A HIRED CALLING!

Derek Wilson (04:45.006)
So thank you. I have thank you for joining the resume room later a higher calling podcast. I have Joshua Dominic Prado better known as JP joining me today. How you doing? I'm good. I'm good over yourself. I'm doing very well JP and this is the Friday. So thank you for your time on a Friday. It's noon. You're in San Diego aren't you? I am I am. Good weekend. No, just hopefully enjoy the sunshine and get a little rest and get back at it. We actually have a.

event tomorrow. It's kind of a sustainable jobs, green jobs, kind of fair with UCSD Park and market for anybody that's in the area. Very cool. Very cool. I don't have this out on the air by tomorrow, but we have a link down. I'll help send it out today for you though. Yeah, sounds good. Sounds good. We always got something going. All right, so we're gonna walk backwards through your career a little bit.

hit the high points, gonna get people an idea of who you are. Says F -18, Charlie Bell, the Hornets, A -Gunness Edition. So you were an A -T out of the Navy and also a plane captain on the best aircraft that would fly around the F -18, right? Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, I didn't get to work on the Tomcats, which were pretty cool. Those were most of our inspiration for the Top Gun kids. So I was born in the 80s, so going to...

Derek Wilson (09:03.278)
going to like Miramar Air Show and seeing the airplanes and everything that I'm sure that had some somewhat to do with wanting to work in the Navy and with Naval Aviation. So yeah, I worked on Charlie's Deltas for those who are familiar with F -18 fighter jets and then Es and Fs, which are the current super hornets that the Navy's using nowadays. Did you do one tour active duty or multiple tours active duty?

I was actually active duty for one tour and then I was reserves for kind of the rest of my career. So ended up doing about 10 or 11 years ish, you know, before I separated, you know, completely. So when you first separated from the military, active duty, what was your first job when you got out? I worked in a call center, believe it or not. Yeah, I just I wanted to do something opposite of running around.

on a carrier or on a flight, you know, a flight line in 120 degree heat. So air conditioned call center was a, was a nice kind of cush deal without a degree. And, you know, experience, you know, I just was able to transition. That was my first job. So what wasn't really, you know, I didn't, I didn't stay there too long, but, you know, it was a kind of breath of fresh air to kind of get a break from the uptempo of the military and just kind of get into my next career.

So what, how did you get into that first role? Did you go through a career fair or did you find them at TAPS or did you hunt and apply? How did it go? Man, it was, my experience was totally different than a lot of the people nowadays. I mean, I went through TAP, I'm sure, you know, it was maybe one or two days, you know, check out of your command. Came back to San Diego where I'm from. I was stationed up in Lamor at the time, so about six hours north.

And I went to, you know, the Career Center signed up with, you know, the veteran service representative there to get registered on CalVet for the California folks. That's kind of like our registry in their system. And then just started looking for job fairs and pamphlets and things. I didn't really have a clue really what I was doing. I just kind of, you know, was looking for whatever was available.

Derek Wilson (11:26.798)
I knew I didn't want to do what I did in the military, which some people do government contracting. They do the leverage, the clearance. And I just knew I didn't want to do that. So I was kind of open to everything at that point. So I had the choice between being a manager at a suit store. It was kind of like a men's fashion suit store because I had a background in retail or working in telecommunications.

at the cable company here local. So yeah, that was my first job after the military. Tons of jobs and careers after that essentially, but that was my first one. Very, very, very similar story about some people who transitioned out of the military. So if your time in the reserves, like you did eight years, about nine years in the reserves, imagine you did drill once a month. Did you ever do any like deployments or big active duty stints during your reserve time?

I went on orders from time to time. Back during that time, if you didn't have a job or if you wanted to go on orders, it was pretty available. So I took on all kinds of roles in my squadron, including the training PO, which was in charge of annual training and readiness for the command, which I did kind of was a precursor to later on.

getting a master's degree in adult education and then teaching engineers, which was way beyond me at the time. But I think we come across things that you're like, you don't know that that might be a full career or something that you enjoy when you start to take on all these collateral duties in the military. I'm assuming everybody that may be listening to this podcast or the majority of them might be either active or veterans.

And we're able to do a lot of things at once. And then you get out of the military and they're like, you got to do one job or one or two jobs and be really good at that. But for me, it wasn't just avionics on the jets. I was also the fitness in charge of the fitness program, some of the readiness programs for training, and some other administrative things. So I kind of dabbled in everything and got a feel for what might be my future career.

Derek Wilson (13:46.606)
So did you take on those extra abilities because you liked education and training? Or you didn't know at that point? Or those roles sparked you to get the master's in education and training? I took them on just because I saw a need. And one of the things about me that you can kind of trace in my career is if I see a need or something that kind of irks me, I kind of attack it with a lot of vigor. So sometimes I'll just be like, well, let me do it.

So one of the things for the Navy branches that might be common is you go do your fitness test every year, and then you're tired. A lot of people go to the base and grab some food, and then you got to sit and you got to listen to some briefings and PowerPoints for a good amount of time. And half the time, you're falling asleep. So I was like, you know what? Instead of me just sitting here falling asleep, maybe I should just be in charge of this thing. So I had that kind of, you know,

spark our idea or inkling. And I walked up to the CEO and I said, hey, can I run this thing? And eventually for like seven years, I was in charge of all mandatory training for the command. So it's easier to not fall asleep when you're the one training. That is a sad reality of training we've all experienced in the military and then in the corporate world as well. It doesn't get too much better.

