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We're joined by long time ServiceNow veterans' advocate Samuel Sussman and ServiceNow NextGen program graduate Brian Wyckoff join CJ & The Duke to discuss unique advantages that military service and training bring to ServiceNow work.
Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
CJD Episode 33 - The Advantages of Military Veterans in the ServiceNow World
[00:00:00] Duke: [00:00:00] Everyone. Welcome to another episode of CJ and the duke as always. I am your co-host Robert, the duke Fidor.
[00:00:06] CJ: [00:00:06] and I'm Corey, CJ, Wesley.
[00:00:08] Duke: [00:00:08] Today, we are talking about military veterans in the service. Now ecosystem, this topic is near and dear to my heart.
[00:00:14] As I am the son of captain Boris had ORIC, Canadian armed forces, retired. We've got two special guests for you today. One of his, you may know, do his involvement in veterans advocacy, , loud and proud on LinkedIn. , and the other one, we're very happy to introduce you to ladies and gentlemen, , pleased to introduce you to Samuel Susman and Brian Weiskopf guys.
[00:00:34] Welcome to the show.
[00:00:35]Brian: [00:00:35] Hey, thanks for the invite guys.
[00:00:36] Sam: [00:00:36] Thank you so much.
[00:00:38]Duke: [00:00:38] Sam, why don't you start us off with an intro and then we'll proceed.
[00:00:41] Sam: [00:00:41] Absolutely. My name's Sam Sussman. I'm over at glide, fast consulting and fair code. I'm the veteran engagement manager and technical consultant over there. mostly in the I Tom asset management realm. My favorite spot is more than obvious is the CMDB. That's where I started in this platform. And that's where I'd love to live.
[00:00:59] Brian: [00:01:00] Hey, uh, Brian Wyckoff, , seven more days. and I'll be out of the Navy, , 21 years of that, the last six months though, I've spent with service now, as part of their next gen program, doing an internship, learning the basics about a service now and the whole platform.
[00:01:15]Duke: [00:01:15] and Sam, you come from a military background as well, right?
[00:01:17] Sam: [00:01:17] Absolutely. So I am a us Navy veteran as well. I got out Cinco de Mayo 27.
[00:01:24] Duke: [00:01:24] And.
[00:01:24] CJ: [00:01:24] you both for, yes, sir.
[00:01:25] Duke: [00:01:25] Thank you guys. Thank you. Okay, we're going to talk about the next gen program. That was just mentioned a little bit later in the show, but for now we kind of want to talk about what it's like to, transition from the military and just, , modes of thoughts and ways of approaching work.
[00:01:42]CJ: [00:01:42] I think where I'd like to start one of the things I've always wondered, right? When I, when I run across folks who have been in the military and I've have a few family members who've been in the military as well. So how was that military experience? Like the, all the experience you've gained in your career help you, once you get to the private sector and specifically in this case, you know, how does your military experience and career help benefit you once you're entering in the service now?
[00:02:08]Sam: [00:02:08] I'll go and tackle that one. One was targeted towards me. Uh, so my background in the Navy started with what's called un-designated seaman, I worked directly for one of the most labor intensive divisions on the ship. I was with a deck department. So my job was bust rust stand app, look out, watch, and also drive the ship on top of doing preventative maintenance on the life.
[00:02:32] Saving. Work connects to it didn't happen until after I got picked up with a job, which was a cryptologic technician maintenance, which is where I learned a lot of my technical craft and started honing in on the it side of the house where it was. Learning how anything with a computer operates through that school.
[00:02:50] We learned everything from electronic repair, all the way to networking to satellite communications. So we're sitting there learning the network admin. We're learning the systems administration all in our schooling, but that's nothing until you hit the fleet. When you hit the fleet, that's when the ground gets really hot and you start running with what you learned and then.
[00:03:09] Training only goes so far. So that's where that real-world experience. I'm working at a tier two tier three help desk out in Japan so much helped me get ready to go out and into the service now realm because the platform I was using is a legacy platform. I don't want to name, drop it, but it was a legacy platform that commonly gets integrated today. Now, these commands are starting to switch over and get the picture of how service now isn't just for the commercial space, but also the federal space. So the fact that service now is breaching that line, making the cross, starting it enhanced government services. We're starting to see the transition for veterans, be a lot smoother into these service narrows specifically because we know the landscape, we know the politics, and a lot of times we know the key players.
