19 July 2025 Weekly Rundown: Combat Boots to Coding- Finding Your Path After Service

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
How's it going everyone?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's going.
It's going Glad to be here,yeah, yeah, good afternoon Good
afternoon.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
Thanks for having me.
Good to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Absolutely.
Thank you guys for tuning in.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
I hope you are feeling good today.
What's up?
I hope you are feeling bettertoday.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Oh, you see the cover is slow.
Yeah, it's working.
I'm working on it.

Speaker 5 (00:55):
I'm working on it.
Thank you, uh.
Skin toner on that yeah, yeah,you see.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, you know I have a little scar.
It'll go away.
Um, yeah, they just said I hada fractured spine and a
contusion, but I'm good, I'mback at it, back to the normal,
previously scheduled events.
So if you're joining us for thefirst time, let me highlight
myself a bit.
If you join us for the firsttime, my name is Jason Alters.

(01:21):
I'm the founder of Act NowEducation.
I'm active duty military, beenin the military for 22 years.
I'm a cryptologic warfareofficer.
Enjoy what I do in the military.
Enjoy a lot of what themilitary has taught me.
Had a lot of great mentors andthat's kind of transitioned into
this or what you'll see today,and so being able to be in the

(01:45):
military has taught me a lotabout service for others.
Being able to be in themilitary has taught me a lot
about service for others,supporting one another and the
community.
Military community is veryunique in terms of the
camaraderie.
You really can't find thatanywhere else and it's something
that you know.
Whether you're a militaryspouse, veteran, transition,
service member, dependent, youhave that connection right, and

(02:08):
so if this is your first timejoining us, welcome to your new
tribe.
What we typically talk about isjust different resources and
opportunities.
We cover down on a lot ofdifferent opportunities and
resources that are free to themilitary community.
There's over 40,000 differentresources out there.
Not a lot of times people knowwhat's available, so we try to
touch base on it.
Everyone on my team, includingmyself, are all volunteers.

(02:30):
None of us get paid for what wedo and any donations that we
receive, 100% goes back to themilitary community.
We're probably one of the onlyorganizations that can say that,
because it's really focused onbeing able to support one
another and really being able tosupport people who are in need.
Today we're going to run down acouple of different things, just

(02:51):
programs and resources.
We have VertForce on the lineand we're going to touch base on
some programmatic that's comingup, and then we're going to run
through how to get access toour Coursera and then or access
to Coursera and then how to getaccess to our career compass
Coursera and then or access toCoursera and then how to get
access to our career compass.
If you are, if you joined uslast week and you don't have any

(03:13):
feedback from your careercompass, most likely your
account is created.
You just have to log on.
So we've been realizing that alot of people don't get
indication emails, and so we'lltalk about that as well.
But before I kick off, doesanyone have any questions?
Aside from why I have scars onmy face, which is was a really
fun story, that happened twoweeks ago, but I'll spare people

(03:33):
the details yeah I have aquestion about the teaching
program yes, are you a veteranyeah, I'm a veteran okay, did
you message me or no?
Yeah, I sent you the text.
I'm tracking you.
I'm tracking you.
You're one of the first peoplethat I'm going to be reaching

(03:54):
out to once we kick it off.
Cool, okay, good.
Thank you.
Absolutely, anwar.
Do we have the?
I think we do have it.
Let's see.
Just real quick.
Just want to know where youstand.
If you can, please fill outthat form real fast.

(04:15):
Just let us know where you areso we know what to gear it
towards.
This helps us kind of navigateour conversation, depending on
how many people we have firsttime.
We love our repeat offendersand our lawyer attendees and our
first-timers, but I definitelywant to make sure I cover on
like everything depending on whowe have.
So all right, shout out we gotsome veteran spouses in the

(04:36):
building.

Speaker 9 (04:38):
Yes, the only thing I see here a couple of questions
in there.
You know, in regards to accessto career flow or career compass
for those who attended previous, I'm sure you're going to touch
on it later on.
So the flow of thisconversation here for the
newcomers is basically, for thefirst hour, we'll just talk

(04:58):
about different things.
At the top of the hour, we'regoing to share the code and the
method of how to get access tocareer compass.
All right, so I'm going to showaccess to career compass, all
right.
So after you know, gonna showyou, jay's gonna go through the
walkthrough of how to get accessto career compass.
And then, yes, some people areasking about, um, you know, for

(05:18):
two or three weeks ago we hadthe act now summit, and we have
about 500 names I'm sure some ofyou guys are seeing the list
here If you follow Jay onLinkedIn or Facebook or
something like that about 500plus people who get access to
different certifications.
So, for example, the CSM courseor something like that, michael,
if your name is not on the list, basically, the CSM course is

(05:42):
going to be a class, so you haveto be part of those who get
access to the last, to the slotin order to access it.
But, um, I don't know if, jay,you want to take on a couple.
You know?
Additional thing here, uh,because people say, hey, if
somebody does not show up, canthey take.
You know, do we have a waitlist, so to speak?
So I don't know if you want todo that or not.

(06:05):
You know waitlist.
Unfortunately you might have to, because some people sign up
for stuff, say hey, I commit toattend, and then, you know, life
gets in the way and they mightnot be able to make it for that
day when the class starts.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
So, yeah, so we definitely always have a
waitlist for any course that werun, just because you know,
things happen, life happens, andso we'll be sharing that
information out.
But we will contact you if youare alternate for one of the

(06:42):
courses, so just keep that inmind.
But, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool.
Any other question?

Speaker 9 (06:52):
No again.
It's just you know asking whenthe classes will start, so you
know if you.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
If you have any questions about any of the
certification stuff, we willcontact you directly.
If you are a winner, you'll,you will get check your email,
because you'll get an email fromus and correspondence on when
the class starts, are you goodfor the class and you have to
have signed a commitment tocomplete letter, and so all
those things will be emailed toyou or reached out to you.

(07:19):
So just be on the lookout forthat.
I know, for instance, folksthat are part of the sharing
force.
They've already been reachedout to, but not everyone replies
.
So just make sure you checkyour emails if you're on that
list.
Some of the things are easierthan others.
If you have a professionalcertificate, that should all be
done in one fell swoop.
So that'll probably be donenext week.

(07:40):
Everyone will get access tothat.
But in terms of the actualcohorts and things and when they
start um, you'll, you'll getthat all follow-up and email
it's like there's a lot of messtrap.
If you guys look at it, it's wegave out aws, comptia, scrum,
product owner, um, uh, sherm,and so that that is.

(08:06):
I probably won't do it the sameway next year, but it is
definitely a logisticalnightmare because all the
certifications we have to order,and then, um, we have to reach
out to the people, confirm thatthey're going to take it, do it
and like so, just know, justknow, it is a process and, like
I said, we we are not here arefully manned, and so this is a a

(08:29):
weekend warrior type thing, uh,for us, and so we're trying to
get done as much as possible,but just be on the lookout for
that and then, uh, we'lldefinitely follow up with you so
the only thing I would just saysay again take it for what it's
worth, okay, and take it in thespirit it's given.

Speaker 9 (08:39):
All right.
So for the certifications andeverything like this, we, you
know, as if you have missed iton the way that jay it in the
beginning Small bootstrapoperation, just volunteers
trying to do what we can to helpand assist our fellow brothers
and sisters in arms, meaning wedon't have full-time paid staff.
You know any secretaries orbusiness development people or

(09:02):
somebody is going to just manthe phones, you know, and send
the emails as needed and thingslike this.
We try to help but again, nomatter what, please fill out.
Uh, feel free to take advantageof the situation.
All right, pay attention, checkyour emails or anything like
that.
If you, if you, if you send outan email, don't expect a

(09:24):
response like two minutes later,okay, again, it is all this
stuff is free.
All right, whether you get asherm or sick plus or anything
like this, everything is free tothose who got it okay.
So when you receive that access, for example, take advantage of
it, go study for the course,pass course and at the end,

(09:46):
don't ghost us.
Post about it on LinkedIn oryour social media of choice,
especially LinkedIn, because ifthe tree fell in the woods and
no one is there to hear it again, did it really fall?
Okay, that's all, ramjit, I'mnot patronizing, I'm just
sharing stuff.
We've been doing this, me andJay, for about three plus years.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, we've been on it.

Speaker 10 (10:13):
Okay, what it comes across is patronizing.
So if it doesn't apply, let itfly.
Right.
Am I right or wrong?

Speaker 9 (10:26):
I'll withhold my comment, but I understand where
you're coming from.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
All right.
So we got some questions.
Tara what you got.

Speaker 11 (10:39):
Yeah, for us who didn't necessarily win anything
from the summit, which is okay,anything from the summit, which
is okay.
Um, I know that we have thecode at the end of this that we
can utilize to basically applyfor, like the splunk stuff.
I just um, I haven't heardanything about that.

(11:01):
Like I know, it says like youhave to be on the summit, then
you apply and stuff like that.
So I know, like you've been outand hurt and so I just don't
know if, like, first you'redoing the cohort and then we get
access to the splunk stuffthrough act.
Now I was just trying tounderstand what that looks like
so for the splunk stuff, that'sindependent of us.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Um, I mean, that's independent of the the summit.
The only thing we did for thesummit was we gave out Splunk
certifications, whereas normallyyou would have to go through
the 22 courses that areavailable and then you can back
up with us and let us know youcompleted them and then we'll
get you access to.
Yeah, we'll get, we'll get youaccess to the certifications.

Speaker 11 (12:01):
OK, that sounds good , because I was just wondering,
because I had applied for themlast time and then this time and
I was like just kind ofwondering about the process of
how that works like outside ofthe summit.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
So you guys got to yeah, definitely For for sure.
That's that's the process isreal simple, um, but uh, the the
problem is we have we, we arereally backed up in terms of,
like, trying to answer, um, allthe replies that we got, and so
we're trying to do as best as wepossibly can, but, um, myself
alone, I have about 15 plus 100emails, uh, messages related to

(12:31):
certifications, and so it, ittakes us time, it just takes us
time.
Like I said, we, I'm definitelygoing to figure something out
and get some people to help usout full-time eventually,
because this is, yeah, it uh, itis a lot, it is a lot, it's a
lot to manage, but, uh, we, wetry to do what we can, like I
said, and we're trying to beable to help everybody, um, as

(12:53):
much as we can.
So, thank you for being patient.
Absolutely, all right, we havenikita did you mean Nita?
No, I just added extra words toyour name.
I'm sorry how you doing.

