Career Panel Discussion

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so I have a great panel here my name is Peter and I have a great panel here that are some awesome professionals kind of been in the field in different fields for a long time they' helped a lot of people out they reviewed a lot of resumés they great backgrounds so I'm going to let each one of them introduce themselves to you and then we'll kind of Kick this off Orlando Europe yep uh so Orlando hannes Talent acquisition professional uh been in ta for about 21 years currently work for a company called Mosaic uh as the North American talent acquisition lead and also host a career talks podcast that you can find Shameless plug on LinkedIn so connect

every Monday nights I talk about Career Development my name is AJ Menendez I am founding Black Tower Academy it is a a subscription based uh entrylevel cyber security Zero to Hero program that I'm launching next year uh and I currently Train everybody that's going into loed Martin and into Boeing all of their cyber security apprentices is what I do in my day job but I'm going to be doing it uh for everybody here shortly next year good deal thank you that's awesome hi I'm Cassandra Perez I'm the senior training strategist at computer coach so we do it training upskilling certification um programs and I spend 50% of my day talking to candidates that are either looking to break into it or

are looking to uh enhance their Tech careers and the other 50% perc of my day I spend talking to employers who are looking for talent um and I also have a technical recruitment background I my name is uh Lea Basquez currently I'm a senior director of operations over at Jacobs running r 800 people in 200 programs um my background's been 25 years in DOD starting in Talent acquisition in HR and then worked myself up to running operations in the field and out so yeah hey I'm Kurt Sanger I spent 23 years in the US Marine Corps my last eight with cyber command which is what brought me to this community I'm a lawyer by trade but for the past year

and a half since I retired from the military uh I retired from the military it's the hardest I've ever worked um I've worked as a consultant essentially I've worked across many different fields in cyber security information technology and met uh a lot of the types of people I would guess are in the jobs that you have or would like to have um it appears that uh I'm going to be joining a law firm so in some ways uh while I wasn't looking for a job full-time or past year but in some ways this is the perfect panel for me to be on because I've been looking for work while doing my own own thing for a while but uh hopefully you

might have learned something that might be useful we appreciate you and lastly I my name is Peter bagy I'm a retired army guy after 21 years and I've been retired for almost 20 years and I teach at St P College I run my own company for cyber assessments as well as working as a defense contractor for khaki at Socom so all of us have kind of been around a few days so I got a few questions we're going to ask the panelist and um they're going to give you their opinion of how they feel about something these questions we're going to ask and hopefully something along the way kind of click with you and near the end we're

going to have a Q&A side so we can kind of talk a little bit more if you have some questions fair enough okay so we're going to start with you Orlando so the first question is how to work with recruiters and use them for your benefit yeah so um I would tell you the best option uh being in the space is to you partner with at least two to three agencies so you can work with agencies recruiters and Chanel acquisition professionals anyone know the difference between the two all right so Staffing firm Staffing recruiters agency recruiters they work with multiple organizations to find maybe one specific skill set or multiple skill sets a talent acquisition person

only works for the company so they're not um they're only filling the roles for the company they work for versus again a staffing recruiter who may have different uh you know companies they partner with so that will tell you know the difference before you approach them but also keep about two to three staffing firms in your back pocket because that's free marketing that's free promotion that's free you know uh strategies that they can help you connect with different uh programs excuse me different companies but again partner with the ones that match your skill set don't just go to anyone vet them as they're vetting you and then you know be the best candidate have your

best profile resume ready to go and just be authentically uh you know straight with them as to what you're looking for while they're looking you're still looking don't put all your eggs in one basket right right let them look for you while you're looking and just be transparent in your communication so the best way to do it again is to partner with at least two to three firms that match your skill set be transparent that you're working with all three some they will ask and then again do what you need to do on your end to work with you know search for jobs as well because again you don't want to put all your aegs on

the basket okay Le you want to kind of chime in on Sue sure the working with recruiters yeah and the benefit of working with them so definitely the benefit just to Orlando's um thought is to get your name out there right and get to know get to know the industry that you're joining do your research I would say back in my day when I was recruiting held be held accountable if the recruiter says call me at three call him at three and then know your your job know what you want to go after to Target I mean just my own daughter is currently going to college and the amount of courses and things that are inside of of

