How You Show Up: Bridget "Doc" Miller, Oracle Talent Advisor, US Army Veteran, Military Spouse

MAVEN

Bridget’s personal and career journey is marked by purpose, resilience, and an evolving understanding of what it means to lead with intention. From her early ambitions to her role today in supporting veteran transitions through coaching for role fit, she shares how her personal and professional experiences have shaped her approach to career growth and mentorship. Through honest reflections, Doc talks about developing the self-awareness to identify what she truly wanted, and how that clarity transformed the way she shows up—in her relationships, her work, and in the guidance she offers others. You will hear a grounded take on the realities of ambition, the importance of emotional balance, and how veterans and military spouse’s can translate their strengths—like grit and drive—into any environment without losing what makes them unique. With insights on communication, adaptability, and owning your story, this episode is a thoughtful look at how to move forward with purpose, and why doing the internal work is often the most important part of any process…to include getting from where you are to where you want to be. https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetmiller1001/ https://www.oracle.com/veterans https://www.oracle.com/careers/ -------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;34;00 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by Bridget Doc Miller, Oracle talent advisor, U.S. Army veteran, and military spouse. Bridget's personal and career journey is marked by purpose, resilience, and an evolving understanding of what it means to lead with intention.

00;00;34;00 - 00;00;55;11 Unknown From her early ambitions to a role today in supporting veteran transitions through coaching for role fit, she shares how her personal and professional experiences have shaped her approach to career growth and mentorship. Through Honest reflections, doc talks about developing the self-awareness to identify what she truly wanted and how that clarity transformed the way she shows up in her relationships, her work, and in the guidance she offers others.

00;00;55;12 - 00;01;20;08 Unknown In this episode, you'll hear a grounded take on the realities of ambition, the importance of emotional balance, and how veterans and military spouses can translate their strengths like grit and drive into any environment without losing what makes them unique. With insights on communication, adaptability, and owning your story, this episode is a thoughtful look at how to move forward with purpose and why doing the internal work is often the most important part of any process to include getting from where you are to where you want to be.

00;01;20;08 - 00;01;39;01 Unknown We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Doc's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;39;03 - 00;02;02;24 Unknown Bridget Miller. Doc, what is going on? Hey, how are you? So good. How are you doing? Doing all right. So we're here talking about some things. We're coming into Military Appreciation Month, and for you, I'm sure that's considered every month. Veteran's day is every day, that type of thing. Spouse day is every day, every day, every day. So let's do that.

00;02;02;28 - 00;02;24;12 Unknown Let's talk about Bridget Doc Miller. Yeah, sure. First of all, you know how much I love talking about myself. So you must have some special magic to get me to agree to this, but really excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. I guess going back to the beginning, I grew up in Ohio, went and did my undergraduate, the university of Akron.

00;02;24;14 - 00;02;45;09 Unknown And then during that time, that's where I enlisted into the Army within the National Guard component. So I was A68 whiskey or a medic within the National Guard. I would say that's kind of the point. That really changed the pathway of my life. And I've been working with the military population pretty much ever since then. In college.

00;02;45;09 - 00;03;08;11 Unknown That's where I met my husband, Tyler. Back then, he was a, you know, cadet in ROTC. I loved making fun of him for that one, but he eventually commissioned, when active duty, and we actually spent the first six months of our marriage geo batching. So that was pretty much a crash course in the solitary lifestyle of a military spouse that we see sometimes.

00;03;08;14 - 00;03;32;25 Unknown And I really got to see, you know, the military affiliation from a new perspective. During that time, I stayed back in Ohio while he did his initial entry training. So that that bullock training that Army officers need to go to when they first start finished up my MBA. It was definitely just a total head down, grinding time of my life that it is absolutely quick as I could.

00;03;32;27 - 00;03;57;18 Unknown And I also worked in the military science department helping recruit for the RTC program. Got to do some pretty cool stuff while I was in that role. Even got to read my husband's commissioning, as the MC, which was pretty cool. We met back up later, my husband and I at Fort Bragg and I worked for a university, helping to build their military pipeline as a national military recruiter.

00;03;57;21 - 00;04;23;19 Unknown So traveled around all over the United States just helping build that military affiliated pipeline, meeting tons and just awesome people. That role in particular was, you know, really life changing. I developed really quickly as a professional and learned how to hold my own in a roomful of veterans that looked different than me. Right? I was the only woman veteran at the time.

