Ep 123-125, March 2022:

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Today on Wisconsin veterans forward, cyber security is a huge issue right now. I just learned just now from our guest today, told me as we were chatting before I went live, that there's a huge increase in the amount of cyber threats that are being levied against our country and the people in our country and the business is located in our country. A huge increase in 80% of those is, are coming from central Asia coming from Russia. Like isn't that insane. And of course, obviously that's very apropos for what, what we're what's happening in the world today is very relevant. But also as a chamber of commerce, we have a workforce summit coming up next week Tuesday, and I'll be sure to share a link about that. Basically the event is connecting the the, the employers and the, the, the com companies who are seeking veteran talent with people who want to help veterans get there.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

You know, they have, we have like staffing firms, universities, ERGs. We have corporations looking to you know, looking to acquire veteran talent. And then we have like the third end of the triangle, which is the actual employees, but the summit actually deals with just those first two ends of the triangle. And it's it's. So it's super targeted and focused on staffing, pipeline builders and talent acquisition, and a huge demand right now is for tech jobs. And in, in, in particular cybersecurity to Johns. And now what we've found is veterans are generally speaking. Obviously that's casting a pretty wide net, but generally speaking veterans are quite adept in tech related fields and in particular cybersecurity.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And yet, even though there is a higher demand than ever before for, for cybersecurity positions, there's a high demand for veteran acquisition, acquisition of veteran talent in the workforce, especially in corporate America. And there is an acknowledgement that veterans are adept at filling those needs at a high level, there's still a gap, right? We still have corporations and employers who are seeking veteran talent, and we still have unemployed and underemployed veterans. We have, we have two people, two entities that are, that are saying, Hey, I like you. And he owns, oh, I like you. And there's like a river, a Fior, or a valley or something in between them. They wanna connect. Why can't they connect? Why can't we bring them together? How do we build a bridge over the Gorge or the Fjord or whatever it is? What is it that is keeping those two parties from connecting, how they both wanna connect and how do we bridge that gap?

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And that's why I'm really excited for our guest today. Ben Pechacek is with identify security. It's a firm that does two things, which are very, very specific to this topic. They do tech staffing and they do cybersecurity. So here we are wanting to talk about staffing and employment pipelines. You know, we really want to talk about it, especially with you know, on the heels of this workforce summit coming up next week on Tuesday. There's another plug for it. We, we wanna talk about the, the staffing aspect, but he's also a subject matter expert when it comes to cybersecurity. So talk about a person who knows what it's gonna take to build that bridge over whatever geographic feature, the river, the mountain, the whatever that's in between these two entities that we wanna connect. I'm really excited to talk to Ben and we're gonna get into it right after this.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

You are listening to Wisconsin veterans forward. Wisconsin's premier audio resource for veterans, military families, veteran owned and veteran friendly businesses. Wisconsin veterans forward is brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce at wiveteranschamber.org. Yo, let's go. Before I bring Ben in, for those of you that are watching, who are watching rather on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter, now we're not doing Twitter anymore. We decided to take a little turn, Twitter's making a resurgence. So, you know, we're gonna put some, put some more regs in the Twitter basket Twitch, maybe again someday, but nah, not really the right audience for us yet. A growing the whole streaming Twitch thing is, is growing. So we'll see who knows, but whatever, wherever you're watching drop us line, say, howdy, tell us where you're from. Tell us your veteran status. Who did you serve for? And when, and if you have any questions about, you know, if you are a veteran or you have friends who are veterans that who you think would be good at, you know, a career in tech or looking to get out of in an unemployment or an underemployment situation and are looking for some insights, man, we'll hook you up. Just drop us a comment. We want to engage with you on this. But first and foremost, really happy to introduce my friend army veteran, Ben Peche. How are you? My friend?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Oh, I'm doing well with it. Thanks Adam. I really appreciate you having me on

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

You. Betcha man. And, and it's, it's so cool that you have like the, the perfect experience to talk about this topic. And I bet we could talk. I mean, we have like half hour, 45 minutes stops, but I, I bet we can talk about this for hours, right? I, I think this is really your bread and butter. Isn't that?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah. I could talk about this till I'm blue in the face. I mean, my background is, is primarily e-commerce that's the world I came from before I cross into cybersecurity. I made my first jump into cybersecurity in 2015 when I became a certified ethical hacker. Now the only reason why I did that program and it's a very challenging program, very tough test. It, it sucks was to keep contractors honest, because what I noticed in e-commerce when I was maybe supervising the construction of a new website and it was time to do penetration test or vulnerability assessments to assess how secure a website was. We had to use an outside firm and they would test our website. They would look at our structure, our code, they would try break into it and they would present a report. And then that report would have suggestions, recommendations.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

