0:07 good afternoon and welcome to the way to wow people making money i am your host kevin bemel and as uh some of you probably know unless you're joining us for the first time we are here every wednesday afternoon 12 30 on the pacific coast i think we're called the left coast and uh 3 30 p.m on the east coast the the right coast or i may have that backwards i can never keep track and then an hour in for each of the other two uh time zones so uh last week as a reminder i talked about um the three things
0:45 that you should do in order to be as in as as sure as you can about having a successful day so it's all good and well to set goals you know long-term goals 10 20-year goals short-term goals three to five-year goals you know short-term goals one year it's all great to have those goals but if we're not working each day to reach them we're not going to get there so i invite you to go to our youtube channel the way to wow show on youtube check out last
1:21 week's episode as well as some of the other uh episodes we've had some some terrific guests and i think you will find a great deal there to help you find your way to wow that's who are you and what you want right and we in this show we start we talk particularly about uh finances and professional life um but there are many other topics there as well all in line with the three pillars of attainment that you see here see i i switch things around behind you again for those of you who are uh have seen more than one episode it's like wait a minute wasn't that used to be over there yes it did so
1:58 now i can you know have it right over my shoulder and go like this right and still be um looking like i'm paying attention so i have a guest today that i think you will really enjoy uh i met carl savino i i believe it was at the retirement ceremony of one of my very close friends fellow by the name of john rubino a navy colleague of mine um john and i are really like brothers and uh and and carl and i met and we i think we spoke a short short time later and and
2:33 we've been in touch and and friends ever since then at the time carl and i were were kind of in a much more similar realm we were both working with military people transitioning from military to civilian life uh carl has been doing that for a long long time um over 25 years i believe um and has been tremendously successful at doing this and so for those of you who are watching or thinking well wait a minute i'm not transferring out of the military i i invite you to stay and listen to
3:09 what carl has to say because a lot of what he talks about will apply to you even if you are not a service member if you're a recent college graduate if you were a mid-career professional needing to make a transition it's very possible that you're moving from kind of one domain if you will into something that's significantly different not unlike going from the military to civilian life and so if you do a little translating i think you will find what carl has to say
3:44 will be very valuable for you as well so carl welcome to the way to wow people making money thank you for coming on the show no thank you kevin i appreciate the opportunity so you know i mean i don't want to spend a whole lot of time on this because i know you have so much great information that people can use when they're hunting for a job but tell us if you will just to kind of give us the you know cliff notes or the reader's digest version of you know how you made the transition um as i recall you were in the army um and and now of course you're in the
4:21 the corporate world talk to us a little bit about that transition so we can kind of get a flavor for what your background is no thank you very much so after a good number of years on active duty i transitioned from the army in 1992 my first position was with a firm called booz allen hamilton it's a very large uh technology government consulting firm here in the washington dc metro area so after securing that position i was at fort belvoir at the time it was my last
4:57 duty station and i wanted to give back to my fellow officers who would soon be making that same transition at some point in their career so i ended up giving a powerpoint presentation on my lessons learned on my personal transition story and my boss at the time said hey carl you ought to write a book about it well it was a little bit durious at the time i eventually reneged and agreed to do it so i put together a manuscript that i showed to the president of impact publications um ron
5:32 chronic he and his wife uh carol had uh were the owners of impact publications and they had written profusely they had i don't know something like 70 to 80 different book titles out and ron was interested in possibly doing publishing our our military book but he said hey carl that's a good first effort but what i suggest is that we blend that we merged your book with another one of mine that's similar in in tone in nature so ron and i partnered in came up with a book title from army green to corporate grey which we
6:07 published in 1994. um okay in 1995 my sister was married to a naval officer still is so we decided to repurpose the book and title it as some navy blue to corporate gray in 1996 my air force friends were begging me to finish the trilogy so we did from air force blue to corporate gray now i like to think of you know i like to think it's a it's a team effort but we have successfully built a business of service so we have a passion for what we do we saw a need at the time there was an opening frankly the military's
6:44 transition assistance program was not as robust in 1992 as it is today so we saw an opening we saw an opportunity to provide services that we thought would complement what already existed in in the in that space so remember that as i said we did from army green navy blue and air force blue over three years and at the time kevin we were selling copies of our book through the post exchange the army air force exchange system that i know you're familiar with you know we may have sold a few a few a few thousand copies over the years
7:20 nothing to rock your boat but in 1996 we changed our business model to one from selling the book to one that giving it away so again here's the transition moving from selling copies of a book to giving the book away now how do we do that well my last name is savino not gates so we had to devise an advertising mechanism to do that so i give credit to my wife susan who had a business background that said hey crow we're going to give you we're going to give your book away to everyone leaving the service and long story short what we did