[00:03:54]Duke: [00:03:54] You know, I'm really interested in hearing, Brian's take on this as well. You know, he's got months of experience, but I think it's interesting to get the combined, how often do you get somebody with 20 years experience transitioned to something where they have months of experience? I'm just really anxious to hear what he's got to say.
[00:04:11]Brian: [00:04:11] Of course for me, it's just, it's exciting. I've been doing a lot of the same stuff for 20 plus years in service now came along for me six months ago. I didn't know anything about it. there was a post on, on Facebook, a job posting and it kind of piqued my interest. And then Tracy Miller from service now.
[00:04:29]Posted on LinkedIn about a pilot program that she was starting up, , for the next gen program, the train active duty members on the service now platform. So that transition has been, easy for most of us are actually all of us, the five of us in that cohort. because in the Navy, I spent my first two years in school before I even touch any kind of equipment.
[00:04:48]and as we, uh, Sam kind of alluded to before you don't really get your knowledge or your experience until you hit the fleet. so yeah, I was in school for two years, learning about electronics, working on different communication radar systems. but it wasn't until I actually got in the seat doing the job that I really started to learn what was going on.
[00:05:05]CJ: [00:05:05] So contrast that would be with the service now environment. Like how, how quickly or how long. Thank you before you actually had your hands on the instance.
[00:05:14]Brian: [00:05:14] So we started off, , we all have to sign up, get our PDI. So we're just going through the basic, service now, fundamental service now, platform implementation. And we went through a series of courses in Tracy and John Parks would, , give us, workshops. That we'd have to build in our own PDI, to give us that experience.
[00:05:32] And then we went and worked with, , glide fast and fair code for some odd on the job training, with Alex Darby over there. And again, he did a lot of the same stuff. He acted like a customer and we built a requirements, his requirements in our PDI.
[00:05:48]CJ: [00:05:48] so that, so definitely a bigger, difference than, the, from the military side, uh, sigh, from where you spent two years learning about everything. And, then finally kind of get dropped in into the situation where you kind of got your hands dirty at the very beginning.
[00:06:01] This that's so interesting. so w what about it, any kind of problem solving techniques or any kind of, uh, day in the life kind of experience that you have from the military? Does any of that relate to how you've. internalized or envisioned service now, or have, has any of that helped you, um, get through the training any easier or, or have a unique viewpoint on it?
[00:06:20]and that one, I probably will ask both, uh, UNC. So Brian, if you want to go first though,
[00:06:25] Brian: [00:06:25] I'll go first. Uh, the, the troubleshoot. So my job revolved around troubleshooting in the Navy. , I didn't operate equipment. All I did was maintain it. , we would have operators call up and say, , my keyboard doesn't work and come to find out they just spilled their Coke, , on their keyboard.
[00:06:41] So it doesn't work. but we would have major, major system outages. I remember one time being in the Gulf and we lost all our exterior voice communications. And I tell you that's a high stress environment, when all of that goes down at once.
[00:06:55] CJ: [00:06:55] Yeah, I can imagine.
[00:06:56]Brian: [00:06:56] and so, yeah, we just, , there was myself and a bunch of my technicians.
[00:06:59] We just pulled our heads together and figured it out. and that still works with service. Now. That's one of the things I love about service now is the community, no one holds onto the information themselves. They share it with everyone else.
[00:07:12]CJ: [00:07:12] Absolutely. Absolutely. That's one of the things that actually I picked up on very early in my service now career to write the Wiki and, so duke and I talk about refer to the Wiki a lot, right? Like right now, you know, you probably understand docs, the docs referenced more than the Wiki, but you know, back in the day, the Wiki was the personification of Ray, of everyone sharing that knowledge and having that community, where you can kind of just go and the community was around too.
[00:07:38] And, you know, and you just had knowledge everywhere and you have this sense of community sharing everywhere. And it was just, I don't know, it's really addicting , as a new person. Who's actually joining the service now around having folks out there ready and willing to help. So that was definitely awesome.
[00:07:53] Hey, Sam, what about you? can you tell us how your military career might've impacted, how you've picked up service now and learn service now in any kind of, you know, experience that you could bring to bear or visualized it?