what you're seeing out there today was not relevant when I was looking for a job so be targeted know the industry you want to go into and use them to your advantage I would saying it's a relationship right recruiters is a relationship based I've since I've been a recruiter I've stayed in touch with net Developers for the past 30 years so know that that could be a relationship that could take you many places not just one so that would be my advice good deal go ahead so to her Point um recruiters don't always stay at the same firm okay whether that's an internal Talent acquisition professional that's hiring just for their company or they work for

a staffing firm and it's pretty tight-knit community so as she said it's all about building relationships so definitely make sure the same way that we all complain that recruiters ghost us don't ghost them if they if they have an opportunity for you that you're not interested in have the conversation you can graciously decline but just know that they will be in your life again at some point whether it's at this firm or at another firm so make sure it's a mutual but then the flip side of that is as far as how to make working with recruiters work for you the same way that they're on this and this is goes more towards that Staffing fir recruiter

as opposed to Talent acquisition but they have a really good pulse on what's going on in the industry so ask them information hey what salary are you seeing for the type of roles that I have with my education level and my level of experience because you may be completely off and we heard I didn't catch her name but we heard her say that those heydays of those High salaries that's not happening anymore um so they have a realistic expectation of of of what the salary is on the market hey what projects have you heard about that are coming down the pipeline what's that technology that's six months out that I should be focusing on today ask them

those questions because they're talking to the employers every single day and they have that information so don't let it be a one-sided conversation make sure that especially if it's for a role that is not for you doesn't match your your resm we see that a lot make sure that you're getting value out of the time that you're spending with them as well yeah CT want you all would know better but the recruiter or pardon me the staffing agencies um they're getting payment from the companies they hire for in most cases and some companies don't want to pay that fee so some companies will not entertain what uh staffing agencies are are offering so that's just one thing to

to remember and if you can find that out about a company you're interested in if they they work with staffing agencies or don't would be a good good one to know but thing I've noticed uh so I didn't know anything about this for my military career because we didn't need a staffing agency it was all internal butre um these folks that I know that do this are incredibly gregarious and yes they do move and so their networks are large and I have yet to meet one who if I was looking to talk to somebody and they weren't going to make money off it they they still always made the introduction so yeah that's good because it because

it pays for them in in the long R yeah yeah everybody wins a I would say treat them like human beings yeah you know they're human beings just like the rest of us they actually are for the most part quite overwhelmed the amount of things that they have to do and the amount of people they have to talk to and tracking targets things that they have to follow is is a lot so if they drop the ball they don't follow up with you don't don't take that personally just continue to work with them and you know she made a very uh strong point know what your targets are don't just apply for everything go to a I want to apply

narrow your search you want to be focused whatever your education is how you're continuing to educate find a Target um if you get that role and you don't like that role well you can certainly pivot after that but you've at least tried it on with theie of clothing it's the only way to really know but you need to Target Your Role it doesn't help them recruiters if you're I don't know what I want whatever's out there well they can't really help right so be focused I would say limit your targets to one to three types of roles and just kind of focus on them be very very focused so I thought that was my to and

when you guys we'll get your question in a second sir and when you do that do your homework on those roles yes so talk to people in the field that are doing that's the key because even and I I tell students you can read certain things in a book all day long which is great you kind of get a general idea of how it works but it doesn't really work until you talk to someone who's working in it because you'll quickly find out oh that may not be what I want to do and that's okay but rather learn that early than put all this effort into something that you really find out you don't want to do

so do your homework there's a lot of tools out there from All Things we'll talk about LinkedIn in a second that's another thing we're going to talk about so many different ways to find out and then people bless you are always open to help I I I don't think any of us or any people I know I've ever encountered when someone say hey can I just talk to you a little bit about what you do sure why not because we went to somebody and asked the exact same question all right so don't be afraid so the next question is about LinkedIn since everyone knows about LinkedIn well I'm sorry go ahead just a quick question how would you

feelings recruit I know my and I'll get or four calls from the same half dozen agencies for Something Completely something I did 20 years ago or way outside of my scope doesn't seem to matter how much talk to