7:56 was we placed recruitment ads in the book so in the front section of our book uh from army green navy blue air force political corporate grade those three book titles we placed recruitment ads and we then bundled those recruitment ads with job fairs and online services over the years so again we started with a print model and for your audience that's not you know military per se but the idea is how do you think outside the box so i would smith here that at the time the idea of placing recruitment ads in a book um was not uh consistently done or was pretty
8:32 infrequently in terms of that and then we have permission from each branch the armed forces to give a free copy of our book away to everyone leaving the service so in 1997 we went from giving away maybe 5 000 copies a year to or selling 5 000 copies a year to giving away 250 000 copies a year also in 97 we started running our job fairs so our first job fair was at fort bragg north carolina and over the next 25 years we've been hosting joffrey's which i'd like to talk about a little bit later here in your show and also the third leg of our stool is
9:07 corporate ground live our online website but the bottom line when it comes to the book what we were able to do is combine print recruitment with job fairs and with online services and in that manner deliver a win-win in terms of services both to the companies that wanted to recruit veterans as well as to the veterans themselves again they got a free book they got the opportunity to participate in our job fairs they could use their website for the purpose of uploading uploading their resume and searching applying for positions in advance so again that's kind of the trilogy that's an overview of the three primary services that we
9:43 offer again we built a business around ultimately doing a book which gave us credibility and figuring out a way to give the book away for free in a way that was a win-win so and i just want to ask one more question about your background what what was you what type of officer were you in the army i'm guessing you weren't a public affairs officer right which would be that's marketing and all that right what did you do just so people can understand yeah initially i was a personnel officer but then i transitioned to the signal core so i was a single core also did information technology type work as well
10:20 so it was a blend it was a mix of different um different types of work i was assigned in of course assignments in the united states in korea and in germany all in a peace time environment okay and and so not anything really related particularly related to starting a business really right so yeah and i think it's important um for people to understand that um having a business background isn't required to successfully start a
10:56 business so it sounds to me like really you know there were two factors one create well just three factors a desire to help to serve two being creative and three having other people that you could talk to work with who could help you fill in the gaps of your own knowledge so that you could make your business successful is that cool absolutely kevin you know it's a team effort um i have different players on my team and they all bring special talents to our business i personally could not run corporate gray alone
11:32 um i want to come back to the military experience i guess that gave me a domain of knowledge so even though i didn't have a business background having spent a good number of years on active duty obviously i'm i was very familiar with military service so that was helpful in launching the business but in terms of information technology support we hired a programmer in terms of someone to help us do the mechanics of creating a book again we hired an outside consultant so i think it's important for people to
12:08 know that they do not have to be an expert in every facet of that small business as long as they're smart and creative they can reach out to people and hire them if you will on an as-needed basis so over the years we have used consultants to handle different aspects of our business i guess give you two examples one is in the development of our website corporate grand line um i hired an outside programmer who on a part-time basis has developed the site as well as rewritten and extended the site so he has been with me now for over 20 years
12:44 and that's another factor is i think if you treat people right you recognize their work um they'll stay with you for the long term one of my colleagues karen durkee is our director of social media she too has been working with corporate gray i think going on 15 years she and other members of my team um are key to our success wonderful and um one other thing on the the startup part of your business so a lot of people get hung up with well you know i need you know a half a million dollars or i need you know five million dollars to start up the business how did you handle
13:20 that aspect of your company if you don't mind my ass i don't need numbers i just conceptually how did you handle it yeah no no no problem whatsoever you know frankly the minimum investment was not significant i would submit to you when we started doing job fairs we were profitable almost on day one so for our business yes it's a risk as with any small business we had to rent the job fair facility um we had an outlay in terms of purchasing lunches if lunches for the recruiters but it was not a significant outlay of money without specifics
13:56 nothing that the average family couldn't couldn't handle it was a pretty minimal amount and because of that we were able to do more and more events we could expand the range of services that we were providing again we couldn't do the job here for free to the companies but i do want to make the point that all the services that we provide to the veteran are at no charge so we have never charged the veteran to use a website i don't believe in charging people to attend our job fairs so those events are free um the book as i said we were able to do the book give we were able to print 250
14:31 000 copies a year because we were able to convince companies that it was to their advantage to recruit in this manner that they would find the return on their investment and i think by and large that proved to be the case so most of the companies that were working that are working with us in terms of using our recruitment services are mid to large defense contractors and government agencies so again that that's been a nice mix so we were fortunate i think um to find that good mix of companies and government agencies that that really wanted to reach out to the military