[00:08:03]Sam: [00:08:03] Absolutely. And you brought up, one of the things that I wanted to bring up with my troubleshooting is a lot of times when we had network outages, I worked at a tier two help desk. So nobody called me unless it was the tier one person. Yo networks out, go fix it. So maintenance was always my name of the game and it was never called when it was, , a situation just to do something before a problem.
[00:08:26]But anytime we discovered a problem, we created an internal Wiki for our entire command that was worldwide. So that way we could share what was going around worldwide and common troubleshooting steps. So.
[00:08:39] CJ: [00:08:39] That's awesome.
[00:08:40] Sam: [00:08:40] Came into the service. Now, community back in 2017, we were in that transition from the Wiki to the dock site or where there was both.
[00:08:48] And sometimes you have to go to the Wiki. Sometimes you have to go to the doc site. So navigating to find information for me was so similar to the Navy. And that's why I excelled when I was at, , Western Southern life insurance group. I Excel because I was able to go to the Wiki and find the. Just like I did in the Navy.
[00:09:05] So that's where it was one of those things where the service now community has the same community that we experienced in the military. That it makes it so much easier for us to know.
[00:09:14] CJ: [00:09:14] Nice. , I would've never thought. Right? Like the service now, Wiki and community, could be compared to like internal military operations. So that was pretty cool.
[00:09:22]Duke: [00:09:22] So I have a question. I see a lot of, , staffing agencies or just a lot of posts on LinkedIn. They kind of look like a little bit of a virtue signal, like, help veterans, this help veterans that, and. Sometimes it feels a little bit like people think veterans are a charity case, but I've always had such crazy awesome experiences with the veterans I've worked with just because of unique perspectives that they bring, and ways of working. And I wonder if either of you could describe what veterans bring to the service now, space from a position of stress.
[00:09:58]Not as a position of, oh, why should you go out and look for veterans, to help veterans out? Why could you help yourself out by considering veterans for your service now position?
[00:10:08]Brian: [00:10:08] So for me, , some of the basic things that we were taught in the military, , show up on time in the right uniform and do your job. , that's kind of the foundation, , that we have, they teach you that in basic training that also applies in the civilian world. , if people just show up on time, I mean, we're even told, you know, five minutes early, , you know, I showed up five minutes early for this podcast and there was nobody here. Yep.
[00:10:33] Duke: [00:10:33] Burns, but it's true.
[00:10:37] Brian: [00:10:37] Yeah. So it's just doing your job in, in most of the us veterans. , that's what we want to do. , we want to be successful. We're taught to promote, it's upper out. So that's what we want to do in the civilian world as well is move up, you know, uh, be successful, help other people be successful.
[00:10:55]CJ: [00:10:55] And I, I liked that upper out. Right. think that is so many people could benefit from that kind of mindset. Right. It was that, you either gotta be, you gotta be constantly growing and constantly attaining, you know, more, or, you need to get it going and figure out something you're better at, right.
[00:11:11] Or, or that you like more or whatever. Right. You know, upper out. I like that. I'm going to internalize.
[00:11:16] Duke: [00:11:16] I wasn't expecting that, but I was an awesome answer. Sam, what do you got for me?
[00:11:20]Sam: [00:11:20] So Brian covered a lot of it. So the other aspect is we're used to working with very low budgets and getting the job done. So it's not like you're going to point to something and be like, go fix that. And I'm going to stop when I can't fix it. When I hit that point of I can't fix it, I'm still gonna find a way.
[00:11:38] And that's something that we're not taught a failure route. We're just taught have come up with another solution, find another solution that will work, that will accomplish the same job, even if it's a little bit different. So that's one of those things that I always say is we're one of those people where when you have a problem, we're not stopping until it's fixed.
[00:11:56]We're very dedicated and loyal. And then to expand a little bit, and our transition classes were taught a lot about personal branding. So duke, you brought up about how vocal I am on LinkedIn. I learned that in T GPS, which is our transition class, so talked about the importance of networking and building a network.
[00:12:15] It wasn't just important for me to build that network for myself on my transition. But now I've built that network to the point where I can help others who were in the transition process, smoothly slide into some of these areas. And when you bring a veteran in you're now getting access to their whole talent pool, the network that they just networked with.