Which kind of brings me to something I just saw in your role at ASML. So ASML is a different kind of role for you, right? You were the global training coordinator. And tell us a little bit about what ASML does. ASML is a global semiconductor manufacturing company. They're the number one pretty much leading manufacturer of microchip technology.

So it all sounds super, super high speed. I never thought I would actually work at that company. But when I was going to school for my master's, I was interviewing and doing projects with all the training companies here or the tech companies and manufacturing companies. And one of my projects was to interview a training manager and make improvements for their department. And I came across ASML just to give you a little bit of a

Derek Wilson (16:11.182)
For those who aren't familiar, their customers are Samsung, Apple, Taiwan Semiconductor, and all the chips in everybody's phones, for the most part, are a product of ASML. And fortunately, I got to work with the training department there, which was mostly military instructors and a bunch of really smart people from all over the world that were our subject matter experts. But if anybody knows.

something about the military training. You can deliver training no matter what it is, whether it's on some piece of equipment or safety. And so me being comfortable doing that, I was able to fortunately work with engineers from all over the world and get them the site readiness for all those sites where it needs to be. So essentially what I did for the command, I was able to do for huge companies like Intel and Samsung.

Great job leveraging your skills there. ASML is the leader in their space, head and shoulders above the rest of the competition. They don't like to hear the big C word, the big word of monopoly, but it is there. They have it down pat very well. I might have to edit some out of that, they might not like it. But in there, I see you have provides Kirkpatrick level evaluations. Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick training, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a little more in the...

kind of the science and methodologies of teaching and training and evaluations, which I guess I got geeked out about for a while just because that was my field of interest. But essentially what you're doing is just evaluating the different levels of training from the individual to the department to the organization and how to close the gap. So if you do that for an organization, I essentially do that for.

transitioning veterans now in my current career is we do a lot of skill gap analysis. So just to some what I get my meaning and purpose from on a day -to -day basis, I'm able to help veterans transition or active duty transition into their next career, which involves reverse engineering their skill set from the job description or the career path that they're wanting to go down. And I use a lot of those

Derek Wilson (18:34.51)
training methodologies in my transition, I guess you would say, process. Good deal. Kirkpatrick was a big part of the doctorate experience at USC. And I wasn't very fond of it myself. But I had to use it for a couple of classes. And then I forced it into my dissertation. And I got to defend it with my committee. And I didn't know, but the third member of my committee,

had literally argued face to face with Kirkpatrick, the senior and the head of Fallout. So I spent all that time bringing in Kirkpatrick just to have to take it out of my dissertation. But that's it for Rabahol, my edit this part out of the edit podcast. I haven't seen Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick anywhere on anybody's profile before until now. So you had brought that up there. So from there, you went to CCS Global Tech veteran talent acquisition, strategic partnership director. Tell me about that.

Yeah, so in kind of a big change, like you mentioned, ASML is one of the biggest and best companies in the world and what they do. Most people would just hang up their hat and stay there for the next 20 years. Just as being such a great company and a great experience, I'd equate it to working at SpaceX or somewhere similar or Andriil or something like that. So.

But during that time, I actually took on more collateral duties. I essentially look for ways to serve and help after the service. And I took over the Veterans Employee Resource Group, or what you would call an affinity group at the company. And because of the fact that ASML is next door to Northrop Grumman, let's see, General Atomics, me being in charge of the Employee Resource Group gave me a face in the community.

especially in a lot of the transition programs here in Southern California, I got to represent ASML as a point of contact. And people started wanting to go to work at ASML. And I started getting them jobs, not through, hey, you know me, so you're going to automatically get a job. I mean, it's a high tech field, so I get certifications, degrees, STEM background, or whatever. That's part of it. But I started to learn how talent acquisition works.

Derek Wilson (20:55.566)
the part of me that went to school for training and education is, is actually a function of, HR. you know, sometimes some companies have HR and talent acquisition, or maybe it's just one person. but bigger companies have a whole separate department. But, for me to learn how the hiring process works and how, networking plays a big part, how having the qualifications plays a big part and also, you know, leveraging your.

your contacts and getting building relationships. I kind of was able to get a lot of people hired at ASML, essentially a IT company next door was looking to start a talent acquisition program for veterans based on their existing staffing model. So they used to do or they were doing state, city, county staffing for the government using international students and.

they wanted to build a platform for federal government jobs, which requires for any recruiters or job seekers, you know, top secret and secret clearances. So you're dealing with a lot of military. So even if they have access to a ton of jobs, you know, it being a company based out of India and not really having a understanding of a culture of the military culture, then, you know, you might see somebody pop up with a job on on LinkedIn or Indeed, and you don't know whether or not it's a one, if it's a scam or if it's real or.

who's involved, so me putting a face that was recognizable, being like another veteran helped to build a program for training and staffing, particularly in the IT field. So at that point in my chapter, I was like a veterans to IT transition point of contact, which I'm big on branding. So a lot of that stuff went through people reaching out to me and saying, hey, I want to get out of the military and get into IT.