15:06 audience you know before it was quote in vogue right now i would say there are a plethora of different military recruitment firms that are out there doing similar services um so it's a much different now in 2022 than it was when i transitioned from the army in 1992. and to the benefit of the service member absolutely so you know i i'm look i've transitioned in some ways twice because i there was there was i originally came out of the navy in 2012. and then i went back on active duty a
15:42 few years ago and and basically had to transition again because what i was doing before that i wasn't going to continue doing so i i have a sense of you know what that is personally and i think it can be overwhelming it seems like there's so many things that we have to do and i can imagine i you know if i think back it's a long way back you know coming out of college you know and all of a sudden it i don't know why it didn't dawn on me earlier i have to now go find a job there was no one was waiting to hire me when i finished my degree even especially since
16:17 it was in architecture and we were in the middle of a you know recession when i got out of uh of of college so what would you say are the perhaps two or three um issues or matters or tasks however you want to describe them that someone should focus on in order to avoid first of all getting overwhelmed so that they can feel like they can take action um but also put you know put themselves
16:53 on a track to you know to gain ground as we say yes good question one of the things i always recommend doing right up front is an internal assessment of one skills what do you like to do you know what don't you like to do let's make a list pick out a blank sheet of paper and write down you know these are the skills that i acquired through my military service or these are the skills i acquired to my civilian service you know this is what i like to do this is what i don't like to do in fact i'm going through that a little bit with my son right now who recently graduated college so again we're kind of relooking that same
17:29 issue figuring out what's best fit because ultimately what i preach in terms of gaining employment is finding those opportunities that align closely with what you want to do where your passion is where your interests are and what you're good at right so along the lines often i'm asked well carl how do i know what i'm going to be good at or what i will enjoy and i think really that's where i say you've got to be doing as much networking informational interviews as you possibly can so one of the strongest recommendations i can make kevin to
18:04 people who are trying to figure it out what they want to do as that next opportunity that next career do as many informational interviews as you possibly can i like to say there's a reason why linkedin was sold for twice gives me 24 billion dollars it works right so you know if you don't have a linkedin account create one and make sure that link linkedin account represents you in the best possible life again so use that tool to reach out to other people who have a background maybe that aligns in some way with yours or doing things that you
18:39 think you want to do and try to learn vicariously through that through those other people so again networking with others to help you understand whether or not that career field makes sense i i think is a good thing i also think another idea is to be a continual learner a continuous learner so you know again following college continue to earn and extend your your your knowledge and skills and abilities in different aspects so coming to back to my son you know his degree was in um
19:14 in graphic design excuse me in data graphics um so i think it's important in his case that he also gains adobe certification in in those in that field as well so be a continuous learner get out there network i also think it's important to network if you had the fortune good fortune going to college network with other college alumni that can be very helpful um either even if high school alumni or so or associates degree community colleges wherever you went to school think about your networking contacts
19:50 academically also even in the military so we have a large network of quote army alumni or navy alumni in your case or air force alumni so reach out to fellow service members fellow veterans who are doing what you think you would like to do and and by and large i think you're going to find that they'll be receptive and they'll they'll take the time just to help you understand what it is they do and to determine whether or not give you enough information so that you can discern whether or not that career field and that net company that industry
20:25 would be a good fit for you let me also say i think that company referrals um individual employee referrals excuse me employee referrals is a great way to gain employment here in the washington dc area over a third of all hires are as a result of employee referrals so again one of the benefits of going on informational interviews is oftentimes the person with whom you're interacting may want to refer you into their company and once you're referred into a company all of a sudden you're on a different level in terms of degree of interest by the human resources department now
21:00 you still have to sell yourself and that's that's getting in the door but that's a nice first step so again my recommendation to your audience of job seekers is make sure you maximize your informational networking opportunities excuse me through the use of linkedin and i'm gonna i'll chime in here and say um i you know i don't remember exactly probably a couple of months ago i actually did a show that explains basically step by step how to use linkedin
21:35 to find those people that you want to talk to to make the connections i think i even posted a a uh you know text you know the the language for a short message to send them that i used when i did this and and i will say that um both in terms of um my my college i went to usc and and you know military contacts i think my response rate to those messages was over 80 percent um which when you think about it that's actually quite extraordinary because in in many ways it's a cold call
