Speaker 1: 0:23

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us on another weekly rundown. Today is going to be a day like all the other days. We're going to cover some good information, touch base on a lot of different topics and then do a quick Q&A at the end of this. But Anwar had something to put out. Go ahead, anwar.

Speaker 2: 0:50

It's alright, I'm just gonna run a quick poll in here for everyone. Let us know about how often you guys have attended our orientation, your military status and what are you trying to get out of this session, and then in the chat, feel free to share with us where you're joining us from and what branch of service that you have worn the uniform about. You know, if you're Army, just put a who, everybody will understand you. Okay. If you're Marine, just put a crayon, everybody will understand you. Okay. If you're Air Force, maybe put a beach or something like that, I don't know. Good to see everybody here. And if you're Navy, if you don't want to disclose that, you don't have to.

Speaker 4: 1:40

That's your choice.

Speaker 1: 1:43

We just won the last game, so we don't have to say much. It's all about your actions. Remember, action, speak.

Speaker 2: 1:50

Is it back to four brag right now, are they? Uh, it is back to four brag, all right. I mean, are you still? Uh, you still got your knees in the breeze, or you're about to retire, so are you trying to take it?

Speaker 2: 2:06

slow needs to the breeze. So 1 october 26 is my uh, effective retirement date. So coming up on the end, awesome man. All right, welcome to the crayon evangelists. All right, and for navy guys, we welcome you here. Jay is a navy guy, so if you guys want a free certification voucher, all you have to say hey, I'm Navy, and he will hook you up.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Okay, that's crazy. It's true, though, but that's crazy.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Manuel Ramos, welcome Yuland, everybody else, you know we are here for you guys, so I got a lot of good questions, you know.

Speaker 1: 2:49

So 79 percent wait wait, and where don't you? But you have so some certification connections too, man. I heard you like you guys got to do a ruck march and then you give them certifications at the end with mres or something like that.

Speaker 2: 3:00

That's, that's true, right only if you got your knees in the breeze. All right, only if you got your knees in the breeze. And then kevin too. Yeah, kevin is one of our awesome volunteers here. He will remind you to save the chat if you are on your on your computer, because we share a lot of links, so feel, feel, free. As a matter of fact, I'm not on the camera. Why not? So during this session, please, please. As always, especially if you're a first-timer, I'm going to end the poll because we have 80% participation here, just to share with you guys how many people are here. For all the 100-plus folks that are here for the first time, welcome Act Now. Education here. Jay is our esteemed fearless leader. He's a Navy guy, active duty. I don't know where he's at right now.

Speaker 1: 3:59

I'm in the States. This time I'm jet lagged, but I'm definitely in the States.

Speaker 2: 4:03

He's here in the States. Finally, if you want to switch your computer, go ahead. I mean you can come in anytime. We're here for a couple of hours to talk about different things. And please, in the chat you can save the chat. Kevin from Time to Time shows you how to. It's a three dots in there. We don't send chats at the end of the call. We do not send recording. This is a bootstrap operation.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Very low budget, very low budget.

Speaker 2: 4:34

We try to share information. We welcome people to participate, ask questions, write or open up all the links that will be shared hashtag squirrelsyndrome so you can check it out later on. Uh, if you come in there in the middle, in the middle of the session here, and say, hey, I just showed up, uh, what did I miss? Um, probably be ignored because, again, we share this all the time. I'm not, I'm being facetious a little bit, but you understand. Okay, this is just about sharing resources and building a community. Jay has a LinkedIn link where, instead of just you can feel free to submit your LinkedIn profile and build your community and network with people. Or you can go to that LinkedIn post with already about maybe 300 or 400 people that have already posted their LinkedIn and just connect with them. Build your community, get over that 499 so you can have 500 plus, so nobody knows whether you have 500 connections or 20,000. Okay, and the purpose here is just I'm going to stop sharing this poll because everybody understood where we're coming from. I might add another question later on about branch of service, to see how many Marines we have in here, so we could maybe, from time to time, speak slow and repeat our you know our comments, okay, but we welcome everybody. All right, we welcome everybody. Veterans, transition service members, active duty, who are, you know, a year out, two years out, and planning their retirement, their transition, which is awesome. All right, spouses of all stripes If you're a reserve spouse, active duty, veteran spouse, you're welcome. This is your community as well.

Speaker 2: 6:18

I would ask everybody to mute themselves when they come in to prevent any hot mics in there. But eventually, if you have any question after that, feel free to unmute. We're gonna have a lady here. I think I see katie here. We'll talk about vertforce later on and other stuff, as it might just show up in the chat or in the conversation. And you know, tom margrave, I see you in there. He's coming in again to check it out and hoping that Jay and him will connect again so he can automate this whole process and make it easy for us. Alright, but without further ado, I'll give it to Jay Salters, our esteemed Navy active duty. I mean, this is a good way to show you guys how Army and Navy can work together. Alright, this is beautiful.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Appreciate it, enomar, thanks for the introduction, good way to show you guys how Army and Navy can work together. All right, this is beautiful. Appreciate it. Anwar, thanks for the introduction. Look folks. Thank you again for joining us today.

Speaker 1: 7:16

We're going to cover different topics. For those who are interested in taking advantage of some of the resources we offer, like Coursera, splunk we're going to share that at the end of the session, on the hour, so it's probably going to be around two o'clock. That's when we share that. We'll give you access to, or show you how to get access to, our career compass, which has over six million jobs on it. It shows you how to get access to all the different certification resources out there over 70 different certification resources, all for free, and a bunch of other things. That's going to be on there, so we'll cover that at two o'clock. So please do me a favor. If someone in the chat joins on the 12th hour saying, hey, man, where's the, where's the Coursera stuff? Tell them that is going to be shared at two o'clock, uh, 2 pm eastern standard time. So you guys are tracking, all right, so I'm going to go through some things.

Speaker 2: 8:09

Sorry, I'll be remiss if I don't also introduce our fearless GS guy, anibal Pacheco. So he's one of our. You know he's a team member, so if any of you got, he's a warrants officer former warrants so like all self-respecting warrants, he's in the background making sure everything works. He will hook you up with all the links and everything like that. So make sure that you get all the links for whatever you know Jay will be sharing and if anybody's also interested in GS jobs, feel free to hook up with him, although we know what the chainsaw is doing to our service, to our GS jobs. But be that as it may, you know you want to connect with somebody and continue serving your country as a GS. You know, look up Anibal and build your network in that capacity, all right.

Speaker 1: 8:59

All right. All right, let's get sharing. Oh, we got 266 people on the call, all right. Can everyone see my screen? Yes, sir.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Yeah, yeah, roger, that All right, cool, so Act Now. Education nonprofit organization. We are a volunteer-based organization, meaning everyone that you see on this side of the house is all volunteers. None of us gets paid to do this. We do this because we care. On this side of the house is all volunteers. None of us gets paid to do this. We do this because we care.

Speaker 1: 9:31

If there's something wrong with the way that we're doing things or you think there's a way that it can prove like we've had a lot of recommendations, please get to it, help us out, and that's the way. That's what we do. We try to give back to the community as best as possible. So if you feel that there's something that we could be improving, please let us know. Get in touch with us Directly. Message Anwar, or her name is Mona Contractor and we'll be able to kind of get that process started for you. So our focus for our organization for those first-timers are we provide free resources, so anything that we talk about will be free to you. There's not going to be a cost. There's not going to be a hidden fee or anything like that. We're not about that. We don't even sell anything on our platforms at all, and so everything that we do for the military community is about providing free resources out there. There's over 40,000 different resources out there, and we just want to be able to provide you with some things that are going to help you in your career trajectory.

Speaker 1: 10:35

I know a lot of people posted their LinkedIn in the chat. That is great, but unless you save the chat and then manually click on every single LinkedIn URL, that will take you some time. So, to make this easy, we've put a little scan me code in here, and so all you would have to do is scan this code, go to the comment section, say a little bit about yourself and then make sure you connect with other people on that list. There's over 400 people on this list to include. We have Chris McPhee, who talks about the PMP. He even has the PMP assessment on there. We have a lot of different people. We have some recruiters on there. Connect with folks on there. That's specifically what this post was about for us to be able to connect on LinkedIn, to make it easier for people to find people, and so you just never know what can open up through your career in terms of connecting with people and using LinkedIn for its intended purpose and networking. So there's that. Linkedin for its intended purpose in networking. So there's that.

Speaker 1: 11:32

How many people are looking for a job? Put a three in the chat, I would definitely say that's well over 75 people, 100. We're going up. Okay, so we're doing a virtual fair. Uh, on may 30th. We have some really great companies that are showing up and I would highly recommend you, if you have the ability to um.

Speaker 1: 12:01

Eastern standard time starts at 3 pm and ends at 6, so it's not going to be an all-day ordeal. It's only three hours long to touch base with recruiters and folks that are actually hiring people. Most of the folks that we bring to our hiring events have roles open, are looking to work with military and have had past performance in hiring people. Tech Systems hires a lot of people. I can't even count how many people they've hired, but they've helped a lot of people. Um, I can't even count how many people they've hired, but they've helped a lot of people get jobs. Recently, mad tech helps people get jobs. We're going to have amazon there. Um, talking about different job opportunities, um, I think either microsoft I can't think. I think it's microsoft might be microsoft, but there's at least about 15 different companies and it's real, virtual, real, laid back.

Speaker 1: 12:49

Essentially, you get to talk to a recruiter, touch base with them, ask them questions about the role. The best way to kind of network with a recruiter in that sense is identify what roles are there. Once we put out the full list of employers and then, when you speak to them, say, hey, I'm interested in this role, I'm already applied, already did the research. Is there anything that you would need to do for my end? Or anyone that you can touch base, I can touch base with, can learn more about the role and that way you can kind of help align yourself with getting a job. So please, please, please do that. This is a free event. There's no cost to it. Jump on it, take advantage of it, utilize it. This, I think we won't be doing another one until August, so take advantage of this, this hiring fair.

Speaker 1: 13:34

All right, what else we got. Did anyone see the post that I made about the 60 certifications that we gave away? Put a one in the chat if you did so a few people seeing that. How would you like to be one of those folks? So this next month, in June, we're definitely going all out. I'm going to try to to to outpace that 60.