them yeah so I worked for a firm that runs like that right you've got your big firms and I'm not going to call any of them out because some of them are here in Tampa but they run very wolf on Wall Street and uh they are my job within that organization was to take kids straight out of college and give them a two week learn how to be a recruiter and by day three they were on the phone and their sole job was to talk to candidates and and pick apart your resume so in many cases depending on the firm and I don't want to give all recruiters a bad name but in many cases they are trying

to find leads from you okay you were laid off maybe and so they want to know what firm you were with they want to know what projects they had in the pipeline they want to know how many people were affected by that layoff because now I have a Talent poll that I can reach out to so there in in some cases if your resume is reflective of the roles you're looking for but you're still getting calls that don't reflect your resume they're probably fishing doesn't mean it's a scam it doesn't mean that they won't find a good role for you at some point but it it could be some Junior recruiters that are still learning the robes and so I would tell

you kind of like I said earlier you know flip the conversation early on as soon as you realize that conversation is not for a role that you're interested in kind of take control of it respectfully and let them know this is my experience this is you know this is what I'm interested in now if you're getting those calls every single day you know I don't know you got to answer your phone if you're a job Seeker yeah number but but to but you know candidates have recruiters have what they call an MVP a mo U most MPC most placeable candidate you may not be their NPC today but you might be their NPC tomorrow because a new

wreck just came across their desk in my opinion if you are unemployed take every phone call that comes your way the bill collector calls you ask them if they're hiring every phone call that comes in I would be answering and I would have those conversations but make it worth your time take control of it early on if you can yeah good point and we're going to talk about LinkedIn and this same conversation T in LinkedIn as well so we'll talk about that so the question about LinkedIn is how to use it for jobs how to use it for networking and how recruiters use it to find candidates so we kind of already gotten a little bit

that candra said um L you want to jump on that one sure so again I'm always I go back to targets right you want to know what job you're looking for no one's going to know what job you want other than yourself so if you want to join Google research Google look at them online see the type of people that they work that work there in the leadership side and then down in the Departments that you want to join that would be key for me um also I mean I get reached out for mentorships all the time so reach out to people in those departments and just ask them are you taking on mentors this is what I'm looking for that's good

um and so as a when I was a recruiter way back in the day LinkedIn was just getting started so I can't talk about how it is now but what I can say is crosswalking and I work in the government space so crosswalking your LinkedIn profile to your school that you went to to where you grew up in gives you a certain Target so just make sure things are correct out there and definitely make sure your social media is clean and you don't have emails like Girl Gone Wild at yahoo.com just make sure it's as professional as possible when I first started looking I loved the Muppets and I had Beaker as my LinkedIn and the CEO

was like why would I even hire you so I was like okay I get it so just make sure all your data is very clean and make sure that your presence online is clean as well be my biggest good stuff orando yeah I would tell you to understand the power of LinkedIn right it's a global platform number one platform in the world for business uh and professionals so there's about 940 or so billion uh profiles only three million are active so what they constit being active on the platform is making a post once a week so I'm going somewhere with that that means these are the folks that are being seen regardless of what their

mission is if they're trying if they're entrepreneurial sales people career people they're being seen the most at some point throughout their activities because it's a small portion who is actually active on the platform there was no other platform that will give you the global reach I can reach Dubai Singapore China in a matter of seconds and connect with a peer you got to understand how powerful that is to globalize your network and understand different business strategies and career strategies that can help you you don't have to be connected only to you people to learn what you need to learn to strategize and grow your platform but I think what what I teach about too is

build there's a difference between building a presence and building a profile that's good your profile is static where you're not making any activities you just have what you have on there your photo head shot Banner jobs again the activity makes the transition your goal as a job Seeker is to provide and get eyeballs to your profile as much as possible one way to do that is great content you can do it by many ways many strategies if you want to comment on stuff that relates to your field so your voice is heard so they see your methodology of thinking right another strategy is commenting on a on a on a company's page that you want to

partner with any projects they're putting out there comment and share your ideas and advice and you know give the kudos to them but you have to be active on that platform you have to grow your personal brand so people see you you can get all the certifications in the world you're looking at some of your peers your competition what's going to make you stand out one of the strategies again as on LinkedIn is uh being creative and putting content on the profile that will grow your you know your thought leadership a little bit but your personal branding but again views to your profile creates opportunity I call bco visibility creates opportunity sir the more you seen the more people are going