00;04;23;23 - 00;04;48;23 Unknown I worked with only male military retirees. So I was the young woman in a crowd that just was completely different on the experience level than I was, but I had a really good leader there. Shout out to Bob Habib if he's listening. But he always amplified my voice, and he really gave me a seat at the table in the veteran space, which I think was the push that I needed.

00;04;48;26 - 00;05;09;17 Unknown I couldn't take that role with me when we pieces. We ended up moving after a few years to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and I couldn't take it with me there. But honestly, that was kind of a blessing in disguise. Because that's how I landed here at Oracle. Started as a military veteran sourcing a recruiter, actually, at that time, got to work pretty close with you.

00;05;09;17 - 00;05;34;11 Unknown And that's how we met. So loved that experience. But I was helping build the military veteran pipelines into multiple of the military pathways here at Oracle. So things like that academy, you know, skill bridge, sweet beds, those types of things, and then later moved into the talent advisor role handling the full cycle of the candidate experience from, you know, that first call all the way to the offer.

00;05;34;14 - 00;05;59;07 Unknown And I still have some hands and things like skill bridge, sweep pads, those types of programs as well. Now where I'm at today, I am currently out of Fort Campbell, Tennessee. We are kind of in the midst of a PKS move right now, like we were talking about before this, to the Washington, DC area. So moving to Springfield, dealing with the new military, moving contracts and all of that.

00;05;59;07 - 00;06;22;17 Unknown So I'm definitely kind of in the middle of all of those challenges. But looking forward to moving there next month. Very nice, very precise backstory. Appreciate the the work putting in there to make it simple. There's no doubt way too much detail. No, no, I think you just write them out. You left out a piece though, because you're going on a career path and talking about education in somewhere in there.

00;06;22;17 - 00;06;52;02 Unknown You earned a PhD. Yeah. So that leader that I had mentioned, doctor Bob Habib, he it really encouraged me to kind of pursue my passion of working with the military population. And at the time, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to look like. I knew I wanted to have an impact on military affiliated individuals, whether that be spouses, veterans, active service members, whatever it was, I knew that's the space I wanted to be in.

00;06;52;04 - 00;07;17;26 Unknown And when you get to that level of education, it's really nice because you can kind of tailor everything you do over multiple years to a very specific topic. So you're going really deep into one topic, not so narrow across a variety of topics. So. So the next few years I researched and developed a seminar series I kind of wrote.

00;07;18;00 - 00;07;48;12 Unknown I would call it like a mini book, right? My dissertation equivalency. But that centered around how organizations can recruit, retain, develop military affiliated individuals. Where I saw the need was, you know, I originally went in thinking that I would help develop something that would help transitioning service members, moving into the corporate space. But I realized that those programs were out there.

00;07;48;12 - 00;08;14;02 Unknown There was a lot of programs out there that already address that need, and what I didn't see as much of was, from the organizational perspective, how we can bring veterans in and support them through their corporate journey as well. So that seminar series was a three part series. So the first one was just familiarity of the military population, kind of educating organizational leaders on the basics.

00;08;14;02 - 00;08;35;29 Unknown I remember, you know, during my like pre seminar series assessment, one of the questions was can you name the branches of the military and very, very few of the participants were able to do that. So I noticed that a lot of the main findings around readiness for veterans just centered around the general education to the public about the military population.

00;08;36;01 - 00;08;57;24 Unknown So that was kind of the first thing to tackle. And then after that, we dug a lot more into the recruitment and then specifically the retention of that population as well. Nice. I'm taking nice, nice. Yes, because it all ties back. And if if anybody's familiar, if anybody listening is familiar with how RDoC works now, it makes sense.

00;08;57;29 - 00;09;17;18 Unknown It's everything should click right now because you have you have a yeah I know you're very humble and yes to go back to what you're saying, it did take a couple of attempts to try to get Bridgette on on the podcast here, because it is it is to, to define what the what what the top track would include and things like that.

00;09;17;18 - 00;09;33;28 Unknown And so but the reality is your influence is greatly appreciated because of what you do and how you do the how you do what you do for the recruiting and then the conversations. I think even though recruiting is a channel and that's the focal, the focal point of what what you're doing, but why you're doing it is not that so much.

00;09;33;28 - 00;10;03;00 Unknown I mean, it is it's inclusive, but it's not same. It's it's the purpose. So let's go back a bit, because a lot of the stuff that we talk about when we're having a conversation about what we do, and then as life occurs and the more that we're involved in what we're doing, whether it's a career or a, you know, a profession or a habit, hobby, what have you, it's why so early on when you chose to go in the National Guard, what was the reason?