22:12 um but because there was an affinity there i think you know alumni want to help their fellow alumni and and military people want to help their military fellow military people so yeah i i i think that's a absolutely is essential um i also i did a show on how to do a skills assessment um and and again there's i have a tool that people can use where they can figure it all out because and i recommend even going beyond just jobs and thinking about um uh like um non-profit work that somebody
22:48 did um you know volunteer work coaching for example if you were a coach for your you know child's um you know what is it pop warner football team for you know five years i mean that's that is a substantial demonstration of the ability to coach people train people etc oh and it's popcorn or football but i mean that's a you know nationally recognized program so i i encourage people to look at their experience in a very you know broad way you know absolutely cast the white now i often preach cast the white net don't be tunnel vision
23:23 to say just because i did x y or z in the military or in my last civilian job that should not preclude you from you know taking off the blinders look at different opportunities that may come down to pike you know if you didn't serve in the military other ways to network are organizations at the community level like rotary club key club key club lions club again all great organizations very civic minded often populated by people who are movers and shakers in that respective town or city so i would also encourage people in addition to their college alumni
23:59 connections don't forget the community-based organizations like the lion club lions flop or key club or rotary club to further assist you in terms of your networking yeah absolutely and it is funny what you mentioned about casting a wide net both in terms of you know what you've done but also in the organizations that you look to i i talk to you know people coming out of the marine corps and they'll say well you know i was marine corps infantry i don't think anybody's gonna pay me in the civilian world to go like this you know they call themselves trigger pullers i'm like you know shipmate
24:35 um while you may look at what you did is just pulling a trigger let's take a step back and and to use your language what i think is a great concept let's cast that wide net i mean the marine corps is absolutely brilliant at training in leadership etc um so you know i think part of it is sort of getting the blinders off and i think too coming out of college kids i should call them kids i shouldn't young people um they've done a lot typically in college beyond just you know attending classes so i think they need to look at that
25:10 you know in a in a broader you know wide net casted way as well so so that's that would that's you know sort of task number one what would you recommend then as as a second task if you will that that people really need to engage in and dig into well let me say you know once you have a pretty solid idea what it is you want to do in that next career and you've developed your resume you've done your your homework you've done your networking and you've decided you know i'm pretty interested in this particular field or fields you know you might think
25:45 about participating in job fairs so we have been hosting job fairs for over 25 years per your introduction in the last two and a half years or so we've been doing virtual events online virtual i.e virtual or online better know online job fairs and so the advantage of the online job fair of course now is that you can be searching for jobs nationwide without you know leaving your your home office so there is considerable interest among job seekers we've seen in working remotely and i think companies recognize
26:21 that you know if they're going to be competitive in terms of their acquisition of human capital they have to be somewhat more flexible than they were pre pandemic in how job seekers can interact now having said that some positions obviously are going to require the person to be there in person right so if you're working as a construction worker i don't see very many opportunities frankly to work virtually however you know in terms of information technology and other fields um in social media in public affairs you know
26:57 there are many different opportunities that have arisen whereby companies government agencies non-profits are allowing people a more hybrid base more flexible type of working arrangement so again one of the offshoots of the pandemic is kind of a rethinking of the what that model should look like the employee employer model so again there are now opportunities to work remotely one way of identifying those is through job fairs we as i said we've been running job fairs for 25 years we've done well over 200
27:34 job fairs if any of your any of your uh viewers are interested in looking at our events our website is corporate gray.com corporategradegray.com when our when they're on our site we have a link for job fairs and again we do one nationwide what we call call it a military friendly job fair every month that means our job fairs are especially for transition service members and veterans but open to all job seekers so again i just want to make sure the moniker military friendly is conveyed appropriately again i repeat to say it's
28:09 especially for those who served in our armed forces but open to all and we are now starting to do state-based events as well so starting in october we're going to do a job fair for maryland's veterans and maryland's employers so again you know we think that the job fairs are a great tool to help companies recruit people not just veterans but recruit individuals that go to work for them one thing i want to say here with regard to job fairs i want to give three recommendations and that is number one that's gonna be my follow-on question so
28:44 this is perfect make sure you research the companies research the companies and we kind of key that up for job seekers when they're on our side corporate gray to the left of the soldier there's a link that says view attending employers and that brings the the user the subscriber to our job page on that job for page there are three columns there's a list of the companies number one number two the second column has number of jobs posted and the third column is a linkedin button so when you click on the company name it opens up that company's profile so that you can learn about the company you can visit