Speaker 12 (13:14):
You know what, and this is why I actually am on,
because it looks like I may havewon, but you spelled my name
wrong.
I think it's Nitra.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Did I spell it wrong, okay.
On the announcement on LinkedInit looks like you put N-I-T-R-A
young versus N-I-T-A.

Speaker 12 (13:32):
Okay, I might have done that.
I just wanted to bring that toyour attention because I wasn't
sure.
I was like, did I win or notsure, but even if I didn't, even
if I did, I just wanted to makesure.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
What was it?
What was it that you?

Speaker 12 (13:41):
Kayla yeah it was the design project product
design.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, that was you.
Okay for sure.

Speaker 12 (13:53):
Okay, thank you so much.
And then one other thing Iwanted to ask.
I know you're very busy and I'mworking on volunteering.
I sent you a message throughyour website in reference to
coaching.
I'm not sure if you were ableto see that, but it's basically
Partners in Change providescoaching.
Did you see that by any chance?

Speaker 1 (14:16):
No, I'm not.
I've been inundated, but yeah.

Speaker 12 (14:18):
I'll get to it I got you no, and I just wanted to
put it out on the platform foranyone who's interested in
volunteering as a coach orneeding coaching.
I don't know if that's you know.
Partners in Change providesthat across the country and we
just need coaches.
And if you know someone whoneeds coaching, of course, so

(14:39):
sure.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Okay, absolutely, definitely.
I will drop your LinkedIn sothat people can follow up with
you in the chat.
Okay, cool, paris.
Hi Jay.
How are you doing?

Speaker 4 (14:52):
I'm doing well.
I hope you're doing well too.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
I'm doing good I can't help it.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
So we spoke a bit last week about dependence if
you recall the conversation, andit was just like a great
experience speaking with you andI'd love to continue the
conversation of by LinkedIn.
That's a connection request andall of that and I just love to
you know, explore more aboutlike dependence and like kind of

(15:20):
figuring out more informationfor the process that we can
potentially share with others aswell.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
OK, absolutely, we can potentially share with
others as well.
Okay, absolutely.
Um, we should probably do likea dependence uh session to cover
all the resources related tothat.
Um, yeah, let let us figurethat out and so we can be able
to put that together and be ableto support you on that.
So I think that would be good,because we've been trying to
figure out what to do fordependence specifically, and I

(15:47):
know we have the Coursera thingcoming up, but I think it'd be
beneficial for people to tap inand get their dependents
involved as well, just so theycan show what opportunities are
out there.
So, yeah, well, I'll follow upwith you that it won't.
It won't be a right away thing.
It'll probably be.
I'm being honest, after we dothe MIC I'll be good to go, but
yeah, the mic is in september,so sometime after september I'll

(16:10):
probably look to be doingsomething like that.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
Cool all right, thank you.
Also.
I was wondering about um youmentioned last time as well,
like uxui, opportunities thatyou had um understandings about,
and I was wondering if, um, ifyou could share, uh, some of
those as well as far as uhthere's.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
I mean, that's just a couple of different things.
Are we talking about uhcertifications?
Are we talking about they justto get a hands-on experience?
Um, which, what direction areyou talking about?

Speaker 4 (16:43):
I'm talking about hands-on experience as well as a
um.
I'm talking about hands-onexperience, as well as a recent
graduate.
It's just.
I would love to understand alittle more about that landscape
.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Okay, I won't be able to do it on this call, but we
should be able to figuresomething out to where we can
touch base on that.
Mainly in the cohorts we mainlytalk about like different
career opportunities.
We have a cohort coming up,service to Success Actually, I
was supposed to receive amessage from Nicole, which you
remind me, let me see.
But we have a Service toSuccess cohort coming up and

(17:22):
that typically gets more down onthe weeds.
We're talking about, likecareer opportunities, different
paths and different tracks, andso, if anything, I would highly
recommend you attend that.
It launches mid-October.
I mean sorry, no, mid-august,let me see.
Yeah, she sent it to me, let me.
I'll send you guys the linkreal fast here.

(17:47):
Let me do this real fast andthat way, if you are interested
in joining it and I'll talk alittle bit about it, do we have
Vertforce on the line?
Nope.
Okay, I guess they're not onlinetoday, so I'll talk a little

(18:09):
bit about the cohort so you cankind of get a good understanding
.
But let me send myself thismessage so I can put it on.
Give me one second, all right,and this is going to be the link
for it.
But the cohort's called Serviceto Success.
This one should be seven weekslong.
The co-host called Service toSuccess is about a.

(18:29):
This one should be seven weekslong, and what we do is we
essentially walk you through howto get unstuck and how to get
from being lost when it comes tojob search and job
opportunities and careerprogression.
Myself, nicole and Anwar teachit and we bring you a plethora
of resources that really helpyou dial down into your own path

(18:51):
, your journey, questions thatyou should be asking yourself,
things to help you betterunderstand what your career
options are and opportunitiesand how to create a realistic
plan to actually execute and getinto a job.
We've had multiple success fromthis program.
A lot of people get hired andthen in the program we also
provide you with opportunitiesto get certifications and

(19:12):
there's a job portion I mean ajob portion, a hiring fair
aspect and so you'll actuallyget to apply everything that
we've taught you to a directhiring fair that we put on with
employers and so you can touchbase and see it Anyone online.
That's complete to servicesuccess.
Mind chiming in Uh, I know Icould talk about it, but I would
prefer someone else that's gonethrough it to talk about their

(19:34):
experience.

Speaker 5 (19:35):
I've done it.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Dave, go ahead, all floors, all yours, yeah.

Speaker 5 (19:40):
So if you have art, whether you're transitioning or
you've been in the workforce foryears, the services to success
is very applicable.
The things you learn are justvery intuitive that you can
apply, whether it's getting jobcoached or whether you're

(20:02):
working on your resume, yourelevator pitch, how to maximize
your LinkedIn and networking.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
There is a ton of information that you get and
you'll be a better candidatebecause of it.
Appreciate you, thank you forthat.
And, like I said, theopportunity also provides you
with a possible opportunity toget a cert.
We have a few people who knockout their SEC plus on that one,
and then some people work ontheir PMP as well, and then we
had a bunch of people get scrumcertification as well.

(20:35):
So, depending on what it isthat you're doing, it's a great
opportunity.
Here is the link for registeringfor it.
I'm going to drop it in thechat for everyone, so don't type
anything.
Service to success cohort.
And remember it's going to kickoff in the next August.

(20:56):
I mean the middle of August.
It's about, like I said, a fewweeks long and it'll be in the
afternoon.
Most of the classes will be inthe evening.
Most of the classes will be inthe evening and it'll be myself,
nicole, teaching majority,majority, and then we'll have
other people jump on and andanything to add value to you and
, like I said, we we really makesure we dial in and really help

(21:17):
you out.
Um, we've had people reallyfrustrated about the hiring
market, their perspectives, um,and it just, it's just life is a
lot easier when you hear fromother people going through
similar struggles and you kindof figure out ways to kind of go
after it from a differentperspective, and so that's why
we enjoy doing it.
But that's the link.
If you're interested, sign upfor it.

(21:38):
Yeah, we're limited spots, butit's a good cohort to go through
.

Speaker 5 (21:45):
I did want to add that it's also you end up with a
great support system.
You know some of the peoplethat were in my group.
We still meet every other weekor so.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, that's, that's what it's all about.
It's not like you know, touchpoints is it's a community
building community, gettingconnected to people, and you
just never know when people tellyou, hey, there's an
opportunity or this opportunity.
Have you looked into this?
I can give you countlessstories of how not us, but
people within the cohort helpedeach other either overcome

(22:19):
something or be able to find anopportunity that changed their
lives, and that's what we try tofocus on, being provide that.
That environment Cool, allright.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
That's beautiful.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
No worries, um, the link is for service to success
cohort.
That's.
That's what the link is for, um, if you just join me, okay Now,
um, what I'm going to gothrough is I'm just going to go
through the, our program, ourcareer flow, so you can get a

(22:54):
good understanding what thatlooks like and have a bit of
perspective on that.
And then, on the hour, like Isaid, we'll give out the
information for coursera andinformation for sponking, so
that you have that, so you cango ahead and tap in.

Speaker 9 (23:07):
But if you don't mind .
Gene, the birth force is nothere, but in the chat I'm just
going to post the usual spielthat she posted before.
Information about birth forceand things like that Connect the
link to their job board foranybody.
Basically, if anybody is notfamiliar with Verforce, they are

(23:29):
a company that was created bythis military spouse, kimber
Hill, and they provide some jobs, you know, career, portable,
what they call them All right,remote mainly, and things like
that.
All right, so they have thisstuff here on the chat and then
also All right, so they havethis stuff here on the chat.

(23:49):
And then also before we had thisguy, steve Marlow, from Vets in
Tech.
He posted about a couple ofclasses I saw in the chat.
Somebody is paying for theirown SecPlus, for example.
You don't have to pay for yourSecPlus If you sign up with them
.
You know there's SecPluscourses every month where they
provide you with the actualcourse and actual exam voucher.

(24:11):
They have classes about basicPython and they're starting
stuff for AIML and PMP courses.
There's last time, I think,when you mentioned PMP.
They have a course in likeAugust and September or
something like that that comeswith a voucher for PMP.
So I posted that in the chatfor anybody who's interested.

(24:32):
Reach out and do your thing.
All right Over to you, man.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
A quick question for you folks, for those who know
Act Now Education we recentlygot this review and we try to
make sure that you know peopleare not feeling like they're
being duped in any type of way,because there's a lot of

(25:01):
organizations out there that dothat.
We're not trying to be one ofthose, and so if you are
familiar with us and ourprocesses, I mean, we're just
looking for feedback.
If you agree to this, pleaselet us know.
Just write it in comments onthis post so that we can address
it, because I don't want anyoneto feel like we're offering
fake stuff and we're askingpeople to give five.

(25:21):
I've never, ever, asked anyoneto give a five-star review, but
I may be mistaken on how I'mcommunicating, so please let me
know what your thoughts are inthe comments so that we can
definitely touch base on this.
I greatly appreciate it.
I'm going to share this linkwith you guys as well because,
like I said, we try to be astransparent as possible, and if

(25:45):
there's a way for us to prove,please let us know.
And if there's a way for us toprove, please let us know.
Well, I know we're not doingeverything correctly, but we are
trying to help the militarycommunity as best as we possibly
can.
But if people feel like we'resalesy, then I need to speak to
the board about that so we canfigure out what we need to do to
change that.
Cool, awesome, all right, I'mgonna put it in the comment.