And then there'd be a section of their code remediations, which is something that required to maintain compliance or to fix a problem. That's what a remediation is. Well, I would look at a remediation and I'd ask myself this, this doesn't quite make complete sense to me. So being the savvy individual, I am, I'm like, you know, I need to educate myself. So I decided to teach myself the C program and I went through it, I got the book, I, the little DVD and I watched everything and I experimented took me about a year. And then I took the test and I passed it. I was surprised. And then I had another vulnerability assessment and I looked at that report and I saw, okay, there are two IPS here. Two IP addresses, public that are, were told and require 20 hours of remediation each cuz they're vulnerable. And it's a critical vulnerability. Well then I pulled up those IPS and I noticed that there are no open ports in those IPS and yes, I'm speaking tech geek right now, but I'll explain that. Don't worry. Well I

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Think I'm putting two and two together. Yeah. Let me guess this, this firm wanted you to hire them to fix the remediations.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Well, that's how it works. You know, they report and then they remedied. Well,

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

They just saying that they were, that they were issues that needed to be fixed expensive issues. That, that weren't issues.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

They gave me two IP addresses that they said were critical vulnerabilities and 20 hours vulnerability. I looked at the IPS and there were no open ports on those IPS, which means that that IP address cannot communicate to the outside world. So even though it's a public facing address, it's like your mailbox, your mailbox has your address on it at home. And your mailman puts the mail in there. Well, what if I locked that mailbox, your mail, carrier's just gonna drive away. So I looked at it and said, why is there 20 hours of remediation required on an IP address that cannot communicate with the outside world? And they looked at me like I had a lobster crawl outta my ear and were like and they didn't have an answer for me. I'm like, you know let me digest this report and I'll get back to you.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

And then we fired that firm and hired a different one. Now, when I was recruited over to this company, when I came aboard I kind of had to reawaken some of those old habits and some of those old things. And I've always had a passion for veterans in the workforce and I've always had a passion for veterans in it field for a number of reasons which I'll get into later. But when I crossed over here one of the things that identify security has done so well is to identify those types of contractors or those types of outsourced services like security as a service that basically we try to figure out what they're doing wrong. We try to do it better. So we're split 50 50 half of our business is the consulting aspect and the other half is staffing. We fill very niche, specific security roles for the cybersecurity world. We work with fortune 3000 and above clients. So I everyone's doing a hundred million a year in revenue or more so it's, it's, it's really nice that we, but on the consulting side of things, what we did was we allowed companies to buy buckets of time from us and then split it up however they want. So that gives the client freedom to adapt our services for what they need. So it's kind of like security a carte, if that makes sense.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Right. And then with that business model, you, you know, you're, you're not really in a position to do, like what had happened to you before, right? Where, you know, you might overblow something just to get a contract or, you know, get paid to fix something. That's not a problem. I wanna, you know, I was thinking, how many companies do you think they were able to pull the wool over their eyes on,

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I'd

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Say someone like you to it out,

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I would say honestly, close to 40 to 50%

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Unbelievable.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I would, I would, I would think that's probably a conservative estimate. Just because some of it isn't necessarily malicious. Some of it's just lack of, of, of knowledge it's like, right. Well, I don't know that this is I don't know about this solution, but I know this solution, this solution costs half as half as much. This solution is $200,000, but that's what I know. So that's what I'm gonna sell. Well, it's, it's not all malicious.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Right? And it, it just, it just hearkens to the fact of how important it is these days to have at least one person on your team, no matter the size of your business, who has not, or certifications in tech, in it in cybersecurity, at least a base level knowledge of this wide variety of skills and disciplines, to be able to say that doesn't look right to not only to protect you, but then also to save you money and, and protect you from people trying to take advantage of you. So it, it absolutely. Why is it that you, you know, I've, we've talked before, you've, you've mentioned that, you know, veterans are really O overarching leap, generally speaking, quite adept,

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Ideally suited is what I would call ideally

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Suit. Okay. Very good. So, so what is it about the veteran community? What is it that they're, they're kind of share shared values or experiences that make them so good in tech related fields?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Well, first to, to clarify, I think military veterans are great at any industry. Always increase the status quo. I mean, that's just how we are. It's just proven fact, as far as I'm concerned and I'm being, I'm not being egotistical or narcissistic at all, I promise you but consider this. So I'm combat arm soldier. I was a cavalry scout born and I was then I reclass to infantry. I'm a combat arm, soldier culture tells us that I'm supposed to be dumb and know how to kill people and break their stuff. That's basically what they think of a combat arm. Soldier. I don't think of a common arm soldier that way, just like any soldier. What I think of them as is a dynamic individual that is highly adaptable, very resourceful, and is always looking to increase their knowledge. Cause if you think about it as, as a soldier, airman, Marine, guardian, whatever the case may be you're putting into a role and you may not be familiar with it.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