[00:12:34] So when you have recruiting aspects and stuff like that, that pop up, we've been networking with everybody. And we're probably talking about how much we love. Just because we know the impact of having that post on LinkedIn, having the engagements with other people within our networks and not just on the LinkedIn side, the now community as well.
[00:12:54]We're some of the best champions. The one, the first champion that I found in the now community was Travis Paulson. He's a Marine Corps. A veteran, leading that community back in the day in 2017, where anytime I had a problem, the one name I always saw was Travis. was sharing his knowledge so much that every time I ran into a problem, I just Googled where he worked.
[00:13:17] And I just was like, ah, that's where I need it. Okay.
[00:13:22] Duke: [00:13:22] Well, I, I think a lot of, I mean, I don't, pretend to, steal the glory of the uniform. Right. I never wore the uniform, you know, but I was raised by an infantry man. . And a captain of men, if you will. And I think is one thing that private sector just doesn't get is that it's pivotal to train leadership and the service.
[00:13:41]Like, who's going to train up the next batch. So you gotta make dispatch the leaders for the next batch. And it's baked into the system and , I mean, Corey name, a place like I go back and I'm just , has anybody ever trained me to be a leader? no.
[00:13:57] CJ: [00:13:57] Yeah. So, you know, it's funny because Sam was talking and , he had mentioned how, one of the things that he learned in the service was, that there was no such thing as quit, right? he was gonna keep going with, for that solution until you find that there is no such thing as stopping, you know, my high school, the mission statement ended with, you know, we'll find a way or make it.
[00:14:16] Right. So I, I related a lot to that. So I guess duke , from my perspective, my high school taught me how to be a leader. through that mission statement, through the guy who actually, kept it from closing, when the Pope cut off the money, who raised, generations of black men and women, you know, in the middle of, the Chicago west side.
[00:14:35] Right. Like, so that, that's kind of where a lot of that. where I get a lot of that, you know, where I've used or taken into a lot of that leadership, but I agree. It is, vanishingly small, in places here in America where folks are, training leadership from the, ground up.
[00:14:51]Duke: [00:14:51] So there you go. I'm glad those questions came to a point I was hoping to make on this show is don't go out there and say, oh, let's help a veteran, like help yourself,
[00:15:00] CJ: [00:15:00] Yeah,
[00:15:01] Duke: [00:15:01] get a veteran to help yourself not to help them.
[00:15:03] Sam: [00:15:03] The trainer relief. It's kind of what you were talking about. And it got me just thinking on the fly right there. That's perfect for client engagements, because all that documentation, you have to hand over to a client when you're done,
[00:15:15]we've been built in to do that. That's literally what we do with the train, your relief mentality.
[00:15:19] And I didn't even think about that until you just brought that up. Like that's incredible.
[00:15:23]CJ: [00:15:23] Dive a little bit more into that. Train your relief. How that kind of works in the military. I know duke kind of just hinted on it, but it seems like it, you know, there's, there's another threat there.
[00:15:31] Sam: [00:15:31] Oh, absolutely. So when I was out in Japan and I was working at that help desk role, I was in a team of seven people total. So by the time somebody got there, somebody was off boarding. Somebody else was getting ready to change their command or get out of service. So when I got there, the person that was, I was relieving, his name was CTM to Williamson.
[00:15:50]He started teaching me everything. He knew about networking because he knew when he left, there was nobody to do that. And he did not want to get called because we knew he was staying in Japan. We knew he was going to Tokyo university and we knew where he was going to be living. So he definitely did not want to hear from us ever again.
[00:16:08] So he made sure that he gave us not only the material for us to learn how to do computer networking. He ensured that we knew how to do the job to the point where we would never need to call them again and provided all the documentation from everything that he did.
[00:16:24] CJ: [00:16:24] Um,
[00:16:25] Sam: [00:16:25] me. So that way, if I ran into an issue, I could review all that documentation, go back and fix the problem.
[00:16:32]And when I left CTM S N Sandman, he's out in Hawaii right now, he is the one that I started training. I started training him and I started training it to George Page. Both of which are out in the well, George is out in the civilian sector, out in Massachusetts. Eric San is out there in Hawaii state and, and loving life.
