity to join you on your show. I'm thrilled to be here.

Cheryl: 1:10:33

I know so many stories. We've shared so many drinks, so many. We've traveled, we've done things at conferences, but I want you to talk a little bit about the blind squirrel finding the acorn. Your transition story, I think doesn't get talked about enough and it's very unique. So why don't you start off?

George: 1:10:52

Yeah, thanks, thanks for the opportunity. I'm glad to do it and, as you pointed out, even though it's, you know, I'm several years removed from it, just because of the nature of my work the individuals that I help with their transition it comes up often and it still resonates, you know, with individuals. So I'm a veteran of the Navy and my experience in the Navy was I started off life in the Navy as an avionics technician and then wrapped up my career as an aircraft maintenance officer. So engineering, undergraduate degree, all aerospace maintenance experience. When I decided to plan my transition from the Navy, I decided I wanted to take advantage of that transition to do something different. As rewarding as aerospace had been for me, I was open to exploring a variety of opportunities. My last duty station was a small naval air station in Atlanta, georgia, nas, atlanta, and as I was planning my transition, I went to a high tech job fair in Atlanta. In preparation for that job fair, I had targeted a number of companies that I wanted to get in front of, introduce myself, see if there might be a technical management type role that I could be a competitive candidate for. And when I wrapped up the visitation of the companies that I wanted to see. I had about an hour and a half left in the event, and I almost left. I remember this. And then, as I was contemplating leaving, I thought you know, I've got an hour and a half left here. There's still companies out there that I haven't had an opportunity to talk with, even if I didn't know who they were or what they were about. I might as well present a resume, introduce myself and learn something. And, sure enough, the very last company that I talked to that day said that I fit the mold of what they look for in a recruiter. Now, that surprised me, because I had no recruiting experience. But what I had were transferable skills that they recognized in my resume, and their thought process was you've got all these pieces that we're missing from recruiters that we'd like to get on board. We can teach you the recruiting piece. So I went home, did some research. The more I learned about talent acquisition and recruiting, the more intrigued I became. One thing led to another, and when I transitioned from the Navy, I launched a career in recruiting and I specifically focused on helping men and women who were transitioning from the military find engineering management, technical management type roles in the military. So I always credit that individual of the job fair that saw something in me that I did not see myself at the time. Fortunately, I was open to exploring opportunities and it worked out. It's what I've been doing ever since and, as you know, cheryl, this is a field that I love, that I have a deep passion for that, without sending egotistical, that I've had a lot of success in as well.

Cheryl: 1:13:33

You have, and I'll bank on that one. You definitely have been successful, so much so that you started your own company, and I'd like to, because it's so different. I want you to explain how it works, how people can get ahold of you, how you might work somebody through this system.

George: 1:13:49

Excellent Thanks for the opportunity to talk about military talent pipeline, this new company that I've just recently launched To set the stage for that. As I mentioned, I started off as a recruiter that was helping men and women transition from the military into the civilian workforce, with a focus on engineering management, technical management roles. So several years under my belt in the recruiting arena, but I've also had the opportunity to lead military hiring initiatives for large companies out there as well. So I've been on the receiving end of what resources were available that help transitioning military professionals, whether it be job fairs, recruiting agencies, military focused job boards, things of that nature. I've got to experience each of those, not just as a recruiter but then someone who's also employed these resources, and I got the idea to come up with something that was a little bit different, kind of a hybrid between a recruiting agency and a job board that focused on military connected talent but do a little bit more than what a job board would do not just be some digital portal where people dump a resume, search jobs, hope to be discovered and contacted, put the human element in that process and, for companies out there, work for them like an agency would, but not charge that fee for hire, you know type process, actually set up a simple subscription process to bring it together. So I work very close with men and women who are transitioning from the military, veterans and military spouses that are looking for a new career. I've started a networking process for these individuals and then again for companies that are looking to capitalize on bringing this top tier, diverse talent to the organizations. Well, I'm doing that for them in a unique way. Like I said, it's kind of like having a source and recruiter at a fraction of the cost.