29:19 the company's website you can see what the company has said about themselves when you click on the number of jobs posted it's going to run a job search for you for that company you can then add additional filters like keywords like state and window it down to those opportunities being offered by that state by that company in that in your state that appeared to be appropriate and then thirdly as i said more than once we think it's important you network with other people who are working for that company preferably veterans um if you're a vet so that those networking contacts can give you insights into what
29:54 that company is like what the corporate culture is like what types of opportunities um they have etc etc and really though go beyond the job openings but really get a better sensing as to what the culture is like what you know typically what's the process like so try and get information that goes beyond job listings that gives you a more a fuller picture of the company and the types of work that they do because as i said at the end of the day it's all about fit you know when you're in the military you have an assignment officer or a detailer well you're now that assignment officer you're now that detail officer it's up
30:30 to you to sell your skills and experience so as i say you know at the end of the day you're in charge of that sales effort you want to make sure you represent yourself in the best possible life so also make sure you have a good you know have some references that you can point to who can talk to what you've done in your civilian or military work world so having references that can again attest to your your skills your experience and why you should be seriously considered for their opportunity that too can be very very helpful um and before we continue i know you you
31:06 had a time limit um do you have a few minutes more or yes i do okay great so i i did want to mention um again this is going back maybe two three weeks i did a two-part i did two shows back to back on how do you figure out company culture organizational culture what are the sources you can use what are the questions you want to ask and and and talking about why it's so important so it's it's it's great to hear that you know there's a reinforcement there for that because i think that's a really overlooked aspect
31:42 some people get so when they don't have a job it's like i need a job it's like do yourself a favor figure out if this is a fit for you before you commit to working there because otherwise all you're doing is just churning through another job and i know that's very common among i i think the statistic and you may you may know this better than me at this point i think like two-thirds of service members leave their first post-military job after i think it's two years or three years something a huge turnover and a lot of it i think comes
32:17 down to not understanding the the environment that they're getting themselves into because they're so desperate just to make sure they have a job yeah after a year or so at booz buzan hamilton i was very comfortable with helping others and telling them what that corporate culture was like so there's nothing like having somebody on the inside that says look if you want to be successful in this company these are the things you need to concentrate on this is what's going to make for a successful career at the time in brazil i also think it's important to have a mentor so having a mentor is important in the
32:52 military it's important in the civilian work world as well and to me the value of that mentor is someone who can give you advice and insights when you come to a fork in the road you can go left that you can go right you've got you've got to make an important decision isn't it nice to talk to somebody who's been there and done that it can give you insights into what the pros and cons are of the different alternatives so the type of person i recommend to your audience in terms of selecting a mentor is maybe one level above you in the organization look for that rising star look for someone who's well thought up
33:27 who represents the firm or the government agency well you know you want to be like that person right they set the right example so again find that rising star latch onto them um look for people who are willing to who have interest in you and who can spend some time so it's it's not the president of the company if it's a big firm he or she is not the right person to be your mentor frankly um but as i said it's it's someone who's about one step above where you are in the organizational structure and then once you're there make sure you get back
34:03 right so i think it's not a one-way street i would also suggest that it's important that once you're in a position to make a difference to help others along the way that you get back accordingly absolutely so you mentioned to get ready to maximize um you know being at a job fair the preparation that you do you know learning about the companies learning about the positions available learning about the culture are there other things that um you know a a person should do in order to be able to sort of make maximum use of of job
34:40 fairs you know like the ones you do absolutely and not just ours so this recommendation i'm going to give is applicable whether or not it's at our job or anybody else's job here i think it's important that the job seekers search and apply for positions in advance and then because most of the job fairs are text based their chat text chat interactions between the recruiter and the job seeker type up why you think you're a good fit for that particular position for which you would apply so that you can quickly copy and paste into the block
35:15 again think it through company recruiters want to see people having applied for their positions in advance that's just going to give you a huge leg up so when you can apply for positions and be prepared to either text chat or verbally describe why you think you're a good fit for that organization i just think that puts you in a better light so i've heard this repeatedly from recruiters over the years is that they really want people to be searching and applying for those positions in advance so that when they get up to bat so to speak they're now
35:50 with the job fair virtual or in person if it's an impersonal event hopefully they the job seeker has internalized why they think they're a good fit and can be fluid in terms of quickly telling that recruiter here's a position for which i've replied here's why i think i'm a great fit um here are some references that will help attest to my demonstrated success so again i think it's important to do your homework and conversely on the company recruiter side we give the companies access to the resumes in advance with the hope that they will search the resumes of the job seekers and identify