(26:07):
Yeah, comment on this post.
But yeah, please feel free toto to get with us.
All, right, cool, let me getinto the good stuff now.
A question Does anyone live inMaryland?
A question Does anyone live inMaryland?

(26:32):
Better question Does anyonelive in Maryland that has kids
in Maryland that are between theages of 10 to 17?
Yes, tara.

Speaker 11 (26:48):
You're saying Tara, tara, you have kids.
How old are your kids?
13-year-old?
I have a 13-year-old.
Yeah, those are the two thatfall within.
I have four kids, but those arethe two that fall within?

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Do they have a PlayStation 5?

Speaker 11 (27:08):
No, do they want one ?

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Do you want one?

Speaker 11 (27:12):
bring it on if you'd like to give me one yes, so I'm
going to give you one um.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Can you please message me on um LinkedIn and
I'll bring it to you okay, cool.

Speaker 11 (27:25):
Thank you so much, I appreciate it awesome see now
you are

Speaker 9 (27:29):
being salesy in and I'll bring it to you.
Okay, cool.
Thank you so much, I appreciateit Awesome.
All right, see, now you arebeing salesy.

Speaker 11 (27:33):
Jay.
No you're not.
No, you're not, thank you.

Speaker 5 (27:37):
How dare you give something for nothing?

Speaker 14 (27:40):
Jay didn't ask for autographs or anything like that
, or pictures or anything likethat.
Come on.
Or he didn't even say youshould say something in LinkedIn
about it either.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Oh yeah, yeah, Hit, hit, tap, tap.
That's funny.
Here we go, all right, socareer compass.
So let me show you what thislooks like, so everyone can get
a better understanding.
That's not sharing.
Wait, maybe I didn't share it,right.

Speaker 9 (28:16):
You're sharing the entire screen.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
OK, there it goes.

Speaker 9 (28:18):
Now you're sharing your stuff All right, don't mind
my thousand tabs.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
I'm a thousand tabber .
I love it.
It helps my ADHD.
Did I say that?
Right, add?
All right, so when you getaccess to the Career Compass, it
actually is through CareerFlow.
Careerflow is a company forprofit that they help people

(28:44):
land jobs.
They have AI, resume builder,automatic job tracking,
optimizing your LinkedIn profileand a bunch of other things.
Really cool platform, greattool, awesome opportunity.
And there is a cost, so justknow that.
So if you go there, you cansign up for free, but there is a

(29:04):
cost to it.
Right, getting on it.
However, I worked with theCareerFlow team to be able to
provide the platform that wecreated with them at no cost to
the military community.
They're avid supporters of themilitary community.
They don't have any militarybackground, but they're just
thankful to be able to help themilitary community.
So what we were able to createwas our version of CareerFlow,

(29:26):
which is called Career Compass,and this is what it looks like.
It's essentially a job trackerall in one.
It's a hub that, if you'relooking for opportunities,
resources and things of thatnature, this will help you kind
of get.
After that, you can work onresumes in here so you can
tailor your resumes and they'lltell you, based off of the job

(29:46):
description.
So the PD that you provide thejob description of the job
position that you put in there,the information that you
provided.
It will tell you, based off ofthis, what do you, what's the
overall score on your resume andif you need to tailor it.
There's like a one click buttonto tailor the resume or a
highlight aspects of it that youneed.

(30:07):
That's on the job description,that's not on your resume, but
it definitely will help you out.
Please understand these toolsare tools.
You can use a sledgehammer tonail a picture in the wall or
you can use a hammer to nail apicture in the wall, just
depending on what he is.
You have to use these toolsaccordingly.
So understand that these arejust tools.

(30:28):
Don't expect them to do all thework for you, but you can get a
lot better product and qualityif you use some of these tools
to help you out.
The other thing we have in hereis a job tracker, as I mentioned
before, and it allows you toput the jobs in here so you can
track what jobs are you kind oflooking at, whether you're
interviewing, uh, if you've beenoffered, rejected, so on so

(30:50):
forth, and this still justallows you to say, like, if
someone calls you back and says,hey, we have uh interested in
interviewing you, it keepseverything um understandable,
right, and so it's not somethingthat's like crazy, it's just
more so like Helps you track.
If you are reaching out to athousand companies in a month,

(31:12):
it is hard to know what jobs youapply for, who they are, but
it'd be good if you had them allin one database Right now.
On top of that, right, if youare looking for jobs
specifically, please understandthat this database here is is
helps you find opportunities,and so in here you see there's
30 73 000 uh jobs.

(31:33):
It used to be millions, but wechanged it because we want to be
able to cycle out the roles sothat you guys can see what's
available, and so you'll gothrough here.
And the good thing about thisit takes you directly to the
site and this is not somethingthat's like we're not playing
the man in the middle, and so ifyou apply to a role and you
want to apply, it's going toactually take you to wherever
that site is.
Do keep in mind these jobs areup and running and so if they

(31:57):
get filled.
They'll say that so that whenyou come here it may not be
available, but just keep oncontinuing to search through a
job, figure out thequalifications and what it is.
One thing to note if you aredoing like, say, for instance,
you're interested in this job.
I'm not a software engineer, Idon't do cloud, but let's say I

(32:22):
was interested in doing thisrole and I wanted to see what
skill sets of minds as a youknow, electronic warfare, cyber
security, sigint, focused focusperson, what skills of mine will
transfer over to this.
I would then take this jobdescription, copy and paste this
whole thing, go into chat gpt.
Actually, let's just do it,let's just do this, just so I

(32:44):
can show you guys what I'mtalking about Jay.

Speaker 14 (32:47):
the easy part would be go back to that page and hit
the C and it actually adds the Cicon on your browser on the far
right.
Yeah.
That'll add it into your systemand then you'll get all the
details to copy into ChatGPT.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Which one do I click?

Speaker 9 (33:07):
The extension which one I click the extension.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Which one Open sidebar, all right Open sidebar
and then Save the portal.
Save the portal what?
This is doing is this is savingit to our portal.
Okay, now I have it in myportal.

(33:30):
Open my portal and it should bein my portal, coming up here.

Speaker 14 (33:44):
Sorry, Jay, I got you on a side trip.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
No, no, no worries.
We love the side journeys.
Everyone loves the sidejourneys.
No worries, it helps people sogo.

Speaker 14 (33:53):
I think you need to go to the job seekers and look
at the or the dashboard okaylet's see oh no, this is uh okay
this is not this is not my.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
this is a coaching account.
That's the reason why Let mesee if it's saved to my actual
portal Job tracker.

Speaker 14 (34:15):
It should be the bottom one.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Right, was it this one?
No, this is three months ago.
No, there's probably somethingwrong.
Don't worry folks, I have acoaching account and a listening
account, so I think it's tryingto add it to my coach account
because my coach account isconnected, not my private
account.
But anyway, it would normallycome into here like this, so I'm
just going to show you how todo it the other way.

Speaker 9 (34:44):
So for everybody else , what Tom is trying to share.
Also, if you get access to thiswebsite the career flow here,
once you get access from ActNow,there's a Chrome extension that
you will be able to downloadand it will do some of this.
Other side quests, side jobsmakes easier navigation.

(35:06):
You can add these type of jobsto your job portal.
Job tracker and things likethat apply for it and everything
.
Jerry Jay is sharing his screenFor anybody else.
If you are on your cell phoneor iPad, maybe you'll just have
to switch screens to be able toview the actual shared screen of
what he's trying to demonstratein here.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
All right, I'm just going to demonstrate in here,
all right, I'm just going toclick on this software
development engineer.
I don't have this background,but anyway, I'm going to apply,
not apply.
I'm going to click on save.
Good morning.
How's it going?

Speaker 8 (35:42):
It's going great.
I just have a question.
This is a great application andmy question is how do we gain
access to the Act Now?
I'm actually looking atCareerFlow AI online, but I'm
trying to use your portion, theAct Now application piece of it.
Is there a?
Specific way that you need tosign in.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, we will go over that towards the end.
Okay, all right, no problem,thank you, absolutely All right.
So I'm need to sign in, or,yeah, we, we will go over that
towards the end.
Okay, all right, no problem,thank you, absolutely all right.
So I'm going to take that role.
Let's just, I'm just showingyou guys something real quick.
Uh, all right, this is, I am aEW and cyber security.

(36:31):
Is my security wrong?
No, ew and cyber electronicwarfare, because it might get
confused.
Ew and cyber security project.
I'm going to say projectmanager.
Ew and cybersecurity project.
I'm gonna say project manager.

(36:58):
And maybe please tell me whatskills of mine, what skills of
mine, are connected to this role.
Nothing special folks, just,and I put the role down here.

(37:23):
Actually, I should say whatconnected?
Translate, I put translate,it's a better word.

Speaker 15 (37:32):
And another thing you can do real quick.
Just a quick tidbit If you haveMicrosoft Edge, you can right
click anywhere on the screen onthe webpage, or the resume or
whatever.
I mean the job posting.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (37:48):
And then click on web capture and then do full
screen and then you can pastethe job description and then you
can paste your resume into chat, gbt, and you can, you know,
you can say, like, take this jobposting and align it with my
resume, or or another.

(38:14):
Another thing to do is ifyou're like, if you're applying
for uh, or I work in the defenseindustry, I work at raytheon,
so if you, if you're applyingfor a defense contractor, you
can take uh the job posting andand formulate your resume
specifically to the job postingitself.
Um, because you know, a lot ofthese places get like thousands
of applicants at any one timeand unfortunately they're

(38:36):
looking for buzzwords yeah,that's true, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
That's a good, good tidbit, so definitely keeping
track of that.
But, um, yeah, there's multipleways to do this, folks.
And, like I said, this is justan example, but I'm not saying
like, if I was interested inapplying to this role, like I
don't have a.
I personally don't believe Ihave a background for being a
software developer, right, butthis is telling me what aspects

(39:02):
of my career do apply to that.
And so, if I'm interested ingoing down this route, right, I
know how to expand this, andthese are some talking points
that I can bring when I bring tothe interview.
And so, if that's the role Iwas going for, if I was trying
to get additional experience andskills, but you can do this
with something that you are alittle bit more familiar with
and a little bit have betterunderstanding, for I'm just
showing you this is an optionfor you so that you can use this

(39:24):
to leverage.
So, if you're not using chat,gbt or any ai to kind of help
you articulate your skill setsbetter at our interview or
prepping for a job, you knowyou're missing out on a lot of
opportunity there, but I justwanted to show you that all
right, yeah, I apologize, goodone.