Speaker 1: 14:11

And we're going to do a virtual education. I mean, our virtual summit is going to be a call and we're going to provide a lot of good information. So there's going to be information about Understanding how to land a job, understanding how to house hack your VA loan. What else do I want to talk about? There's going to be information related to utilizing different like setting up. What do you call it Setting up? I'm trying to think of the name of it. It's not setting up like wills or anything, but it's essentially setting up a trust.

Speaker 1: 14:53

We're going to go through a list of different resources out there that most people don't really talk about and most people don't know. Buddy Russians is working with me to put this on. We have 10 high-level speakers that are going to be coming to you. No one can sell you anything, so no one's trying to sell you anything. All they're going to be coming to you. No one can sell you anything, so no one's trying to sell you anything. All they're there to do is to give you information related to a tool or a resource that can help you change your life.

Speaker 1: 15:18

And so I'm bringing my network in to be able to do this, and Buddy's working with me to kind of be able to coordinate this, and so we're going to have, I think, about 10 different speakers throughout the day, and then we'll have different sessions, and we're going to announce that probably like within two weeks or so. But if you want to be a part of the pre-celebration and there's some things that we're going to be doing for the pre-celebration folks or the pre-party, I would say join this link, Use this QR code to join us. It'll take you to a WhatsApp group and you'll be added to a WhatsApp group and then I will drop information related to that. I will let you know when the certification drops are going to happen, because there's going to be a lot. I'll let you know when the laptop drops are going to be happening, because there's going to be a few, and so that's one of the things that I'm going to do, and so that's one of the things that I'm going to do.

Speaker 2: 16:09

For those who are not aware, because you mentioned Buddy Rushing, so we had him as a guest maybe a couple of months ago or something like this. He's a Marine Corps officer who got out and eventually started his company in real estate and investments and things like this, so he's giving back to the community in his own accord, so he's a good guy to know and hear from. So, again, if you are interested, just click on that QR code in there, join the WhatsApp group and that's just going to have announcements in there for when Jay will put together all this summit.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Yeah, so expect that to be a later part of June. Like I said, we'll have a webpage for you to sign up. It's going to be a great opportunity to kind of learn one day, to kind of knock out as much as you possibly can. I could tell you I know a lot, but clearly I didn't know enough. When I attended one of Buddy's sessions and he put me on game with a lot of different aspects and I was like, oh man, this is something that everyone needs to know, and so this is what we're doing. We're going to be able to do that and share that with the people, and so it's going to be beneficial.

Speaker 1: 17:18

But, yeah, awesome, all right. Well, before we get into how to obtain a clearance I want to touch base with let me switch it over. Stop sharing with Vertforce. Vertforce is an awesome organization and if you're looking for virtual jobs and opportunities, that's what they do. So we have Katie on the line, and Katie will tell you about some of the opportunities that they have and what they have going on at the Bird Force organization and shout out to Mill Spouses Bird Force is ran by a mill spouse, kimber and so definitely, definitely, utilize that resource.

Speaker 10: 17:59

Hi Jay and hi everybody, thanks for having me. I am Katie Castillo, the community expert at Bird Force. So for those of you who don't know, like Jay said, we are founded and run by military spouses. All of us, our entire team, are military spouses, which is pretty cool. But basically what we do is we're, first and foremost, a recruitment firm and a staffing firm, so we help military spouses and veterans find primarily remote or location flexible jobs.

Speaker 10: 18:29

So if you guys are in the market for a job, or you're going to be, or you need resources for finding a job, that's what we're here for. So I'm going to drop some links real fast for you guys. I find this is helpful. Also, it keeps me on track me on track. So we highly recommend, if you're looking for a job or you're going to be looking for a job, following Kimber Hill, who is our CEO and founder on LinkedIn. She is great at helping people find jobs. That's literally what she founded Vertforce to do. So if you follow her, connect with her, send her a DM. There is a link in there for a social networking like LinkedIn post on there. So if you're looking to build connections, that's also a great place to do that. We also have a lot of employers who are part of Kimber's community and they check out that post, so it's a good place to just say hi, introduce yourself and start connecting with people.

Speaker 10: 19:24

So we have a job board. Like I said, we're first and foremost a staffing firm and a recruitment firm. So we have a job board. Like I said, we're first and foremost a staffing firm and a recruitment firm, so we have a job board. It is free to join, but make sure you sign up for the job board, otherwise you won't see all of the job postings that we have Right now. We've got some positions on there with CVS Health. We have a very special relationship with Travelers Insurance, very military friendly, and there's a number of other jobs on there as well, and they rotate frequently. So once you sign up, we'll also send you some emails as we get new job opportunities and we have employer events and things like that. Um. So make sure you're keeping an eye on that because, like I said, they update frequently. Um, we had, like, three jobs go up and get filled last week, so, um, keep an eye on that.

Speaker 10: 20:06

Um, we also do educational events and like career coaching, so upcoming events that we have. We have a Travelers. We call them Coffee and Connects. We give away Starbucks gift cards for live attendees at these things. So at all of our events we usually give away Starbucks gift cards and some other goodies and things like that for being a live attendee.

Speaker 10: 20:25

But on Tuesday of this week, on May 20th, we have a Travelers Coffee and Connect. So if you're interested in positions, it's a great chance to come and hear from travelers, hear what they're all about and the positions that they're hiring for. There are links to RSVP to that in there as well. And then we just had last week a VA loan bootcamp. We are doing another one on June 24th with our sister community, the military MLS, and it's free education just about what the VA loan is, how to use it, how to use it more than once, what an assumable loan is. It's all question and answer style, kind of open conversation with some experts who are also military spouses and veterans, and great chance to learn some more. It was a great event. We literally had nonstop questions the whole time and it was excellent. I learned a lot. I'm still learning a lot. So those are two of the upcoming ones.

Speaker 10: 21:20

We are hitting kind of a quieter season in employer events, but stay tuned. We have lots of other information that goes out. Something else Kimber and I go live every Tuesday to share what new jobs we have some job advice, tips, things like that on her LinkedIn and in our private Facebook group, as well as YouTube which, speaking of the YouTube, if you are looking for more resources and things on writing resumes, youtube, if you are looking for more resources and things on writing resumes, how to interview, setting up your LinkedIn we just did a huge three-week series on LinkedIn bootcamp. That is all on our YouTube.

Speaker 10: 21:57

You can search Kimber Hill and find that I don't have a link for that. I'm sorry. I'll grab it in a second when I'm done talking, and then I put some links in there to our job board. It's jobsbertforceus, kimber's LinkedIn and then some RSVP links. If you guys have any questions about searching for jobs or anything like that, feel free to reach out to me. I'll be in the chat for a little while, but yeah, we're here to help, so if you need anything, please let us know. We want to help you. So I think I got everything, but so thank you guys for having me.

Speaker 1: 22:31

Thank you All right.

Speaker 4: 22:33

Back over.

Speaker 1: 22:46

All right. So today, for those who are not tracking, we're going to cover, like I said, how to obtain a security clearance. I'm going to talk about a lot of different topics. I got a bit of flat online for posting that like this topic, people are like well join the military.

Speaker 1: 23:02

Yeah, that is one way, but there are multiple ways to kind of get a security clearance, and so we're going to cover that down and we're going to show you exactly what that looks like, um, in terms of the things that you would need to know, uh, how do you go about doing it? And then some aspects that you, you definitely would want to be, uh, cognizant of going down the process, and I'm gonna show you different avenues, not only just just the like I said, the military aspect, but the other aspects of how to necessarily how to go about doing it, and so I'm going to share this and then, once I get done with this, we can do a quick Q&A and then we can get into the rest of the stuff that we have in store for you. All right? So the first thing that I want to talk about why is this important?

Speaker 1: 24:02

Less than 2% of Americans have a security clearance. It has to relate to you know, being able to show that you have an understanding and able to, you know, maintain and hold the nation's secrets with trust and reliability. Right. There are a lot of jobs, federal and contractor roles available within the government that require security clearances. There are some good benefits of having some, and then also it also like dovetails into different industries, and so if you're interested in cyber, intelligence, aerospace, you name it there's aspects that you can kind of touch base with within having security clearance. It also helps speak to the value that you bring to an employer, especially if you already have one or you are able to bring in skill and get one. That's just another added benefit because that's something that you have now obtained. There's value directly connected to that opposed from you know you not having one, from you not having one. So the simple about the security clearance you have to be some of the requirements for understanding what the security clearance is is you have to have an employer apply for you. I know a lot of people. Overall, this is how anyone gets a clearance. An employer is actually the one who sponsors you for the role. The government may have a role or a design job opportunity that is required to have a clearance involved, and so what they essentially do is they are the ones that are doing the background check, grabbing your information and then sending that off to the agency for coordination and then, if you are able to get your paperwork through and everything is good to go and no issues, then you can get your clearance.

Speaker 1: 25:58

The government runs the clearance aspect, and so most people like for me, I got my clearance through the military. Some people get their clearance from just a role that they pick up. There are different types of roles and different availabilities in terms of getting a security clearance, so it really just depends on what it is. But for those who are not really clear on what a security clearance is, it's a way to be able to operate or work with different types of information, and then your employer is directly. That role is directly related to it. You can't have a role that does not require you to have a security clearance. So, like to give you an example, you can't have a role that you may work at a company that has roles that have a security clearance, but if your role does not align with having one, you won't get one.

Speaker 1: 26:49

It's more about the need to know than anything else. All right, and so there are three types of security clearance levels top secret, secret and confidential. There are different levels of top secret, and then there's more types of compartmentalized clearances involved, but we won't touch base on those too much other than TSSEI. But overall. Just to kind of give you an idea confidential, minimal risk to national security, nothing too crazy in terms of the information that you have access to. Secret can cause serious harm if the information is disposed and top secret, grave damage to national security if it's shared Public trust and the reason I added this here is because some people do get confused with public trust it's not necessarily a security clearance per se. You do have to have a background check, but it does fall into other sensitive access to information that's sensitive in terms of, like, hr, finance, healthcare, things like that, and so someone that works at IRS they may have a public trust, right? So, understanding what the difference is, understanding what the requirements are and all of these do require a background check and have a better understanding of that is going to help you align yourself with your goals as well.