What does the military tell you to do, get familiar with it, get your SmartBook out. Talk to someone, whatever. When I was a new NCO and I would go to a new unit, I'd find the lowest ranking soldier, someone who just graduated basic training that was qualified on a piece of equipment that I wasn't qualified on. I'd say, come here, private. I need you to teach me. And that is a good leader, right there at is what the military breeds are. Good leaders now in the it world, think of it this way. The threat landscape is ever changing it's it's. And in this day and age right now where we have so many attacks coming on a daily basis, you know, generally from one part of the world but nothing is gonna be the same from one day to the next. What better mind exists that a military veteran that has had to live that for their entire career, whether you serve for four years or 30 years they're just wired that way. Mm. I've had, I have three veterans I'm working now. Cause part of what I do is I, I will mentor veterans that are transitioning from active duty in a civilian world, not just cybersecurity, this is my own personal project. And the thing that I, that I really is a sensitive topic, but we all know it. Military veterans are horrible at writing resumes. We just are. Yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Are you, are you trying to say that veterans are not good at communicating their skills and experiences to potential civilian employers?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I am absolutely saying that, but I'm, there's an op there's an opposite side to the same coin. Not only are military veterans poor at telling their story, but HR recruiters, many of them, not all, many of them don't necessarily have it wired in their brain. That military service is a job. It is a career. It is a professional experience. They don't

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Treated as, as legit work experience. They assume leap, you were in combat arms. If you were infantry or anything, anything even related to it, they assume you spent your whole career rolling around in the desert with a rifle. And that is extent of your experience. So it's not worth. Yeah, it's, it's a, it is, it is a prejudice against veterans and people are using it a lot stereotyping against no way. When I say when I say that, but it is real man.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah. That, and, and, and the thing about it is sometimes it's actually, I shouldn't say sometimes the vast majority of the time, it's simply a lack of education. Of course, the employer or the HR professional just doesn't understand. So most of the time, what they do, like you said, a common arm, soldier, they look at your resume and they go, oh, you did 20 years in the military. Thank you for your service. Okay. So tell me about the time when you were an Uber driver. Oh, well, I only did that for extra money when I got active of duty. I, I, I, I have three college degrees. I've got this, I got this. Tell

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Me about the time you worked at a kiosk in high school before you joined the military.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah. And then it's, and then the question I've, I've experienced this personally, you know, my military resume, you know, I did a lot of cool stuff in the military. I did a lot of common armor stuff, but I also did some, a lot of leadership development courses and some other education you know you know, most, most notably I was on the honor guard for three years. So I did military funerals. I did 1,279 military funerals in my time on the honor guard.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And that's no joke. You wanna talk about somebody who has attention to detail and precision and excellence, just pouring outta every single pour of your body.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

That's exactly the point I'm getting at. You take someone that has been diverse in their career. Okay. You're a combat arm. Soldier you're primary function is to kill people and break their things. Got it. But what else have you done? Oh, you maintained physical fitness. Well, that's good. You obviously cared about the whole picture. You were holistic in nature. Did you do NCO professional development? Oh, good. You went to, you went to BOC or WC or whatever they call it. Now I'm a little rusty on my acronyms. I retired in 20. I'm a little outta practice. Dude, I,

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Yeah, I hear that. But

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

All, all of those experiences go into creating the whole person. And while a resume, a resume can be rewritten. That's no big deal, not worried about that. The most important thing that every veteran needs to understand, especially those that wanna work in cybersecurity is develop and tell your story.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

The most important thing that every veteran needs to understand, especially those that wanna work in cybersecurity is develop and tell your story. And that doesn't mean, Hey, one time when I was on active duty, I took the cinnamon challenge and I threw up. That's not something that in a lot of employers are gonna be interested, but when you start talking about it, it

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Be impressive. If you didn't throw up, if you were a, if you actually succeeded, but

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Even, or not, in my time on active duty, I did meet and experience and personally witness one person completing the CI challenge successfully without nothing. He, I was enough Afghanistan. We were just getting ready to go home and we were bored. So of course, what do Joe's do when they're bored? Yeah, they come up with stupid human tricks. So this chief warn officer four, who was our, our ordinance expert he's comes in and he's a big dipper. He would dip and smoke at the same time. It was crazy. Good enough. And that's, and that's probably says a lot as to why he was able to actually eat a, a tablespoon full of cinnamon. He walked up and says, what are you guys talking about? We told him about the cinnamon shot. He goes, I'll do it. Okay. He goes, what's the pool up to, and at that time, I think our pool was up to like $200 for anyone that could, you know, complete it. Well, he shoves the spoon full of cinnamon in his mouth. He chews it up for about 10 minutes and swallows it. And I'm like, oh my God. Wow. I have witnessed, wonder of the world