Speaker 14 (39:43):
one other recommendation I would use
instead of chat gpt, I would usenotebook lm, which is a google
tool and allows you to upload,like your resume and maybe all
of your history, which I've got170 courses that I've taken and
all that stuff and then youcould turn around and point to
the job URL in it and say howprepared am I for this job, what

(40:07):
am I missing?
And it will analyze what you'veloaded in this resource
notebook with that URL and pullthat information and give you
information.
That's my newest thing thatI've been using this week and
actually using it against my ownresume.
It's got all my history of youknow the letter of accommodation
from a three star admiral thatI got from doing some work for

(40:29):
him, this, and that you knowthat type of stuff.
It's all there and it pullsthat resource from that
information so you can actuallyjust pull it right there and use
it.
So Notebook LM.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Oh, notebook LM.
Yeah, you got it, it's, rightthere.

Speaker 9 (40:49):
It's a free thing from.

Speaker 14 (40:50):
Microsoft.
It's nice because you can putseveral different items in there
.
So if you want to put all theActNow brochures in there and
then turn around and say, hey, Ineed to know about last time
they talked about Scrum, you canactually pull all that
information out of that notebookand get it right there in front

(41:11):
of you.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
That sounds like an awesome tool.

Speaker 14 (41:14):
I'm writing instructions for it right now.
It will create a podcast for youon your material.
It does create podcasts for you.
I sent it off to a.
What I have a background of awealth of information on
different topics.
I'm a broad topic person and soI fill out resumes focused on
different topics.
I'm a broad topic person and soI fill out resumes focused on

(41:34):
that job.
But then they'll turn around oh, we need you to know chat GPT,
and I didn't put it in theresume.
Then I sent them this 30 minutepodcast where there was two
people talking back and forthabout Tom Margrave and how good
he is to work with that type ofjob, and took the job posting

(41:56):
and compared it with the 600pages of information I fed to
Notebook LM.
I won't say 600, but a worth ofinformation, all my individual
projects and stuff like that andit does that and stuff like
that and it does that.
And I've cut it off because I'ma little bit upper in age, so I
don't broadcast all my olderstuff.

(42:18):
But I say, hey, talk aboutanything past 10 years old,
don't reference dates, and itpulls it out.
I do my resume that way.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Then I have a script.
Look, this is what we're goingto need Next week.
We're going to need you to do aclass.
Well, not next week, but whenyou have some availability, can
you do a class on your notebook?

Speaker 14 (42:39):
lm for the community yeah, I didn't want to open my
mouth that big, but yeah wegotta help the people, we gotta
help yeah, I know, I know.
So just be aware that I amworking trying to get a job for
the last three months.
But hey, I'll do it for thecall.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Who can help out?

Speaker 9 (43:07):
Cecil Ivey.
I use the notebook with LM allthe time.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
All right, Can you guys collaborate?
And yeah, just let us know whattimeframe works best for you.
But I think, like I didn't,I've never heard of it.
So yeah, I'm.
This is why I love you alwayslearn something.
Even me, I always learnsomething.
Look, I'm about to dive in,Cause I definitely need
something like that.

Speaker 9 (43:25):
Yeah, notebooklm is free, but it's it's I mean it's
very capable in the free version, but it's even more capable
when you pair it with a $20 amonth Gemini subscription and
have that 2.5.

Speaker 5 (43:41):
LLM powering it, so it's a real good tool.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
All right.
So we got a notebook LLM coursecoming up that you guys are
going to help us out.
You're doing it for the culture.
Appreciate you.

Speaker 14 (43:52):
notebook lm course coming up that you guys are
going to help us out.
You're doing it for the culture, appreciate you.
Yeah, I just don't.
I just don't want to go indepth on how to write
instructions for notebook lm.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
No, no, no, yeah yeah , it's not nothing, nothing too
crazy, just more so like helpingpeople get familiar with it.
The biggest aspect is when wetell somebody that and you start
running down things like peopleget overwhelmed easily, um, and
they just need to be able tosee someone take it from one
step to the next.

Speaker 14 (44:15):
Yeah, that's really what it is I can get the
instructions on on it, becausewhat I do is I upload all the
instructions that I use innotebook lm and say, hey, use
instruction x in this source toprocess these files and it way
it does, way it goes, so we can.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
I just have never cleaned it up to give it to to
the public okay, yeah, yeah, Imight say like just just, it
doesn't like that, it doesn'thave to be too intricate, just
more so helping the peopleunderstand how to use the tool,
not to not, not to not to be tooai or whatever, but I, um, I
tend to learn a lot of newthings in my jobs, like I was
recently given.

Speaker 15 (44:50):
I mean, I'm only 41, but I was recently given, uh, a
project to learn a lot of newthings in my job, like I was
recently given.
I mean, I'm only 41, but I wasrecently given a project to
learn Fortran and OpenVMS.
If anybody knows what that isand the way that I do it is, I
just go to ChatGPT and I'll saycreate me a guide on this
subject and it'll print it outpretty well to understand it,

(45:11):
and if you have questions, youjust ask the prompt you know
pretty pretty good, pretty wellto understand it, and if you
have questions, you just askchat the prompt you know.
So that's one.
One thing you can do with chatgpt is they create me a you know
, step-by-step instruction guideon how to use note uh lm yeah,
we keep it as simple as possible.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
All right, folks, we're gonna run through this so
that we can touch base and giveyou guys the resources that you
need.
All right, so in here, andthank you for the input.
In here you come down to whereit says organization.
You'll have the resources inhere If you click on this little
square switch to grid layout.
I like this layout a little bitbetter because it helps me find

(45:47):
stuff.
It lays it out like this, butessentially you'll see ActNow,
apprenticeship, certificationdiscounts, child care, so the
certification discounts, soeveryone's tracking.
This is us applying our discountto a voucher.
I know some people want to buyvouchers and they may not
necessarily get one of the freeones from us, but if you are

(46:09):
interested in buying a voucher,we'll just use our nonprofit
rate.
That way, you get it for thenonprofit rate rather than
paying the full price.
It makes no sense to pay forthe full price.
So we have a partnership withPMI and we have a partnership
with Computea, so we geteverything at a discounted rate.
So if that's what you'reinterested in, then we have
certifications in here.
Child care resources, clothesmakeovers, college and education

(46:32):
these programs are justdifferent programs that are
related to that particularcategory.
So in here, like I'll show you,if you want to get your child's
first year of school collegepay for, like you want their
freshman year to be paid for,this is a great program.
Modern Middle States is anawesome organization.
Modern Middle States is anawesome organization.
Essentially it's taking CLEPS,which is College Level Exam

(46:55):
Preparation, or is it ExamProgram?
I forgot exactly what it standsfor, but it's the college
credits for different classesand what these are is you go
through the course and it's justlike for the military, like we
get to take CLEPS for free.
They pay for CLEPs.

(47:19):
So they'll pay for your CLEP,whether you are a military
spouse or dependent, and you canknock out any one of these
courses.
As long as you get done withthe majority of the coursework,
they will give you the money toactually pay for your CLEP and
take the CLEP and this can helpyou get through a lot of that
first year school without havingto come out of the pocket.
You see, all these classes arefirst year schools.
Uh, first year um, first umyear for college year to help

(47:41):
your freshman year.
All right, let me go back.
So you got that in there.
I mean they got a bunch ofprograms in here.
You have service to schoolswhat helps you get into like uh,
higher education opportunities,warriors to scholars, all these
programs, posse, veterans, theythey help you get into top
colleges or they help you knowum provide opportunities for you

(48:01):
to be able to connect into topcolleges and opportunities, uh,
tutors.
Tutors is a free tutor programprovides you with free tutors uh
, at no cost.
If you go to tutorscom you willpay money.
So don't go there.
Go to tutorscom.
It's the military edition andit's free for your family.
They're 24-7, so it doesn'tmatter if you're overseas or not
.
I use this extensively forbefore we had AI just to help me

(48:27):
out with my writing.
So I can write a good pagepaper for five pages easy day.
But the minute that I pagepaper for five pages, easy day.
But the minute that I had to do10 pages, I already said
everything I needed to sayconcisely.
I felt, at least, and I waslike man, I'm just trying to
come up with extra topics justto get to 10 pages.
So it'd be like a five pagepaper cycle.
But I use tutors to kind ofhelp me steer my conversation

(48:50):
and think of some other pointsfor my writing, which helped me
out tremendously.
My DRAE point average went up alot, and so it's a great
resource there.
You have coding, cyber and ITentrepreneurship.
If you're interested inentrepreneurship, there's a lot
of different programs.
Don't just jump into somethingwithout using some resource to

(49:12):
help you out.
Make sure you have some timethat you can do it.
But, like, all of theseprograms are out there to help
you.
You have pin fed, which givesyou money for your, your
business.
So they have about twenty fivethousand dollars that they do
grant programs to support umvets and tech are doing a twenty
five thousand dollar grant aswell.
So, like, use some of theseprograms to better understand

(49:33):
how to align yourself with whatyour goals are.
Don't try to figure it all outon your own, especially if you
already got the support.
Bunker Labs.
You have SBA that has differentopportunities for the military
community.
So, all this stuff WarriorRising all these programs Dog
Tag.
Dog Tag is a program that youactually go to the facilities in

(49:55):
DC If you're interested inentrepreneurship.
You actually run a bakery.
They teach you everything aboutrunning a bakery.
Now, granted, that may not bethe product that you're trying
to sell or anything, but itteaches you business
fundamentals.
And so during the day, you'reworking on the marketing, sales,
outreach, everything that youneed to do in order to sell your

(50:15):
products and services at thestore, and you're learning and
getting the hands-on experience.
At night, you go upstairs andyou get instructed by a
professor from GeorgetownUniversity.
That's helping you understandentrepreneurship Really cool,
cool program.
So there's a lot of differentthings out there and it's all
free, right, and so we got that.
If you're interested infinancial services I mean

(50:37):
certifications American Collegehas a bunch of financial
certifications that you canknock out.
If you want to do interview prepyou know, don't let your first
interview be your firstinterview Use this program
called Canterful.
It helps you prepare for yourinterview, right, and you get
three interviews overall.
So you would just tell themwhat the job is that you're
trying to apply for and they'llwalk you through questions, a

(51:01):
live interview, walk you throughquestions to help you
understand what it is that youhow best to articulate your
skills, your skills and answerquestions that are related to
the role, and so that way,before you even do your first
interview, you already havethree interviews done and then
you can actually go into doingyour interview, and so a great
program there.