to say Hey Joe Mike you know they look like they might know what they're talking about because they're sharing content they're adding you know comments to our page maybe that's a candidate we need to talk to you just never know create a Cadence of creating content on there don't have to be super you know super cre Super Creative but be consistent is the key I think that's just one core strategy a lot of job Seekers Miss is creating content on the profile so they can create visibility that's good AJ I would say that um LinkedIn is very powerful so if if somebody's applying to my company or I'm applying to their company they're going to look at my profile they're going to

see who I'm connected with they're going to see who I know so to a degree there's the the relationships matter and you want to build and nurture those relationships uh I want to encourage everybody um and sometimes in cyber security we have a lot of introverts uh we may not want to go outside or meet people I really want to encourage everyone to go to cyber security meetups you're at one right now yeah you want to go to ISC Square you want to go to isaka you want to go to Issa you want to go to Cloud security Alliance you want to go to oasp you want to meet people especially if these individuals are

doing what you want to do now and you want to say hey can I talk to you for 5 minutes 10 minutes can I pick your brain how did you start how did you get there what what sucks about your job what's amazing about your job what are the challenges you know may I connect with you on LinkedIn and you know Peter was talking about people in cyber security are oh my gosh you like cyber security too info dump right they they love to help people because you love what they love and and it's really important so by by building these relationships right this is also very directly Associated to jobs there are something in social

psychology I have I have a psychology degree um there's something known as the law of propinquity don't take my word for it go look at them right the law of propequity means the closer you are to somebody the greater likelihood that they will like you and trust you two very important things that you need to obtain employment that's good um so the the the rub is right the the fulcrum of this is you just can't have a negative experience so don't show up and be a jerk right no flipping tables no no being upset right no getting overly drunk but all you have to do is show up right so if you show up to an isaka

meeting then you show up to an ISC Square meeting then you show up to a cloud security Alliance meeting hey this person's parted the click they're they're in the club like they're they're fling around that really helps and you want to meet as many people as you can grow your network and then I really to to wrap it up you don't want to walk up to somebody and say can I have a job right you don't want to put them on the spot right but you kind of want to communicate with them hey I'm really interested in doing what you're doing or I'm really interested in this type of role do you know somebody that

might be so you're letting them know but not putting them on the spot right but you're being being very social right so it's a little bit of a keto right if you will mental a Kido but it's just don't be a jerk be happy be interested be curious there there's so much that you can do but it wraps back to link LinkedIn because you're growing your network and that Network like they talked about before maybe not this time but maybe the next time or down the road you're not just applying applying to the outside job requisition maybe they and they'll say I'll give you the internal or I'll the gets you around the great HR

firewall yeah that's right super impactful that's a good way to put it Cassie I'm GNA come back to you I know you do a lot of stuff on Kur and so we were talking just before so there's a particularly Cutthroat major league baseball manager who once said winning isn't everything it's the only thing you can I think you can say that pretty much about networking networking isn't everything it's the only thing that's good Microsoft Amazon they do hire people that introduce themselves to the companies through their websites it happens it's I consider it a long shot just based on the numbers it does happen so there are some people who will bu jobs that way but really for almost

everyone else it's going to be someone you know and uh one thing about LinkedIn in particular when you connect with someone on LinkedIn and you get to know them in some other way a phone call meeting them in person running into them in a conference or just telling them hey I saw you speak at a conference they are going to make their networks available to you more likely than not I number of times somebody has said to me hey check out my profile look what I'm connected to and let me know if you want to speak to any of them some of these people have thousands of cont so it's hard to to find the people that would probably be

most valuable to talk to but the networks grow exponentially through the people that you meet and Linkedin is an easy way I I got active on LinkedIn right before Co kicked in and so I was there when people started using it a lot more and I got caught up in you know it was it was nice for me as I was getting ready to start a new career that so many more people were using it actively mhm uh but I I think it's only grown since 2020 and everybody can benefit from that yeah gu I'm G to play Devil's advate just a little everything that they have said is absolutely valid uh LinkedIn is incredibly powerful and it should