[00:16:53] Definitely jealous of him. It's you train your relief, you stay in contact with them, just like any other engagement we're doing in the service now space. I still talk to the first team I worked with and service now as a consultant and they still talk to me about problems they have, and they still double check and they trust me.
[00:17:11]That's one of those things in this community. We just don't go. So when we're done with the project, you want to stay in contact, like that's my baby. I worked on over there. Let me know. It's still good.
[00:17:21] Duke: [00:17:21] Corey I'm going to cry, man.
[00:17:26] CJ: [00:17:26] Yeah.
[00:17:27] Duke: [00:17:27] I don't know if you guys have, go ahead.
[00:17:28] CJ: [00:17:28] No. I was just going to say, I mean like, if you're an employer right now listening to this, why is a half your staff veterans, right? Like,
[00:17:36] Duke: [00:17:36] That's right.
[00:17:37] CJ: [00:17:37] I mean, you know, you want these guys who are going to be, , training up your team, you know, for the eventual replacements, and as folks move through, because everyone moves through you either it's upper out.
[00:17:47] Right. So someone's moving up or someone's moving out, And if you're training the folks, who are going to come in and backfill, right. Which is in bread in this culture
[00:17:56] Duke: [00:17:56] Well, even like, not even just at the company for the company in the company, but like, think of all the partners out there. And what's the one thing I could, like every time documentation comes up, right. That, that fucking, just gone, that one partner that just pounded their chest. This is the most customized TBM thing we've ever done.
[00:18:15] Not one lick of documentation. And it's just like the devastation that they left when they had this, hyper complex thing that was completely inoperable because nobody knew how it was built and nobody knew how to run it.
[00:18:30]CJ: [00:18:30] And I mean, just an, a knowledge sharing culture. I build it and knowledge sharing culture as the holy grail. let's be real right in this industry that we're in a service now, industry turnover is pretty high because demand is through the roof. And so people aren't staying, they aren't sticking around a long time.
[00:18:45] So if you build a culture where knowledge is shared freely amongst the folks that you have on staff, when some of those folks move up, And you know, you still have people behind who have that ability to, pick up where they left off. So yeah, I mean, this is a, that's amazing.
[00:19:01] Duke: [00:19:01] All right. Cool. So a lot of the things, I hear Sam talk about and Brian actually gone through the programs. Is this a next gen program and the DOD skill bridge. So could you guys tell us a little bit about what that's all about?
[00:19:15]Sam: [00:19:15] Absolutely. So I'll speak a little bit on DOD skill bridge real quick. It is one of the best programs in existence for small businesses. That is underutilized. There's a program from the department of defense that allows active duty military and their last 180 days of active duty service to be an intern or apprentice at a private company.
[00:19:35] I'm happy to say that Vericode was one of the first service now partners. Who pursued this? It's one of the reasons why we see a lot of these partners starting to take advantage of this program because you train up a veteran, you get them started on some of these commercial projects where they can start getting these experiences and you can immediately have a cleared service now developed.
[00:19:58]The day they get out of active duty service and a lot of the people on the federal side that sounds super incentivizing. And it's one of those things where the service now next gen programs saw the demand and saw the landscape, saw that big hole of so much demand for the work, but not enough people to do it, that they started their skill bridge program.
[00:20:18] So their skill bridge program is looped into their service. Now next generation program next gen is to train those next generation of service. Now developers and service now professionals into our ecosystem while yes, it's great. If everybody has the experience, we have to start recognizing that the junior development.
[00:20:37] Is a huge problem in our sector. That's going to keep that retention problem there. If we start investing in these junior developers and start participating in programs like service. Now, next gen, we're going to start seeing our entire community flourish, not just with new junior developers, but we're going to start seeing that collaboration amongst people sharing information.
[00:20:57]That is one of the things I can't wait to see the next gen program go even further with, because right now we're matching what everybody else is doing and industry standard with training. One of the things that I have yet to see is I see employment statistics being tracked with every veteran training program out there.
[00:21:14] But service now has a huge opportunity if they wanted to, to use a service now instance to not only workflow. But they could work flow the entire transition process out of the military to the point where we can start seeing that military transition operate just as smoothly as Brian for every single veteran in that community, they have this opportunity and I'm excited to see where it goes.
[00:21:38]Duke: [00:21:38] That sounds like a glove throw down, man.