Speaker 1: 28:21

Now, how to get one you need to be a US citizen. To get one, you need to be a us citizen. Um, you have to have no legal drug use. Uh, so not necessarily, like you have to have stopped, and so it. Just so I can kind of put this out there if you smoke weed before and you've stopped and it's been years ago it's. You can still get a clearance. I know many of people who still have a clearance that they've. You know. Uh, I forgot what they call it is um, not a tier one. What, what? What is the breakdown for the drugs?

Speaker 1: 28:58

but everyone's schedule one or schedule a or something like that yeah, so that's, that's one of the big things that people get caught up with. You know, just essentially, if they have done things in the past and they continue to do those things, then obviously yes, but if you have stopped those things and stopped those illicit activities or things like that, then I've seen people, like I said, get clearances with that. If you have any felonies, if you have any major financial problems, if you have any felonies, if you have any major financial problems. Now the whole thing about this is being able to be blackmailed or exploited or you know, you can't have anything on you. That's going to put you in a, a compromising situation when you have, when you're working around, sensitive information. So that's the reason why, in terms of, like, the clearance aspect, it's important to kind of understand that Then you have to fill out an FF86.

Speaker 1: 29:54

This is 20 plus pages of information about your whole life story to to include any foreign contacts. You may have any foreign bank accounts. You may have all your financials, all your debt, even your family member, your immediate family member's information as well, and so it's important to kind of understand what that is and you do not want to leave anything out because there's a person that they will hire to verify it. And so for me, when I joined, they sent an investigator to New York, to my school, to my old places of employment, and they've asked character questions to them. They've asked them, like I have my friends like who's this dude in a black suit asking me questions about you? It was kind of funny, but that's the type of thing that happens when you're getting in your investigation. They're going to ask, uh, people who are close to you, uh about yourself and about your situations, and they're going to verify the information that you put on your sf86. Um, like I said, your employee needs to sponsor you, so that is the main way people get clearance. It's the only way that people get clearance. Your your employer sponsored you and I'm going to show you different ways to have employers sponsor you. And the good news is, as long as you're honest, you have to just be upfront about things. Do not hide things. I've seen people that I've worked with get escorted out of the buildings that I've worked in, never to come back in those buildings because they found out that there was something that they were not upfront about. And then, when they went to do their investigation or their poly or whatever it is. They realized that it's not matching up and they were gone. So just be sure to just be honest, some aspects that you also need to understand.

Speaker 1: 31:50

So, within the community or the IC or whatever it is, certifications can benefit you. There's a lot of aspects to that, but understanding if you're trying to get into IT, if you're trying to get into tech, there are some basic things that you need to have to be eligible. So like Security Plus may require you to have Net Plus, and some may require you to have to order to be eligible. So, like security plus, it may require you to have net plus and some may require you to have A plus, but it's all part of the DOD 8140 and 8570 compliance standards. So you can't even apply like an employee, will not even look at you for sponsorship, if you don't have those types of certifications already aligned, because that's needed for the role. So before you do anything on the network, before you push the power button, before you log in or anything else, you need to have these types of certifications if you're dealing with anything in tech, and that's why it's really important to understand that before you go down the route of trying to get a security clearance from the government sector within IT or cybersecurity. So make sure you do that and make sure you know what that looks like. All right, what can disqualify you from getting your clearance? If you lie on something and they find out for sure, a thousand percent, that's the fastest way. Like I said, I saw somebody get escorted out the building. A couple of people get escorted out the building because they lied on something Too much unpaid debt or your finances are questionable. If you're not saying that you can't have debt just being very clear on that. But if it looks like it's not manageable, right, if it looks like there's some issues there, if they figure they can't trust you with your finance. If you can't be trusted with your finances, how would you be trusted with the secrets of the nation? Does that make sense for everybody? Kind of straightforward there.

Speaker 1: 33:45

Recent illegal drug use. So if you are like yeah, I stopped smoking weed yesterday, that is not a good thing. So you need to make sure that, if this is the direction that you want to go, that you stop whatever illegal drug use and make sure that there's a gap or a separation before you start to apply. Make sure that there's a gap or a separation before we start to apply, if you don't report any of your foreign relationships or your bank accounts and they find out. That's another aspect, and so make sure that you're just upfront with that and, like I said, just disclose everything. I know this picture has nothing to do with the actual, but I just put it up there because I like the pug. So, yeah, everyone's looking at the the bug there, all, right?

Speaker 1: 34:30

Uh, the process is to get hired by a company, the sponsored clearances, right, like I said, fill out the ff86 and this is everything I'm talking about your job, your travel, your family address, anything that they need to know, all that information, all your past history, all your past addresses, everything. Um, what helped me is, uh, if you use, have you been using amazon for a long time? Amazon has all your addresses in there. So make sure you use all the addresses and list them out there. I've used that several times to be able to track everything. I'm every place I've been, um, your background check, interview, credit check, uh, maybe a polygraph, depending on what it is, and then, like I said, clearance officer review and they'll adjudicate it, and if it gets adjudicated, then you get an interim clearance and then you'll get your final clearance once that process or that time frame is done.

Speaker 1: 35:22

After it, if you are not approved, there is a way that you can appeal, but typically it really would just depend on what the organization is, what roles you're applying for and that opportunity. I've seen people who were denied clearances from one organization and they had to wait a year before reapplying again. So that's just something to keep in mind. If you're denied, you can look up cases on DOA, which is the Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals, and this pretty much has people's appeal relisted on what is it that they applied for and then what they got denied for, and it breaks it down. Actually, rather than talking about it, I'll actually bring this up so you guys can see it that way. I know a lot of people have questions about exactly what. No, we need to do that. Let me see. Okay, here we go. So can everyone see the slides? May everyone see the page? Yeah, so on here, these are different cases for each year. So if we click on here with 2024, slow it down, all right, these have different cases in here that you can click on, and so if you click on a case, it'll explain and say who it is and explain exactly whether the person was, why the person was denied, and then essentially what they either did or what they had to say or the things that they've utilized to kind of get the appeal approved.

Speaker 1: 37:16

And so fact-finding a minute, extensive comments, all allegations related to financial considerations. Regarding specific allegations, accounts, while denying the allegations and denying the sole specific, and that was very technical, I guess I'm trying to find out. All right, there it is. I was trying to find out where the information is so right here. So financial considerations and personal conduct. So that's mainly the main reason why this person had issues financial considerations and personal conduct.

Speaker 1: 37:43

And if you scroll down it tells you like related to what policy it is and it actually has like the information on, like the personal debt statement and thing like that. So it's really detailed and it's public, just so you know that. So if you do appeal, your information will be available to anybody that wants to go look at it to see what it is and they'll tell you, determining whether or not this person was approved or they kept the standing. So understanding that this is available. But you can use this to kind of see what other or what situations people have been in, so you can kind of understand how best to appeal it. You may be able to get a good understanding of that as well from this. All right of that as well from this. All right.

Speaker 1: 38:33

Yeah. So fix issues, pay down debt or show that you have a plan to pay down debt, complete rehab, gather references, character witnesses, anything that you can do to kind of be like, hey, this is the path that I'm going down. Now Write a clear appeal and back it up with facts, these dates, these time frames. These are the things I've done. Many people will win appeals by showing growth and transparency. That's very true and then understanding that if you get denied a clearance today doesn't mean that you will never, ever get a security clearance. It just means you're denied today. Today doesn't mean that you will never, ever get a security clearance. It just means you're denied today. And so, like I said, I've had a few friends of mine who applied for a role and were denied. They waited a year and they were able to reapply and they got a security clearance. All right, where do you actually find these jobs? So everyone's talking about you know what opportunities are out there, and I will show you what this looks like, and so, really simply right, there are certain key terms and words that you look here, that I have it in the slides. These are the words that help you identify what roles are out there that actually get sponsored. So you're looking for sponsorship. Remember I said the employer is the one who's going to bring you on and there are certain specific skill sets that they're looking to be able to fill. So they'll say, whatever the role is, ability to obtain a clearance, meaning you're going to go through the clearance process, you're going to go through the ff86 process. Once you get your clearance I mean once you submit all the documentation if everything is good to go, then you will be granted your clearance. Will in a sponsored clearance, clearance, sponsorship or a secret eligible, like you're looking for those keywords and so if I just come in here and I just type in keywords, and so if I just come in here and I just type in clearance, sponsorship, jobs, I'm not doing anything special. But I want you guys to see this this job is sponsoring a TS clearance. This is also sponsoring TS clearance. This one is not saying what it's sponsoring. This is a TS clearance as well.

Speaker 1: 40:52

Clearance sponsorship for software engineer, broadcast mechanic, technician, armed security officer that's the first time I would say we sponsor Okay, so that's different, but it's there Clearance sponsorship, enterprise, test engineer. So all of these roles here, if you can go through them, they have sponsorships, right, and so you can use Boolean searches. And if you're not familiar with Boolean searches, it's just a defined way to find a job opportunity through Google, just really specific. So like, if I'm looking for clearance jobs, like, let me see if, if I was looking for Well, this is kind of like a bullying search, but like jobs in Maryland, I can search. That way I can change it up to where I say let's see what other words. I say, let's see what other ones clearance let me grab the other one.

Speaker 1: 41:58

So the secret eligible, I want to make sure it says eligible. So this is me putting eligible and parentheses. This is me putting eligible and parentheses and then coming up in here and seeing this one's required, required sponsored security clearance. So you just have to search through these roles, but understand that not only through Google you can do this, you can also do it through, I mean, clearance jobs has a bunch of them, indeed has a bunch of them, and so if I came down here I don't know what happened to my camera, but I'm still here, guys but you can see these companies and these organizations all provide big defense contractors, have opportunities, and so for them, like I said, they're looking for a skill set or a problem that they're solving for a client. It may be the government, it may be, um, you know, and and a need that, like I know for for sure, like software engineers, like a big thing. They need a lot of software engineers. So they need people with clearances to be able, they need people with software engineer background to be able to get clearances, and they take anybody with no experience to, however many years of experience, but there are a lot of different job opportunities related to it, and so you just have to be able to do it. So, making sure that you search for, like the ability to obtain clearance, any one of these searches that you put in there and you put the type of job in there. Now I can tell you, if you're searching for like we'll sponsor project management, like we'll sponsor clearance for project management, that is not going to be a thing, because anyone could be a project manager and it's a very wide field, like they're really specific on skill sets or opportunities, that off ramp into that. If that makes sense, all right, all right. How to get a clearance and a best way to kind of fast track that Some people. So here's the thing If you don't have a clearance and you're trying to get one, there are certain aspects that you can take advantage of.