36:27 people that they think are a good fit and reach out to them in advance of the event invite them to interview so you know honestly kevin it's a two-way street the recruiters have the responsibility to research to search the resumes of the veterans who are looking for that next opportunity to align their needs with the skills and experience of that bet and but perhaps more importantly the veteran needs to be able to again take advantage of the opportunity to find opportunities of interest plan advance and type up why they think they're good fit
37:02 so what should someone expect coming into and and then out of a job fair i mean are are they going to get offered a job you know during the fair or is that really in you know is that an unrealistic expectation i think it's somewhat unrealistic i'm not saying that that has never happened but for most uh i'd say a very high percent those companies have to do due diligence they have to vet the candidates if if the position requires a security clearance you know that increases the level of vetting that needs to be done they're going to check their references so you know it depends on the position but
37:38 i would submit to you that probably 95 or more of those interactions i would characterize those as screening interviews okay right to be fair those are screening interviews ultimately the company's trying to whittle down the number of people for a given position and then follow up maybe they come up with the top five candidates for for a position that they're trying to fill and then they'll do their due diligence they'll do the harder screen the deeper dive after the event is over so i want to be fair to the job seekers to say you know don't the expectation
38:13 should not be hired on the spot that not again not that it couldn't happen but it's rare and most companies and and the job seekers should want those companies to do their due diligence as well sure it's got to be at both ends i i would imagine as much research as one can do before the job fair there's still due diligence that probably the job seeker needs to do once they've been through a couple of you know um you know initial screening meetings etc etc right absolutely and honestly frankly at some point you really don't know the company
38:48 until you're there well but ultimately you you've got to give your best shot right to try to discern what that corporate culture is like you know one other area i one other suggestion i would give the job seekers is have a portfolio of your work right so have some online portfolio that you can talk to that you can say hey here here are examples of my work so i think you know i'm not from the show me state of missouri i'm in the commonwealth of virginia but at the end of the day having specific examples of your work online that you can demonstrate that you
39:23 can point to i think that could go a long ways as well so here's a question that i i hear um i seems like increasingly and that is um you know if if i've already applied to this company and we're in discussions and and it seems like it's going well you know do i really want to get into that kind of you know deep discussions with another company um and potentially cause a conflict so what what is your advice in terms of that aspect of job hunting
39:58 well i think until you have a written offer you're still in job search mode so just because it looks encouraging doesn't mean in my opinion that you should stop going on other interviews what you don't want to do however is play one company's written offer against another that will not sell them so my recommendation is continue to interview continue to go and meet with other companies until you have a written offer and you've accepted that offer but again don't play games with the written with what the salary offers of
40:34 one company versus the other it will not go well once the companies catch on to that and what is your exp let's say you know somebody has two or maybe even three companies chasing them and they they end up coming to terms with one and then shortly thereafter another company comes and says hey we want to hire you what is your experience with how that second company responds if they're told i'm sorry but i i took another position or conversely what is your experience if the person decides gosh i'd much rather be at this second company even though
41:09 i've accepted over here do i tell these people i'm not coming there after all would you talk to us a little bit about those kind of uh conflicts yeah that's a tricky one isn't it my general answer my patent answer is once you've accepted with the company i think you owe them you know probably at least six months they've spent time meeting with you and that's why i think it's really important that you really do your due diligence but i think once you've given your word to a company and you've said i accept your offer um
41:44 to me the word your bond and i think you owe them a good effort so whether or not that six months or nine months or a year i think uh i think you should do that and then the other company if they're really interested in you i think they'll understand if things don't work out with the first company then hey i'll come back also though i'd like to point out if you get turned down by a company i would send them a thank you note thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview with you um you never know you may have been number two on their list and number one didn't work out so i like to say treat everyone like
42:20 their general officer your government you know you know admiral whatever the case may be a flag officer you never know where that right opportunity may be so treat everyone with with respect from the lowest level employer you know secretary to the most senior person any of those can tube your application because i know when i was at new zealand they would go and ask the administrative assistant what she thought he shot at the time it was a sheep so just be aware that everyone all eyes are on you so i think as you go through
42:57 the job search process as you meet and interview with different levels of people they're all important you know here's the funny thing probably the only time i ever faced that issue because i've always been in business for myself was when i was in the navy and i had i had applied for a competitive position in the navy and i didn't get it and i i still sent you know a thank you actually i i was speaking to him i i said you know hey listen i appreciate you you you talking to me i appreciate the help you gave me and you know in and applying and uh you know perhaps there'll be you know some kind