All right, cool. Well, if you're already in IT, I've got a job for you. And if you're not, then I've got a slew of different partners across the US that can use your GI Bill benefits or voc rehab or whichever sort of resource that you have to get you started. And then when you graduate, come back and see me after or come see us. Great deal. So in that role, establishing a talent program focusing on veterans.

Derek Wilson (23:14.702)
What were the pillars that you chose to focus on to bring veterans in? What were the channels that you looked to?

As far as like connecting with them. So what percentage of your hiring strategy, resourcing strategy was career fairs? What percentage was LinkedIn? Were you guys sending people to TAPS classes? How were you bringing people in? How were you setting up the brand new program? I would say for the most part, it was like grassroots marketing and

and recruiting. So there's a lot of companies that want to have access to military talent, some very, very big companies like tech systems and ISIS and GDIT and a lot of these big contractors that people automatically go with. So you're not really going to have a leg up if you're trying to compete with these big staffing companies. Essentially, in most cases, I've found that

the level of care and attention and grassroots approach to anything regarding military seems to work out the best. So being involved in the community, there's some, you know, going in and being at a TAPS class, because you're trying to recruit for IT positions. I mean, if that was the end, I think that was figured out by the base to say, hey, no solicitations and companies coming here to poach people.

because you're only in it for the money. So essentially there's no way to front that you actually care about veterans and veteran transition into careers. You've got to give back. And so if I were to be on a base, I was speaking on an employer panel. If I were to be a part of a transition workshop, I'm doing a dress for success session or LinkedIn coaching or.

Derek Wilson (25:14.638)
interview preparation. I didn't seek to get in front of people and say, Hey, I've got a job for you. You know, here's my card. Call me when you need it. Usually that's the last thing. That's been my approach for years. The last thing is, is me trying to sell somebody on something. If it happens to work out that they've, you know, we have an opening that matches their profile or we've got a school or we've got an opportunity or an event that they can tap into then, then great. But, but I always lead with value. And I think that's how most people or anybody that wants to be successful in.

recruiting marketing or sales should be. It feels like you think that pitching at tap classes is a negative connotation to that. Why is that? Automatically, most companies that want to have access to military for either buying houses, getting jobs for anything, they automatically assume, hey, we need to get on base. Well, five, 10 years ago, bases and people started figuring that out and said, hey, you can't do that. You can maybe.

attend a TAPS class or something if you're part of some sort of module that you're teaching. But you're not going to come here and just like, I mean, some of them have rotational things like a USO program or on -routes opportunity where they bring in companies and they're sharing their opportunities at that company and you got five minutes or something and you can walk out after that. But for the majority of the fact that the people that are coming through the TAPS class are there to learn something, they're not there to get poached by a particular company. So.

That methodology behind recruiting and selling is there's a lot of rightfully so gatekeeping. And they start doing off base transition programs. So maybe you can access them there or you can do off base things. But the secret to getting to veterans is not physically standing in front of them on a base. Because one that's just not, you know, you're just like walking into their house. That's really not their approach. I feel is significantly useful for most folks if you really want to.

touch base with veterans then have some sort of other value other than just popping up in a TAPS class. So let's say TAPS a week long series of classes. And then on the Friday in the hallway, there's a row of tables set up with recruiters from companies looking to hire veterans. How can that be a bad thing? Well, one is they're there trying to check out of their commands. And you know, most TAPS classes are less than a week long for the first place.

Derek Wilson (27:39.246)
So the amount of attention that they're paying or that anybody's paying or that anybody is going to get anything out of those things, nothing wrong with that. That's kind of the whole reason why all these nonprofits started transition programs of their own, namely, on -rush opportunity, hiring our heroes at CTAP. There's so many, there's tons of them that are specific to sometimes location and some nationwide programs. And now we even have a skill bridge. So they're also kind of getting into

programs six months even before they transition. So in my experience, and I would say that it is pretty heavy experience with working with transition programs, two to three days on base isn't going to impact their life that much in the first place. So spending two to three weeks with them or being involved in some sort of more significant lengthy program that's not government mandated for them to check out of their command, because there's a lot going on.

when people are transitioning out. And so if you're, you know, you being there for at a table, you know, one day out of a three day seminar, I think there's so much going on logistics of moving, VA disability, first time doing the resumes. There's so many things going on with somebody in their mind when they're transitioning, other than just, I need a job. That guy has a job for me in matches. I'd say there's, there's, there's a lot.

of things happening in the background when somebody's transitioning that we forget about or that even a civilian doesn't even know about. I mean, now we're veterans, so we understand we might be thinking about family situation, VA disability appointments, med board if I'm getting separated early for some whatever reason, logistics are moving. Do I have a degree? Where do I stack up in the market? I just got on LinkedIn yesterday. So many different things. It can be quite confusing.

I think for the average person transitioning. So even though that may be the primary thing, jobs and then maybe education or one of the two or both at the same time, hitting them in a TAPS class or connecting with somebody in TAPS class may not be the end all be all. That's all I'm saying. So the transition is supposed to restart at least one year before separation. If you're getting out now, two years before separation if you're retiring.