(51:21):
But all these resources arefound in this.
You've got the job board, sothere's a bunch of job boards
even on this particular site.
And then obviously, we have thementorship program.
So if you want to connect withmentors, we've got ACP Mill
Mentor.
This is an awesome organization, the Commit Foundation.
They take a very white gloveapproach to mentorship, and so

(51:46):
if you are transitioning out andyou're looking to kind of tap
in to take advantage of thisone-on-one transition program,
the Commit Foundation is anawesome organization for that.
If you just want to touch basewith somebody you know, just
figure out what they do, millMentor is great for that.
We are growing this.
I created this page specifically.
We created this pagespecifically to help people

(52:08):
connect with mentors indifferent industries.
I don't have the ability to sitdown and talk to people all the
time, as much as I want to, andI used to do that.
Gone are the days that that wasthe case, but I didn't log back
in.
Ok, for some reason I can't login, but it's a great platform.

(52:29):
It's real simple.
You can set up a call anytime,schedule a call, and we made
this just to really be able tohelp people.
And it's free.
Obviously, anything that we dois free.
Then we have Resume assistanceprogram your resume resume
assistance.
If you're interested incertifications for real estate

(52:51):
assistance, if you're interestedin certifications for real
estate, if you're trying to findmore about scholarships,
whatever it is that you'retrying to find, there are
numerous resources in here thatyou can plug through, and Tom
and Rick are actually goingthrough this to kind of identify
what resources are dead, and soif you do come across a
resource that's no longer hit,please let them know, and let us
know so that we can be able toaddress that, so that we can

(53:14):
help you guys out.
But even if you're trying toget certifications in here,
there are a bunch of programs inhere that offer certifications.
There's over over 50 plusdifferent certifications that
you can get from the programsystem here Per Scholars,
empower, sans Academy, scrumBooster, books, our Act Now

(53:39):
program Vets in Tech, and thenIVMF Cloud Veterans which Cloud
Veterans is awesome becauseCloud Veterans they have a
program where they're giving youall these free cloud
certifications and no one reallyknew about this program, but as

(53:59):
soon as we put it out there,they end up getting over it and
they inundate it with people,just like we normally send.
And then now they're like, Ithink, in a six-month wait
period, but you can do this,your spouses can do this.
And now they're like, I think,in a six-month wait period, but
you can do this.
Your spouses can do this Ifthey are the service member can
do this.
The military member's familycan do this.
So take advantage of theseprograms and utilize them, but

(54:22):
that's all here in the resources.
Then you have your LinkedIn.
It helps you improve yourLinkedIn tab in here.
It can help you write coverletters.
It keeps all your contacts, andso if you have contacts that
you're working through onLinkedIn, there's a tab that you
actually will see on yourLinkedIn once you add the
extension that you can add yourcollaborators, your connectors,

(54:44):
your recruiters, so on and soforth.
And then there's a few otherthings in here.
Some of this stuff you may notsee on yours because they do
have like a premium versionwhere you have to pay.
I think is like $30 for threemonths or something like that,
or $8 for a week or something.
I forget what the price is, butif you're interested in

(55:06):
upgrading, you can do that.
It's just that.
Know that that's going to that,that the organization, not us
as a non-profit.
Um, this, this is what we askfor this free platform to have.
We be able to get you sometools that you can use without
having to, you know, diggingyour pocket or open your wallet.
But it's 8.99 a week okay, 8.99a week, um, and then let me see

(55:27):
if it comes up with oh, itdoesn't come up with the other
pricing.

Speaker 14 (55:31):
But they do offer discounts of $15 a month for
other groups, not for the ActNow group right now.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
So you said $15 a month overall.

Speaker 14 (55:43):
No $15 a month discount for another user group
that's using it.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Oh, really Okay.

Speaker 14 (55:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
If people are interested in it.
Maybe I need to ask them forthat, but I asked them for the
free platform, so this is whatthey gave us.

Speaker 14 (55:56):
Well, I'm just saying maybe you've got the free
platform, maybe you should askthem for a discount to upgrade
to the full pay for 15.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Okay, yeah, that's probably not a bad idea.

Speaker 9 (56:05):
So appreciate this, Tom, and you know if I could
interject something here, I'mthe an official conciliary for
jay, all right.
So basically just to address,you know, in case somebody
thinks you know we don't, Idon't care, anybody has an
opinion.
If you want to post another,another one-star review and
saying, hey, we're a sham or orsalesy or something like that,

(56:28):
it's's okay, it's cool.
But I need to share with youguys what we share here,
especially if somebody is new tothis community.
We had about 50% of you guysright now attending that are
first time accessing Act Now,right now and getting to
discover us.
Whatever we share is otherorganizations.
We advertise them, we talkabout them.

(56:51):
Those are good organizationsthat we feel, through
interactions with them and orother members talking about them
, that they provide a goodservice to the community.
Act Now Education does notreceive any kickback from them
if you use their services,whether for free or not.
If we talk about like, forexample, when Jay was talking
about, you know, if you cannotget access to like, let's say,

(57:13):
secplus, for free and you wantto pay for it on your own, you
just get the discount rate $100off or something like that.
It's between you and CompTIA.
They don't kick back anythingto ActNow or something like that
.
So don't think we haveaffiliate links or anything like
this, that we just advertisefor people.
Okay, tom, appreciate yousharing this.

(57:36):
You know about uh, about uh,career compass and whatnot.
Again, we provide the freeversion, gives you one free
resume builder and a job trackerand things like that.
If you want to pay the plusversion, it's on you.
Okay, please understand.
We don't get no feedback, nokickback, no clickbait, anything

(57:56):
like this.
I might sound patronizing.
I might sound patronizing.
I am truly not.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Yeah, and the reason we do that is because we don't
want us to be attached to anyorganization like that.
We don't want to say, andgranted, there's nothing wrong
with people and organizationsdoing that, you know,
organizations do need to supporttheir operations.
But for us, we want you to knowthat, regardless of what it is
that you see what it is that wedo, there is no hidden agenda

(58:24):
connected to it.
Right, it's just value overanything else.
We really want to be able tosupport you and if we're looking
at something, it's somethingthat we would do, something that
we will look into, and Iwouldn't want to say, hey, take
advantage of this.
Oh, and, by the way, like,believe me, there is multiple.
You won't believe how manycompanies and organizations ask
me to sell for them and I'm like, I just don't do that.

Speaker 6 (59:07):
There's a lot of people that may, but I would
rather you know if your goal isnot to focus on the focus and
support the military communityand find a creative way to do
that with me, then I'm not likefor, like, profit doesn't mean
anything to me because resumebut there's nothing that says
you can't redo that resume overand over again.
So make, make.
So what I do is I make one andthen I save it on locally and
then when I need another one Imake a new one and I I use the
tool to make that one match thenext job.

(59:27):
So I just keep reusing that oneover and over again.
That's how I get it.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Work it.
That's how you live, this ishow we get it.
Get it how you live.
Any way, you can get it.
All right, let me All right,we're at the hour, so it's
sharing time, so I'm going toshare some of the resources for
you guys so that you can getaccess to One is.
The first one I'm going to sharewith you is the Eventbrite, so
this is for access to Coursera.

(59:54):
So this is for the spouses andmilitary.
You just come in here, youpress get ticket.
It does take some time toprocess your account and so it
takes probably about two weeks.

(01:00:14):
This used to be 12,000.
But ever since we startedworking with VTS obviously
you've seen that's the number.
Now we have our own Coursera,but we don't give that out just
yet because we want to includethe dependents, because Coursera
has taken away all of thedependent related opportunities.

(01:00:35):
Um, and then for the militarycommunity, I think we're the
only ones, and so, uh, we're theonly ones that requested it,
and so we'll be using that forthe dependent program that we're
rolling out with.
Uh, uh, here in a few months.
But you come in here.
Can you place that link in thechat please?

(01:00:56):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah Iwas just walking through the
process first.
Okay, thank you, no worries.
You press one and then youregister.
They're going to ask you toverify your status, your
military status or your militaryaffiliation.
Just know that that's theprocess and it does take some
time.
It's not a right away quickthing.
So for those, uh, instantaneousrelated folks, this is you got

(01:01:20):
to work with them.
Their organization is anon-profit as well, you know,
and they, they have to processthese as they go.
And so here's the link for itand and share it in the chat.
Oh, it's already shared.
Look, kevin's on it.
Appreciate it, but Kevin justshared the link.
Here's the link again, if youneed it, definitely.

(01:01:41):
Oh, see, somebody got theirs inthree days.
It really just depends on whoit is, but I typically tell
people it takes about two weeks,because that's what I've seen,
like some worst case scenariosabout two weeks, coursera.
So here is the Coursera link.

(01:02:02):
All right, and then, lastly,I'm going to show you how to get
access to the Career Compassaccount, and so for this, you
have to come to the ACNOWEducation website and on here,

(01:02:27):
click on Career Compass and youhave to enter this code.
The code is going to be fortoday.
Let me pull it up.
Everything is a process with usfolks the code is 2094437.

Speaker 9 (01:02:53):
I'm going to post it in the chat 2094437 this code is
only good for this week.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Next week it will change.
Every time we do a weeklyrundown it changes.
So please write this down sothat you have it, so that you
get access to it, because if youemail me or message me saying,
jay, I forgot the code, Iprobably will not get to your
email until like months later orweeks later, realistically, all

(01:03:21):
right.
So you press that, you presssubmit.
If everything works well,you'll be brought to a screen
that's blue, that says this iswhat it is.
If everything doesn't work well, you'll be brought to this
screen which just tells you thatyou need to try again.
Sometimes when we do this itdoes work.
You have to make sure yourcookies are enabled or not.

(01:03:43):
But let me try on a privatescreen, a private browser again.
But it's the same process.
You just go to the page andthen you apply.
Let's see.
I'll switch to the screen realfast, all right.
So career compass right at thetop application.

(01:04:04):
Yes, I attended the weeklyrundown.
Here's the code.
Press that and then submit.
And that's what you're lookingfor, folks, you're looking for
this, and so when you come downhere, you have to fill out this
tab.
Make sure you fill it out.
To fill out this tab.