Cheryl: 1:15:46

And for those of you who are listening. So sourcing in the recruiting world is really the we'll call it the Marines, right? The Marines will go in and take the beach. The sorcerers are the Marines of recruiting. They go in, they find the talent, they scrub them we call it scrubbing. So they'll pre-interview, they'll put you in their system. You may or may not get a second interview. Then a recruiter may come in and get a little bit more detail to see if you are a larger fit for their organization or whatever they're working on. If you get to the hiring manager, then you've made it pretty much through the process. Then it's up to you. Know the fate, the stars, the contract, whatever it is, you know if the job's available with your timeline. What I like about you, george, is that you understand all those nuances. You know I was in the middle of it, so I was the client-facing recruiter. I'm usually the, you know, as a consultant. Now I'm helping companies build these pipelines. But as I sat with you, I was the person in between. I was the meat and the sandwich, and what I saw was missing is a lot of what you're doing. So we would put people into this repository and they may never be talked to again. And it was like the abyss. You know, they had this really hopeful conversation with somebody and, coming out of 20 years of the military, a lot of folks thought, well, they're going to give me an offer soon. Because she said well, we really like you and I'm running into this a lot with people who I may coach or talk to here on the podcast and just so you know folks, unless you get an offer, it's not an offer. If it's a verbal offer, they will say we are offering you a job for X amount. That is a verbal, binding offer in most states. So be very mindful of that. If someone says we'd like to potentially give you an offer, that's not an offer. But you know again, what I really love about what you're doing is that you're fixing what has been missing and that network piece, that piece that where they have the conversation. There could potentially be interest with whatever companies you have, but you're making sure that there's follow through and I think that's great.

George: 1:17:53

Yeah, you're spot on, cheryl, In fact, the point that you've touched on. I'm amazed at the number of individuals that I reach out to who set up a profile on the site and they're surprised that they're actually getting contact from me and I'm scheduling a call with them. I can't tell you, it's a little heartbreaking. You know, sometimes, the number of people who go to a, you know, to a job fair, for example. They meet all kinds of companies and then they don't get a single follow up from the event. Or you know, again, they reach out to a resource and same thing. It's amazing the number of folks who have said they were surprised that I reached out to them to have a conversation.

Cheryl: 1:18:35

Heartbreaking 200,000 people leave the military each and every year. Military professionals is who I focused on. That's who I wrote my book for. George, you would be considered a military professional. I know you read the book. Thank you so much. By the way, those who have planned a career in the military need to plan a career outside of the military. That's it Now. If you got, you went in four, six years. You went in to get your GI Bill, to get a degree, to get some skills. You may not be, you may have had a career prior to going into the military. You may not be as serious. You may enter the job market fresh and saying, okay, I'll take whatever. But I've found that those who spend a little bit longer time, have a little bit more investigated in, invested rather into their military career, are going to take their next career very seriously. So I want you if that's you who's listening to really think about how you strategically create that path. And it isn't rounding the bend, it isn't using the last you know, 40, 60, 90 days of your term, whatever your terminal leave, to go apply. It is networking, it's being strategic, it's all of those things and maybe companies like George and I think you know, we see this in the talent space a lot. When something works, a lot of them pop up. So I know you're a change maker, I know that you're a leader and I know a lot of people really appreciate what you're doing. So you may not be the only company doing this for very long. Let's see if they follow your lead. What other things are you seeing that could be helpful for our listening audience? I know we could spend an hour talking about that, but what are some of the top three or four things other than timing, people applying at the right time which you could definitely help with with this process?

George: 1:20:22

Yeah. So it's natural, I think, especially for a lot of leaders within the military, to start that planning process in advance. And that's one of the things I really admire about the book that you put together. It's the first one I've seen with a three year plan out there. You know, most individuals really start thinking about the transition when they're a year out, and then it's. There's a lot to learn, right, there's a, you know, and some of it is a bit surprising for them. I see some companies starting to break the mold on this. But you know, the one thing that can be stressful for that transitioning military professional is no bites, no serious interest. Until they get in that little window of availability 90 days, 60 days out they spend the time planning and prepping. You know, sometimes they're sending resumes out six months in advance and they're wondering why they don't get a hit. You know, but unfortunately the nature of the beast for a lot of companies out there is hey, we're focused on our needs now, not necessarily what we need. Three months, four months, five months, six months. Down the road I am starting to see a change in that, where there are some some companies starting to look a little bit deeper. I think that's because of the competition for this talent. You mentioned 200,000 minimum in transitioning from the military. Each year. There's approximately another 100,000 or so that took advantage of the GI Bill, that are now reentering the workforce after having earned an undergraduate or an advanced degree. One of the things that I noted not too long ago was the number of companies fishing in this pool has increased, which is good. So the competition for the talent is still out there. There's still a lot of companies still trying to figure it out, right. But so to make my, to make your short answer longer, the thing, is. you know, hey, planning and preparation start well in advance. You know everyone's going to get out of the military eventually and you might think that a year is sufficient time to plan. Not, if you want to do it right. And, as they say, once you actually get into that planning stage, it can be a full time job.