00;10;03;02 - 00;10;36;18 Unknown Yeah, I know you're going to ask this. I'm pretty predictable. If you listen to me, I said I would. I would love to say that I joined because I had a long family line of military service or, you know, something like that. But I think if I'm being completely honest with myself and with you, I just got got by a recruiter, a recruiter got me at the right time, right place, right point in my life where, you know, I was in college and I was trying to self-fund my way through college.

00;10;36;18 - 00;11;04;01 Unknown And the benefits of joining the military were something that made sense in my life for me to do. So. Yeah, I was young. I am so glad that it happened. Because I think it made me who I am today. And I don't think I realized it at the time, but I'm definitely the type of person that enjoys working towards a shared goal and working in an area that's bigger than myself.

00;11;04;01 - 00;11;25;19 Unknown So if I hadn't enlisted, I think that my life would be in a very different place than it is now. So yeah, super glad I think I was just right time, right place and the right recruiter reached out. That's why I enlisted that. That's good. And of course, be honest completely with yourself. Yeah, jokes aside, because that does matter.

00;11;25;19 - 00;11;49;26 Unknown I mean, and I would love to talk about that. We'll put a pin in it, because I think that statement alone is important for the things that occur now when, yeah, when you're paying it forward and trying to have a conversation with somebody as to why they're wanting what they're wanting and introspect is important. So being being honest with yourself is, is the number one thing that for instance factor accelerator.

00;11;49;26 - 00;12;07;16 Unknown Right. So the Honor Foundation has a the project vector accelerator that that has been spun up that focuses on that identity. Being honest with yourself on what you want to do and what you want to achieve and things like that. So it is a part of the equation. But now we're going to the medic, because even though I think if I, if I didn't know, which I really don't.

00;12;07;16 - 00;12;24;09 Unknown So this is going to be I'm going to learn from this also it yeah, it does track as to why selfless reasoning. Even though you're trying to put yourself through college, there was a point to go into that, because the reason why you chose to do that still includes selflessness. Which medic that track, but not talk about that.

00;12;24;09 - 00;12;50;04 Unknown Why? Why medic. Yeah. So a couple of reasons. My undergrad was actually pre pre med. I had planned originally to go into physician assistant school, after graduation. And, and I'm not doing that just because of kind of the path that my life was on at the time. But I was pre-med in my undergrad. So, you know, I was I was booksmart, and I had the scores to be able to do it.

00;12;50;06 - 00;13;15;14 Unknown I remember I went into my recruiter's office and I had told him I wanted to be the closest thing I could to infantry, which at the time was not an option for me as a woman. So, yeah, I think based on, you know, the scores, my, my background, the things that I enjoyed in the medical field and then just trying to get me closer to, you know, back then the cool guy stuff.

00;13;15;14 - 00;13;36;21 Unknown Right. That just aligned really well. And yeah, super glad I did it. Because of the length of, you know, things like I for medics, I actually split up that experience. So after freshman year of college, I went to basic training, for Excel to finish up my sophomore year of college. And then we had something called the split option.

00;13;36;23 - 00;13;58;02 Unknown So I did it sophomore year. I think I missed one semester and a full summer of school, and then spent that time at Fort Sam Houston going through medical it, getting my EMT, things like that. Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for those. Listen, beautiful Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the first time I've ever heard somebody having been there for in the conversations I've had.

00;13;58;04 - 00;14;20;21 Unknown So welcome to the board. Fort sill. So how was that experience that, you know, so let's talk about the recruiter real quick. I mean, the skill sets, because you are one didn't learn anything from what you experienced back then. Stick with you to what you're doing now. Yeah, 100% transparency is the number one thing that sticks out when we're talking about that.

00;14;20;21 - 00;14;42;16 Unknown I am a big believer and transparent and see and finding the right fit for somebody. I don't agree with the concept of kind of selling a role, and I've never seen anyone at Oracle do that, by the way. But, I have seen recruiters do that where maybe they're using excitement of certain things to get somebody into a specific military MOS.

00;14;42;19 - 00;15;21;25 Unknown But he was really transparent about, you know, how difficult that would be, especially as a small small framed person right on five foot. So going to meet a guy I knew that would be a big physical challenge for me. So he was really transparent. And the growth that I needed to have before going to be successful, and I kind of use that in my role now, because when I'm talking with somebody, I want to be very transparent about, you know, what the interview process is, what the role they're interviewing looks like, what that means for them.