[00:21:41] CJ: [00:21:41] Uh,
[00:21:43] Sam: [00:21:43] We'd
[00:21:43] CJ: [00:21:43] ciao. Lawnge.
[00:21:45] Sam: [00:21:45] it's one of those things where I see that forest, which is the Salesforce equivalent training veterans. I see AWS having their training academy in MSSA, moving to this remote academy. One of the things that I do is I place veterans who go through some of these academies that are promised jobs at the end and are told they don't exist into those roles.
[00:22:03]And one of those things is it's not that hard when you don't have a placement fee.
[00:22:08]Now service now has the ability to automate the recruitment process for these next gen professionals through the service now ecosystem and through utilization of partners, like glad, fast and fair code where Brian was able to.
[00:22:20] Yeah. What this next gen program to get these guys, the practical experience, and then also use that practical experience to start placing them in our ecosystem with either our partners or end clients, because that's the other shortage that nobody really talks about is the end clients needing service now developers and how this next gen force could be.
[00:22:40] That.
[00:22:42]CJ: [00:22:42] Yeah, totally agree.
[00:22:43] Duke: [00:22:43] so Brian, you actually went through the next gen program, right?
[00:22:46] Brian: [00:22:46] That is correct? Yes.
[00:22:47] Duke: [00:22:47] don't you tell us what that experience was like?
[00:22:50]Brian: [00:22:50] In a nutshell, it was a life-changing a 16 week program, like said, , I had no experience with service now prior to starting that. And so we all started from zero and just started going through the basics fundamentals. different implementations, working with, glide fast and fair code. we spoke with cross views, Alison Holt.
[00:23:12] I think she's got a new last name now. but just so many people and it wasn't just a service now. Skills that we gained. There were also some classes and training on, transition skills, how to interview, how to write your resume in just how to deal with this whole transition. So definitely life changing for me.
[00:23:30] And I'm so excited to , get into the service now ecosystem.
[00:23:33]CJ: [00:23:33] so what part of the, the ecosystem, it makes you the most exciting kind of shifting gears a little bit, dive in a little bit more into The service downside of this. Like what part of the product excites you the most?
[00:23:45]Brian: [00:23:45] potential for unlimited growth?
[00:23:47] CJ: [00:23:47] My man,
[00:23:49] Duke: [00:23:49] Yeah.
[00:23:51] Brian: [00:23:51] I mean, it's just, it's incredible. They gave us a list of jobs, you know, part of the familiarization with, with service now, tech consultant, developer architect, since I was a recruiter and I did sales before the, the Navy, the solution consultant role kind of interests me the most. , but I want to go wherever it feels natural.
[00:24:11]and with service now, it sounds cheesy, but I feel like this is a good fit for me. And it's a good fit for a lot of other people. , this group, this next gen cohort that we did, we are all just so excited about this program and where it's going to take.
[00:24:25]CJ: [00:24:25] Yeah.
[00:24:26] You know, that, that writing your own ticket part of it. Right. Which is what I took away from that, that was what drew me to the, um, let's say the, open market and service now, right? Like the, the, the platform, you know, back in the day, when I, when I got involved with it, it was just this This Greenfield of unlimited opportunity, from not only a technical standpoint, but then as I got to know more about the platform, see more about the ecosystem. I also then saw it as this Greenfield of opportunity for my career, In terms of being able to do whatever it is out here that you want to do, because so many people have this thing, not enough people exist who can actually service it.
[00:25:02] And . That lack of talent exists at every level in the ServiceNow ecosystem. So yeah, I totally agree in sympathize with you , on that, you know, you can, you can make this whatever you want it to be. And you know, I'm a service now, fan boy, I can go on and
[00:25:16] Sam: [00:25:16] I really feel like that's everybody in our space. Everyone I've met has always been the biggest fan boy or fan girl or fandom of service. Now, like the moment I saw the platform and I was introduced at my interview with Western Southern, I was like, I love this. And that's when I started posting things like I could automate the request cycle for user accounts on government networks.
[00:25:41] CJ: [00:25:41] Right.
[00:25:42] Sam: [00:25:42] And I started looking like, oh man, I could have made my job so much easier in the military. And that's where it was like, that's what drew me to the platform. So I love that that kind of drew you in Brian. Cause I know for you, at least for me, I saw I can get rid of blue paper, route or blue folder routing.