Derek Wilson (30:01.934)
What about somewhere in that year having a contact with recruiters in that period of time? Because TAPS class has an element of checkout procedures, but there also is the element of getting a job, right? There's a whole build your resume class, right? So you've just built your resume. You just went through a little mock interview or a mock pitch, I guess. I just, I...

I don't see how there's negative connotation for recruiters being there and saying, hey, we have jobs, talk to us, make the introduction. At least you have that face -to -face connection. That way when you do transition, when you are at your next house or when you're ready to think about it, at least you have their business card, at least you have whatever it is to connect with them. No, there's nothing wrong making connections. But as you mentioned before, like transition assistance program, the goal of that as far as transition assistance is a lot of times first grade level in every area. They may have joined when they're 18 or 17 like myself. So.

The fact that they made a resume or learned how to do a resume does absolutely not mean that they're going to get the job right after that day or be ready for the job that they're going to be transitioning into after. That's going to be a very small step. Most of the transition workshops that have been built by veterans, post TAPs, or I would call them TAPs, TRS +, they're run by nonprofits, are usually somewhere between two, four, six weeks. Sometimes they're like,

Honor Foundation or Hiring Our Heroes where there are fellowships where they're a couple months long where you can digest a lot of that information. You can learn and you can network during that time. But for a lot of the pressure to be on that you're going to meet somebody that's going to give you a job in one, two, three days, that's a high expectation and a low probability overall. I think most of the time, if I remember correctly from my...

I've been in a few TAPS classes in the last couple of years, and then I went through it myself. They bring in somebody as a representative to help with the resume. They're usually contracted career counselors or people from Circo or a couple other companies that just do these quick little modules. And from most of the cases, people forget that somebody comes in one or two days, and that information may go out the window if they're not paying full attention during that TAPS class. So I think it's vital for us to think

Derek Wilson (32:21.87)
touch base with them to get them into this the process or pipeline pipeline of additional support after taps. So there's taps and then what I call taps TRS plus, which is any sort of additional transition program. The earlier that they know about that, the better because like you said, if it's six months to a year before, you know, they may have an opportunity to search for a skill bridge program, which will activate three to six months before they transition.

which will already be in line with getting experience towards a job. The TAP class might be one week or some sort of scheduled couple days before the time that they EAS. But then they can enroll in these follow on programs that are sponsored by nonprofits. So for the soft community, they have things like the Honor Foundation for just Syracuse University sponsors, On Rich Opportunity, which is a...

a lengthier version of TAP, and then you get a free certification. It could be SEC Plus for IT. It could be PMP. Some of those certifications are a couple grand. So you're not only getting a little bit of an elongated TAP class. So I think it's vital that everybody knows about those, whether or not they have a chance to enroll in those. I mean, everybody's going to mandatory do TAP.

That's 100 % of people. You know, you got to check out, you got to do the process. But the degree of emphasis that I put on that being somebody have access to employment or a successful transition of some sort, you know, I don't want to lean that all on the government mandatory thing. I think we've, as a veteran collective, has decided, hey, we'll take up the slack from that and we'll make sure that we bridge the gap.

as individuals, as part of these transition programs, as part of schools, just as building a community of veterans, whether what it doesn't matter what branch they're going to be or coming from. You touched on part of that about kind of like that skill bridge not being the standard. It's something you have to request and get approved. And research shows that it's an exceptional tool. And my own research, everybody that went through it had great things to say about it, except for some negatives here or there that we have.

Derek Wilson (34:41.358)
seen come to light in the past few months and there's congressional action, they've changed the program now, but one recommendation I had was that that should be the standard across the board. You should assume you are getting a skilled bridge transition through the six months and it has to be basically disapproved from your commander to get you to not be allowed to go. I heard lots of complaints from people that they would, people who were in the role of getting veterans or getting transgender members into the program,

where they'd have the application for the service member, they would be 95 % done, and then they're waiting for the commander's signature and it never comes, right? So the commander's intent, the commander's responsibility is to his unit and their manning takes priority. We understand that, but there is definitely an aspect of the responsibility to keep our volunteer service going. And that does entail...

the proper transition allotment for getting things for people to recover and transition into new lives successfully. Because we're seeing that now in this current recruiting crisis where we can't get enough people in to join our forces, everybody's at Marine Corps, missing their marks on recruiting. And that comes back to people don't want to suffer the same way the veterans of our era have, and the ones before us now, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's two trains, two schools of thought in regards to the skill bridge. I kind of understand both sides. So I don't want to take a stance and it'd be something almost like political because people are, you know, there is the needs of the Navy Marine Corps. There's manning needs, there's specific positions where you don't have a chance to turn over that command or maybe you have a specific skill set and, you know, they need you up until the very last day. So ultimately we signed up for that. Most of the

I never had access to SkillBridge from when I got out and a lot of other people in the previous generation. So I think SkillBridge is great. However, I do understand both sides because the military is segregated in skill sets, different platforms. You've got submarine guys, you've got air wing guys. All these things have different manning capabilities and all the people in them have different capabilities too. So to kind of...