Speaker 1: 44:22

There are overseas jobs that you know they may pay. The pay may be okay, may not be like fantastic, but if you take it it will be able to help you get that clearance right. And getting a clearance is just the starting point, right, and so just understanding that. So if you're going from secret or you're going to TS and trying to get your clearance and there's a role and they're only paying maybe $60,000 a year. That might be the sacrifice you have to take in order to get that job, in order to get the clearance. Once you have the clearance, you have it so you can work there, get that experience and then transfer to another role. But you may have to go overseas for a role or you may have to come into the DMV area for a role. A lot of jobs within Maryland, dc and Virginia do require folks to have clearances Not saying this is the only locations, but there are a large amount of jobs that require security clearances in this area and, like I said, accepting lower salary.

Speaker 1: 45:19

It's no different from trying to get into the tech community. If you don't have tech background. Right, if you want to be into cybersecurity, if you want to get into IT, you might have to take a help desk job in order to start, or you might have to take a lower paying job just to get your foot in the door. And once you get your foot in the door, then you can build up from there. Understand you're playing the long game, you're not playing the short game. So once you have it, then you can expand out to different opportunities. They say, if you have a security clearance or secret clearance, the average pay is roughly around $75,000 and up. If you have a TS, it's usually $90,000 or $100, plus right. Starting with those types of security clearances and so understanding that those bring value, those are opportunities for you to be able to take advantage of All right.

Speaker 1: 46:10

Now what are some other ways that you can do it? So some other ways that most people don't really talk about is through programs like CyberCorp or Scholarship for Service. So these programs are specifically geared towards providing educational benefit to individuals that want to get into the technical realm. So if you want to, you know, get a STEM degree, or you want to work in STEM careers, or you want to get, you know, a degree in cybersecurity or whatever it is, these programs will fully pay for your graduate and your undergraduate degrees, at no cost. Now, they'll give you your full tuition, they'll give you a stipend and they will guarantee you placement. You still have to find the company that you're going to work for, but they will guarantee you placement within the federal, local, municipalities or state level. And so you have to understand what it is that you're trying to do, the goals that you're trying to go about, and then how does that align. Each of these programs are degree programs or degree-bearing programs, and so you take advantage of these programs and while you're going through school, during the summer months, you're actually working at different organizations to get the experience and to be able to touch base on that.

Speaker 1: 47:26

I know quite a few who've gone through these programs, specifically the CyberCorp program, and they were able to get security clearances just based off of that, just going through the program aligning it, just going through the program aligning it, and so understanding that these programs already have a relationship with these agencies and they're trying to pull in more talent. So they want more talent in there. Even though you know there's a, you know what's going on with the federal, with with the federal industry, there are still roles that are available that need to be filled right and, to be quite honest, a lot of the folks that are leaving some of these senior folks or folks with experience of leaving are putting a major gap into, you know, just the normal operations. So they need new talent to fulfill those roles, or they need new talent in fulfill those roles, or they need new talent in the doors, and so this is going to probably cause like a massive um, you know, a massive initiative where they need newer talent in the doors to be able to be able to do things, to innovate old processes, create new um solutions and develop new opportunities. And so these programs like these the Scholarship for Services and the SMART scholarships are great programs to be able to take advantage of and, like I said, you're not paying any money for this. It doesn't cost you any money. You're getting paid to actually go to school, but then you're also having a job opportunity on the back end. All right, another way. So let's say, you don't want to do the degree aspect. You know you're not, you don't want to go to school. I don't feel like doing that.

Speaker 1: 49:06

Apprenticeships is another opportunity, and so these two programs are apprenticeships.

Speaker 1: 49:12

One is the Department of Homeland Security.

Speaker 1: 49:15

They have a cybersecurity apprenticeship and, for those who are not tracking what apprenticeships are, it's usually a six to 12 month program.

Speaker 1: 49:22

They provide you the training on what you need to know and then you do get paid. You get paid while you go through the program and then, once you complete the program, you graduate the program, you come on as a full-time employee. And so the Department of Homeland Security has an apprenticeship and an AT&T Catapult Apprenticeship is another one and that is connection to Howard County Community College and then anyone that's in the Nova area so the Northern Virginia area is a paid part-time role in IT. They teach you networks, they have like five or six different roles and then you complete the program and they will support you with getting your TSSCI from not having Now, I don't know about you guys, but like knowing about these opportunities is one thing and in understanding how this can make an impact on yourself and like the aspect of being able to expand your career by taking advantage of these programs, because they are underutilized but they do provide you with a pathway to get into security clearance or get your clearance.

Speaker 1: 50:28

Now aside from that, let's say you have kids right and you want them to be ahead of the game.

Speaker 1: 50:34

There are a bunch of different programs that are related to children that are either in high school or about to graduate high school, and here are just a few of them right. So you have FBI Teen Academy, you have the CIA STEM Camp, you have the NSA High School Work-Study Program, you have the StarTalk and GenCyber. For the first three, well, specifically the I want to say the NSA high school work-study program, this is towards your junior to senior year of high school and, like I said, they pay them and they get them a clearance. Now imagine your kids having a clearance before turning 18. Imagine your kids having a clearance before turning 18. That is a blessing because that is something of value that will help open their doors to a lot of different opportunities. Startalk is a program that specifically just focuses on languages, and so they touch base on five different languages, four different languages, but Arabic, russian and Chinese are the main top tier languages and they teach you that. And this is all for free, there's no cost to this, there's no cost associated with it. And then you have the GenCyber program, which is a summer camp Everyone has. I would say every state has different programs that may be related to GenCyber. If you go to GenCyber and look it up, they'll talk about it and they're available throughout the summer. So they have everything from elementary to junior high school to high school that you can get your child in there. They don't necessarily get a clearance or anything like that, but they get exposed to, you know, opportunities that will help provide, maybe, a pathway to get a clearance. If that makes sense to everybody, all right.

Speaker 1: 52:25

Here's some other opportunities, and so you have NGA, like I said, department of Homeland Security, you have ODNI and then you have the State Department Pathways these programs depending on if they're high school students or if they're graduate students or undergrad students or you're're an undergrad student or you're a graduate student. There's internships involved with some of these programs that you can take advantage of and, like I said, they align you with getting your security clearance and also doing uh work on the job. So you get experience ahead of time, um, from not having any experience to learning things about. You know the industry, whether it's the intelligence community or you know whatever aspect of STEM that you're interested in, and it's not only just STEM. It's also other aspects. I know they have finance in there, they have logistics in there. They have a lot of different things that you would have to just touch base and see which ones you're interested in. But all of these different organizations, three-letter agencies, agencies if you go to their site and look up internships or you look up high school programs or graduate programs, they have programs specifically there for that. Now, state department pathways is, uh, the paid internship for high school graduates, uh, high school to graduate level. And they also have a program that actually, uh, it's like a language program that helps you learn a language or improve upon your language in order to be able to open up doors to get into the State Department, which is great. And then also they have a bunch of other, you know, scholarship opportunities. All right, lastly, let me see where that Mouse furrows. There we go.

Speaker 1: 54:12

Lastly, if you are interested in trying to take advantage of any of these resources right, like the biggest thing is, you need to do your research. Granted, I probably ran down a lot of that information really quick and fast so that you can be able to understand what's out there, but you still need to understand your situation what's needed, what opportunities are out there. When it comes to trying to get a security clearance, the focus would be the type of role that you will be fulfilling right, and so you're looking into that type of background and what's needed for you to do that. So you need to do your homework on that. If you need to touch base with anybody, you can use Mill Mentor to be able to touch base, to talk to other people who are currently in the industry, ask them how they went about it.

Speaker 1: 54:58

What opportunities are there? Understand that it may require you to take a pay cut if you're trying to get a clearance and you currently have a role that pays well, but you really want to just be able to switch it up and look for different opportunities. It may require you just to be humble, humble yourself a little bit, and so you have to understand that if you want this aspect of it, depending on what it is that you want to do, there may be just different opportunities and different ways to get it. Another way is and like I said, obviously everyone knows like applying to different roles or seeing different roles that are available online is one aspect. Joining the military is another. You can join the reserve if you want to Look up for specific MOSs that deal with classified information, so that way you can be able to do that and obtain your clearance through that means. So there are different opportunities to be able to do it.

Speaker 1: 55:52

It's not as hard as people make it out to be, but it's more so the knowledge aspect knowing what is out there, knowing how to apply for it, knowing what opportunities are really going to help make a difference and impact, and then going along with that route. If I would have known about the Cyber Corps program, it probably didn't exist when I joined the military. But if I would have known about the Cyber Corps program and it did exist, I would definitely apply to that because I didn't know there was something that could have fully funded my degree and give me hands-on experience and require me to work for the government so I can get a better understanding of what opportunities are out there. So, like, those types of things are important. These jobs are not going anywhere. They're going to be there.

Speaker 1: 56:32

Regardless of what's going on in the current market, we still need to be prepared for whatever goes on around the world Our adversaries, everything that's going on. So there's a need, there is a need of talent. There's always going to be a need of talent. There's always going to be a need to be able to support those mission sets that we have. Understanding how to connect yourself to whatever roles that you're trying to get a hold of it will help you identify what that looks like. Any questions on the information that I covered? Was this helpful? Was it a lot of stuff that you already know? Very helpful. Someone has to go to.

Speaker 1: 57:15

Salesforce.

Speaker 10: 57:15

Very helpful.

Speaker 1: 57:19

What Zoom are you on? All right yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:27

If I could just add a couple of things here. Jay, for everybody else who are still looking for security clearance or anything like that after the service, again also get educated on what he was talking about. Service again, also get educated on what he was talking about. Just because you had a security clearance in the service and now you're civilian, it doesn't mean that you might be guaranteed one. Okay, like he said, it depends on the job, the company willing to sponsor you and everything like that. Right, and on top of that one.