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Witnessed something. Yeah.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I mean, I digres, I mean that, I don't, I don't wanna go too far into the stupid human tricks we did in the military. But you look at,

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Lemme ask you this, just to pivot a little bit. So we've kind of established why, I mean, you and I being veterans and speaking to people who are at least tangentially related to the veteran military family community, like we know why veterans are valuable acquisitions. Correct. And yet there are companies out there corporation corporate entities who want to hire veteran talent, but, but still don't understand. And

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Don't know how to, that

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Those are the things that make, so it's. So why do they want, why do they want veteran talent? Why do they wanna acquire veteran talent if they don't understand the greatest things about being a veteran?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Well, there's two reasons. There's, there's two, two ways of looking at this one. Hollywood makes a lot of bad movies about us. I mean, there's, there's maybe a handful of good, good movies. Like I don't mean documentaries. I mean, actual movies that were made about the global war on terror. And so unfortunately, a lot of employers, they like the fact that we're worth a $9,000 tax credit. They like the fact that if you're retired, you don't need to take their health insurance benefits. You're gonna be in Tricare for life. Right. And they like the fact that stereotypes tell us that military veterans are just solid workers. And that's pretty much where it stops. The other way to look at it is a lot of employers genuinely from a feeling standpoint, they feel they wanna help the veteran community and they wanna give a veteran in a good job. They don't know how to do it, but they don't know that they don't know how to do it. And that's what we experience a lot and well,

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And then we don't know how diverse our skill sets in our education are. Correct. And so a lot of them wanna do the right thing in higher veterans, but then only have entry level labor wage positions in mind for, for those veterans some well, that's

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

The thing that, that, that's a fundamental flaw with the career transition programs that the military and the VA do. Like for example, I have five college degrees and I did the vocational rehabilitation rehab VA. Yeah. VO rehab. And they, they looked at my resume, looked at my backgrounds and this is going back like a year ago if not longer. So it may have changed, but they looked at all my, my background, my skills I've been in sales basically for 20 years, you know? Yeah. I had, you know, a lot of time in the military, but I was still selling something at some point in time. From the time I was like 15 on. And what what we, what we see here is it's difficult to explain it. It can be difficult to explain.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

So if we, let me, let me just ask you this, cuz it just popped into my head. So, so the employers, they, they want to acquire veterans. Correct. But for not the right reasons, is that part of, of one of the steps to close the gap is this, is this merely like going to our main issue of, of the gap between veteran talent and employers seeking veteran talent and what's preventing them from connecting at a high level. Yeah. and at, at, at high volume and high frequency is it an education on both ends? Are there any other hurdles in between them that you're seeing being somebody who staffs

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

For, for this to bridge that gap?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah. So the, the vocational rehabilitation program basically gave me landscape and janitorial services jobs at the VN federal governments. Now I've got a master's in business administration. I got a business management degree. I've got a computer science degree and I've been in, you know, cybersecurity e-commerce for a long time. So clearly something directed toward that role. Well, vocation vocab rehab was like, well, you could clean toilets at the VA for $27 an hour. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I applaud anyone. Who's happy doing that.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

No. Yeah. Not at all.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

If I went down a particular career path and I had a particular drive or something in mind, why would you try to pigeonhole me or shoehorn me to something I don't wanna do? It's the same thing with employers. Hey, I want a veteran. Okay. What kind of veteran do you want? I mean, what kind of company your, my company, do you want a combat arms veteran? Do you want a technical veteran? Do you want an HR veteran? I mean the army alone has like 199 jobs that you can do. Yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Well, and that's my first question. When somebody comes to me or us and says we wanna acquire veterans, can you help? My first question is why do you wanna hire veterans? Yep. Because that tells me a lot about what sort of education I need to give them, to get them to that, to the middle of the bridge between them and the veteran talent.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah, exactly. And most of the time, I'd say 90% of the time, it's, it's simply a lack of education on the employer's part. A lot of employers don't know why hiring a veteran is a good idea. I mean, not just for the fact that veterans are good workers, but I mean the tax credits that go along with it, the career transition assistance that's available, you know, the money that the state of Wisconsin gives back. So it it's, it's massive rewards for the employer from a monetary standpoint, but from a culture standpoint, think about the culture of the military. We're used to being pulled from all over the country, thrown into a group of people you've never met before and a place you've never been before. People scream at you all the time and you have to work together well, then you go onto your real unit and that's a bunch of people you've never met before and a place you've never been before. And you have to work together. Then you deploy and you interface with a bunch of other people. They might not even speak the same language is you. Right. And you have to work together. So what better addition to your culture? Can you have that someone that is so adaptable, they can work with anyone. They don't care who you are, what you do, what you think like, can you do your job? Well, yeah, I can do a job. Well, then we're fine. We don't even talk about anything else. Let's just do this,