[00:25:59]Brian: [00:25:59] that's the worst.
[00:26:01] Sam: [00:26:01] And that was the thing was it was like, uh, individual it's like the old mailroom clerk that has to run around getting signatures and taking a letter from one desk to another.
[00:26:12] CJ: [00:26:12] uh,
[00:26:13] Sam: [00:26:13] that blue folder routing because typically you have to use a blue folder in the Navy for those routing requests. And you have to run this piece of paper, stapled a folder to get signatures for some sort of permission to do something.
[00:26:27]And as you're running that folder around, it always gets lost and service now makes it to where that blue folder can't get lost and, you know, right. Whose desk is that?
[00:26:38] CJ: [00:26:38] Yeah, Sneakernet. That's what we call it in corporate America, Sneakernet.
[00:26:43] Duke: [00:26:43] This is that the truth? Yeah. Hey guys, what do people have wrong about veterans in the service now space, any misconceptions that are out there or tropes or memes that you guys would just wish would just go.
[00:26:55]Sam: [00:26:55] I think the one that I would love to see is you don't possess the experience. Without this skill bridge program that Brian would participated in without next gen, if I would have worked with him individually, that's what he would have heard from every service now partner. But yet Brian is one of the smartest people through that program.
[00:27:12] And he does contain the knowledge while yes, he might lack the experience you all just learned today, how much he can provide outside of the experience requirement. So one of the things that I ask is to stop using automation for military resumes. If you have an automated system that reads the resume, put in a manual intervention flag, if the words, Navy army air force, coast guard, space force, national guard, or reserves pop, and that resume.
[00:27:41] Because if you man only review that and you give them a call and you give them a shot, you won't have somebody like me who went through 958 applications when they got it.
[00:27:51] CJ: [00:27:51] my
[00:27:51] Sam: [00:27:51] And only had three responses yet. Every single one of those people that I have told me that I didn't possess the experience in some shape or form, I have worked with them now, but at a much higher.
[00:28:06] But if they would've taken the gamble, they could have had me for a lot cheaper. That's one of those things where you sleep on the military talent, you're going to pay for it in the end when they come back as a consultant.
[00:28:17] Duke: [00:28:17] Nothing's going to teach you like this we'll teach you.
[00:28:19] CJ: [00:28:19] Yeah, exactly. You know, my, my normal, my normal rate is X, but for you is X plus five.
[00:28:30] Duke: [00:28:30] Let's do a route 45 degree angle rotate on that plus sign buddy.
[00:28:35] Sam: [00:28:35] it's one of those things that it just, one of the people that declined me, I was applying for a tier one help desk job, went in for the interview and they told me I would be bored and that I needed to apply for tier two. I applied for tier two the next week, and then they called me and said, you really need to be applying for the tier one possession to get experience now.
[00:28:55] CJ: [00:28:55] Oh man.
[00:28:56] Sam: [00:28:56] I was thankful that those HR people actually communicated with me. Do you know what most HR people do
[00:29:03] Duke: [00:29:03] Nothing
[00:29:04] Sam: [00:29:04] not a thing they're afraid of some sort of discrimination lawsuit. They're afraid of something that they might say something wrong and it can be used against them. If you have a veteran who applies at least gives them the courtesy to say, Hey, we went in another direction.
[00:29:20] If not go, Hey, I was looking at your resume. Maybe I can help you with your resume. So that way the next job you apply for you can stand a better chance to get in the door.
[00:29:29]CJ: [00:29:29] W when the world just be so much better if this happened, like all the time. it is insane to me just listening to this, right? Like, you know what I mean? It was a great suggestion. Turn off that frickin auto scan BS. and have somebody manually reviewed the resume. You'll get, so get them on the phone to have a conscience.
[00:29:50] Right. And then, , even if the company goes in a different direction, get them on the phone again, or send an email, say, Hey, this is why, and this is what you can do. And in order to make your opportunity, your, your chances better in the future, right? let's help each other.
[00:30:04]I don't understand this whole thing, how we got to this place where everything, and, and, and, and as I say that, I think about all the workflows that I've automated, but you know how we got to this place where people no longer matter. And, it's really a bad place for, for all of us, you know?