Speaker 2: 57:59

One other thing here is about humility. I've seen that three or four times happening. Last last one was when I was a full hood. We had a retired sergeant, major e9 got out, for example. And this is, you know, this is just examples. Okay, empirical evidence doesn't mean it's ruled, but again you see certain people coming with that type of chip on the shoulder, retired e9 showing up, retired from korea, came over to us, like you know, he was a uh, you know signal background and you know it and signal and whatnot. Got accepted as a ds12 at the network enterprise center, the neck for the base. He found that his boss was going to be you know, and he went through the whole clearance because he took about three or four years of break in service and then he got cleared again and everything like that. He found that his boss was retired e8. He quit within five minutes. He's like I'll be damned if I'm gonna work for somebody who was lower grade than me when I was, who cares? You're a civilian right now. Okay.

Speaker 2: 59:03

So humility, both in learning and also in the jobs and things like that. So you have all this type of people and again, like you said and we had somebody last year we brought two ladies that work at disca. You know that were it went. They went through all of this stuff here and they talked about you. You know you could have all kinds of things happening in your background. As long as you're truthful about this, you know they will understand or evaluate it in context. Personally, I had a staff sergeant working for us when I was in Germany.

Speaker 2: 59:34

The dude was crazy before he joined the military. He got E6 in about six years and wanted to apply for dia. He had to fill out 56 pages I will never forget it 56 pages of supporting documentation to account for all the craziness he did before he joined the military. And guess what? Yeah, he's in the military, of course, you know it might be different, whatever, but still he showed up and he's at the dia. Same thing for another person, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:00:04

So, again, there's always empiric, empirical evidence out there. But at the end of the day it's up to that adjudicator from opm who will conduct your investigation, interview all your known associates, family members and all of that stuff, provide his report and it's up to those adjudicators to figure out what to do with your situation. Okay, so be truthful, explain it properly. Like you said, you know, if you had debt, show how you can get out of or anything. It's all about showcasing to them how you cannot be coerced by foreign adversaries or anyone else into divulging sensitive or classified information um, how many people would actually want the a few people wants?

Speaker 1: 1:00:58

how many people want the slides? So some people want the slides. There's some people on the slides. Much wrong with mine. I was going to provide the slides with them. Looks like my alright areas, all right, so don't, don't top anything. I'm going to drop the slides in here for everybody so you can actually grab them. So just hold on one second.

Speaker 8: 1:01:30

Jay, while you're dropping that, even if you don't have a clearance, you can apply for a lot of these jobs and they'll take you. You can apply for a lot of these jobs and they'll take you. I actually was hiring people without a clearance and putting them on the bench for six weeks and training them on their job before they actually had the job. They got the clearance and I hate to say it, but that was the position I was at. I had a clearance years ago 20 plus years ago and I had to go through the whole thing all over again.

Speaker 8: 1:02:06

Now my clearance is just a public trust right now and it doesn't guarantee that you have a job. I'm unemployed right now, looking all right, so don't stress out that you don't, or do, have a clearance. Don't let that worry you that much. This is more the process of what you need to go through and apply for the jobs. Sometimes they'll work with you to get that job, but if it says on the job application required top secret clearance or required secret clearance, don't waste your time, Don't waste their time. Okay, Leidos has a lot of jobs out there, a lot of clearance jobs and it says required and I don't apply to them, but there's also a lot of jobs out in the civilian market that don't require clearances, so don't be focused that you need a clearance.

Speaker 2: 1:03:00

What Tom said is absolutely true. Sometimes, you know, it can change in the other way around. Okay, like for example myself a couple years ago, I was looking, I was in the final running, like monday I was supposed to start the job with dhs remote. Okay, that says, will sponsor clearance. They call me on friday. They say, hey, do you have actual clearance? Right now I'm like no, it expired. And they say I'm sorry, they just changed the contract requirements on us and they want you coming in hot with the clearance. So again, you might things change per contracts, per requirements, per the employer, so you just have to keep on looking and working. But then if you get it, you know it's easy to, I guess you know, move it from company to company. As long as that uh, I forgot what they call them uh, sso or something yeah, you know, yeah, they will uh bring it in under their umbrella.

Speaker 8: 1:03:52

So also let me add this it, you know it says you have to be a us citizen. You have to be a US citizen. You have to be a US citizen not necessarily born in the States, but naturalized too. So my last job, I had somebody working for me from Pakistan, afghanistan, india. They were all naturalized. So if you have a spouse that's not a US citizen, they get naturalized. They can pick up a clearance S citizen. You know they get naturalized. They can pick up a clearance too. So it won't be a high SCI clearance, but you know a clearance is a clearance. It does help. So just giving that extra feedback.

Speaker 1: 1:04:32

Absolutely, Thank you. Thank you for that, Tom. All right, so we are at the hour, so we're going to share you the Coursera information. So we'll Anibal will drop that into the chat for your Coursera and then for Splunk, he'll drop that as well. And that's how to get access to Splunk.

Speaker 1: 1:04:52

One thing to keep in mind with Coursera and Splunk, or Coursera, is a great opportunity to be able to take advantage of you know, further your learning, further your development. The program is only good for a year, so if you are not ready to take class within a short amount of time from signing up, don't sign up. I've seen way too many people sign up for these accounts and then wait six to seven months to start doing something and then it expires, and so there's nothing that we can do. Once your account is up for the 12 months, we can't do anything else, but just utilize it for what it is. You can use it to help you understand. There's a lot of job opportunities. So if you're looking to get into software development, if you're looking at a software engineer or you're looking to get into cloud computing, use that for what it's, what it was worth, because it does have some good resources on there and some certificates that are related to it. I'll bring those up so I can show you, but then we'll go into um looking at what the other uh, the other resources are. But let me bring this up real fast so you can see it. So a lot of people sleep on Coursera but, like I said, I highly recommend people utilize it because there's over 12,000 courses and there's almost every single topic known to man that's on it right to include.

Speaker 1: 1:06:26

And this doesn't have all the topics on it, but this does have the specific topics related to the certificates that they have. And so if you are a ux designer or want to be a ux designer, they google has a certificate for that. They have a digital marketing certificate. They have it automation. They. They have AI essentials. They have digital marketing, e-commerce. Is that the same one? It's the same one. I got to remember that. They have the data analytics. They have cybersecurity certificate. They have a project management certificate and you complete this one.

Speaker 1: 1:06:56

This actually prompts for the 35 PDUs that you need to be able to test for your PMP. Just know that what PMI teaches for PMP and what Google teaches for project management is completely different. The only thing that this does. It helps you, afford you the opportunity to be able to test, because after you've gone through this, you've learned enough about project management, but you still would have to go through the PMBOK and everything that's associated with the P&P IT support. If you are trying to break into tech, you know using these opportunities to kind of pad your resume for that. If you take advantage of an apprenticeship program, you know align yourself with that. If you knock out some free certs, we're going to show you how to do that as well. So all of these different things will help you For certifications, for the Splunk we dropped that in the chat but you need to complete the 22 courses.

Speaker 1: 1:07:53

Once you get through the 22 courses, you'll have the ability to take any one of these certificates certifications, sorry certifications and so we offer I still have a bunch of vouchers left to take any one of these certificates certifications, sorry certifications and so we offer I still have a bunch of vouchers left, so they are first come, first serve. So if you complete the courses and you hit me up and say, Jay, I've completed the courses I'm interested in taking, you know, a certification, I will send you the voucher and you can get to go from there. That is the only program that we will directly send you in a voucher without you having to go through anything, Just as long as you show me that you complete the 22 courses. Mad-20, we gave away all those we already talked about, so all right, Coming up, we'll have a services success cohort. This cohort just helps you prepare for employment opportunities. This will be an August time frame, so just be, I just want to put it out there just to be cognizant of it. But we provide certifications, we provide a mastermind, you connect with a cohort and we get you through a lot of different opportunities and we go through different resources, with you Missing one thing, All right. And then today, obviously, I'll show you this, but this is just a quick snapshot of what it is that you guys are going to be accessed to, and so I'm going to show you how to get access to this specifically, because it's the steps that you would have to take to do so. But this will give you access to a bunch of resources hundreds I mean, sorry, thousands of resources.

Speaker 1: 1:09:15

Linkedin integrator you can build out your LinkedIn profile. You can. Linkedin integrator you can build out your LinkedIn profile. You can create your resumes. You can build out a cover letter. You can tailor your jobs or tailor resumes to your job. You can find job opportunities. You can, you know, manage the roles that you're applying for and when you're applying for them, and this does this all in one platform, and so this is our career compass. It's free to you. Everything that you'll see on it is free.

Speaker 1: 1:09:42

If you want multiple resumes and a lot of other bells and whistles that I did not talk about, that is a separate fee, and that is not from us. That is from the organization of the company that we're using their platform to do so. Just know that if you are getting this account, use it, because it's going to be beneficial and it's going to help you, and so I'm going to show you what this account looks like, and then I'll give you the access to it. So, mind you, you see me logging into CareerFlow. This is all the steps. Everyone's going to have to do this as well, but don't do it now, Especially if you don't have a CareerFlow account. Don't do this now. But CareerFlow is an organization that allowed us to build on their back end, and so that's how we were able to create everything that we have using CareerFlow. So you log in through ClearFlow and then your logins automatically go and go through and then on.

Speaker 1: 1:10:35

Here is where you're going to have access to all the stuff I just mentioned. So you'll see the job tracker here so you could track jobs. You'll see the resume builder is in here so you can build out your resume. You'll see job overview, so if you go to jobs, you'll see how many jobs are actually in the job database, where these jobs located at and applying to those jobs, and they can automatically go back to your job tracker. So we got 8 million jobs in here. Now the good thing about this is if you tap on any one of these jobs and you add it to your job tracker and then you can put it into your resume builder and you can write a tailor-made resume with the assistance of AI to help you create a resume. And as far as applying for them, you can apply directly to the site, and so if you click on this link, it'll take you directly to the site. So there's no internal application, because we want you to actually go through the process of applying through whatever platform or whatever site that the company is hiring you from so that you can go through their system, but that's the aspect.