43:33 of opportunity you know down the road and he's like you never know kind of thing and then i think it was maybe a month later he called me up and he said hey the number one candidate he he can't go you you're number two do you want to go right and and uh so you know i i think that there's a lot to be said for uh you know treating people the way we would want to be treated in this process no matter how frustrating because because it can be the job looking to be very very frustrating yeah it's very frustrating and it's a very tender time on your ego but just burn
44:08 those bridges yeah yeah right always be positive always be out there you never know what's around the corner so keep trying now what would you recommend for someone who has done due diligence on a company and having done that has decided gosh i don't want to work for this company um and you know do should they just kind of wait and see if they get an offer and decline it should they tell the company up front how how how should that be handled well i don't know if you need to tell
44:44 them that you're not interested i guess i would wait if they did then reach back out to me i would say i'm looking at other opportunities at this time so i don't i think the response should be respectful so i'm thinking about a friend of mine and he's a retired army colonel and his best opportunity was for more money than for the job that he accepted but he didn't like the ethics of the company that had offered him 200 000 a year so he went with the company that was offering him 150 000 a year so on we should all have those problems
45:19 i know but at the end of the day my point going back to what you're saying here is that you know make sure that i like to say you like the people you like the company you like the mission right it's not a two-hour commute one way so i'm here in the dc area you know there are many factors that you should consider when evaluating different employment opportunities you know what's the upward mobility opportunity how much training opportunity are you going to have how much vacation time am i going to have how many layers of
45:55 you know from where i am to work where i want to be so you know there are many different factors that go into this employment consideration i like to say that money matters but don't make money the overarching decision factor look at all the different different factors that come into play and again it kind of boils down to if you like the company do you like the people that you're going to be working with eight nine hours a day you like the mission do you see yourself fitting in very good is is there a a third task or a third area of of um focus that you would
46:33 recommend jump out me directly again i would refer them to our book military civilian transition guide we have in our book different factors we have a list of different factors that they could consider kevin maybe you can put the link to our ebook in in the uh in the information that you'll be providing absolutely i'll put it in the show notes for sure so people can just click straight through and and be able to it's i assume it's a pdf ready to download yes that's correct and
47:08 it's it's free so again we're not trying to sell any of your audience here on on reading our ebook but we feel that you know it's a good step-by-step process we talk about the nine steps in one's job search from self-assessment to writing one's resume to networking to conducting interviews and following up etc so i would recommend that they get a copy of our book i think they would find it hopefully a value and do you think that um someone who doesn't have a military background would benefit from from the the book as well
47:45 at least in terms of the process absolutely no absolutely much of the material a very high percent of the material it's going to be relevant um to your civilian job seekers as well so yes there are a few things that are you know military niche in nature military nation nature military specific but by and large as you just said uh the processes are the same so whether or not you're you're joe civilian or your military or jane or whatever you know the process is the same yeah um and are are your job fairs open to um
48:20 non-military people are they open to military spouses what is uh you know talk to us a little bit about that about that if you wouldn't mind yeah sure the way we coach it is we call military friendly so by that we mean they're especially for those who served in our armed forces plus military spouses so having said that if there are civilian job seekers who have interest and appear to have skills and experience that align with the company's needs certainly they're welcome to participate in our events right but i just want to make it clear that the focus our focus is on helping
48:57 the veteran connect but we again we're calling it military friendly all are welcome to participate right and i assume too uh there might be some benefit for um children of of military uh families who maybe they're you know they're out of high school now or they're out of college and um they know the military milieu if you will right they do so there may be some entry-level positions that are appropriate although i would say by and large most of the companies that are participating in our events are looking for people with military experience with the main knowledge
49:32 and i also want to make the point that not every position requires a security clearance so too often the job seekers are concerned that you know every job being offered by xyz company defense contractor is going to require a security clearance so that's not necessarily the case and in fact on the government agency side some that are in the classified intel world intelligence security world they'll do their own vetting so even even if you don't have a security clearance if they're interested in you you bring some special skills they'll go they'll take you through that
50:07 security clearance adjudication process so don't be overly concerned that if you don't have a clearance yes having a clearance helps it also depends on where you are so here in the washington dc metro area much of the work is being done in support of d.o.b by defense and many of the positions do require clearance but you know once you get outside of this area um in this civilian more in the civilian work world i think that you're going to find many more opportunities that don't require clearance and when you say you know kind of special uh