Cheryl: 1:22:29

Yeah, one of the things that you and I both saw a lot and I want to bring up is people. If I was at a job fair, I had this one gentleman and this was only one person so came up and said you know your company, I'm so mad at your company. They. All they do is send me rejection letters. I'm looking at his resume. He's got an outstanding resume. I mean he can speak in full sentences. He I'm like wondering what in the heck? Why would he be rejected so much? And I looked down and it said his availability was two years away from the date. And I said sir, are you applying for jobs? He says yeah, every weekend. I mean, I spend my Saturday doing it. I said stop, you're not available and you have it right here. So what's happening is people are going into your profile and they are reading this great, please, put your availability on the resume, please, please, please, please, please. I created a whole frame for LinkedIn. You can go on my website, xchangepodcastcom, get your free frame and it says mild to sieve available and the date, so that recruiters aren't are reaching out to you at the right time. But I said to him sir, you're, you're applying very early and he looked at me and he said, well, that shouldn't matter. I said it shouldn't, but it does, because certain companies aren't. They don't have what's called evergreen racks. Explain what an evergreen rack is, george? I'm going to have you answer some of these things. What's?

Kait: 1:23:50

an evergreen.

George: 1:23:52

So you'll see an evergreen rate, typically with large companies that have high volume hiring and an ongoing need for a specific talent. Sometimes they'll have it out there because it's a hard to fill you know type role, so they might not even have the position open. But let's say that you have to have a TSSI with a poly in five years of significant IT, you know experience, etc. They'll have this evergreen rack out there where they'll be willing to talk to individuals that hit it because they fit those qualifications or, again, there's just an ongoing need. Anytime we have someone that applies and they have this particular background, education, experience, even if the position isn't open, we want to engage and, you know, get that process moving for them. So that's typically how the evergreen racks are used.

Cheryl: 1:24:41

Yeah, and you will see those with. You know you might be starting your strategic plan very early, as we both have advocated for, and you start looking into industries to do your research. So your research is important to see what type of jobs they may have open. Understand that some companies let's just use a big box store versus maybe a government contracting company Government contracting companies those jobs are going to be a bit nebulous because they're going to be based on whatever they win and those jobs need to be filled now. They're not usually looking ahead. They're needing to staff those positions, right?

George: 1:25:17

So thanks staff To your point. The longer those jobs go on filled, that's revenue that the company's missing out on. So that's why that emphasis is on fill it. Fill it now.

Cheryl: 1:25:26

Yes. So if you're applying to those jobs and your availability is not in that sweet spot window of 60-90 days 30, 60-90 days you want to look for those jobs that have been open for the few years that you're researching that industry. Maybe they have. Let's just go into the biomedical field clinical coordinators. Those will always be open because they're potentially always have them for the drug trials that they're running. But they may not need a PI and they will fill that job and that job will go away because that's for that one drug trial. You know, be mindful and understand, and when you don't understand something as you go through your informational interviews. So you're going to be meeting staff. I mean, I love recruiters, they're my people, I'm one, george is one, but you can get ahead of yourself talking to recruiters too early because they're filling jobs. For now it's good to be on the radar, but you're not going to be able to drag too much information out of them because they need to go fill those jobs. So use the staff, get in touch with people who are doing the job to learn about the job if you can. And I think that you know if, especially if they're not in the military or haven't been in the military, they may think what you do is cool. So that's sort of reciprocal networking. Hey, can I spend 15 minutes of your time learning about what you do? I'm scoping to leave the industry or my job in two years and get into your industry. Could you please share this with me? I swear it'll and only make it 15 minutes. If you say to somebody I only want 15 minutes of your time, say it 14 and a half minutes. We're running up on time because these folks are busy and you don't want to. You know you don't. You have to have a few year relationship with them, right? So you don't want to. Over what is it? Overstep your overstay, your walk, that's it.

George: 1:27:20

There you go, overstay your walk. That's an outstanding advice, cheryl, for folks.

Cheryl: 1:27:24

Thanks, I'm full of it. I'm full of it. So I wrote a book. So tell me something. What else do you want to talk about to this wonderful? I mean, you and I both love this community so much that I've even said to George you let me know when you want to do your podcast because I'm going to produce it. You have so many things to say. You have so many anecdotal. You know you've been doing this in this field for many years and you've met people who have had wins, you've met people who have had struggles. And then you know, as recruiters we kind of boil it down to please don't do this, please do that. So what other things would you like to share with this audience?

George: 1:28:02

Well, what I really aim to do and the reason why I launched military talent pipeline was, you know, I wanted to have an impact on in two different ways. I wanted to be a positive impact for you know again that military connected talent whether it be a military spouse, a veteran with industry experience or transitioning military professional and just work on their behalf to open up some doors, to open up the opportunity they help move things forward, be an advocate for them, knock down a few barriers they may be running into on their own, get their foot in the door. They still got to jump in there and do the heavy lifting and win the job, but you know as well as I do it's rewarding when you're a part of that. If all you did was open the door and got them through, you know that's what keeps you in the role. You know, on the flip side too, I also want to be, I want to have a positive impact on companies that are you know, they realize the value of talent coming from the military or military Connect to talent. But even those that may not quite realize the value that's there yet. That's the other impact that I want to have. You know, I want to be able to come. Basically, I feel like I've built a better mousetrap, so a more efficient and cost effective resource for companies to use. But I also want to bring other companies into the fold that may not have discovered this talent yet, or maybe they've discovered it by accident because they hire someone that's a veteran that's doing an outstanding job for it, and I want to figure out how do I get more folks on board like that. So that's the impact that I hope to have on those two different areas there.