Speaker 1: 1:11:41

From there, you have your resources in this section. A lot of people ask me questions. They don't know how to find the resources. It's in the organization section. Click on this switch grid and it'll break it down like this and if you scroll to the right at the top of the bar, all of these resources is what you're gonna have access to right. So if you're looking for nursing programs, you can click on that. These are nursing programs. That's available. If you're looking for military spouse opportunities, you click on that. These are military spouse opportunities.

Speaker 1: 1:12:14

If you are trying to get certifications IT and cybersecurity training these are all cyber and IT training. If you want financial certifications, if you want entrepreneurship these, I'm sorry for cyber and IT certifications you click on these, and all of these are different opportunities to get free, free, free, cyber and IT certifications at no cost. Coding, community college makeover the list goes on. So you can just scroll through this list. Make sure you do the left and right to scroll, because I know a lot of people are not finding this, but it's here and it has all the information that you may need and these are resources that we feel are of value for your LinkedIn once you connect it to your LinkedIn I'm sorry for your LinkedIn. When you connect it to your LinkedIn, you can directly connect your contacts and so you're able to say what the relationship is to your contact and then their information in here and so you can reach out to them and if it has their email address, it will pull down their email address.

Speaker 1: 1:13:21

This is Find find recruiter. So this allows you to find the recruiter. You just put whatever the role is and then where you want the role to be. So if I'm doing HR and I do a quick find, what this is supposed to do is it's supposed to tell you on LinkedIn, using Boolean search, which we talked about earlier, who is currently hiring related to HR opportunities, and so you can use this to kind of help you build out. You know who to reach out to, who you're touching base with and how to expand your network, who to reach out to, who you're touching base with and how to expand your network.

Speaker 1: 1:14:03

Lastly, you'll have a different host of other resources in here. You'll have your AI toolbox, so it has your email writer, your elevator pitch, your LinkedIn headline, your LinkedIn about section all that stuff to kind of help you refine your LinkedIn, because it's important to do so and let me see. And then in your applications material, it also has your LinkedIn in here and they'll tell you, based off of what you currently have when you're LinkedIn, how good your LinkedIn is. So mine is a 71. I could definitely approve. These are the areas that is telling me I need to improve on. So once I do that, I can get it higher, and so that just goes to show you use the tools, use the resources that are helpful to you. And the last thing I want to show you, guys, is Jay.

Speaker 8: 1:14:56

Yes, you might want to mention that some of these functions require purchase. To go farther, like the AI toolbox, is all purchase stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:15:06

Okay yeah.

Speaker 8: 1:15:08

That doesn't stop you from going to another AI and copying that information out of an AI to build this description or something like that for you and paste it in. So just don't think you have to purchase everything in there.

Speaker 1: 1:15:24

Yeah, absolutely. So. This is what I want to show you. This is what it looks like when people are using this to their advantage, right? So, in here, this is just a tracker, right? This shows you how many people save jobs, how many people actually applied 121 people applied last week, six are interviewing and five received offers. This is a tool for you to use to be able to well, I mean, like I'm just showing, like this is a tool that other people are using to help them find jobs and jobs opportunities. So if people are doing it, you can do it as well, and so use it to your benefit. That way, you can be able to find that career, jobs, opportunities. So, if people are doing it, you can do it as well, and so use it to your benefit. That way, you can be able to find that career and opportunity. All right.

Speaker 1: 1:16:06

Now most important how to get access to this really easily. You go to the Act Now Education website. You come in here where it says Career Compass Application. You might want to accept all cookies, if you have some, but you click on this and it's going to ask you have you attended our weekly rundown? Everyone has just done that. You press yes and then there's a code that you need, and the code is 3434338.

Speaker 1: 1:16:44

Okay, and that code is only good for a week, and so make sure that if you're trying to get this done, knock it out by Tuesday so I can create your account. If this happens which happens a lot when people are trying to do this sometimes Let me jump on another. You just have to have to switch your browser. You said 3434338?. Yes, sir, you have to switch your browser, and then that didn't work for me, so I have to switch my browser again, but it'll eventually work, and you'll see a different screen that has information on filling out the application. You just want to get to an application. Once you get to the application, you fill it out, fill out every single tab on that application, and then, once you complete that, you submit it. It'll automatically submit to us, we verify it, and then, once it's verified, you will get your account.

Speaker 1: 1:17:43

Now, that doesn't happen instantaneously. That does take some time for it to happen, and so I just want to give everyone a forewarning. It's not something that happens right away. We have to go through everyone's account just to make sure you are who you say you are, because, believe it or not, some people will apply for this and they're not affiliated with the military community whatsoever, and so just know that that's the case. Let me see something here. Stop sharing my screen, but if you look in the chat, the link is in the chat. Anibal, provided that. So for you to have that information and fill out the code and then you get access to the database. Give it some time. We're kind of like doing like a denial of service Everyone trying to do it at one time. We have 300 people trying to do it, so it may take you a couple of tries, but just be patient and know that it'll eventually work. And so that is pretty much everything that I wanted to cover.

Speaker 1: 1:18:47

Did anyone have any questions? Go over the application, okay. Yeah, fine, I will do that. Yeah, all right, so this is what the application looks like. Um, there's nothing special about it, just filling this that. Everything needs to be filled into. Just make sure that.

Speaker 1: 1:19:08

Uh, two king, the two key things to note. Uh then, email is uh kind of like a, an act and response email. So you're going to put your information in here and it's going to send you a verification code. Check your spam folder and then just to verify that you submit the right email. If you didn't get anything in your spam folder. You probably did not put the right email, so make sure you put the right email in there.

Speaker 1: 1:19:34

Put your full LinkedIn as you see it here. Put your full LinkedIn as you see it here. So H-H-T-S sorry, h-t-c-p-s colon slash, slash, www. Whatever your LinkedIn is, do not put LinkedIn slash feed or don't go to your feed. Make sure it's your name in here, because I can't connect your career compass account to this if I don't have your LinkedIn. That is a key component to it.

Speaker 1: 1:20:01

Fill out all this information. Everything in here is meant to determine whether or not you're looking for opportunities. If I come across an opportunity that you're eligible for, I will reach out to you. Lastly, we already provide you the Coursera. We provide you Splunk, if we provide you the Spunk. If you want to attend the Service to Success, you click on that and then we'll let you know when the next Service to Success is. If you want to donate to our organization, we'd be more than happy to have your support. Just know that 100% of our funds goes back to the military community, and so we either use that for certifications or help somebody you know navigate a rough time in their life in terms of what they're trying to do. Everything that we do is career focused, and so we're not just helping people, we're teaching them how to fish and then helping them to fish, and then they'll be able to do what they need to do. So just know, that is kind of the way that we do things here. Jennifer, you have a question?

Speaker 9: 1:21:05

Yeah, hey, jay, welcome. Welcome back stateside. Always a pleasure to have you back on this side of the water. Question about Sensei Chris McPhee about about the pmp.

Speaker 1: 1:21:16

he had mentioned this week that maybe that application was going to get launched on the act now website, so just add us on that yeah, so we we are planning on doing the launch, but I have to postpone it because there's we have a lot of moving parts right now, so I'm going to end up pushing that back. Um, I talked to him this morning to let him know why. Send him a text message, but, um, we'll put that out and we'll we'll go hard in the paint once we announce. It'll be a big announcement like, hey, we're starting a new pmp irc. Um, just to be honest, we're this is a lot of moving pieces, and so we just I just need to make sure that we're good to go before we launch, because this is going to be a bigger component and we have our summit that's coming up at the end of the month, and so yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 9: 1:22:01

That's awesome. But also, um, you know, when you had the uh, the employment opportunity with I think it was tech systems for like a pmp kind of transition, did any? Is there any kind of status, anything more get worked out for maybe some more senior members doing something like that?

Speaker 1: 1:22:17

yeah, yeah, so right now we are, they're going through. The folks that are um were selected for that, and so for those who are not tracking with the PMP, uh, opportunity was is. I had a unique opportunity to touch base with tech systems. They had an employer that wanted to train people on how to become a PM with no background. It was excuse me, it was a remote role and it was about 25 people that they were looking to fulfill. While you go through training it's paid training you complete the training and then you get a full time role full-time role. On top of that, actnow will be providing you with your PMP certification voucher so that you can be able to take advantage of your PMP as you work at the company, and so that was just something that we kind of worked out. Grateful that it worked out the way it did. We had a lot of applicants apply for it, but a lot of folks had senior experience and were interested in trying to take advantage of it as well. We told them it was mainly for someone that does not have any experience as a project manager and as a remote role, and so the pay wasn't like astronomical, so we wanted to make sure that people adjust their expectations. I did talk to tech systems and we talked about having a for more senior roles, and so this is just kind of like a test, our initial test, to see how this worked out. What areas do we can improve in from like, how do we get, how we streamline this process to create this other pipeline, and so now we're developing now that when that's over, we will be able to develop our pipeline for people with more senior roles, more senior opportunities. So that's one thing.

Speaker 1: 1:24:07

The other thing that I have is is anyone in here eligible for SkillBridge? Put a two in the chat If you are. We got a few people. Okay, well, this I should, I should, uh, uh, caveat that. So this is for if you're in nova or the northern virginia area. The same thing I did with tech systems, I'm doing with amazon, and so I just want to clarify this because I know I got a lot of flack about talking about this last week. Amazon, I know, doesn't have the best rep for warehouses. I will not ever suggest somebody do some work that I would never do.

Speaker 1: 1:24:50

Like I said, these opportunities are just really to help people get jobs and help you break into tech or find opportunities, and so the roles that specifically this is for is for data centers, which is not warehouse work, and so, for those who keep on talking about warehouse work, we're not doing that here, we don't do that but the data center roles that they have are focused on teaching you how to maintain and manage a data center.