(01:04:27):
Make sure you fill it out.
Um, still didn't update thatlinkedin thing.
Uh, don't worry, tom, everytime I see this I remind it, but
I gotta write it down.
Uh, but make sure you put yourfull linkedin in here.
Um, everything in here.
They're going to do a emailverification, so make sure that
you have um check your email foryour email verification.
It will go to your spam folder.
The stuff that we ask you is notspecifically related to us

(01:04:48):
sharing your information.
This is only for sponsors thatare interested in understanding
what our demographics are, so wewill tell somebody.
Rather than your personalinformation, we say, hey, we
have.
You know, about 80% of ourcommunity is between the ages of
30 to 50.
And then we say the ranks arebetween this and this, and so we

(01:05:10):
don't share information.
We don't give out yourinformation.
No one has access to yourinformation.
No company can pay us to getaccess to your information.
Just know that all this stuffis just based off of us using
this to help you out.
If you are interested in a role,put your information in here.
We'll help you identifydifferent roles.
If I have something that comesacross my desk.

(01:05:31):
I'll reach out to you and say,hey, this role just came up.
If you're interested, reach outand let me know and then, if
you're good, I will forward yourinformation over.
I've done that to a few people.
I've helped a few people getjobs.
I'm at three, no 254.
And I'm trying to get to athousand before I retire in 2027
.
All right, so you fill out thisinformation, get good, put your

(01:05:53):
resume in there.
Make sure that we have that.
That way we can kind of see itonly takes you a short time to
put a resume in there.
If your resume is not ready togo, just give us something that
we can work with.
That way, like said, if anopportunity does come across, I
can work it and I can look atyour resume.
That way, I don't have to dothe back and forth for each
other.
Um, if you're interested in anyone of these, you can also
click on here to get access toservice success and splunk.

(01:06:15):
Um, but obviously we just gaveyou the corsair link or you can
put your number above.
If you want to donate, feel freeto do so.
Uh, a dollar goes a long way.
Like I said, all this moneygoes directly back to supporting
somebody that's in need.
I get a lot of messages relatedto people that are in really
bad situations, that are tryingto figure it out and they need

(01:06:35):
some help, and so we offer thatand assistance related to
helping them in their careertrajectory.
It's not like we give themmoney just to give them money.
We give them money related toother certifications or if they
need a particular thing that'sgoing to really help them get a
job, then that's what we do.
So we've given out laptops,we've given out, obviously, cert

(01:06:58):
vouchers and other things, andso anything that can really make
a difference, especially ifsomebody's down on the luck.
Then the captions and thatauthorize and submit, and then
that's it, you're done, and ittakes us Tuesday.
This will get processed.
So make sure you have it donebefore Tuesday at 7 pm.
Make sure you have it donebefore Tuesday 7 pm, because
that's when we go in there andstart to pull people's and make

(01:07:19):
people's accounts and then fromthere, after Tuesday, you should
be able to just go to CareerCompass.
So go back to Career Compass Imean Career Flow, but our Career
Compass and then log in becauseyour account will be created by
that time.
So that's the process overall.

(01:07:39):
Nothing too crazy, reallystraightforward.
But yeah, what questions do youhave for me, michael?

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Cecil mentioned, to let you know if we need to be
ported over to the career flow.
How do you like the LinkedIn or?

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
just saying yeah, message me on LinkedIn and just
say say you need to be portedover on career flow, and then
provide me your email addressdirectly and I can message the
developers to do so.
All right, sounds good, thanks.
Yeah, I have to reach out tothe actual developers of the,
the, the company, in order to dothat, and so that was the only

(01:08:27):
thing.
But yeah, I'll do that for sure.
All right, any other questions?
Oh, ken.

Speaker 8 (01:08:38):
For the course.
Sarah, after getting thetickets, is it going to take a
time for it to get verified andhow do we apply it for sarah?

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
so, yeah, uh, the the way that it works is you, once
you get the ticket, you get thatticket and then they'll send
you, I believe, a message askingyou to verify your military
status or your militaryaffiliation.
Once you send them that, um,they will then send you your
account access.
They will take your emailaddress that you've given them

(01:09:08):
and they'll say that you have anaccount and you can go to your
account.
It's a fairly straightforwardprocess.

Speaker 15 (01:09:14):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
Okay, yes, the most it takes is two weeks, so just
be patient.
Just know that sometimes theyjust don't respond right away.
Ken.

Speaker 10 (01:09:24):
Hey Jason, how's it going?
I was um after the summit, Iwas fortunately chosen to be
part of the csm cohort, thesecond one.
Where do I find out, uh, whenthat is, and like, is there like
documentation that we have toassign, like the intent to
complete, or something like that?

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
yeah, that will be sent to you an email.
Um, so are you in the first oneor second one?
Second one, okay, yeah, so yougot some time, but I'll be in
the email.
The the emails are going outslowly, but, uh, the first one
should be going out to the groupthat's about to start their
first cohort.
Okay, cool, okay, thank you.
No worries, curry.
Hi jay, how are you doing today?

(01:10:02):
Doing okay yourself, thank youno worries, curry.
Hi Jay, how are you doing today?
Doing okay Yourself.

Speaker 13 (01:10:09):
I'm doing well.
So I have a simple question Iwanted to know, well, I guess,
could somebody reiterate whatthe voucher would be for the
CompTIA A-plus and the courses?
I think they had mentionedsomething like that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
Did you win a voucher or are you asking?

Speaker 13 (01:10:29):
No, I'm just inquiring about it.
I thought I heard someone sayin the chats, or somebody wrote
in the chats, that they had paidfor it out of pocket and
somebody mentioned like youdon't have to.
And then here's a link.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Oh, I didn't see that , but.
But I mean you can go to.
Uh well, who does a plus?
Um, perscolas does a plus, Ibelieve j climb, climb higher.
I'll send the link oh, andclimb higher, so climb higher.
That's a new organization forme, uh perscolas climb higher

(01:11:04):
and then, um, uh, empower does,does a plus.
So if you're trying to don'tpay, do listen folks.
Don't pay for any certification, just don't do it.
There's way too many freeresources out there, way too
many, but um, can I ask uh forthis lady here?

Speaker 9 (01:11:21):
why do you need to get your a plus?

Speaker 13 (01:11:25):
that's something I would like to get, so I can
start in um technology fieldokay, now I understand where you
come from.

Speaker 9 (01:11:33):
Um, again, like you said, don't pay for the a plus.
You don't need to earn your aplus.
If I was you and you want toget started in technology or
move a career to a new career oranything like this, I would
just ask you to learn theconcepts of A+ and learn the

(01:11:54):
concepts of Network+ and thentake the actual course for
Security+, and that's the one Iwould advise you to pay for
somehow, either through vettingtech or empower or anybody else.
Do not waste your money forthat on on a plus.

(01:12:16):
Okay, because if you were to goon, I mean again, I'm not a
recruiter, I'm not a hiremanager or anything like this,
but just by virtue of being inthe space and learning about it
and studying for this andteaching it and everything like
this, just go on LinkedIn andtype CompTIA Plus and their jobs
and see how many hits would youreceive versus SecPlus, for

(01:12:38):
example.
So it's about ROI, it's aboutyour money and everything like
that.
Okay, that's in a nutshell.
If you want me to expand on it,happy to do so, but hopefully
this makes sense.

Speaker 5 (01:12:50):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
What he's getting at is just put one in the chat.
If you want to get intotechnology, transition into
technology, some type oftechnology or cybersecurity, put
one in chat.
That's quite a bit of people,right, and you have to
understand there are a lot offolks that want to get into tech

(01:13:15):
.
The problem is there aredifferent ways to do so and
there's so many differentoptions and opportunities to do
so, but a lot of times we focusspecifically on a certification
because we feel like that'sgoing to help us get through the
door, whereas the experience ismore than anything it means the
most.
Now, obviously, some jobs dorequire you to have

(01:13:37):
certifications in order to dothe work, but if you have a cert
I'll give you an example I knowsomeone who has cert.
I'll give you an example.
I know someone who has, let'sjust say, more than their fair
share of certifications, andthis person is really struggling
to get a job because they donot have the experience to
coincide with it.
Not saying that they're notsmart, not saying that they're

(01:13:58):
not skillful or talented, it'sjust more so.
They don't have much of thebeen able to afford the
opportunity to work on someprojects to do that, and that's
what companies really want tosee.
Right, you got to understand,like, if you are trying to break
into tech, you're trying tobreak into tech for the
experience, not for the moneyfirst, because no one's doing it

(01:14:21):
for the money first, one'sdoing it for the money first.
So that may mean you take a jobmaking $14 an hour, $15 an hour
, just so that you can gethands-on help, desk, whatever it
is right and then, once youhave that job, then you can
start focusing on upskillingyour skills, right, so that then

(01:14:43):
you can say I have this jobexperience, I have this
background and now I'm knockingout these certifications, and
then you can switch.
Tech is the only communitywhere you can switch your jobs
like six or seven times in likefive years and it's not crazy
Whereas most other fieldsthey're like, well, what's going
on here?
And so understand that beforeyou dive into there, there's

(01:15:05):
some things that you may need toknow what is it that you
ultimately want to do?
And don't just say I want to bein cybersecurity analyst.
Don't say I want to be.
You got to be a little bit morespecific in the goal of what
you want to do, and if you don'tknow what that is.
That's perfectly fine, but yougot to find out what that is and
what opportunities are outthere and touch base with
somebody that's currently doingit.
And so if you are wanting to godown the software dev route or

(01:15:28):
you want to go into you know,cloud computing, use Mill Mentor
, find someone who's doing thatand then do an informational
interview.
What does their day to day looklike?
What are the things that youlike, what are the things that
you don't like?
And I tell people this story allthe time.
I thought I was going intocoding because I used to do Java

(01:15:50):
and C plus when I first startedmy career and I enjoyed it.
And then I signed up for thiscollege course for Python, which
is like a real dialed in course, and I was like, yeah, you know
I'm going to do this and thenI'm going to go straight into
development.
I hate Python.
Like I do not like itwhatsoever, because you could

(01:16:11):
just do so many things andthere's no structure, like if
you can come up with it, youcould do it, whereas Java and
all the other coding likethere's a format, there's a
sequence, and so Python for mewas totally different.
And and so Python for me wastotally different and I based my

(01:16:41):
whole career trajectory on that.
And I came to I was like thisis not going to work for me Now,
granted, if I wasn't affordedthose who do enjoy it, but for
me I need a lot more structure.
I can't just like I don't want.
If I can create it, it couldlike whatever is.
There's no limitations onpython and I said I need I need
structure to be able to thinkthe process through my head, um.

(01:17:02):
So understand what that is, sothat you can get into the job
opportunity and job market.
Yes, there are a lot of jobsthat are available.
Yes, they do have someunrealistic requirements, but if
you're not, you know tappinginto either volunteering to
learn, to get experience, ordoing something that's allowing
you to get experience.