Cheryl: 1:29:36

I think you will. We all stand on the hill, just so you know, as listeners. And if you're an HR manager or CHRO, which is a chief human resources officer or head of talent acquisition, and you're tuning into this because you want to learn more about recruiting military talent, please call George. Call me, I'll get you in touch with George. You know, we're both kind of doing the same thing in terms of building awareness so that we can build against bias and the bias and I don't want this to end on a bad note, but there's bias out there. I live in Hawaii. It's the highest, second highest cost of living in the United States. People tend not to stay. As a workforce development councilwoman, I'm in front of the governor saying sir ma'am, lieutenant Governor Luke, we have this talent pool that is leaving the island Because they can't afford to stay. How might we keep them? How? Why do 10,000 people leave every year? I want to keep them. We have jobs. You know we have to import people sometimes for jobs and the talent pool is leaving because of the cost of living. These are people that have already contributed for the last few years. So we all have and you know I've talked to companies that have said you know, yeah, I don't want to hire that military spouse, they're only going to be here two years. It's like okay, but they're so valuable you know that two years, you're going to spend two years looking for someone who wants to be here for 10. And it just, you know again, it's frustrating. We wouldn't do it if it was easy. I'll be honest with you. If this was easy, it would be no fun. So there's challenges and just know for you, listening, if you are military, moving into a civilian career, or if you're a veteran, there are great people advocating for you, and George Byrne Lower is one, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a fan, I mean it. There's some wonderful people in the space that are assisting and you're going to find them, you're going to resource with them and if you plan far enough ahead, you're going to know who they are. They are the Michael Quinn's, they are the Annie Brock's, they are the George Byrne Lowers, they're the Loresh Miggles, they're all those folks who are out there barking for one cause or another and together we're raising voices. That's the whole point of my podcast. So hey, george, thank you so much. This is one of the things I learned from the last place that you and I worked and it is a military saying do you have any last alibis?

George: 1:31:58

Yeah, yeah, one more. Cheryl, First off, thanks again for having me on board, and I'm coming to you from the Atlanta Metro area. My only request is next time, you know, bring me into studio. Let me join you out there in Hawaii and sit down and do this face to face.

Cheryl: 1:32:14

I would love to bring in my studio and, for you, you need to know that this is a three foot by five foot square space under my stairwell. This is a voiceover studio that I've converted into my podcast studio. But, thank you, you are welcome to sit in my studio, but you will be the only one because I can't get in here with you.

George: 1:32:32

Well, I'm sure that, yeah, it'd be fun to just come out and take advantage of being there.

Cheryl: 1:32:38

Hey, man, you come out, we'll get you to all the bases. You'll meet all the taps folks and military family support center folks all my hood. I will definitely introduce you. We would welcome and honor having you here. And, for those of you who are in Hawaii or elsewhere, if you wanted to reach George, how? Now you have a very interesting last name and for those listening, I want them to hear how they it's spelled so that they can resource you on LinkedIn. So go ahead and tell us that.

George: 1:33:04

Yeah, you bet it's B E R N L O E H R, and the nice thing about having a last name like that is I'm easy to find out LinkedIn.

Cheryl: 1:33:14

He's, he can go directly to milltalentnet milltalentnet.

George: 1:33:21

Fill out a profile, reach out to me. You'll find that I am, I'm accessible and I'm here to help.

Cheryl: 1:33:29

Right on. Well, thank you so much. We're going to be ending this segment and the show and we'll be coming back to you after a brief break, but I just wanted to say mahalo. Nui Loa from Hawaii will get you out here to see George, don't worry about that. Thank you to all of you who are listening to this power hour. I hope and I know that it has been valuable to you. I'm Cheryl Cross, your host for the military to civilian career transition power hour. We'll be right back to to sort of wrap things up after this brief break. As we wrap up episode 11, I'd like to say special thanks to our guest, teresa Carpenter, kate Ladon, charlie Wells and George Bernlauer. I learned everything from this show new for the first time. Even if the stories are the same, it's different, just like a fingerprint. Everybody's transition story is unique, just like you. One thing I want to remind you, as I do before every end of every show you are strong, you are brave, you are skilled and you are trained. If you're coming out of the military or have served or are continuing your transition five or more years outside of the military, know that you are not alone. The skills that you learned in the military are very valued in the civilian workforce and I know that one day you're going to find your home. I'm Cheryl Cross. Thanks for listening to the Military to Civilian Career Transition Power Hour. We'll see you on the next episode, thank you.