Speaker 1: 1:25:15

There are normal day-to-day roles, there are shift roles, but this is all for the Northern Virginia area, and the way that this works is you'll get trained for your skill bridge. The cohort starts in August 25th I think that's right, august 27th but you get trained for your skill bridge. Once complete your skill bridge, you will roll into a role with a senior level well, not senior level pay, but like a mid-level, mid mid-level manager pay and so that opportunity is is going to change the game for anyone that's trying to break into tech and don't have any tech experience, and so it's free you apply, apply, you work, you learn skills and then guess what happens after a year, if you don't like what you're doing, or even it's up to you, because there's going to be multiple opportunities for data centers to pull you, because you're going to have experience and you're working at one of the largest companies that run data centers.

Speaker 1: 1:26:12

So if you're interested in that, let me get this SkillBridge thing here, but I will give me a second. I'll grab the link for that to apply, but you have to be. And for those who don't know what SkillBridge is, it's for active duty, specifically Folks that are transitioning out of the military. They typically have anywhere between a few months to a few weeks or a few months sorry, a few months to transition out, and this program helps you go from military to industry by the military still paying you, but you're actually working for an organization or a company and learning a skill so that when you transition you have a job.

Speaker 1: 1:26:55

My goal and my focus for those who are not aware is to help a thousand people get jobs before I retire in 2027. And so I'm not focused on anything that's going to kind of give you a job or you know, there's going to be likely like I don't have. I don't have the energy or the time to waste on that, and so the programs that I focus on are, I know for sure, are aligned with giving you a job placement. You just have to show up, do what you need to do and make that happen. Okay, did I answer your question? I have a few people that raised their hand Eric and David.

Speaker 9: 1:27:27

Oh yeah, we're good, jay. Thank you so much. Okay, no worries.

Speaker 1: 1:27:32

All right, eric, what question?

Speaker 5: 1:27:34

did you have? Hey, jay, thanks for doing this. I heard you, or I think I heard you correctly. Did you say that you no longer have discount codes or access to the MAD20 MITRE tax certifications?

Speaker 1: 1:27:48

No, yeah, we've given away, like I said. You look at the recent posts. I gave away, like the last 10 that I had. When those folks complete their process of going through that and it's a long process the MITRE certifications are probably the longest certification runs we have because essentially it's eight courses, five certificates, five certifications. So it takes them some time to go through that. When those folks complete it we'll probably get more after that, roger that. Thank you.

Speaker 4: 1:28:23

What other questions do you guys have, Jay, hi everyone.

Speaker 1: 1:28:25

What's going on, man?

Speaker 4: 1:28:27

Okay, can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay, good, Thank you for everything you do. I appreciate everybody from up now I'm just going to fade forward. You've helped me. For your information, you've saved me up to $1,000. So I just saw something in the chat which I need to respond to and pay it forward to everyone. So listen everyone. If you need anything online and it's requiring something that is not private email, your Gmail is denied. Write this down. Go to mailcom, Sign up for a secondary email address. It might be your existing ID and if you scroll down through the TLD levels, you can select something that is not Gmail and when you use the new email you are creating, you can sign up for anything you want, no question asked, and it is free.

Speaker 1: 1:29:21

Can you type that or have ChatGPT write out instructions and drop that in? Okay.

Speaker 4: 1:29:31

Just go to mailcom, as if you are signing up for your Gmail address, instead of selecting the default mailcom. Scroll down and you can select anything you want. Okay, so, for instance, you can select for instance, I choose a cyberservicescom. I use my existing gmail address id, dave. I use it for dave at cyberservicescom and anywhere I go online to look for something. I've attended events that required my website, which I don't have. So the point is, if you are here and you need to do something online and it requires you to have a dedicated email address, you don't have to pay that. I'm using it for free. It is zero dollars.

Speaker 1: 1:30:18

Music to my ears. It's free. Yes, yes, all right, for the folks that are in the NOVA area that want to take advantage of the AWS program, the SkillBridge, I'm posting the link in here. It's going to say SkillBridge. This is only for folks who are currently active duty that are eligible for SkillBridge, that want to break into tech and want to learn about working in data centers, and so here's the link you can apply there and then I'll get you situated so that we can get you on your way to finding meaningful employment and making money. So that we can get you on your way to finding meaningful employment and making money, and then you can hire me when I retire. That's the goal, right. So I've helped at least a couple of folks get job opportunities, and so I hope that someone returns the favor. Just joking, I don't do it for that, all right. What other questions we got? Demetrius?

Speaker 5: 1:31:15

How you doing, jay. Appreciate you taking the time to do this again. I've been tuning in every week since I signed up for ACT. Now, the only question that I had last week there was a we filled out a survey for a resume tool. I was wondering if that, if we were selected, would already already have known about it oh the interview the interview yeah yeah, yeah, were you not contacted about that?

Speaker 1: 1:31:45

no okay, I I will. I will follow up with that.

Speaker 1: 1:31:48

I will follow with that individual yeah for sure you, you guys, should be contacted for that um. What he's talking about is last week we uh working with, like I said, we work with um, career flow. They have a new app that they're putting on their platform that actually screens, does an interview for you, like you put in whatever the topic I want to do data science and for this company and it asks you questions. Ai, like you hear the voice and everything. I ask you questions related to the field and then you go through that process and then it rates you how well you did on the interview and it tells you the areas that you need to improve on, and so that's something that they're rolling out. So we we had like 50 um opportunities to get people to go through that and so and also to learn the development aspect of it, and so I will follow up with you guys. So probably on the next call I'll have an answer on what exactly where we're at with that, but they definitely should be rolling out with them. Hmm, yeah, they definitely should be rolling out with that, because they're looking to get that kicked off as soon as possible. One other thing they're looking to get that kicked off as soon as possible, thank you. One other thing.

Speaker 1: 1:33:02

So, while I still have everyone online, next week the topic will be how to get a degree in six months. So if you don't have a bachelor's degree, or you're interested in obtaining your degree, or you've been having college credits after college credits for so long but you're really trying to make it out of it, I will go over how to do that. Um, if you're trying to knock out a master's, I can show you how to do a master's in anywhere between eight months to a year. Um, because obviously some of your one-year programs. But, um, depending on what your background is, I could probably show you how to get done faster. Uh, all legit, no chat gpt, you need it just just to work.

Speaker 1: 1:33:47

But aspects on how you can actually use knowledge, use your time efficiently to knock out a degree and, like I said, some of these opportunities, all they need is a piece of paper saying that you've attended some school and they don't really care too much about that. They just need that as a gateway to say this is the reason why you should hire our company, because we have, you know, 40 people with their master's degrees. 70 of our workforce has their degrees in this field or these fields, and they're certified in this specific background. This is the reason why you should hire us for your company. So that's one thing there. One last thing before I drop or ask questions I mean people ask questions is if you've landed a job through ACNA Education or through me in some of our endeavors, please let us know. I put the link in the chat right now. It's put, if you landed a job.

Speaker 1: 1:34:47

That way we can track this. Like I said, I'm at my goal of getting 1,000. I'm already at 246. And so I'm trying to get to a thousand before 2027 September, and so if you are someone that got a job through us, which I think four people did last week, let me know. Oh and Annabelle, can you drop in the the review? Write a review, if you guys can please write a review we don't ask for much.

Speaker 1: 1:35:19

This is what we do. We just give our time to our community and hope that you guys are able to take this information, utilize it and really make an impact and change in your life. That's what it's really about. It's not about trying to sell you something. It's not about trying to, you know, trick you into doing something. We really are here for the military community. I can't say that about other organizations, but I can say that about ours, because we are a community-based organization. Everyone on my team to my board, cares about making an impact and and supporting the community in ways that, um, I feel is not often felt around the community, and we are very um open to being able to build this out with, with our community, and so that's what we go, that's what our goal is, that's what we're trying to do and that's what we we plan and intend to do.

Speaker 2: 1:36:09

All right, so we have yeah, I dropped for a second here. I didn't know if you answered that. There's some questions about the pmp, the pmp cohort I just said, the pmp core.

Speaker 1: 1:36:20

We're gonna push that off to the right um because we have a lot of things that we're trying to plan right now and this would not be a good time to run that um and trying to spin up everything and then just for a couple people who are asking about, like you know, the if you so for corsair I shared from time to time maybe maybe you took care of that.

Speaker 2: 1:36:41

But again, on Coursera, he mentions certificates, certificates of completion, for these courses. It does not mean it's a certification like if you so. Like somebody was asking, do we get, do we need to contact you for certification? No, if you have access to Coursera, what you get access to is the actual learning platform. For that, if you're looking for SecPlus, for example, you'll have to find a different way to fund it, either through us you know ActNow, when we run some of these certification giveaways or voucher giveaways from time to time, or other organizations out there. Okay. So again, like I don't know glenn or whoever else before that asked about it, that mean you know, feel free to learn from it. But then, as far as the voucher for the for taking the exam, you'll have to figure out a way to do it. Either you know wgu, western governance university, or you know peter klein, when they run their scholarship monthly. Or vets in tech, for example. You know they have their security plus course. Or act now, when you run some of these voucher giveaways.

Speaker 1: 1:37:52

All right, yeah, and for those who, um are part of the 50 or 50, those who are part of the giveaways that we announced, I will be contacting you guys to coordinate. I am jet lag, I just just flew over overseas and so, like I am, I'm trying to get oriented and I'm about to go right back out in two weeks, so I will try to contact you before uh next week is up, and so just expect uh me either hitting you up on linkedin or contacting you directly via phone, um so that I can make sure that you get what you need um. So so everyone's tracking on that one other thing.

Speaker 2: 1:38:31

One other thing it's a call out for everybody. And then if you, for those people who are not here, please let them know as well If you earned or you saw your name on a certification giveaway and Jay's showing the contacts to you either through an email or through LinkedIn or something like that. We expect two things from you guys professionally speaking professional to professional, veteran to veteran or anything like this Take it as you will. If you call, call, just respond appropriately on time. Hey, you know and and take. And if you take that, that voucher and you take the exam and you pass the exam, please feel free to post about it on your professional linkedin or somewhere. And maybe tag act now.