(01:17:23):
And you start with the certs.
The certs can only get you sofar, um.
And then at that interview,they're not looking for someone
to train, they're looking forsomeone that can pick up a
problem that they have and solveit.
So keep that in mind when youare um trying to switch over to
tech.
It's not hard.
We've helped a lot of people doit, um, but you just got to be

(01:17:43):
prepared on what that journeyactually looks like.
All right, all right, folks.
Well, that is it for today.
Oh, we got questions?
All right, let me.
I was just about to drop off,but I got you a keen.
What we got, what we got goingon, what's up?

Speaker 17 (01:17:58):
thanks, brother, I appreciate it.
My hand has been raised forlike 10 minutes, but no, I was
the uh, I was the fellow that uhstated that I did do the um,
the cert and pay out of pocket,just purely because I didn't
know of you guys beforehand.
I'm a veteran, five years outnow in the private sector.
I was the one that said I didfor a block and all this other
stuff, and you guys are doing anincredible job here.

(01:18:18):
My question for you was because, again, I do agree that certs
are not valuable.
I'm in the private sector, Iuse my CompTIA Security Plus,
but again, hands-on experienceis what really matters, because
when I did pivot into thetechnology consultant role, it
was more about experience andlike how much value you can
bring to the company right.
So I 100% agree with that.

(01:18:40):
Definitely find a mentor, findsomeone you can leverage to
learn a lot of that stuff.
But my question for you was forthe CISSP course, do we have to
go through the?
I'm forgetting.
Is it the Compass thing thatyou had mentioned, career
Compass?
Is that how we sign up to tryand get the voucher, or is this
completely separate?

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
No, it would be completely separate.
So what you want to dospecifically for CISSP?
There's only one organizationthat I know that will fund that.
Well, two, what state are youin?

Speaker 17 (01:19:09):
I'm in Maryland.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
Okay, yeah, it's only one that I know that would fund
that for you, and that is bootsto books.

Speaker 17 (01:19:16):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
They, uh, they have a boost to book scholarship for a
thousand dollars.
Obviously, it comes under thatamount, and so you can apply for
that scholarship and they'll doit.
Now, keep in mind, like I said,they only give out scholarships
so often, but, um, I just knowa guy who knows a guy um, so
does it yeah, say who, who doesit?

(01:19:37):
oto uh onward opportunity ohyeah, no, no, no, I thought they
didn't they stop that.
I thought they took that thatoff.
Yes, they took it off, jay.
Oh yeah, if you look, so realtalk, o2o used to have like 70
certs on their page and now youlook it's like half.
It was like 40 or 35 on there.

(01:19:58):
But, yeah, booster Books is.
Yeah, see somebody, they gottheir Google Analytics cert from
them.
Booster.
Yeah, see somebody, they gottheir uh, google analytics are
from them boots of books isawesome.

Speaker 17 (01:20:07):
Let me put the link for it, okay yeah, I'd
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
Let's boost, and you can just type in boost a book
scholarship yeah but they, theyare the ones that I would
definitely, you know, tap intofor that um to be able to pay.
Like I said, it's not for yourpmp.

(01:20:32):
I mean you can go through o2odoes pmp.
They got that for sure.
Um, we do pmp as well, andthere are a few other
organizations that do pmp aswell.
So, but yeah, all right, coolumpa, am I saying that right?

Speaker 3 (01:20:49):
Yes, jay, can you hear me?
I can.
Yeah, I've been regularlyattending the sessions and also
participating in the summits aswell.
I just wanted to know thewinners.
Was it more?
Like randomly selected.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
Are you trying to figure out our process for
selecting winners?
Kind of yeah.
What did you apply for?

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
Security Plus.
I recently graduated with acybersecurity degree and
currently I'm studying for SecPlus.
I recently graduated with acybersecurity degree and
currently I'm studying for SecPlus.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
Okay.
And what was your background inthe military?
I'm assuming you're in the army.
Yeah, I was 11, bravo, Where's.
Anwar.

Speaker 5 (01:21:44):
I'm here, man.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
What's an 11 Bravo?

Speaker 9 (01:21:48):
11 Bang Bang Infantry Door kicker, he's a door kicker
Bullet stopper.
Bullet catcher.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Bullet catcher.
Bullet catcher is crazy.
All right, so we got a doorkicker that's trying to be a
cyber nerd here, right?
Is that correct?
Are you switching over?

Speaker 3 (01:22:10):
Yeah, all right.
Yeah, before it was morephysical, now it's more digital.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Okay, I respect that.
I respect that.
All right, man, I'll send you aSERP, but you better put in the
work.
All right, I appreciate thatmessage me on LinkedIn all caps
today's date and then just saySEC plus only Tripper, not any

(01:22:41):
other.
11 Bravos, alright, cool,alright, folks.
Well, that is it for us.
I think we are good for the day.
Um, have a good one, everyone.
Look forward to seeing you nextweek.
I may give out some search nextweek.

Speaker 10 (01:22:58):
I think we got a few , mr j quick, quick question sir
yes, so if we, if we didn't getuh selected, then we just put
it in, we just keep reapplying.
Is that what you're saying?
Or which one, like I, didn'tget picked for the Scrum Master,
so we just keep applying.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Oh, no, no, that was like a once and done.
That was part of the summit.
Yeah, okay, just so peopledon't understand the background.
So during that event, we wantedto be able to support the
military community best possible.
But, uh, those certs like Isaid, certs are not, they're not
cheap, and so we end up raisinga hundred thousand dollars to

(01:23:35):
pay for all that, and so that'swhat we did on the back end, and
so we were trying to.
I was trying to see how muchmoney can we raise to be able to
provide that, and so that's howwe were able to help.
I know it's like 500 wasactually way more than that.
Um, because some people I gaveout certs and I didn't actually
include them in the list.
Um, but just know, if you hearabout summit act now, summit

(01:23:59):
2026, that's probably somethingthat you want to be a part of,
because we, you know, I'm, I'm,I'm trying to turn it up now.
So I'm trying to just get mybearings amongst me so I can
figure out what we need to do.
Take care of those logistics,right, sop for us to do
logistics for the certificationso that the next year that's not
this, this chaotic.

(01:24:19):
And then, yeah, but in terms ofcerts, I think we will be done
um giving out certs.
Uh, I mean we are done givingout certs.
The only ones I'll give out isduring the weekly rundown, but
I'll talk to that but yeah,because that's manageable.
I can't, yeah, but now we won'tbe.
Uh, we already give out all ourcourses and everything that we

(01:24:39):
have to pay for, and theinstructors and everything else.
So, yeah, yes, sir, okay,thanks, north, all right.
All right, folks, have a goodone, enjoy your weekend, spend
time with your family, and I'llcheck you at the next weekly
window thank you, have a goodnight can I ask one quick
question before you go?

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
I'm sorry, go ahead.
I just want to see how to get acopy of the notes for in the
chat uh, how do we save the chat?

Speaker 14 (01:25:09):
send us email, yeah, go to kevin.

Speaker 16 (01:25:14):
Yeah, no, uh, just go ahead and fill out the form,
uh the linkedin form that we've,uh, tom and I've been putting,
and you will get, uh, the chat,the transcript and a summary and
a rundown of all the LinkedIn's.
I'll be a link to a OneNotethat I have and I think it's a

(01:25:35):
pretty good way of sharing.
It's only going to be open fortwo weeks, so you have two weeks
to connect.
That should be enough foreverybody, just looking at the
number of people on.
So that'll be coming out eitherprobably later today or
tomorrow that's fire.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
I didn't even look.
See, these are the type ofvolunteers we need, like,
honestly, that's crazy man.
Thank you.

Speaker 12 (01:25:59):
Can you tell us the link again?

Speaker 9 (01:26:04):
Kevin is going to share it again.
So for everybody, this is myadvice.
If you are able to, and hear meout, I'm going to just come out
of here so whoever wants tohate on me can hate on me face
to face again.
This is who we are.
We're trying to put togetherthis military tribe.

(01:26:26):
Kevin, tom and a bunch of otherpeople take on the calls.
Again, this is who we are.
We're trying to put togetherthis military tribe kevin, tom
and bush.
Of other people take on thecalls.
David, muhammad and everybodyelse take on the call.
So, if you are able to, I wouldadvise you.
If this is your first timeattending this, attend on your
laptop or desktop, okay.
If you, by chance, have toattend on your phone or your
iPad or your tablet of choice,okay.

(01:26:48):
Please keep an eye on the chat.
Kevin and Tom are doing anawesome job volunteering.
Nobody asked them to.
Again.
Everybody's coming out herewith a soul all right to create
this form and send the chat andhow to build your network in
there.
Kevin just posted it again onemore time, so connect to him.

(01:27:10):
If you get access to yourCoursera, take advantage of it.
Suck the marrow out of thatCoursera subscription for the
next year, you can get access tofive six platforms off the top
of my head through otherorganizations, like Kevin just
shared earlier.
If you want to switch intocybersecurity or a newcomer, or

(01:27:32):
you want to learn, deepen yourknowledge.
Vetsec is another organizationfull of about, I think right now
, at last count 7,000, 8,000veterans and spouses currently
working in cybersecurity cloudproject management.
Some of them are hiringmanagers.
If you want to expand thatnetwork as well.
Okay, one thing that got sharedin the chat a couple of times

(01:27:56):
some people are moving into thiscybersecurity work.
Again, understand one thingthis is the reality of 2025.
Again, understand one thingthis is the reality of 2025.
This is not your cyber jobmarket from two, three, four
years ago.
All right, now it's a littlebit more cutthroat.
If you don't know, just go onlayoffsfyi or follow Business

(01:28:18):
Insider or anything like thisand you'll hear the likes of
Microsoft and, for God's sake,aws is starting to fire people.
Microsoft is on their thirdlayoff round this year.
So what I'm trying to share withthat we get, I get on
mentorship calls from time totime with some people somebody
the other day frigging you knowofficer, you know major coming

(01:28:43):
out of the you know and otherpeople.
Somebody I'm not going to talkabout the officers you know
enlisted guy.
He's got a master's degree incybersecurity from UT San
Antonio and he's like I have togo learn about A plus and net
plus because I don't knowanything about that.
Again, education is important.
Certifications are important.