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

But also executed a high level

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

At a high, very high level, very, very high level. So vast majority of what we go up against in the civilian world. And I've experienced this myself a, a couple of, of, I guess you could say discrimination and events that I've experienced in my career going for jobs. I actually had one perspective perspective employer. Tell me, well, we thank you for your service, but the amount of time you spent in the military or may have done you a detriment in your career. And I actually stepped back and I said, I never thought in any way, shape or form, and still don't think in any way, shape or form that my military service was in any way, shape or form a detriment.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Yeah, good enough. And the, the, the audacity, some people have in the confidence they have in saying things to and about us. I, I just always think like replace the word veteran with any other demographic in what you just said, and you know, you'd have an HR issue on your hand. You

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Would, you would. I mean, I, I I've seen that. And then I also had another time this was early on in my career. This is, this is going back a while ago. I had transitioned from active duty to army national guard. And so I had to get a full time job and stuff. And there were some of the jobs I looked at, one of 'em was a production and shipping manager and I'm like, okay, I did a lot of logistics crap in the army. Sure. There's no a difference. I know how to lead people fine. Well, I applied for the job. I got the interview and I was talking about my, you know, management style and this and that. And they said, well, we find it very interesting that you talk in detail about your management experience, but we're not seeing management experience in, on your resume.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I said, there's an of amount of experience listed on my resume. I was in the United States army. I was an E six. I was a staff Sergeant mid-level manager. This is what I did. And I broke it down for him and explained it to him. And I did it in civilian terms. You know, I said, don't think of military think company. My company was United States army incorporated. So consider that for a second. And they, the theory that, oh, well you just are used to giving orders all the time and people here don't take orders. You have to ask them. Yeah, I gave orders. I got 'em too. So I'm still a person, you know, so it's really an education thing. And, but it really honestly, where it starts is not with the employer to learn. It is up to us as veterans to tell our story the right way and then help that employer educate. Because you know, there there's environments where, you know, one veteran gets hired in a particular position and they sway HR to look for more veterans. And a lot of times makes us feel a little cheap. They say, wow, we got like 10 grand, but act from the government for hiring the guy, let's get 10 more of those.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

You know, and, and they, they just don't care. I mean, and it's great. I love seeing veterans and manufacturing. I love where manufacturing is, is pumping out a bunch of stuff. And that's great. But a lot of times veterans sell themselves short on what they can do.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Oh yeah. They, they either Shortell themselves or they grossly overestimate, you know, they're a lot who, yeah. And I overestimate common Feel great officer and above they transition. And they're like, you know, I'm looking to be the CEO of a, this company or whatever. And well,

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I will say that tenants and other small children often have grandiose streams. And if there's any lieutenants listening right now, I don't apologize.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Oh, geez. Well, okay. So with all of this in mind, yeah. With all of this in mind, let's say I am a vet or a soon to transition veteran, and I want a career in tech, in cybersecurity. I want a career. So is it that you tell me, or you ask me, are you is there, are you making sure that I'm entering some sort of a plan or accelerator or educational program or getting some sort of a certification and then how do I get linked up with an employer? What's your advice for me to land that, that big gig?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

So there's two things I would tell you one, there's, there's one set of re recommendations. I would give you if you were not from this industry, didn't do anything cyber related in the army, and you just wanna cross into this world. Well, then there's gonna be an education piece. And I will say that certain certifications hold just as much, if not more weight than degrees, I have a lot of jobs that I have to fill right now. They'll say a bachelor's degree is preferred, but a compt security plus certificate is required. Well, great. We have the GI bill, but what's the price of a certification versus the price of a degree. Hell, you just saved me four hour, four years of my time and tens of thousands of dollars because I got my certification. So that's one way, if you didn't do cyber in the military, if you did do cyber or it anything closely related in the military, then here's the challenge.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

You have take all your military bio bullet points and ask yourself if I were, were a civilian that knows nothing about the military. What I understand what I did. Mm. And really ask her the question, cuz if you don't, you need to rewrite it. You have to tell your story and you have to use civilian terminology. Like if you think about it in private business, in cybersecurity, in sales, in recruiting military models that are used are go to the civilian world. They just change the knowledge of adjectives. It's the same process, exact same thing. So that being said, you've gotta change your knowledge in adjectives. You've gotta be able to tell your story the right way. So that's step one. Step two is continuing education. Like I said, when we first opened the threat landscape is continually changing. And if you wanna be in cybersecurity or it in general, you, you need to be abreast of the cyber threats that are out there.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