[00:30:21] And, and in this, in this world where, computers are designing. You know, you don't fit the bill without even being able to plead your case to somebody who probably doesn't even know whether or not you have the appropriate experience to start with. I mean, this is the whole process is just, it's just horrible.
[00:30:39] Sam: [00:30:39] It's one of those things where we started automating things back in the early two thousands. And we were just starting because we started learning about some of these automations that we could do. And we just did it. We'd never stopped to ask what happens if we remove the human element in some of these processes.
[00:30:54] So that's one of those things where when we start having situations where clients don't want to go to best practice, What is best practice for human resources and recruiting right now. And is that conductive in this environment, especially in a competitive environment where people are staying at home and not working, and there's a demand for jobs.
[00:31:13] And a lot of it has to do with that recruitment cycle is extremely stressful. You get ghosted, you feel like you're on heard you feel like you're unworthy. So you just give up. It's one of those elements that when we talk about unemployment, we don't look at the abuse cycle in the recruitment process.
[00:31:28] How many of both of us, all of us here probably, and probably had it to where you got, Hey, LinkedIn member, I have this in demand job for you at this company ended, the brackets are still there. Like we have to have some serious conversations around recruitment tactics because the automation of recruitment.
[00:31:46] Yes, it's a numbers game and most of their opinions, but every recruiter that I worked with Shelley Goldman is who got me in over here at glyphosate consultant. She did not reach out with an automated message. She said, Sam, do you have a minute? So we can talk. I see, you're a Navy veteran. I see you're in the service now space.
[00:32:02] I liked your post about the CMDB. I would really love to get some time to talk to you. That woman showed me so much compassion, empathy, read my posts, knew who I was that she strategically plucked me out
[00:32:16] Duke: [00:32:16] You know, all the recruiters I know that have made it. like good fruitful careers out of it. don't do the numbers game.
[00:32:23]CJ: [00:32:23] Yeah.
[00:32:24] Duke: [00:32:24] like that th the ones that are eking by and have to get off shore cause nobody else will work for, that little money.
[00:32:30] Are the numbers game folks. It's just, I don't understand it. I don't know how people think they're going to get the quality resources they hope for when you got this, like bottom of the barrel tactic going on,
[00:32:41]Sam: [00:32:41] and I
[00:32:42] Duke: [00:32:42] but that's a whole other episode.
[00:32:44] Sam: [00:32:44] uh, I love working over here at glide fast cause we don't, most of our stuff is internal referral.
[00:32:49] Duke: [00:32:49] Mm.
[00:32:50] Sam: [00:32:50] That's one of the names of the game is network. Because if you reach out to me and you tell me, Hey, I've been looking at glide fast for a while. I see your post on LinkedIn. Is there any way you can talk to somebody to get me in the door?
[00:33:01] Almost every single time. If you've been engaging with me, I'm to fight tooth and nail to get you into our company.
[00:33:07]Duke: [00:33:07] Right.
[00:33:07]Sam: [00:33:07] And I'm not a runner.
[00:33:09] CJ: [00:33:09] Yeah.
[00:33:10] Brian: [00:33:10] have we met yet?
[00:33:12] Sam: [00:33:12] Yes, we are going to have some conversations probably this afternoon. Uh, we do have some openings here on the cleared side, over at Ferrocote that I wanted to talk to you about, but I wanted you to hop on here before we had those conversations.
[00:33:25]CJ: [00:33:25] Oh, look at this man matchmaking.
[00:33:28] Duke: [00:33:28] Wait, should we be getting paid for this all right, folks. This has been the veterans in service now episode. , I'd love to thank our special guests, Sam and Brian. Their LinkedIn profiles will be in the description below. Be sure to check that out also, , with this whole veterans and service analysis. People help yourselves. Okay. You're not helping the veterans help yourselves to what the veterans can offer.
[00:33:52] Get yourself connected with Sam and Brian, and they can connect you with Italian. You can also check out the government skill bridge program. See if you can connect to that and get some of this talent, into your company. I have been your host, Robert to duke Frederick.
[00:34:06] CJ: [00:34:06] And I'm Corey, CJ. Wesley.
[00:34:08] Duke: [00:34:08] Thanks for listening everybody.
[00:34:09] We'll see you next time.
[00:34:10] CJ: [00:34:10] all goodbye.