absolutely be part of your Career Success strategy that being said it is incredibly overwhelming at the moment if you are a mentor a leader a recruiter uh a person of influence not I'm not talking about social media influencers but if you are a decision maker that has the ability to bring somebody up it's a I get I get easily 30 to 40 inbox messages per day that's not including the spam okay so I I I talk about LinkedIn in a way that have realistic expectations he said earlier you know don't take it personal we have the Q-tip that we recommend um we literally tell job Seekers It's incredibly difficult if you're a job Seeker who's unemployed to

stay positive and so one of the things that we recommend is carry a Q-tip around with you because it and anytime you start to feel deflated look at it it stands for quit taking it personal because it's not we have a million in one things we're trying to do and and to Pete's Point earlier yes people want to help but and that's genuine and it's authentic but then the wind blows okay and something else has come up in their life so it's not that they didn't want to help you something else has happened so I I I like to say have very very realistic expectations of your return on hey can I have a 15minute virtual coffee

with you hey can I talk to you and do a an interview with you about how you got into your job do those things they're not incredibly time intensive for you to do them so do them just have a realistic expectation of the return that you're going to get some highly targeted things that you can do on LinkedIn we know that statistically speaking it is manager level and above professionals who read articles on LinkedIn so start writing articles give your voice words and it's decision makers who are likely to read those articles okay you can start today with three things I learned at besides Tampa if you're not a writer with chat GPT we're all writers okay so but make

sure it's your authentic voice so write articles um also if you are a job Seeker we all have those 50 skills that we can put on our LinkedIn one make sure you're utilizing all 50 but two especially for the more seasoned professionals um make sure that that wasn't a set it and forget it function on your LinkedIn profile if you have skills from five years ago that are no longer relevant to the roles you're pursuing today even if you have a hundred um what was it endorsements right we used to be able to endorse those skills that means nothing drop the old skill make sure it's 50 current skills and then look at 10 15 20

job descriptions that you are qualified for I want to emphasize that everything we're talking about today assumes you're applying to jobs that you're qualified for so look at 10 15 job descriptions that you're qualified for all of those job descriptions are going to have 10 skill sets that they want you to match you've probably all gotten the notification on LinkedIn that says you meet four of the 10 skills this job is looking for please apply those are set we spent an entire period of time I don't remember following a recruiter who has access to LinkedIn recruiter which is very diff than the version of recruiter that you and I have or LinkedIn that you and I have and so when

they're building out their reck on LinkedIn they tell what 10 skills that they're looking for those 10 skills are directly responding to the 50 skills on your profile so go and look 10 15 job descriptions throw up an Excel spreadsheet put it in chat GPT and tell it give me the most common the the most recurring 50 skills in these 150 skills at this point make sure those are the 50 skill you have on your LinkedIn profile assuming you have the skill um and then you know to to to Orlando's point you have to become a thought leader on LinkedIn so you're you're writing articles you're writing thought-provoking posts have a call to action what are your thoughts tell me

what you learned what did you think about this hack whatever it may be right in uh the the goal is to create a conversation not just put flat content that people are going to read like and move on you want to create a conversation to his point I forget what the rule was called but the general rule of thumb on LinkedIn is seven points of contact I need to see you seven times before I consider you part of my trusted Network you liked my comment you followed my company's page you connected with me you sent me a LinkedIn message you shared a post that I did whatever seven or I saw you on my feed seven

times before I consider you part of my network and I I recognize you so make sure that you're being intentional with the things that you're doing and just one last thing if you are a job Seeker who is frustrated with the job Seeker process with the hiring process with the fact that you are getting a black hole do LinkedIn is not the place to tell the world about it LinkedIn is the place to be positive Pat okay we don't want negative Nellies okay if you are so Brazen to be on LinkedIn complaining you are going to be complaining on my team I don't want you on my team so please be incredibly thoughtful and even if it's true okay

don't engage in those conversations because every recruiter is going to go and vet your resume by looking at you on LinkedIn and they're going to your your posts and your activities so I can see if you like somebody else's post complaining about a recruiter don't like it don't engage don't share it and don't post it yeah all great comments and I'm going to wrap this piece up LinkedIn is a huge Community our business is community because as they've all stated if people don't know you they don't know what you're looking for so you have to create a presence for yourself one of the things that is a great tool for and I use it all the time I've learned about