Derek Wilson (36:56.462)
It takes a lot, I think, for us to have it to where everybody's guaranteed this six months opportunity to get out. I think that that ideally, idealistically, that would be amazing for everybody involved. But you have also the companies are also assuming some risk in that case because they want to have that person come on for three or six months as an intern. I know that they're not assuming any financial risk because the military is still paying them. So it's a good deal.

in that sense, but it is essentially an internship. So it's a chance to get your feet wet, whether it be just at a foundational level, because some people do want to do something completely different than what they did in the military. Like, for example, the veterans transitioning into the IT field, they're not going to be readily into a scourge and right away be able to, after six months, do the job yet. Maybe they don't have the certifications or the skill set.

yet. So there's been pieces of this growing over the last couple of years. Microsoft Service or Software Systems Academy was kind of a precursor to that. It was like a three month or four month program to get veterans into IT. That was a non -Skillbridge program. And then now you've got, you could be formally into a Skillbridge program with a manufacturing company in a manufacturing job and that lead to a manufacturing job. But it just depends. There's different degrees of.

of experience and education that may be needed for that future career. So if it's closer to one -to -one, like if you're an IT guy and you're doing an IT skill bridge, the likelihood of you being employed because that company and you have a clearance and everything is probably pretty high. But if for the other folks, the other 50 % or 70 % of people that want to do something completely different, the skill bridge is an opportunity to get your feet wet. But there's no assumption that it's automatically.

going to lead to employment, just like the assumption that automatically when you get an education, that you're going to automatically get a job either. You've got to demonstrate proficiency and all that good stuff. And one way that we could solve the problem of the commanders need their people for their manning, but Marines said there's already people have to go transition is at the end of that enlistment. Usually you have some reserve time in your first contract.

Derek Wilson (39:17.742)
It's a potential maybe to use that the first three to six months after you finish your EAS. So you've completed your first contractual obligation all the way, all the way through. And then you get some time at the end where they're still paying you to go to the skill bridge. Maybe that's a possible solution. Possibly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of solutions that we can propose. I mean, I think the goal is everybody wants the best for the service member at the end of the day. And then there's just competing priorities from.

both sides and also, like I said, some aggressive things of like everybody that goes through that on the extreme should have access and get an employment opportunity from it, which I think is extreme because that's a little bit pushing it. And then on the other side of the house, just making sure that they have an opportunity to get their feet wet in something different. Like I said, if I was a...

you know, somebody who was a helicopter pilot and I want to do cyber security. Like I want to get my feet wet for three to six months and get an idea, just get the foundational things going. I mean, you know, especially if I did 20 years of something and I'm going to do something new, you're essentially, you know, starting out at, at square one, we do have the translatable skills of operations and leadership and management and all the key buzzwords and everything. But from a functional and a technical standpoint, you know, you're kind of starting out fresh.

Which is the idea. We also get free school and a bunch of other stuff after the military too. So I'm a firm believer in you should be able to pick your career of choice after and attack it and also leverage your benefits and the network of people that care about you having a successful transition and having meaningful, purposeful career after the military should be a robust thing. It shouldn't be just.

school and skill bridge, it should be networking and mentors and role models and other sorts of things that kind of can inspire the other people to say, hey, that person transitioned and he transitioned well and he's doing something completely different. Maybe I've got a friend who was an Intel Navy guy attached to the SEAL teams and he is a successful stuntman in the Hollywood, it was in Black Panther 2. So.

Derek Wilson (41:32.878)
You know, what does success look like? That's a whole nother conversation. But, you know, I believe we should have a robust system of tools and people around that, SkillBridge included. One program that's here in local San Diego County is Workshop for Warriors. And they've had a situation where they're training people to be doing machining work. You spent some time there. How was that program?

It's a great program. I was there for a few months helping them build up their recruiting pipeline and getting involved in the community. I think for the folks that are there, there's a wide spectrum of transitioning folks, everybody from 05s, 06s down to E2, E3, E4s. And so some of them that are going into skills trades, especially with the market nowadays where the amount of people that

don't want to go to school for a long period of time to qualify, or they want to just get some sort of hands -on certifications and take their mechanical skills to the next level. We saw a lot of people coming out of the military going into the trades. And whether that be coding, and you don't need a degree to be a software developer, entry -level coder, same thing goes for machining and welding.

You can do four to eight months program and workshops is an example of that where you can start off at a $25, $30 an hour level without a degree after a four year enlistment, which essentially can be pretty good to start off your career. When I got my first job after the military, I was making less than $20 an hour. So that was a long time ago. But I enjoyed it still. It's not necessarily about the money. But.

the experience, but the opportunities that you get, obviously the more education experience and the more that you invest in yourself, then the more marketable that you can be. But I think that it's a good program. I still recommend that program for anyone looking to go into machining and welding as a transitioning.

Derek Wilson (43:49.39)
Thank you for that.

things covered before we hit our time here. Not sure how much time you have to go after, but you have vetted, which I believe you own that and you have California Miramar still. And I want to learn about vetted and also spend some time with California Miramar. So briefly, what is, what is vetted talent network? So in about 2015, 2016, that's when I started to get into a lot of this transition community. And like I said, just kind of like see some,

some gaps or some needs and how I could help out. And essentially, I already had a transition into my career in engineering and training at that point. So I didn't necessarily need the programs for myself at the time. But I wanted to get familiar with a lot of the transition programs in San Diego and abroad. So I would participate and volunteer and even just sit in when I could.