00;15;21;28 - 00;15;45;28 Unknown And in addition, addressing those gaps and having some coachable conversations, especially with the military population on how they can address those gaps throughout their interviews. Right. They may not have this very specific skill, but they have something along those same lines from their military background. So helping folks kind of translate that conversation as well. Yeah, I think he caught on that.

00;15;45;28 - 00;16;04;17 Unknown If you if you use the words give me as close to infantry as possible, he's probably playing off of that says, yeah, well yeah. Okay. So good on him. You remember. Yeah. 18 year old duck. Yeah. Todd Everett, great guy. Actually recently transitioned. I had to send this to him when I, when it lists out, but.

00;16;04;25 - 00;16;30;26 Unknown Yeah. Great, dude. Nice. Super thankful. Good. So so while while you're going through all of that, you know, you going for your MBA? My guess is challenge had become and obviously the alignment between pursuing educational goals. But challenge seems to be something that's in your vocabulary up front. You love a challenge. Yeah. Do you? Yeah. I can get antsy when something becomes too easy.

00;16;30;26 - 00;16;50;19 Unknown So when that happens, I find some way to create a challenge in a fun way. You know, going from like even here at Oracle, going from sourcing, which is the front half to moving into full cycle, that created a challenge for me or, you know, finished with school. But maybe I wanted to pursue something a little deeper. That was definitely a challenge.

00;16;50;19 - 00;17;14;05 Unknown So absolutely, definitely something I value. All right. And then and then we get to the intention to pursue the PhD with the specialty occupying your time with another significant challenge with the MBA pursuing that. But but essentially, it sounds like you were driving towards something that you and tell me if I'm wrong on this, you're instinctively gravitating towards something very specific.

00;17;14;07 - 00;17;38;13 Unknown Where was that in your timeline before you decided to go into pursue the PhD in that particular topic? What happened? It stemmed from being a recruiter for that university, right? So it was essentially my role to travel the United States, go to things like career fairs or education fairs or whatever it may be specific to the military population.

00;17;38;13 - 00;18;05;26 Unknown And I was traveling to military installations, speaking with spouses, with transitioning service members. And I just saw the. Complete anxiety that comes with a transition like that, when people are leaving the security of a military occupation. Right. And at the time, I was addressing it in my role with, okay, here's the next steps for things like education, right?

00;18;05;26 - 00;18;26;00 Unknown So when you're leaving the military, you're either going to go to work, maybe you're retiring, but you're either going to go to work or you're going to go to school. There's a basically the two main options. So at the time I was addressing it on the education side, but I saw all of this anxiety surrounding the transition and truly just the identity shift.

00;18;26;00 - 00;18;54;09 Unknown And that is where that triggered in me wanting to be able to address that specific piece. Right? That three, four month period right before you leave and right after you leave the military. That's where I wanted to make the impact, because that's a pivotal moment in somebody's life. And so I got the education piece from my role and then decided to dig in on the transition, specifically through the educational journey.

00;18;54;11 - 00;19;30;27 Unknown You know, like I mentioned, I had originally intended to make it more of a transitioning program for military veterans. How they can translate their resume is how they can advocate for themselves in interviews. But what I found was that space was already saturated, did in the market with different programs. What I didn't see was programs that were designed for organizations to understand, you know, they're at the point where they've made the decision of, yes, we want veterans or yes, we want military affiliated individuals here, but they're at this now.

00;19;30;27 - 00;20;13;17 Unknown What crossroads, right. So after I think it was maybe like six months, starting that original transitioning year, I switched over to address the now what organizations looking to hire military affiliated individuals. Got it. And so to your question, it did. And thanks for that. And I was a little fuzzy on the ask, but it is typically because you you briefly mentioned it obviously in your intro, as you said, you walk us through the timelines, but it's, you know, I'm usually I notice that there's there's a flash point, even though we generalize and we talk through this, the story at a high level to give, give a sense, a general sense of what occurred.

00;20;13;20 - 00;20;45;03 Unknown There's usually a circumstance or an event, a specific event that occurred where the switch flips and then you all of a sudden are intentionally focused with relentless pursuit of that thing, you know, and this is the little that I do know of you having worked with you early on, I mean, early in in my short attempt at becoming a recruiter, tough to hang with the big dogs, talking to, talking about doc here, you just say, I need 20 and you blink and all of a sudden the next morning you got 20.

00;20;45;06 - 00;21;13;14 Unknown So you have these on Rolodex. How do you get so many people so fast? Well, you know, we'll talk about that. But there's usually an occurrence and and that drives, I think, what embeds ourselves to where we embody the, the purpose. Right. And that's the drive that makes it consistent. Right. And the conviction I think is in your recruiting, in your talk tracks and some of those, you know, the way that you're having a dialog with somebody where they you establish the trust that shines through.