(01:29:04):
Experience is important.
You have are important.
Experience is important.
You have to have all of them.
Please don't tell me you have amaster's in cybersecurity.
If you do not know what amotherboard is or virtualization
, you should take it off of yourresume now.
Also, again, this is just myadvice, and you can talk to
ChatGPT about this or anybodyelse.
If somebody is going to tellyou what the network flow I had

(01:29:31):
this question one time if youwant to send an email from your
computer, how would yourrecipient receive it?
They just want to know if youunderstand the network flow and
it's like how would you secureit if I was to hire you?
Again, these are the type ofquestions that you have to
contend with.
If you don't know how toexplain it, don't say you have a
master's degree incybersecurity.

(01:29:52):
Okay, trying to be real with you, I teach some cyber stuff at a
university.
I have some of my students whosay my 20, a couple of them you
know a term I just ended.
I just finished teaching acourse about CSSP a term I just
ended.
I just finished teaching acourse about CSSP and one of
them is like my 2025 goal is toobtain my CSSP by the end of

(01:30:12):
December.
The dude, the student, is 19years old, first course in IT,
and I was like who actuallyadvised you to start your
college career with the CSSPcourse A?
You're not going to get thecert B, you need other

(01:30:34):
background knowledge.
I'm sorry if I'm being a littlebit too harsh.
Okay, all right, some people Iteach you know about Security.
Plus, you know one person I wasteaching you know talking about
private IPs and public IPs.
The person stopped me one timeand was like what is an IP
address?
I'm like please, I'm happy toteach you, we're happy, even on

(01:31:01):
a mentorship call, happy to tellyou.
But if I ask you, hey, go onand study for this.
And you're like I don't gottime, I need to pay bills, I
understand, I empathize.
I'm not being an asshole here.
Okay, you might not want tohear that from me.
You might hear that fromsomebody else who's going to be
interviewing you and not giveyou the job.

(01:31:24):
You might need a patch job.
Okay, antoine, I know you'renodding.
I assume you're agreeing onsome type of level with me or
something like that.
Can you share?
I don't know if you're in theindustry or move it into or
whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
So, so a lot of what you're, what you're talking
about right now, is 100%, isit's the absolute truth.
Um, I come from a um.
I've got, I've got experienceas a help desk technician, I've
got certs, I've got anassociate's, I'm pursuing my
bachelor's, I'm in a bootcamp.
Um, I'm doing everything I canright now and it's it's, it's

(01:32:07):
it's needed.
Those are the types ofquestions that you're going to
be asked and they don't careabout, they really don't care
about education.
The focal point right now iswhat can you do?
Can you fulfill this role forus?
Can you perform these duties?
This is what we need, this iswhat we're looking for, this is
what we want and it's and that'sit.
This is what we're looking for,this is what we want and that's

(01:32:30):
it.
So there is no.
From my personal experience,there is no training right now.
For what I'm seeing, I'mapplying for everything from
software development toprofessional business analysts,
soc analysts.
So I mean they want to know ifyou could perform those duties
for certain.

Speaker 9 (01:32:45):
Again, you know there's different platforms.
Me and Jay, we have been doingthis for like three plus years,
you know, holding this weeklycalls.
All right, we don't.
There's.
There's a bunch of things Icould be doing with this, hours
here.
Nobody's paying me to do this,jay, nobody's paying him.
We don't get no feedback, nomoney, no nothing.
We're talking about this andsome people who have been here

(01:33:06):
for like four or five weeks orfive months or six months I mean
Esther and I see a bunch ofnames that keep repeating.
You know, because we're tryingto just help each other.
You know, kevin Dessler.
You know some people were askingearlier about what is MedMentor
.
All right, medmentor is amentoring platform.
All asking earlier about whatis Mill Mentor?

(01:33:28):
Mill Mentor is a mentoringplatform.
If you, instead of you jumpingon LinkedIn and trying to talk
to somebody, a stranger, and say, hey, can I please have a
virtual coffee with you?
Yes, some of them will do,especially if they're veterans.
But Mill Mentor is at thefingertips of your little
keyboard, all right, you get onthere.
And if somebody does not knowwhat a Mail Mentor is, please

(01:33:50):
just go on Google and just typein Mail Mentor.
Or, better yet, just get onChatGPT and say I heard about
Mail Mentor.
What is it?
I'm sure they're going to tellyou about it.
Mail Mentor is a mentoringplatform.
You don't have to go seek outpeople.
Please can I get on a virtualcoffee with you, or something
like that.
You have people who want togive out of their time to

(01:34:10):
provide feedback.
Kevin is such a person, davidmuhammad is such a person and
I'm sure a bunch of other.
Jay, I don't.
I haven't been hit on theplatform, uh, recently.
I don't know how many peoplehave signed up as mentors.
I, if you can tell us from theback end, uh, you know at least
maybe 100, 200.
Who cares?
Even if it's two people.
Kevin and david begin, connectwith them, man, you know there's

(01:34:32):
about 1200 1200 mentors indifferent facets of life at
different levels.
Get on vet sec, vet sec, veteransecorg.
Okay, there's a slack channelthere where you can talk about
politics to a certain degree,but then there's like cyber
intel, uh, cloud, artificialintelligence and whatnot.
Somehow somebody is out theredoing something you aspire to

(01:34:55):
become, all right, softwareengineer, uh, um, you know cyber
security guy, grc dude, youknow.
Manager of something, vp ofsomething, whatever.
Okay, take advantage of it.
We have this affinity card.
Remember, you hear of the ringknockers.
You have this affinity cardright now, called a veteran or a

(01:35:18):
military spouse.
Okay, please take advantage ofthat.
Sherita, you have a question?

Speaker 7 (01:35:26):
No, I don't have a question.
I wanted to thank you all forthis platform.
It's absolutely amazing.
But I wanted to speak a littlebit about male mentor, so I only
learned about it at the summitand I will tell you it has been
a wealth of information for me.
The one thing that I love aboutit is that I remember I got on

(01:35:48):
a call with one particularmentor and I'm trying to hurry
up and say what I needed to saybecause I'm like, oh, I only
have 30 minutes and so let mesay it fast, and she told me
slow down, sherita, it's okay,we can do an introduction this
time and then you can go back onmy calendar and we can talk
again.

(01:36:09):
So I'm saying that to say thatplatform is free and you can get
in touch with those mentors asmany times as you want to.
They are there, they want tohelp.
They are just absolutelyamazing.
I will say this If you get amentor that does not have the
information that you need, goback on there and sign up for

(01:36:32):
another mentor.
There's actually mentors onthere who have companies that
want to hire veterans.
So, please, you all, use thatplatform.
It's absolutely amazing.
Thank you so much to ACNL fortelling me about it.
I'm in government contractingso I'm not per se job seeking.
I'm actually looking forfederal contracts.

(01:36:54):
But I found some people onthere who can help me, so I'm
just happy.
I just wanted to share that.
Thank you, appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:02):
And that is the reason why we created Mill
Mentor to be able to help peopleconnect and find opportunities.
So thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 9 (01:37:11):
So again, and it's not about IT and cyber, because
before me and Jay we used to getsome flack.
It's like oh, all you talkabout is IT and cyber.
No, there's other people outthere who, depending, you know
this is what me and Jay wouldknow.
But then there's others here.
You know this is what me andJay would know, but then there's
others here.
You could connect to somebodyone time.
He he was a ukulele player andshe was a flute player in the

(01:37:36):
army band and she did theukulele on the back and she's
like hey, I want to get out andbe an open, my own music studio
teaching ukulele, all right.
And she said she connected withsomebody who's a music, he's
got his own music studio givingmusic lessons and helped her
with the business plan and blah,blah, blah, all right, so you
never know who you find outthere.

(01:37:57):
You want to become a truckdriver, you do.
When we had a call one time thisyou know here a military spouse
was a nurse for 15 years.
She's like I'm tired of thehospital environment, I want to
switch into IT.
And there was another nurse whodid the transition.
She was a nurse for 19 yearsand did that.

(01:38:18):
She's like hey, connect with meand I'll show you how to do it.
Girl, she's like thank you somuch and I'm sure now she's
doing whatever.
Again, it's about takingadvantage of these resources and
pace yourself and be good onyourself.
Okay, that's all any lastopinions before we close this

(01:38:39):
call.
We appreciate everybody beinghere.
Any last thing?
David Muhammad, yes, somebodywas saying something.
I just said happy Saturday.
Happy Saturday.
Thank you very much.
I posted the code again onelast time in case anybody missed

(01:39:01):
it.
David, any parting words ofwisdom?

Speaker 5 (01:39:04):
man, oh, sure missed it, david.
Any parting words of wisdom,man?
Oh sure you know.
If you save the chat, I did putthree resources in there for
Notebook LM two writtentutorials and one on YouTube.

Speaker 9 (01:39:22):
That's very good, awesome.
Well, thank you so much foreveryone for being here.
We shall see you next Saturday.
All right, thank you.
Come up with your questions andcome up with your motivation
and everything, and happy to behere with everybody.

Speaker 7 (01:39:31):
Thank you, bye-bye.

Speaker 9 (01:39:33):
Take care.

Speaker 7 (01:39:35):
Hey, jay, I just want to say if there's any way that
I can be of assistance to youall, please let me know.
Okay, I'm Sherita Chandler, bythe way.
I did put that information inthe chat.
But yeah, I would love to helpout any way I can.

Speaker 1 (01:39:48):
Appreciate it, thank you.

Speaker 9 (01:39:50):
We appreciate you.
One last parting word I'm sorryif I say this again, Sherita
and everybody else yes, we mighthave some need or anything like
this.
But the only one thing I couldshare with you, maybe right now
if you attend these and youidentify a need that we might
not see, go ahead and put aprocess together and help out.

(01:40:14):
We will not stifle you LikeKevin Dessler and Tom Margrave
and things like this.
They just show up and startcollecting all this stuff, the
LinkedIn connections, and say,hey, we are going to go ahead
and share it with you.
Go ahead so they identify theneed.
Okay, that's what I wouldadvise you as well for now.

Speaker 14 (01:40:35):
Okay, yeah, there's so many.
One of them is that, like theURLs, I wrote a python script to
to validate all the urls thatum, jay's talking about that for
the uh sort resource and now weneed to go out and validate
that and stuff like that, whichsomebody named rick I heard

(01:40:56):
jay's working on.
So you know that kind ofstuff's out there and I'm just
doing it on my own.
I'm not doing because jay toldme or Anwar told me.
I just did it.
One it's expertise.
It gives me experience doingsomething that maybe I might
need in my future career.
So these type of things mightbe beneficial for somebody

(01:41:18):
learning how to do Python orsomething like that.

Speaker 9 (01:41:21):
So all right, awesome , everyone Glad to have you guys
here.
Nice, awesome session again, asalways.
We shall see you next week.

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