different things about these guys and different things they have going on like I knew Orlando had a podcast so if I want to tie to his podcast now I can tie to his podcast and then I can send him an invite say hey love your podcast can we connect because you want to connect because everyone has their own network but if you think if each one of us have a thousand people in our Network and you connect with one you just extended all this as well so that's how the system works for you secondly you're going to have people fishing on LinkedIn all the time they do it I mean they fish all over the place right but you don't have

to accept it that's the other thing do not accept everybody who asks you to make a contact with them you don't have to you have the authority and the right to say no and that's okay I do it all the time because what I'll do first someone says hey let's connect okay first thing I'll do is going to look at how much have they posted zero oh and we can have a great conversation right I don't think so right and I say that because that's a waste as we said of my time some people also contact say hey look I I saw you uh linked said that I need to connect with you and uh maybe we can have some coffee

okay that's great too then I'll go back and look at their profile if it's not anything that I feel that's beneficial to me or something I can be helpful to them I'll kindly just say not accept ignore and you're okay doing that you can go to sleep at night and say I didn't hurt anybody I just protected what I do and that's really what's all about it's all about you it ain't about a cyber security professional I accept all you know she she does but we I'm in a different realm and be a lot a lot of pieces of this ties back to what you do or what you want to do cuz if someone

that's a dress maker nothing against dress anybody a dress maker okay nothing against dress makers cont me someone's in cyber oh Lincoln said when you connect and I'd love to talk to you about what you do okay but there's nothing really happening there right I mean I'm just being honest so why should I say sure come on I'm just try extend my network that's a waste of time and a waste of space when I can find someone who really can communicate with me I can communicate with them and we can grow together so keep that in mind never be afraid to say no all right I know y'all heard that before somewhere else but this time say no all right lastly if you

see things going on in LinkedIn like we talked about here the meetup groups go to them sign up for them they're all over and especially if you're following people like us and many other people that we know it's always something going on wherever you are there's an event going on some may be meeting at a a a bar that's a restaurant and just getting together and having you know a beer or a Coke and just communicate chat that's okay because they know you exist and you never know what someone someone else's Network looks like so don't be afraid to approach all right so last one because we're going to have to wrap this up I

didn't think go so long but this is great stuff um I think I want to talk about money everybody like um the salary question how to discuss salary for a new position or trying to get promoted from your current position who wants to take that I'll start with the uh so if you if you're dealing with a recruiter and you're trying to find out um we take a step back I think all recruiters should discuss salary in the first conversation to save time yes let them they should be telling you where your salary band is uh and they're trying to probably lock you down right for the most part if it's a no matter what the role is they're going

to want to lock you down at the lower end right so they have room for bandwidth and promotions and things like that uh for the department but if they're trying to lock you down for you know a specific salary before you know the full scope I would say well I'm in the range of X say 100,000 to 115 but can we revisit this conversation once I know more about the you know the scope of the work that's good because I can change right they're writing down one all right 10 you go through you like wow this is a lot more than what I expected and a ro can probably really have a budget for 140 you've lost you know x

amount of thousands of dollars so always clearly state that okay I'll give you I'll give you a number now but please take note as you're taking the number we're going to revisit this once I learn a little bit more about the position because if the scope is larger then you know my request for uh money is larger because it's requiring more of me to match my skill level yeah right so you have the room to negotiate there are some roles that there nonnegotiable it is what it is but if you can get the salary the recruiter on the first conversation go for it but be prepared to have that conversation right know your walk away number you can say 150

which you know 130 support your lifestyle right do make sure you you you're uh you're clearly knowing that in your head um but again from if you come across recruiters that are a little resident or uh should I say restrictive in giving you that the salary up front right uh you know that's a case by case feel that out see what they're doing but they're asking you you can again bring that up say well you're asking me for my salary I don't know what the scope of the work is or the salary B for the role if I can better understand that that we could probably meet u in the middle but keep in mind I want to revisit until I