00;21;13;14 - 00;21;34;29 Unknown And I'm just looking to see what what appeared for you. Yeah, it was definitely a slow burn for me. I think the only point in time where it was an absolute like, I'm only targeting this, was when I couldn't take my role with me from Fort Bragg, when we PKS to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I remember, it was like January that year.

00;21;34;29 - 00;21;53;00 Unknown We had just moved in and my husband was like, okay, what do you want to do? And I said, here's exactly what I want to do. I want to work for a fortune 500 company. I want to have a great impact on the veteran population, and I want to be specifically working in some type of talent acquisition space.

00;21;53;02 - 00;22;19;28 Unknown And then, I mean, I'm a big proponent of faith based open doors. And I got exactly that. You can tell Oracle. Yeah. Agreed. I mean, but you earned it. Just to be clear. Yeah. Not to go too far into that, you know, it's when you set it up, you're prepared for the opportunity and you are absolutely, seemingly putting in the work to get to that part, to have earned the opportunity.

00;22;20;01 - 00;22;37;29 Unknown Let's talk a little bit about now where you're at at that stage is the the military spouse. Now, you know, you've just recently landed a new spot and good on your husband for asking the question and including you and saying, what do you want to do? I mean, it's that not to that, because that sometimes isn't all the time happen.

00;22;38;01 - 00;22;57;14 Unknown Yeah, he really gave me the space to figure out exactly what I wanted and the time to find it, which is a luxury that I'm really thankful for. Yeah, I that so once, once you once you got to once you had the opportunity to to think about what you wanted and you were very intentional on what you were looking for.

00;22;57;21 - 00;23;28;14 Unknown Fortune 500 having an impact. You came here. How has it gone so far, like from when you started, which was when? About three, three and some change years ago? Three and some change. Yeah. And from then to now, what's worked well, and what are some of the things that you're still working through to improve for, not only for yourself, but as you're experiencing putting it all together on focused on the veterans, really a community trying to help business leaders find the right talent for their teams and things like that.

00;23;28;17 - 00;23;56;00 Unknown You know, help us. Help us see what you experienced so far. When I started out, I was very specific to the military population, so I started I was a military source. They're very specific to the military affiliated population. I did that for about a year. And so during that time, I really built up my military and affiliated network and LinkedIn, what you refer to as the Rolodex, right.

00;23;56;00 - 00;24;22;11 Unknown Just like these individuals that I talk to often reconnect with within this space. And that did a lot with other organizational, you know, military affiliated talent. Folks worked a lot with military talent program management here. And when I moved over to the team after that, I actually moved out of what would technically be considered like a military population recruiter.

00;24;22;11 - 00;24;49;02 Unknown Right. But I don't think a lot of people realize that because I still put so much effort into building the military pipeline here. So even though it wasn't necessarily in my job description to do that, I think that it was really important with my background to just advocate for those types of candidates. Those types of candidates transition and then try to create space.

00;24;49;02 - 00;25;15;09 Unknown When I'm working with hiring managers for those military affiliated individuals to fit what they're looking for. Right? So, yeah, I think even though I'm not, you know, necessarily in that military role now, I still try to have the impact on that population and as much as I possibly can. Got it. Yeah. I imagine it bleeds into other things too, where you know, you're taking the best of of what's worked.

00;25;15;09 - 00;25;41;17 Unknown And then, yeah, refining it and improving the new space that you're in. And this changed where you transitioned into this role here. It was just in the last two months ish. Right? I want to say it was October 2022 as a tan advisor on the early career team. So I was doing full cycle with that. And then just recently, you know, a few weeks ago I moved over to more experienced talent advisory role.

00;25;41;17 - 00;26;11;06 Unknown So working on higher level higher, I got into graduate relations on that. I because you said it, I'm not we're not worried that you're abandoning you still helping to kind of never never because I want to weave in some things. So you know we're we're talking about your own career. You know, you were afforded the opportunity and of course, supported with your family in, in what your goals included on on individualizing your focus and, and having your own thing.

00;26;11;09 - 00;26;33;14 Unknown Yeah. What are some of the things that military spouse go through, you talked about early on being separated over a period of time, talking about some of the goals and aspirations that you have, and unfortunately, you've had support doing that. Yeah. You just said the challenges with the military spouse life. Yeah. It's a long list. Yeah. So I talked a little bit about job matching at the beginning.