And you need to, you know, encourage that. If you wanna focus exclusively on cybersecurity, whether you wanna write programs or whether you just wanna secure networks, I highly, highly highly recommend either the CIS S P certification or the certified ethical hacker certification. Those two hold a ton of weight of weight. I know people that are making well into the six figures right now that hold the C I S S P C H, and a comp of security plus, and maybe a couple other proprietary certificates like AWS for Amazon and stuff like that. They're making well into the six figures and they don't have a college degree.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

And there's nothing wrong with a college degree. I got a lot of 'em. I, I, I applaud anyone that goes into higher education, but college degrees are not worth what they once were depending on the industry. If you wanna be a medical doctor yet you better have a medical. Yeah.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

You wanna be a dentist. You wanna be an engineer. You're you're gonna need to go to college.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Exactly. You're you're gonna need to do that. But even my engineers that, that I have deployed in the field right now. Many of them do not have college degrees. Many of them are self-taught. Many of them are certified through different bodies and have been doing this for fifth, but they don't have a formal college education. So I think a lot of times veterans, when they get off active duty, they get too hung up on getting that college education. What's wrong with learning a trade or what's wrong with learning a professional certification. There's nothing wrong with that. My father was an electrician for 40 years, just retired a year ago. He earned trade. That was something no one could take away from him when he got laid off from ale Smith way back in the day when ale Smith was a big monstrosity in, in Milwaukee.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah, he got laid off. You know what he did. He fired up his Resty van. He did side jobs and that's how we paid the bills. And, and my sister and I went to private school for our entire grade school life. And my sister went through high school all four years at private go island went two years cause I got kicked out, but that's another story. But he was able to always be a commodity. My it people, my cybersecurity people. I've got some of them right now that a full-time job doesn't work for them. They work contracts and they work four or five, you know, concurrent projects at one time. And a lot of them never saw the inside of a, of a university. A lot of 'em did. And it's more akin to being in the trades than it is to being someone with a, with a professional degree in many cases, not all the time, but in many cases at a minimum, having certain certifications, like the ones I mentioned are enough to get your foot in the door. Even if you have a job that says we require a four year degree apply. Anyway, they may look at you and go, well, he doesn't have a degree, but he's got security. Plus he's been doing this 12 years. Oh. And he did it. The military looks like, and he wrote a very easy to read and understand bio about what he did in the military. Then you know what? That's gonna open doors for you.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Well, let's say you have all those things. Let's say you wrote a great resume. You have com T I a, you have certified ethical hacker. You have a bevy of certifications that, that prove your proficiency in this field. You wanna get a job in, so cybersecurity. Do I just go to indeed.com? Are there, are there channels that are the best for me to find a job that pays appropriately?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yes. and I actually, it was funny. I had a conversation with a military veteran yesterday that has all the certifications did it in the military and was even working in the profess civilian world for a while, doing it and said, you know, Ben, I have filled out over 700 job applications this year, already year to date. We're only in March. And he says, and I've had 32 interviews out of those 700 job applications and zero offers. I said, really? I said, well, do you have anything in background that might come up? That would disqualify? He goes, no, not at all. I live a quiet life. Okay. Other than that, I think we have a problem telling your story. So he made the right decision by interfacing with me. Now I'm not a recruiter. I'm the director of security solutions for the company.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

But I do recruit when we have high priority assignments or I don't let any of my recruiters touch my military veterans, reason being my recruiters are civilians, nothing wrong with that. Right. But I'm better at parsing out military experience than they are. And every a hundred percent of the time when I've found a military veteran, I've placed military veterans and jobs. Other than one of them, I'll just say a hundred percent of the time. Screw the one. The resumes were not good enough to tell their story. So I actually rewrote them. I did it on the nights or the weekends and rewrote the resumes. And after I rewrote them, well, then they started getting more interviews. Then they got offer letters. Then they got hiring. So it's, there's a lot of things that are said about recruiters. Some of them well deserved.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Some of them exaggerations are not so true. The advantage that I I have is not being a recruiter, but working with a recruiting team, I can tell you a lot of HR based recruiters they're quick and dirty. They churn and burn. They use bots or software to read your resumes. It fits out keywords and it higher. And it, and it polls what it thinks are ideal candidates. Now, of course, that doesn't work if your resume sucks. So that's where a lot of milk your veterans get caught. They, they interface with the wrong recruiters. I would challenge veterans to qualify or disqualify a recruiting firm. You're working with someone like us is ideally suited because we're so niche. We're so granular and we don't use bots. I've got four recruiters that manually read every resume, every LinkedIn profile. And I mean, we're doing Julian searches to pull pertinent keywords and things like that. You're

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Not, not, you're not using a, a standalone applicant tracking system, sort of software to weed things out.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

We do not use our applicant tracking software to read resumes for it.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

And that's the way to go and, and a way go. So what you're saying is, is a great way to make sure that you get paired with a position that, that gives you that is appropriate for your skills. And also compensates you appropriately is, is connecting with a staffing agency or a recruiter who you trust and who