learn more about the position and so that I think that keeps the lines of communication open and even if you're talking to the manager you go to the next uh step and the manager asking you about the salary keep repeating it keep repeating so you're lock down on the lower end to you understand the full scope jump good no okay I'll just go first the my biggest pet peeve is still today is it's not it's not a game right it's your salary so don't make it like well what can you give me or this right again goes back to your research of the position that you're applying for look at salary.com look at your demographic

area of your entry level and you're asking for 150,000 also know the candidate pool up against and that there's 15 other people right behind you and the person can just go to the next one so I've always LED in my 25 years and Pete knows this just be honest what can you afford to get a salary and know if you're starting out in your career you'll be at that 150 you need experience so just be for me it was just just be honest and again it's not a game that was my biggest factor in salary and the negotiation of the hourly rate going back and forth It's like it is what it is just take it or leave it

you know that was my so true as a career coach um one we talked earlier about the knowing the difference between an internal Talent acquisition professional and a recruiter so to what Orlando was talking about is more on that internal Talent acquisition they're going to have a Pay Band your recruiter should know what the approved budget is because any company that's hiring has to get this stuff approved in advance before they should even be talking to you so if they don't it's a red flag and you may be able to take control of that situation but in any case that is internal Talent acquisition you need to know who you're talking to are you with a staffing firm

or are you ta because if you're with a staffing firm that recruiters uh commission is directly tied to your total compensation package they are getting you the most that they possibly can as opposed to an internal Talent acquisition professional just trying to get you for the least that they possibly can because they're trying to save their company money on the flip side for a staffing firm if you're doing an hourly they're trying to get you on the lowest possible because they're charging the client $50 an hour they're they're paying you $20 an hour they're making $30 an hour so the least amount of money they can get you is where they're trying to be so it's incredibly

important to understand who you're talking to what type of role this is how that money is going to be paid and keep keep in mind total compensation I think people get held up on the 150 companies talking in terms of total compensation there's a lot of monetary value in an unlimited PTO in health care benefits in you know what you can't pay me 150 even though I feel that's what I'm worth I'll take the 130 but I want a different job tile right because that job title is going to give me career progression now I get lead as part of my job title so there are a lot of things pay banss are what they are and a lot of

times for companies they have a budget they're not going to go outside that budget but figure out ways to make that work for you we're always thinking long term or we should be so if you can negotiate a new title but still take a lower pay you know that title is going to get you more money in the future um if you can negotiate a hybrid working environment so you're not having to commute I I drive over an hour to get to work that's money if they have paid parking anybody who works in downtown Tampa knows what a pain in the ass it is to park I worked for a firm that charged me $200 a month to park in their parking

garage right I didn't know that and I could have negotiated that as part of my salary so there are a lot of things that you can negotiate sometimes that bottom dollar is non-negotiable but all of the other perks that make your job enjoyable are negotiable so start thinking in terms of total compensation really quick on the uh raises I think it's important to know the difference between a raise and a promotion a raise is look you hired me here my job now constitutes this pay I think I should be paid this much but I'm going to do the exact same job versus a promotion which is I'm going to take on some additional tasks and

responsibilities and for that I would like to be compensated in such a manner so you have to figure out what you're asking for and then you have to document what you do so if you know in three months you're going to ask for a raise time block your time for the next three months document every single thing that you do in a day from the smallest task to the biggest most impactful task start quantifying start coming up with how you're improving things achievements do that and then pull up your original job description and and say this is what you hired me for that's good but this is what I'm doing so can we can we

re-evaluate my my compensation at this point okay just on that point connect everything you're doing to the value that it gives the organization that's how they think uh that's just it's nice you're doing all these things but how is that turning into money or convenience or something to benefit to them so I negotiated my salary I think I mentioned at the beginning that law firm maybe joining on the Monday if my negotiation was successful but this um I'm coming from a unique community so that firm and this may only only be applicable to lawyers but I think the point will dumil to yours um when they hire laterally they normally do it from other firms and they

have a template for what that individual looks like I'm coming from the military so I can fit their template so they offered me a salary that I thought was based on the template that they normally have and I explained why they have to break that template and think about other variables some of you may be in that position in the technology field because you may have more than one skill the job you're applying for may only require one of those skills but you may be able to bring other things to the company you may have other experiences your your network even may be of value to them because even though you're not in sales you know people that may be in