So essentially I was vetting the nonprofits. It was a project of some sort. And that initiative was on behalf of me running into somebody who was transitioning, who wanted to know. It's essentially like being like a restaurant critic. You're like, hey, you should go here because this program is good for senior enlisted. Or you should connect with this resource because you're missing this certification. So I started to gather that intelligence and then kind of just be like a one -on -one.

you know, hub of information. But in order for me to get that information out more, you know, I had several other ideas which were to promote successful veterans in those careers. So I connected to veteran entrepreneurs and started helping host conferences and events geared towards veteran entrepreneurship. So, you know, if you did want to get into the music industry, maybe you're not going to find somebody in TAPS class or a transition workshop that's going to connect you to the music industry.

Derek Wilson (45:41.102)
So I started to find those people and those organizations and those networks and start to chase down and kick down those doors for myself and find somebody that was over there. Hey, you want to get into acting? There's veterans in media and entertainment is a nonprofit. They've got a chapter in LA. If you're in LA, you want to be an actor, connect with them. So just finding those things and connecting to those people. A lot of people started to see that on social media, Instagram, Facebook, mainly just some platforms that were not necessarily on for the job side.

but the other socials and as you can see social media marketing is huge. So that kind of took off to where Vetted is now a kind of channel for veteran entrepreneurs to find out about resources, events, maybe successful veterans that are highlighted. It's a promotional platform and a hub for transitioning veterans or even active duty to see what there is on the other side because maybe their ideal career is not.

IT or cybersecurity, maybe their ideal career is nonprofit leadership or owning a gym or something like that. They're gonna see that on Vetted Talent Network. In parallel, it also was able to create a talent pipeline for the other organizations that I work with. So it becomes an additional source of traffic for them to go to school or for them to get employment. So I can tie that into my work with California Miramar University.

We are a four -year for -profit university here in San Diego. We have a campus in LA, and we're about to open one in the Bay Area. So I'm kind of circling back to the academic side. I'm able to help transitioning veterans get into associates, doctorates, masters, and doctoral programs where they're able to leverage their GI bill benefits one day out of the week and get their full BH. So if that ain't.

you know, a great opportunity for California residents. And I don't know what it what is to be able to to get 45K untaxed after transitioning out and tie that into your career path. So senior enlisted and officers are getting their MBAs here. We even have a master's in artificial intelligence program that's going to be starting towards the end of this year and out of our San Jose campus. So I really enjoy being.

Derek Wilson (48:01.166)
in the academic space and helping colleges because again, I got out without a degree, I was able to leverage a master's degree that I got from, you know, local college, the University of Phoenix here and work in a huge engineering company. So I'm a firm believer and there is a place for executive programs and Ivy League schools, but also, you know, I was my the biggest benefit that I got out of the military was to get almost eight years of education. And for somebody who joined right after high school,

without a degree to teach engineers at one of the biggest companies in the world. The only way I would have been able to do that was to leverage my VA benefits in the proper fashion and not squander those and get on the right path. And I'm a big proponent of education. I know some entrepreneurs, you may not need specific degrees or certifications to do things, but they definitely help in today's market.

I too am a big believer in education, I have lifelong education myself. And so California Memorial University has campuses San Diego, San Jose and LA you said? Yeah, San Diego, LA County and then San Jose, we already broke ground on that. It should be opening towards the end of this year. That'll be right in Silicon Valley. And just again, I'm super excited because there's two things is...

AFSIA conference, one of the biggest tech defense conferences that we have here in San Diego with military officials every year. The big topic from the secretary of the Navy and four star generals and everybody there was AI. So that was huge for the, so the fact that we're gonna have an AI GI Bill approved program potentially here within the next year is very exciting. And we're also taking a stance of being an AI first university that is not just with our programs,

But in our decision making, literally, I've got a form here. And part of this form for executive decision making is for me to leverage AI to kind of be another third party to either speed up the process or just give me some other ideas as well. So we're actually learning, all of us that are part of the staff at California Myanmar, we're also learning how to leverage AI for the staff. We're in the programs. And then also, I teach AI for job seekers, LinkedIn optimization.

Derek Wilson (50:24.974)
resume tools and you're familiar with that as well. So there's a lot of new things and essentially they benefit the end user. So AI not being a super scary thing, that's not what we want to project. We want it to be something that's a part of our day -to -day lives as employees, as career coaches, as veteran mentors is how can we use AI in a positive manner to benefit the end user.

It's actually a good way to transition over into AI. So you guys are from the AI California Miramar University. How do you see, how do you think veterans can get AI experience from the military if they're not in a role where they're already doing AI things? So for example, how can somebody who works in an admin role who's not using AI get AI training?

on the way out the door. We are going to start offering some workshops eventually as we're getting up to speed. I actually meet myself and my colleague here from my department. We actually went to an AI summit here a couple of weeks ago here in San Diego that ASU sponsored. And it was, we learned how to use AI in all different manners and how they're using AI for like K through 12 even. So we're getting educated as we educate.