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Suited for your industry. That's the most important part. Okay. A recruiting firm that it of suited for your industry. Because if I want a factory job, I will talk to almost any recruiter out there. Doesn't matter. I'm like, Hey, you have any work? Nope. Okay. I'll go to the next one. You have any work, but I want something that's niche something that's a little more specialized. I want a firm that either does a lot of what I do or what I'm doing. Someone that's connected to a like industry and that's important. Ziprecruiter's fine. Indeed is fine. Indeed. Contrary to proper belief is more of an aggregator than anything else. Indeed is cool because it pulls job postings from other websites. Like for example, if you go to identify security.com and click on careers, you'll see the job openings that we have indeed has those same jobs listed.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

And we didn't post 'em indeed, indeed actually crawls websites, finds job postings and then links it on their page, which is brilliant. Yeah. A lot of people don't know that. So you may find some diamonds on the roof there, but a lot of times on some of those job boards, what you're going to find is people that have champagne taste and beer money you might find some big companies on there, but big companies contr to popular leaf don't have the deepest pockets, right? So if you're an it security professional coming off active duty, you're used to making what 60 grand a year, 70 grand, if you're in E six. Sure. And you know, say you have all those certifications that you talked about previously, and I need to step into a professional role. How do you keep from being put into another 70,000 year job instead of 130,000 year job, which is more close to the industry average?

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Well, that's engaging with the right recruiter that specializes in your industry or is uniquely qualified to understand your skills. So if you're a military by and you work in cybersecurity or wanna work in cybersecurity, you should reach out to someone like me. At my level, I may pass you off to one of my associates, but more than likely I'm gonna work with you personally, if you're a military veteran and that's an exception if you look at, and I won't mention other recruiting firms, but if you look at a lot of other recruiting firms, they're completely and utterly unprepared to assimilate military, right? Kind of a fun thing. If you wanna entertain yourself alert your, or set your LinkedIn profile, your ZipRecruiter profile and your indeed profile to say you're open for work and look at the recruiting emails that come through, actually read them.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Don't just, don't destroy them. Sure. When I got recruited for this company, I was good to ignore the email that I got, but I read all recruiter emails. Sure. And this one sounded cool. And here I am. So I still get the occasional job opportunity. Like I got one, a few weeks ago that was a medical device delivery driver, again, nothing wrong with it. But I was like, how did I come up on a search for this? Sure. So I actually took the interview with a guy he's a recruiter working for a, a medium sized, pretty well known recruiting firm. Okay. And I, I totally baited him and I wasted his time, but he thanked me for it afterward. He said, yeah, Ronald talk about his job. I think you'd be a great fit. It's a really super great company. They pay really well. I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds really interesting. I have a, a couple of questions. I mean really one question. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you got? And I said, which of my five college degrees do you think most pertain to this particular job of driving medical devices around and he stuttered and stammered and couldn't find his thoughts. And he's like I'm like, just tell me, you didn't read my resume. And you went off of what your software said. He's like, yeah, kinda

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

They, and they keyword search for veterans cuz it was a labor wage position.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Exactly. And that's exactly what he told me. And I said, how long you've been recruiting? He's like six years. I'm like, okay, let me tell you something. I work in, don't use your software until artificial intelligence and machine learning. Get to a point where I can understand feeling and interpret context, you know, never, ever work at finding good candidates and lies your

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Keyword out of there. Come on.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just, just, you know, find me as a whole person. Like when I search for people, I don't search for military veterans. I find a ton of 'em, but I don't search for it. I search for the skills, demonstrable skills. Yeah. And experiences that are pertinent to the job. Now, when I find a military veteran, I put 'em in my own separate recruiting bucket and I reach out to them differently just because I'm a veteran one to connect with other veterans. But those churn and burn recruiting firms, I don't do that. And, and they just submit 10 people to an employer here, pick one. Okay. And they move on to the next one. They don't really care about you. They don't care. We're more like sports agents than recruiters. Like if you're a sports agent and you got an athlete telling you, Hey, I wanna play for the green Packers.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Well guess what? I will get you an audition with the green bay Packers. But in our conversation, if you me, Hey, I really don't like the cold, but I wanna play for green bay. I'm gonna say, we need to look at Tampa bay instead, cuz they're a lot warmer. Right. But I'll never tell someone that they can't take a job or they shouldn't take a job or they should take a job you're in the driver's seat of your career. And our clients know that we're very protective of our talent as well. And that's another reason what makes us stand out because our clients know that we're gonna give someone to them. That is well qualified for the position is a quality individual and has been properly vetted because they know how protective we are of our talent. Cause it's not enough for us to just shove you into a role that you can survive in.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