00;26;33;16 - 00;26;51;19 Unknown You know when my husband was at Fort Leonard Wood and I was in Ohio job matching for those that don't know is when your spouse lives at a different installation than you do, fairly common in the military spouse life. And that's definitely a kind of a solitary experience. So I have dealt with that. You know, other challenges.

00;26;51;19 - 00;27;24;05 Unknown I don't think we touched on it actually, in the introduction, but I do have two children. I have a four year old and a seven month old as of yesterday, dealing with deployments with children is indescribable. How much of a challenge that can be? I think that, you know, folks that haven't been a military spouse, especially with deployments or long TDY, is they might grasp the concept of their spouse being away.

00;27;24;12 - 00;27;46;05 Unknown But I think when you compile that with, you know what they say, it takes a village, right? With children when your village is in a different state, right? Everyone you know, everyone you can lean on for support is in a different state, far away. I mean, the closest we've ever lived is eight hours from family. So when my husband is gone or deployed, it's it's just me.

00;27;46;07 - 00;28;18;28 Unknown So that is definitely a challenge. Just maintaining their routine and their sense of normalcy during that time, trying to work on your own professional development, trying to get some chicken nuggets on a table, just whatever it is. It's a challenge that I think that it's a really it's a hard concept to grasp until you go through it. Even me, military background, military spouse, my first diplomat with children was, very eye opening.

00;28;19;00 - 00;28;48;00 Unknown And I have a newfound respect for folks who have, you know, lots of kids that do lots of deployments. And then I would say, finally, the challenge of your career or your aspirations, just by the nature of the military, essentially have to come second a lot of the times, right? So, for example, this year coming up, if I didn't have a role that could move with me, which was very intentional, you know, coming to Oracle, I made sure that that was an option.

00;28;48;00 - 00;29;09;17 Unknown But if I didn't have a role that could come with me, I would have to leave right when I worked at Regent and when I couldn't take that role with me, it wasn't an option, and I had to leave a role that I just absolutely loved. So that is definitely a big challenge, especially for, you know, a military spouse that is within the working space.

00;29;09;19 - 00;29;38;02 Unknown So I would say those are the three biggest things, really, just the solitary lifestyle getting used to that, you know, not having the ability to lean on support that is physically with you, your career kind of being second to the military and then just needing to to leave sometimes. Thanks for sharing that. And yes, it is, it is an experience that it if you haven't gone through it conceptually, you can understand.

00;29;38;04 - 00;30;08;16 Unknown But yeah. So you know, it is truly an experience and and shout out to all of those that are doing it. It's not easy. So you're moving through into a different role, but your focus and your participation and your engagement still includes helping others understand the differences. So, you know, I'm going to kind of weave this back into that part where you were focused on organizations and educating them on understanding the the community or the demographic that they're hiring.

00;30;08;18 - 00;30;29;17 Unknown How much how much of that still plays a part in what you do here. Again, going back to helping business leaders find the right people and then making sure that the hiring side, not the the candidacy side, the hiring side is, is as informed as possible on why this person is in front of them and understanding the dynamics of that individual going into that.

00;30;29;17 - 00;30;59;06 Unknown That process is still a huge part of my role. Definitely. Having those conversations with hiring leaders to understand that, you know, being open minded to the military background can be really beneficial. You know, a lot of times there's a lot more in a military affiliated resumé than maybe meets the eye. Right? Unless they have just amazing translation skills and know little corporate space very well.

00;30;59;09 - 00;31;18;20 Unknown A lot of the times it's a simple matter of something like wording or leaving something out, right? Like for example, you know, you have a lot of NetSuite folks on, and if I talk to a military affiliated Canada and say, hey, do you know, you know, what an ERP system is? They say, no, but they were a super user in GCS.

00;31;18;20 - 00;31;52;15 Unknown It's like, well, there's a lot of relevant experience that you might have. That's more than more than meets the eye. And so I have those conversations pretty frequently with hiring leaders, just about kind of being open minded to the different military backgrounds, understanding specifically what is trainable and what we're looking for. And I think for hiring leaders, understanding what is trainable and what is coachable is really key, because a lot of the times those things that aren't coachable are the soft skills that military affiliated individuals just absolutely crush, right?

00;31;52;15 - 00;32;14;11 Unknown They bring the grit that is necessary for a lot of roles. They bring the things like longevity and commitment there to term, and they have integrity. So they're always working with integrity and things like that that are, to be honest, quite an easy sell for the population because those are the things that we can't teach. Those are the things that you have to search for in a candidate.