To answer your question, how can they get tap into it? They can connect to me. I can give them some tips and tricks. I post things on LinkedIn. I sometimes post them on the other socials as well. I'm getting educated so that way I can speak to it in an educated manner. But I feel like even in the career search category, whether it's helping you prepare for interviews, whether it's giving you frequently asked questions,

learning how to use the right prompts in chat GPT and other things like it. I think you're gonna see more and more people gravitate towards how they're gonna learn it. As far as how they have access to it, they can connect to me or they can connect to any one of us here at California Miramar University and we'll give them some of our information that we've learned from. So was that the ASU GSB conference you attended? It was, yeah.

Derek Wilson (52:49.934)
I attended the year before last and I had already been an AI for a couple years at that point and GPT -4, I just kind of rolled out and the entire conference was about AI and it was kind of like, it was a repeat of all the things I kind of knew. It was, I mean, after day one, it was too much of the same topic. I got a little bit frustrated, but the place was over packed.

There were too many people there. How was your experience this time? It was, yeah, it was quite overwhelming. There was probably, you know, 200 workshops to attend and a bunch of different options. I kind of pick and chose the things that I wanted to be involved with. We wanted to kind of just soak it all in. But, you know, it's definitely a lot all at once. There were tons of different companies. I felt like the experience with how AI was implemented in

the AFSIA conference, which is the Defense Tech and Military Officials Conference, was a little bit better because it was AI software for government proposals, or it was AI implementation for generative chat bots for Navy medical systems or something. It made more sense, I guess, on a logical level. But I think the ASU thing, I mean, just having

things like that, it's going to be harder to take away a lot from those because it's overwhelming. I think the most fun I had, we did an AI poetry slam and we compared our poems and our raps to ones that we wrote on our own. And I guess the debate was artificial intelligence versus creative intelligence. And I think people lean towards something that is more real at the end of the day.

AI still doesn't, it's a tool. I believe it doesn't have emotions and things like that, even though it can mimic those things. So I think people are using AI more frequently in writing and in other areas. And so we're starting to see through that from the education or HR standpoint. You can see when somebody used it on their resume or interview questions. You can tell sometimes a little bit.

Derek Wilson (55:11.886)
In some cases, sometimes you can't. But again, we know it's out there. And so I guess that's the gist is knowing that it's out there, then what do you do with it? Part of that is governance and part of that is education. Just how is it useful? I lean more towards that it's useful. It's a time saver for sure. And behind the mask or behind the tool, there's still the person. And I want to get to know the person more than the...

the AI tool. I just want to plug in there that on my software, you can't tell that it's AI because you are as a human, you are involved in it. So you can read that product. You can read that out of the automation. Yes, it's meshed together. People have challenged my product to see if they can run it through the scanner and get caught. And they haven't yet. So I welcome people to come do that. I was going to ask you next. So, yeah, so besides AI, was there any topic that you remember as the, hey,

ASU GSB was about AI and about...

That is it, huh? No. Maybe next year. But I do appreciate the fact that, like I said, that there are people out there educating on their products or on their things. Maybe like, again, because it was more education from K through 12 and maybe a little bit of colleges. And it was more of an educational summit towards AI versus it being

across other things, it could be pretty broad when it came to that conference. But I think that if people are interested in certain topics, they should say something and we can throw something, put something together here either with the college courses that we were going to have in the programs or a workshop, or maybe there's some things that they want to hear or learn more about. So we're going to start putting out more of that content, whether that be through California Miramar University or through myself or through the Veteran Talent Network,

Derek Wilson (57:14.094)
You know, I just want to make sure that we're lifelong learners, like you said. So that's one thing we got in common. And something that we care about is just changing the world through education and technology. Those are, I guess, the last thing was that I would say I remember is that the great equalizers in society have been like, you know, access to, you know, in my case, the military, education and technology.

because that doesn't matter where you come from, how tall, short you are, what color you are. Being part of the military, educating yourself and leveraging technology can open up opportunities for everybody involved. That's a great segue into one last question here. The resume has evolved from being a card you left on people's counter when you visited their house to being, hopefully, only a two -page document that you share in PDF and you create in Word.

and we have LinkedIn that provides the spots to put all your stuff at. And we have, you know, dot cards for networking and other things for, you know, networking, little devices that say, you know, you tap this thing and you can get my information, right? But what is next for the application process? What's the future? Are we going to be doing the PDFs, the resumes for forever? Or how will we be applying to jobs in 10 years, five years? What do you think? I mean, the resume has held true for...

for a long time. I remember having my resume on a floppy disk when I got out. I mean, I'm 37. I'm about to be 38. But yeah, I still remember my resume being on a floppy disk document. And we still use resumes to this day because unless there's another format of a hiring manager creating knowledge, skills, and abilities, and creating a job description, and maybe that's 10, 20 line items,

handing that to the HR department and saying, hey, can you find somebody based on these parameters? I mean, I think that process, whether you call it a resume or you call it something else, is a standardized process. Outside of making sure that that person matches 90 to 100 or even 110 % of what I'm asking for on that job description, I think the staff or the hiring managers or talent acquisition or recruiters are getting more keen to,