I could take a military veteran and put 'em in all million different roles and you know what? They're gonna survive in it. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, especially if there's no toilets around, but if you have think of it this way, it should be the motivation of the employer, a recruiter, the employee to not just survive in a role, but to thrive in a role because let's get granular for a second. If you, if I put someone into a role and they truly thrive in that role, guess what they're gonna be happier, which means they're more productive, more efficient. They're gonna stay at that company longer as long as they're happy. Really. And I look better to my client, which is a selfish goal of mine because I gave 'em a quality person. That's gonna be there forever. Nobody likes the revolving door of employment. Nobody likes when someone stays for a year and a half and then moves on to the next thing. And that's

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Part

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Too. It's very expensive. I mean, we're not cheap. We are not cheap at all. So to keep going to me over and over again, to keep hiring people, well, they're not gonna keep coming to me if I get people for them that only stay there for six months. But if I get two, three people that stay there for six months, I will have that conversation with the employer and say, why are these people leaving? What are you paying? Okay. You're below the industry standard that may have something to do with it. Yeah. So maybe if you can increase your budget, we can get people to stay longer. Or what's your culture look like? You know? And I'll get feedback from the people that leave those places. And we compile a lot of data. Like I know things that are much more granular compared to like the common like Glassdoor and things like that as far as companies.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

And I can imagine like that. So when I have like the, the military veteran, I talked to yesterday, when I was talking to him, like, what are your salary requirements? Cause, well, I I'm used to making 70. I, I need to make 70. I'm like you have X, Y, and Z. I'm like, you're the minimum I would bill you out as a hundred, $10,000 a year. Like that's the minimum. But because your time as, and he was yeah. Using EEX yeah, because your time as an E six, you can be a manager. I could recommend you for a senior position. That's 130,000 a year. Right. I said, you're undervaluing yourself by about half. He's like, honestly, I had no clue. I Googled some jobs and I looked at their average salaries and I just figure, you know, I'm new to the civilian. I said, don't be timid.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Now is not the time to be timid. Now is the time to be confident, not narcissistic, not, not too proud. Confidence, exude confidence. The way that you did when you were in the military, you know, just cuz that uniform doesn't come off or just cuz the uniform comes off does not mean it goes away. It's still a part of your soul. You need to bear that with you with pride and integrity live, you know, on our case, I would, I'm biased and say live the army values every day and be confident in yourself, tell our story properly and you will succeed.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

It's good advice, man. And man, I went by so quick. It's hard to believe that we're up against our time here.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

Sorry. I talked a lot.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

It's it's great advice though. Not, not only for the employment seekers, but also the employers. And I've got identify security scrolling across the bottom here. Identify security.com for both tech staffing and cybersecurity needs. And you can reach out to Ben. I'll put his LinkedIn in our show notes to make sure that you're able to reach out to him. If you have any questions or if you're in the area and you need his assistance with getting your tech career off on the, off on the right foot here. Ben sure. To appreciate your time today. My man.

Ben Pechacek - Identify Security:

No problem. I just wanna say, if you are a veteran, you wanna be an it cybersecurity. Reach out to me, email me, message me on LinkedIn, whatever I am very busy right now because in case you guys haven't known the whole, world's kinda like on fire right now in the cybersecurity world. Oh sure. So I may take me some time to get back to you. Give me a day or two to respond to you and I will get back to you. I may not be able to rewrite resumes for every person that's on there, but I'll do my best I can to help whoever I can in the military world.

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

Good stuff, Ben, sure. To appreciate your time, ask you to hang on the line for just a minute man. Good stuff. If you want a career in tech, it cybersecurity. Any of those things. Ben is definitely a guy to talk to identify securities, definitely a team to talk to. But there are resources out there, you know, and a lot of the times he mentioned a couple times the veteran doesn't know what they don't know. They have no idea. They're not getting trained the right way on how to find the, the substantive employment with the appropriate pay scale. They, they're not taught that in their transition, in their taps classes or, or otherwise, and they need, they need to know it. So sometimes you need someone in your corner and those staffing firms, aren't charging you to get you a job. They're getting the money from the corporation, you know?

Adam Braatz - WVCC:

So it, and it behooves them to make sure that you get a good paying gig that you are long tenured in. It, it, it helps everybody. So there's, there's no like ulterior motive or anything. You know, those staffing firms really are a great asset, especially in that industry for veterans who are looking to transition. So make sure to head up Ben or somebody like him in your area. And if you have any questions obviously, you know, we cast a wide net here. Any questions about the wide variety of things that we chat about on the show, feel free to reach out or take a look at our website. Why not? W I veterans chamber.org and yeah, appreciate you tuning in. We'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Wisconsin veterans forward brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce. Please visit us at wiveteranschamber.org. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, leave a rating and review in whatever platform you're listening through.