00;32;14;13 - 00;32;39;29 Unknown So as with strengths, many strengths, you know, they can help you and they can they can hurt you for lack of better ways of saying it. Yeah. You know, I have grit. What are some of the downsides of also that's inclusive of that. Having that quality that that you'd have to coach these candidates through to understand the level of I know I'm going to use this word the intensity, right.

00;32;39;29 - 00;33;07;24 Unknown Or the, the dense, the density. Yeah. That, that particular characteristic. Yeah. I think with that, the only time that I see, I guess, what you would consider the potential downside of those types of attributes are like grit, for example, is, you know, when you're moving through the hiring process or speaking with potential hiring leaders. Like you said, the intensity in which you describe that grit, or whatever that soft skill is.

00;33;07;27 - 00;33;29;03 Unknown So, you know, say, for example, we are really looking for somebody that can have clear, concise communication, right? And then that individual has clear, concise communication every day with the hiring leader. Or they're really determined for the role, but they're reaching out to the hiring leader twice a day, every day trying to get an update right. So everything can always go too far.

00;33;29;03 - 00;33;56;24 Unknown Eventually, every strength eventually could become a weakness. So I think on the front end of that, just coaching candidates to understand what is culturally acceptable in the corporate workforce. That may have been different in the military, right. If you're constantly trying to get an update on your paperwork from your S-1, your, your, your as when you're knocking on the door every single day trying to get an answer.

00;33;56;24 - 00;34;22;11 Unknown And that's sometimes the way you get the answer right. But that doesn't work in our space. So I guess coaching, like you mentioned, the intensity of those soft skills is key in finding success. Yeah, and I bring that up. And it's not to degrade or diminish the the quality. It's to give an understanding of balance. Right. You know that when we talk about what we see, if we serve we see this.

00;34;22;11 - 00;34;42;04 Unknown If you see it in competitive sports, you see it, you know, it's let's let's go. You know, the the highly motivated ready to ready to run through things to get to the end state. You know that's important. But it's also, you know to an extreme example of explaining it's to be the doc right. You can have have that calm appearance on the outside.

00;34;42;04 - 00;35;18;12 Unknown But that fire and tenacity can be burning inside. But you have to learn to control some of these things and, and I and that's what I wanted to call out with you, especially with your background on focusing how to how to educate those on understanding both sides. If there's an emphasis on you know, consideration for what the optics would include or what the perception of others might have, when you show too much ambition, too much potential and desire in these types of things, it comes in, in the enthusiasm, walking into an environment to where, yeah, there's going to be some change needed.

00;35;18;14 - 00;35;46;06 Unknown And for those who are skilled to see immediately in an environment or a condition or a situation where we're skilled and seeing the field of play, if you will, before the play develops. There's a there's a tact that we still have to include in communicating effectively what was being observed, instead of just go and try and fix it, are going to tell people, hey, there's a problem there, I'm gonna fix it.

00;35;46;09 - 00;36;14;06 Unknown There's a casualness that needs to be deployed at that point. And, and this is mostly for the folks that are very excited about the role. Yeah. That I always tell. Yeah, I always tell folks to, to try to match the energy of the hiring. It's right. Yeah. If you're going into a meeting and your your interviewer is very calm and composed and kind of, you know, soft spoken or something, that you're not going in there talking about how you're just going to crash everything all the time.

00;36;14;06 - 00;36;38;08 Unknown And. Yeah, so matching the energy is like, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Because my, my question, although I could have been a little bit more concise. What are some of the tips and tricks. And you just nailed it. It's match the energy that's better safe than sorry is to have more adaptability to what they're saying. And and of course what they're saying.

00;36;38;14 - 00;37;06;14 Unknown And you don't overplay, what else what tips and tricks. Yeah. What other things are there since we're down here? Yeah, I would say for job seekers, first things first is take ownership of your hunt. Understand exactly what you want. A lot of the times, and you probably see this as well, that a lot of the times will have, you know, folks reach out, especially from the military space.

00;37;06;16 - 00;37;22;22 Unknown Maybe they'll send me their resume on LinkedIn and say, hey, do you have anything for me? That is not, you know, taking ownership of your job hunt. Kind of like in the military, they always say, nobody cares as much about your career progression as you do. Right? So I think first things first is you got to figure out what you want.

00;37;22;22 - 00;37;43;12 Unknown And if you don't know what you want, that's totally fine. But doing things like having informational interviews with people in that role already are absolutely key. A recruiter can only provide so much information. A career coach can only provide so much information. So if you don't know exactly what you want to do, talk to people that are doing it every day.