Derek Wilson (59:37.806)
If they don't already know this, it's to like LinkedIn and other ways to holistically or to comprehensively view a candidate and see the big picture. So I could see the resume. I could look at the LinkedIn and then try and put the pieces together on sort of a screening process to get to know if that candidate is the right fit. I haven't seen too many changes other than the fact that 99 %

of us in talent acquisition, HR, or in career coaching will say, hey, if you're not on LinkedIn, everything's a I need to see it now culture. So I'd rather look at somebody's LinkedIn and say, hey, I got the high level overview, which is a lot harder to look through on a resume. But when you're qualifying somebody, the more technical the job is, obviously, then that might be a different picture. If it's a community outreach job for a nonprofit, and I just want to look at.

the holistic background or the high level overview, I could look at the person's LinkedIn and maybe derive some sort of judgments based off of that without even looking at the resume. But for certain things, if you're going to be an IT architect for a secret government project or working on all kinds of different software, then you need to go through the resume and you got to make sure everything matches. Otherwise, you press the wrong button or put in the wrong code.

something goes bad. Thank you for that. And one more question for you, go if you have time about California Miramar University, I don't know a lot about it. So why would a veteran or a transit service member go to California Miramar University instead of another college in San Diego? What separates you guys? I would say, well, the number one separator key differentiator is the people. I came on board here previously.

I knew the president of the, our current president when she was helping run another school here in San Diego. So I personally know that, you know, she has the interests of the students in mind. You know, this the level of care. We actually have 90 % of our students are international students. You know, they're business or tech majors and we help sponsor their visas and get them, you know, productive members of, you know, the workforce out here. So I enjoy that and having.

Derek Wilson (01:02:02.286)
People from all over the world around have always kind of experienced that in the military and after. So we have an emphasis on international students. We also, from the military side, you know, if you're not going to go to the state, your UC, and you have to dedicate two or three days a week to being on campus and the whole experience, you know, nothing against that, you know, having the full college experience, but.

The majority of veterans fall under what's called non -traditional student, which is working adult with kids. Maybe you don't care about going to a basketball game or having some sort of some ideal structure, like the formal college experience here. You come here one night a week. You're able to meet with your instructors. You can come to study hall.

You can come meet with me. You can do all these one -on -one things that we call like a boutique experience and have one single point of contact for things instead of being at a huge university and being potentially a number at that school. Like I said, I don't have anything bad to say about any other places. But if you need to check that box and get a quality education, knock out that degree while also working on the other four or five important things in your life, like we mentioned, trying to figure out, get

networked, find a job, dabble in other different things that you didn't do after the military. You got a lot going on. So I think one of the things that you can at least rely on is being able to get your education, not squander your benefits and go all over the place. You come one night a week in your graduate program and you're considered full time from the VA. If you're in your undergrad, you go one night a week for one class and then your other classes fully online. You can work a full job. Have

you know, wife and kids at home or whatever you got going on and you can still meet your obligations while furthering your career. And there's very few universities left after COVID that have this hybrid program. Some do like a once or twice every five weeks. We do one night a week and you can get your degree done. It's a pretty good deal. And I've been, I've done a lot of hiring in the tech space and in the engineering realm.

Derek Wilson (01:04:15.726)
General Atomics hires lots of engineers and plenty of people are doing great things in business too. I can tell you that having a public nonprofit school doesn't necessarily make a difference sometime on your resume when it's a for -profit school versus a nonprofit school when it comes to, especially if you have experience and you can talk the talk and walk the walk, it means a lot less than people think it does. And I am a product of public and private nonprofit schools.

California State University for my undergrad and USC for my master's and doctorate. But I hired lots of people, referred lots of people who have degrees from for -profit schools. One of the best recruiters I know has a bachelor's degree from University of Phoenix and he can recruit anybody, right? So it's - I'm a Phoenix grad myself. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, like I said, they're one of the schools that doesn't have an in -person program here in San Diego where you're getting full housing allowance. So -

you know, we're an option very similar to that, you know, back in the day, five, 10 years ago, then that would have been the one night a week option here in San Diego to get your, your housing allowance. And now they only do online after COVID or at least for now. So, so yeah, very like, like you mentioned, you know, you know, I'm not nothing against, Ivy league or a state or, or, or UCs or any of those, like we have actually, if you leverage your benefits correctly, you might actually have a road roadmap to get all to go to school here.

and then do a USC or do an executive MBA and then go back to your doctorate, with the amount of length of education benefits that we have. You've got TA while you're in, you've got GI Bill after, you may have yellow ribbon to extend the program, you may tap into VR &E as it's called now, or previously voc rehab and have another set of benefits to go to school for longer. I mean, you potentially are gonna go to a for -profit, a nonprofit, a UC, a state school.

You might have a hodgepodge of experience, but when it comes to the employers like General Tomix or any one of the places, I've always checked with them to make sure. But as long as you've got a degree from a credited university, depending on the job, you know, nobody, my opinion and what I've seen most of the time, you know, like I said, there might get to be some outliers, but unless it's legal and medical, then as long as you got an accredited degree from a university with your GI Bill benefits, then you're going to do just fine.

Derek Wilson (01:06:39.406)
Good deal. So JP, it's Friday. We're overtime. I will let you get off here and get back to the rest of your busy day. I do think we have some more things to talk about. Happy to have you back on here or maybe do this live and get some lunch sometime. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Anytime. Looking forward to it. I will see you again soon. Thank you. All right. Sounds good. Later.