a buying position you know whatever those things are uh and again you want to list out what all those things you're going to be doing will be and then how that's going to create value for their company because I mean one of the things that's coming in that I mentioned um that isn't typical for an attorney is I said hey I'm going to be able to train the younger folks to do the kind of work that only a few people are doing for you right now they don't really count that because they just want you to bring in business and Bill hours right but that is going to have value for them and it did have an impact on on the

negotiation AJ want to wrap up yeah um these are all amazing points and um I was trying to figure out how I can come up with something unique and provide value uh to the conversation and what I'd like to do is I'd like to focus the perspective on people starting in cyber security a cyber security conference let's talk about people getting started the first job you get in cyber security is going to be the hardest period it's going to be the hardest it's almost like you need to be in the union to get the job and you have to have that job you be in the union so how do you ever get started it's it's a little crazy right so um

your going to want to get started whatever that looks like right and and that may mean if you're a career changer taking a haircut or taking a step back whatever phrase you want to use you'll do what you have to to get started to get experience now once you're one year or two year in the role the um salary acceleration is going to woof it's going to be intense a lot of people might be reaching up you in linked hey hey so as you go along it's going to be a completely different experience um so it may not feel great uh starting at a pretty entry level uh experience paywise I don't want to say

that's the cost of the payment or that that's the way right the the the the obstacle is the way to get to that but once you break through that BL little challenge um the the ceiling the artificial ceiling that a lot of other positions I'll be slightly contrarian to the previous speaker um the ceiling to these roles will be greater than a lot of the other roles that you may have had and I've seen people you know someone with a master's degree in in in Recreation science don't really know what that is but she was in charge of a um of a convention center and organizing or whatever and she had a hard limit and it had nothing to do with

their gender or whatever but a hard limit of [Music] $80,000 um and she went through my program and then her next spot was 50 which was significantly less there a very large ratio drop but within two years she was right back where she was but now she's in six figures and you know she her first job was a cyber security threat Hunter at Dish Network there in in Denver Colorado so um you're going to do what you need need to to get started and it may be challenging at the beginning and that's that's just the the hurdle that you have to get through so the obstacles the way all right I'm going to close this out

because we got to get out of here we got another group coming in just understand everyone has to start somewhere even if you are already seasoned professional and I say that because my theory is a job with a paycheck is better than an unemployment check that has no benefits again just being very realistic and honest so if you just got let go you come it happens in our field in the dod environment all the time contracts start contracts end everything has shelf life so you kind of get hard to well this is just how the process works and it was happening before you got into it so you can't be hurt by it you figure out like

they was saying how does it work for me to where I can benefit the most the networking is a big part of it but even if you have to come back in or even start as a tier one Health Des person maybe making $35 $40,000 a year now I'm again I'm just being honest take it take it why you don't have a job you don't have any benefits your family needs help so what are you going to do let your ego take over your family or you going to go take care business knowing I'm not going to be there next year my theory I always live off of and thank God I've been able to continue to drive with this

everything I do in business and jobs are temporary never permanent why you don't own it you're just a number that is satisfying a need and the only reason why they pay any of us to do what we do today because we have something they want the minute you don't you're gone so make sure you continue to have something that people want and you can get all that information like you said from LinkedIn LinkedIn jobs and deed all those TOS are out there for you go and look and see what what does it take to be a network engineer if that's your goal but you may not start there you may come in as a junior that's okay but you'll learn and

you'll meet people networking right and two years later you're running the shop it happens all the time all right we that I'm not going to forget about where am I go okay got another group coming there I got one question I'll take anybody got a question yes

sir so experience is a term that really doesn't mean anything and I say that for one reason in our feeling it and cyber security experience doesn't mean you worked in a job and you did a thing experience can be you set up a AWS lab that you have with Cali Linux and you use a metlo to take down the system you're physically going through Hands-On actions and commands to do that that's experience put all those things and that's the whole thing don't sell yourself short if you're doing these things put them on your resume you have a 2.4% chance of getting a job if all you do is apply online get off the computer and get out

to stuff like this that's how you're going to find a job yes y you know position your all right guys Jared Jared she going to catch you outside Jared all right folks thank you so much appreciation [Music]

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