50:43 skills or would you give us a couple of examples of what that might be yeah one example is language proficiency so i was recently contacted by someone who's an iranian-american and he's interested in working for one of the government agencies in intelligence-based so here's someone who doesn't have a dod private security clearance but here's someone who has some specialized skills he knows farsi right he knows the native languages that could be very helpful very useful to a government agency that wants to keep track of what's going on in various locations in particular the middle east
51:20 okay excellent so um you know your uh your associate karen joined us i i do want to um karen if do you do you have a a question or something you want to add to the conversation here i don't want you to feel that you've been frozen out so no i've just been enjoying uh listening in this was uh this was great information excellent excellent and and you know you can give us the inside scoop how is it really working at corporate gray let's let's let's let's investigate their corporate culture here i'm i'm living the dream
51:55 [Laughter] good job carl you've got her you've got her you've got her drinking the kool-aid as they say yeah yeah karen karen's very valuable member of my team is as oliver so you know and just in closing i think it's you know again i say we built a business of service and a successful small business because we have a strong team right we're very small in terms of number of people who work for corporate gray but i think all my team members are
52:31 professional they're smart they're leaning forward they're loyal i know where they're i know that they're going to do the right thing when i'm not when i'm not watching so again having a nucleus of people that you can build around to help complement whatever skills and experience you you the business owner bring to the table is just so important right make sure you train your people appropriately make sure you treat them well and the rest will go swimmingly yeah yeah excellent excellent well karen thanks for for uh you know chiming in
53:06 here i appreciate it carl uh it was it was one first of all wonderful seeing it because we've been uh you know since the retirement i don't think we've seen each other we've talked on the phone but it's it's nice to see you i like i like your office i like the tile thank you looks like you ought to be here in california i know right maybe i'm not visiting again we used to do job fairs in san diego by the way oh did you oh well yeah big yeah big uh navy and uh marine corps town of course absolutely absolutely well carl thank you so so much i do want to let everybody know um as we've kind of talked through the show
53:42 here um the in the show notes i will have a link to carl's website corporate gray um but if you want to look it up it is g r a y not e y so a y if you want to take a look at that there will be the link to the uh to carl's uh website in the show notes and we'll also put in a link where you can download a a free copy of of carl's book i do want to emphasize a couple of things and that is if you are a job seeker everything that corporate gray provides is at no cost so when we talk about a subscription or something like that
54:17 there's no cost to any of these things it's just it if and i'm i'm one of the subscribers so i i know i get periodic emails about um job fairs about resources etc and they're they're absolutely excellent so i i encourage you um even you know even if you're not looking for a job right now but you think you might be in six months 12 months now is the perfect time to start building up your resources building up your knowledge base and so jump on onto the corporate grade website become a
54:53 subscriber start seeing what's going on seeing what's out there um listen you know you may decide where you're at is actually a good place when you see what's out there although the job market you know remains very very strong so uh before before i i do my final wrap up carl any sort of you know we used to say you know last last shots here any uh anything you want to add here before we wrap up kevin again i appreciate the opportunity for bringing me on uh hopefully what i have said today will be a benefit to your audience and i look forward to seeing you again
55:28 soon that sounds great well i i know it'll be of benefit to people watching it what you have said is is is so cogent so right on point so thank you very very much so um stay tuned again we're we're here every wednesday 12 30 p.m pacific time 3 30 p.m eastern time an hour in from each uh from each of the interior time zones and a couple of reminders one is if you have a remarkable way of making a living or you know someone who does feel free to let me know maybe we'll have you
56:04 as a guest or or have the person you know is a guest we're i'm always looking for people who can not only inform but also inspire i mean when you look at carl's story 30 years ago he got out of the army and and now he's the owner of a small business that's helping probably thousands of people every year and and it's it's he enjoys it he works with great people so i you know carl is really kind of an icon of what we're working to do for everyone here on the way to wow people making money
56:39 it's not it's not about making a ton of money necessarily it's about finding that place of of professional satisfaction so if again if you know someone if you have a question about anything or an idea something you want to learn about again send us a um an email the our email address will be in the show notes or make a comment on either social media that we're on be happy to take a look at that and respond so it just remains for me to as i always uh do to end the show to uh remind i think it's mostly myself frankly of my
57:15 dear friend marie who had such a tremendous influence on my life a dear dear friend who um has has been gone now for uh about three years little over three years um she made a big big impact on my life um and and so i think about her every day up there in heaven and so marie darling i just want to remind you that no matter what happens no matter where life goes you are still my bell so thank you all very much for watching karen thanks for joining us carl thank you very very much for being a guest and
57:50 hopefully we'll see each other soon thanks again kevin thank you you too