00;37;43;12 - 00;38;04;00 Unknown Get the good, the bad, the ugly, and then be super clear when you're talking to hiring leaders, whether that be hiring managers, recruiters, whoever it is about what you want and why you're a fit for it. So doing the work first before you're you're having that outreach. Yeah. I mean, honestly, those are probably the two big takeaways that I could think of.

00;38;04;03 - 00;38;22;14 Unknown Now. That's a good one. I mean, those are those probably are the umbrella to which everything else falls into place after that. Because once you once you start to connect to that and then you do the work to understand what that means by identifying, well, considering we talked about it and we'll start to segue into the close, you're about it.

00;38;22;14 - 00;38;50;01 Unknown You no one know what you want. And that comes by way of being honest with yourself, more so than exactly right. Exactly. Want to comment on that or that's about where it's at. Where it is self-explanatory. Yeah, I think that's where it is. Just self-reflection is really key in your transition, and the only way to minimize that anxiety in the job search is to know exactly what you want and target it with laser focus.

00;38;50;04 - 00;39;06;14 Unknown And that port has a sub component to know what that is. What I don't know what I do. I don't know what I want to do, I know what I did, and I'm probably going to be comfortable in this. You probably hear this in every episode of this conversation that we have on the podcast. Is, you don't have to do what you did unless you want to.

00;39;06;16 - 00;39;25;05 Unknown Okay? Right. Yeah, I post about that a lot on LinkedIn. Your role in the corporate workforce or wherever you're moving, it does not have to do it does not have to be anything like what you did in the military. I am not a medic. I'm not an EMT. And I'm doing I think, okay, am I role. So yeah.

00;39;25;09 - 00;39;50;01 Unknown Yeah. Well so let me summarize and then we'll get to the to the final thoughts that you may have. So you you embody these things and that's, that's what is interesting about this conversation and you is because the fact is that, you know, the tenacity that you had to be where you were and then approach identifying what you wanted to do and then pursue it the way you did, you know, by my joining, right?

00;39;50;03 - 00;40;21;12 Unknown You say you got got but maybe that maybe it was less about you deciding and it was more about influence, but about yourself, man. Yeah. You were persuaded to do something you probably didn't want to do anyway, right? So yeah, he matched your energy and he got you. Got you where you got it. Right. So yeah. And then and then the MOS that you chose and then, you know, pursuing the degree, of course, the relationship that that occurred with your husband and that grew into now having the ability to be separated but still stay focused on what you were wanting to achieve.

00;40;21;12 - 00;40;42;27 Unknown And then what really stood out is when you get to that next duty station and then you're asked by your husband is, what do you want to do? And you were very intentional. Probably through oversimplifying and summarizing it. You had to do a lot of things before that to get to that time to where you said, I want to work here doing these things.

00;40;43;00 - 00;41;10;25 Unknown And that's what we're talking about, is that have to do the work to understand what you want to do with such conviction, because hiring managers probably don't say this enough. That's what they're looking for. When you tell your story is, why should we hire used kind of the theoretical question. It's wanting to be answered, but how you share what it is that you're interested in, you know, a lot of it comes down to you running away from something or you running into something, and we'd rather have somebody running into something.

00;41;10;27 - 00;41;38;13 Unknown Not to say we won't discount anybody else and the other factors, but we want somebody that wants this bad. Yeah, there's nothing better than a candidate that knows exactly what they want. And what they want is the role that you have open. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the other side of it too is the hiring, the hiring leaders also are, you know, in an awkward moment, vulnerability where they're taking a risk, you know, and, you know, the things that that go into the investment in the cost and all those things, it's all relative.

00;41;38;13 - 00;42;06;11 Unknown But it's a matter does it does take an effect. And so when somebody says, yes, there's a lot of hope in that. And we're banking on words perceived by the attitude shared to the story. And so it's people like you that actually give credibility to the to the process of recruiting. So appreciate you and for what you've done and then how the things are that you've gone through those things to get to where you are and then have the conviction that you have to help pay it forward through the community.

00;42;06;13 - 00;42;27;29 Unknown Any final thoughts? Yeah, I guess, you know, for hiring managers like I see on my LinkedIn a lot, hiring veterans, it's not a good deed. It's a good business. Be open minded to those conversations. And for job seekers, you know, take ownership of your hot lead when you're not in charge. Just do what you need to do to get where you want to be.

00;42;28;02 - 00;42;42;29 Unknown Got it. All right. Thank you for that. Thanks for your time. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Chris, for having me. You got it, Padawan. Keep moving forward.