Speaker 2: 1:39:16

Okay, if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it, did it really fall? So did you really pass your sec? Plus, if no one knows about it, for your network to, maybe, if they heard of a job and you're looking for a job and they might say, hey, my buddy john is hiring for this guy. And then brandon, I just know Brandon just passed his SEC+, I'm going to just push Okay. So again, advertise, but also be cognizant to tag act now or whichever other organization pushed it to you. Don't just do the drive-by shooting. You took the voucher and we don't hear from you. You ghost everyone, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:39:58

Oh, and thank you for that one one thing I I, if you've reached out to me, I am not intentionally ghosting you. Just know that I am not intentionally ghosting you. I just don't have a way to reply to a lot of people. Um, it's just not something that I have the the luxury to sit down and sit behind the computer and do. If I actively reach out to you, then it's for a reason. But in terms of like, I have so many messages that I I just need to clone myself or something. I was trying to figure it out. I was trying to take leave actually to to actually lock out some of these messages. There's no way. It's just this is I. I get messaged a lot and so just know I'm not trying to ghost you. I will eventually, eventually that's one of my goals eventually respond to you, but it's just not going to be probably right away and it's not intentional, sim.

Speaker 6: 1:40:51

Hey, good afternoon. I'm sorry. I know that you said that the PMP course is going to be pushed back, but I just want to clarify is that only accessible to SkillBridge people or is it also for those that are transitioning? Because I'm in the Guard so I'm not necessarily active duty, but I was really interested in that program.

Speaker 1: 1:41:09

So we might be talking about two different things. Are you talking about the PMP program, where we provided you the PM cert and you actually got the job and you're getting paid to train? Yes, that one is for. It was for anybody that applied. I think it was for veterans and it wasn't for. I'm sorry, it wasn't for everybody. It was for veterans, reservists and national guard. It wasn't for anybody else. Those are the groups that it was for.

Speaker 6: 1:41:34

Perfect, that's what I was looking for, and and then. So you're just postponing it, so you guys will do it later in the summer.

Speaker 1: 1:41:39

no, no no, no, no. So that program was specifically related to actual job right and so that that program is is already underway. Like that program starts next week, the I thought I'd see one for july. I'm sorry oh yeah, so that is just the PM program. The IRC intensive um. Was it readiness review or not, was it? What does IRC stand for? Intensive?

Speaker 2: 1:42:04

Yeah, intensive review course.

Speaker 1: 1:42:06

Intensive review course that's done by Chris McPhee, which is the training that we're going to provide, and then that's, that's just a different format, and so we provide that training to give everyone um that wants to take their pmp the shot of learning, and then from that we will take, uh, a percentage of the group that score well on exam and give them their pmp. And so, like last time we had, I think, 100 and 100, we had 46, that's 46. I remember we had 40 something, maybe 40 or 30 something. Take the exam. I mean, sorry, go through the course. And we have some touch points like you have to make sure you attend the classes, do the work, do the homework, take the exam. I mean you take the prep exam and then from there we'll decide how many vouchers we give out from that. So if you're interested in that, that's been pushed to the right and I'll provide an update for that. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:43:04

Okay, awesome, carolyn.

Speaker 3: 1:43:13

Oh my goodness, I was trying to wait and I forgot what my question was, but I remember it was something about the Skill Bridge in Northern Virginia with the data warehousing.

Speaker 1: 1:43:31

The data center. The data center Amazon. Are you a Skill Bridge?

Speaker 3: 1:43:37

Amazon. Are you a Skillbridge? When you said the specific things transitioning out the military, no, I'm a veteran.

Speaker 1: 1:43:45

Yeah, it's only for folks who are transitioning out of the military. Okay, but please understand, like, when we're working these programs, I'm just seeing which ones align and and know that if it works out well, then we will continue to expand it out and I'm trying to just tap it into resources and organizations that can kind of get you along the career path. We've gotten a lot of people that just hit us back and said I want a career in tech and I don't know where to start and so those two programs that we've started is supposed to help with that.

Speaker 11: 1:44:22

But yeah, brandon, hey man, how's it going? First off, thank you for devoting your time. Still being active duty moment, man. This is a major for the veteran community, including yourself, man. Definitely appreciate it. Real quick question, Like I'm the last person before you can get some sleep from being jet lag. But my question is once you create the profile I'm assuming that's when you're able to apply for the vouchers and things like that correct?

Speaker 1: 1:44:51

Yes, once you create your profile, we'll be talking about, like, what programs are out there and you can apply for those, and they'll all be on that platform. However, the next big cert drop will be related to the event that we're going to be doing later in June, so I'm probably going to save all my certs for that, because I'm just going to go ham on it. It's going to be crazy.

Speaker 5: 1:45:17

I just want to give you a small detail for him.

Speaker 2: 1:45:21

So, once you get access to that career flow or IE career compass, as he showed you, it's not just for vouchers. There's other resources out there you can apply for. There's a tab there for other organizations that provides vouchers and whatnot. Okay, you can use it for creating your resume and so on and so forth. Okay, so the search drop is occasional, is seasonal. You can take advantage of all the other resources available in there links and so on and so forth. Okay, just wanted to add that. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 1:46:04

Awesome. Any other questions?

Speaker 7: 1:46:06

I have a question, please. So there's a lot of acronyms that got me really lost and I'm not sure like which one is going to help me to get my security plus.

Speaker 1: 1:46:19

Um, that's what I'm looking for right now and looking for classes and the test help yeah, so for that, once you get access to career compass, you go to the resource section and you go to where it says IT and cyber security certifications. Under that tab there are about 20, 20 plus organizations. You can click on empower. You can click on o2o. You can click, you can click on um per scholars excuse me, you can click on scholars. All of those have no, no, sorry, per scholars does not have SecPlus. But Empower, o2o, vets in Tech. All these organizations have it. You can actually just go through them. I'm telling you the ones. But you can actually go to those sites now and then apply and get your SecPlus in the training with those. But the reason we put it all on the site is so that people can find that information relatively easy. That way it's easy for you to be able to type.

Speaker 7: 1:47:21

Would you be just like type one or two of them please? I'm not going to remember.

Speaker 1: 1:47:27

Can somebody else do that yeah?

Speaker 3: 1:47:36

My question was Jay, um the career uh, airflow is it? Career compass, the career compass. Is it free to do the resume thing or?

Speaker 1: 1:47:47

you have to be premium to do no, no, yeah, so everyone gets one resume for free, and so the the hack is if you are trying to tailor your resume to um a specific job, you tailor that resume that way and then, once you add another job, you go back to that same resume and then change it and tailor it to the next role. Um, that way it's no cost to. Now, if you want multiple resumes, you can do that. I think it's it's about eight dollars. If you want to do it for the year I forgot how much it is, but it's not. It's not extremely expensive. So I don't want to do it for the year. I forgot how much it is, but it's not extremely expensive. So I don't want to make it seem like they're trying to hit you in the head. We made sure that it's not that.

Speaker 1: 1:48:23

But if you're just trying to use a resource, you can use that resource to be able to leverage that. On top of that, it's not the only resume resource in there. So if you go down to the resource sections and you go to where it says resume, you have best military resume in there. You have at least seven to eight different resumes resources that will help you either generate a resume, create a resume, and they're all for free, so you can use those as well to leverage to be able to create a resume.

Speaker 1: 1:48:51

The thing that we wanted to do is, if someone is unemployed or underemployed, I wouldn't want to have you to have you worry about paying for something when you're trying to just, you need a break, right. So that's the reason why everything that we do there's no cost to it, there's no cost associated with it, but I can tell you, though, if you do pay for it, you will get your return in investment right. You just got to use a platform, though, but, for the most part, just understand that, yeah, you don't have to necessarily come out of pocket to use that one single resume, and then there's other resume resources on the platform.

Speaker 8: 1:49:31

Jay, yes, the copy on the career compass does not work, that you have to pay for it. I'm sorry, you have to pay for it. However, there is kind of a hack where you can get around to get multiple copies of your own resume, and so you start off with like a template of your standard and then you turn around and you can copy it through a method I figured out and I can't tell you right now, sorry, uh, but you can actually reproduce and have multiple resumes there in career compass. It's just you have to follow a different stream to get to it. There's a button that says duplicate and you have to go and pay for it. But if you follow the the other stream which next time I do it I'll write the notes down and send it to you so yeah, so I know, like in terms of that.

Speaker 1: 1:50:18

So you can either do, um, so one thing that you could do, right, when you make a cop, not make a copy, but when you create your resume, if you print your resume out and then you go back to career flow and then import that resume, it acts as if it's uh, you already had that resume created and you're importing it, and so it allows you to kind of like do that as well. So that's another way to kind of like get around it if you want to.

Speaker 2: 1:50:47

And one thing I'd like to share. I always mention that from time to time. Free does not mean cheap. If you take advantage of any of these resources let's say, for example, this career compass that is provided to the veteran community for Act Now, here for free, and you land a job, go back in there. Everybody just takes the lazy route on LinkedIn and using that cupcake and say I just started a job at XYZ company. You can take advantage and also plug in you know, tag CareerFlow, for example, or ActNow or something like this, especially CareerFlow, which is a company that makes money for their own software and provides these type of things. You know, yeah, public corporate social responsibility, esg, whitewashing, greenwashing, whatever you want to call it. But again, it's kind of like feedback to them to drive traffic to their company because they provided it to you for free.

Speaker 4: 1:51:51

Appreciate it, mm-hmm yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:51:56

Someone messaged me about laptops, so I won't be doing another laptop giveaway until next week I'm sorry, not next week, next month and so I still have to make sure the laptops that we are sending out gets out. And, like I said, there's a lot that goes on. And, for those who don't know, obviously the reason why I'm changing the schedule is because I have to obviously travel and so I'm going right back on travel and that's going to to to be majority of the month. So I have to figure out just a coordination piece of that.

Speaker 1: 1:52:24

But once I get back I'll be good, but I'll do everything from overseas, most likely, all right. What other question do you guys have? Oh, there it goes like um, that's to put in the actual payment breakdown. So, yeah, nine dollars a week, so you can do nine dollars, create five resumes and then shut it down, and so there you go.

Speaker 11: 1:52:49

But um, yeah, hey, man, go get some rest. Man, thank you for all your time and devotion. Man, I know you jet lagging, I see it in your eyes.

Speaker 1: 1:53:01

That was a long, long long. My act, now sermon. I appreciate you guys for all attending. We appreciate you, buddy, go get some rest. Yeah, yeah, Thank you all. Please let other people know what we do. Look forward to sharing more information and resources with you guys. Have a good one.