Military Hiring Debunked

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Episode Summary:

Season One | Episode 26

Hiring veterans isn’t hard.Hiring veterans without understanding them is where everything falls apart.

In this episode of Talentless, Desiree Goldey and Ashley King are joined by Lee Cage Jr. (SPHR, HRIP, CSM) to break down the myths, mistakes, and missed opportunities in military hiring.

Lee brings a rare mix of experience across enterprise transformation, HR technology, and 17+ years of service in the Army National Guard, making this conversation equal parts practical, strategic, and overdue.

We get into:

• The biggest misconceptions companies have about military talent

• Why “they don’t have corporate experience” is usually lazy hiring

• How to translate military roles into skills without oversimplifying them

• What real veteran support looks like after hiring (onboarding + retention)

• Where recruiters get stuck: sourcing, evaluation, and hiring manager bias

• What TA leaders should do right now to build military hiring programs that actually work

If your company says “we love hiring veterans” but can’t explain what that actually means… this episode is your mirror.

 Listen wherever you get your podcasts Submit your #dumdum talent stories for a shoutout

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Desiree Goldey (00:06)

Ashley, guess what? Did know Lee lives in Nashville?

Ashley King (00:08)

What's up?

I didn't- why didn't we see him in October? Was it October?

Desiree Goldey (00:13)

mama.

Lee Cage Jr. (00:13)

wasn't a

part of the Cool Kids Club at that time, but now...

Ashley King (00:16)

⁓ my goodness.

Welcome to the table. Hey, what's up?

Desiree Goldey (00:20)

Hey, what's

up? Yeah, one of our favorite cities.

And so I learned a lot about it actually when I was on Lee's show. Interesting stuff. Anyway, folks, welcome back to Talentless, the show where we talk hiring, work, leadership, all the crazy things that we do out there. And you know, today we have one of my favorite people, fellow podcaster Lee Cage. And as usual, Desiree has to read the bio. So everybody knows this already. Desiree is not going to remember your whole bio. We're not doing all the things we're doing.

Lee Cage Jr. (00:49)

picture it's Sicily 1937.

Ashley King (00:52)

Right?

Desiree Goldey (00:52)

the whole action

Ashley King (00:52)

⁓

Desiree Goldey (00:53)

thing, right? Lee is a Workday Strategist, Smartsheet partners, speaker, author, fellow podcaster of 15 Minutes With, a work-defined member, long-established and award-winning entrepreneur who spends his time helping organizations modernize how they operate without losing the humanity in the process. He's also a Forbes Technology Council member, currently Director of Enterprise Transformation Strategy and Technology at BDO, and he's served in the Army National Guard for 17 years.

my God, I'm running out of breath. Basically, he's got the military precision and the talent perspective and the technology perspective to talk to us today. So I'm excited to be talking about what we're talking about today. Ashley, why don't you introduce what we're talking about today?

Ashley King (01:22)

Fuuu

Lee Cage Jr. (01:22)

Thanks

Ashley King (01:36)

All right, today we are talking about military and veteran hiring. And I am so excited because it is something that I feel is not talked about enough. It is one of the largest use cases for how talent can be a vessel for not only forms of social justice, but reentry and everything altogether. So hey, Lee, before I yap away, please tell us everything, take it away.

Lee Cage Jr. (02:02)

I

I just feel like with that introduction that Desiree did, there's nothing else for me to say.

Ashley King (02:08)

Yeah

Desiree Goldey (02:09)

I tried to crush

it all in, ⁓ you know, so you didn't have to do the whole thing. No. That's my whole goal, by the way, Lee, is to win an Emmy for this podcast. Yeah. Yes.

Lee Cage Jr. (02:13)

It's like, you'll get an Emmy just for that introduction, I feel like.

Ashley King (02:22)

We're egots. That was episode one.

Lee Cage Jr. (02:24)

I love this. ⁓ my

gosh. I mean, you know, actually, to Desiree's point earlier, I have spent almost 18 years in the Tennessee Army National Guard. I did about four years of active service across Yellow Ribbon and Counterdrug Task Force, which tons of stories there, as well as recruiting and retention. So I really understand, at least from a day in the life of what it's like to be both a service member and a professional. And it is incredibly difficult.

Ashley King (02:28)

You

Desiree Goldey (02:52)

Yeah, yeah, it's horrible. And you know what? My son ⁓ was actually in the National Guard and so this hits my heart, this topic, ⁓ as he came out and all the things. So I wanna start with what do you think the biggest misconception is that you want to throw out there about hiring veterans and doing this work?

Lee Cage Jr. (03:12)

Well, think one, most

people, unless you know a service member, they think that we are all gunslinging badasses. I don't know if I can say that on your show or not. Okay. All right. But that's what they think. Okay. They think that we are walking through the trench of Iraq or Afghanistan. are looking, you know, we are living in tents. We are doing all those things. And some of that may be true, but it is not all that we are. And so for most organizations, they don't understand that, for example, the army,

Ashley King (03:21)

you

Lee Cage Jr. (03:39)

We have MOSs. We actually have jobs that we are trained to do, more than 150 of them, that are parallel or similar to that on the civilian side. But on the military side, we don't always do the best job of conveying that. And the civilian side doesn't always do the best job of understanding what an MOS is or what the Air Force jobs are, what the Navy jobs are, or why those actual entities exist and are different.

Desiree Goldey (03:48)

Well, yeah.

Mmm.

Lee Cage Jr. (04:06)

They are very, very different. you know, a Toyota and a Nissan and a BMW and a Maserati, they'll all get you there from point A to point B. But it is the architecture of how they're built, the cabin quietness, how they are actually engineered that makes them unique. They're all still cars. We are all still one big department of war.

Desiree Goldey (04:11)

That hits her home. That helps.

Lee Cage Jr. (04:31)

also previously known as Department of Defense, right? But we all sit under that. But what we do, our specialty, our focus, our schools, our training, our civilian comparables are very, very different.

Desiree Goldey (04:34)

Yeah, it works.

I want to get into that because this is one of the things that I think our audience, we try to educate people how to do this work. And I think one of the things we don't know how to do is look at somebody who has been in whatever branch and say, OK, they were this in the army. How does that a project manager incorporate?

Lee Cage Jr. (04:52)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ashley King (05:08)

And can I actually test my

knowledge real quick to see? like, if I'm thinking, okay, if I'm thinking of like a fleet manager, I would look for the words like W2, W3. ⁓ If I was looking for someone, like people who have done, cause there's people who've done like HR in the military. ⁓

Lee Cage Jr. (05:11)

Let's do it Ashley. I feel like you need Jeopardy music right here.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (05:30)

Mm-hmm.

Ashley King (05:32)

For some reason, it's not this one, but I keep thinking of something with an OF maybe? I don't know, but I remember the W1234. I don't know why. Okay, yeah.

Desiree Goldey (05:38)

you

Lee Cage Jr. (05:38)

Okay, okay. Okay, so we're picking up what you're putting down and I wanna thank

you for your good faith efforts. And that's okay, that's okay. So I think the first basic thing that I would say is, there are three-ish levels to, and I say three-ish levels to military rank structure. You have enlisted.

Desiree Goldey (05:45)

you

Ashley King (05:47)

Yeah, because it wasn't right on for sure, but hey, I tried.

Lee Cage Jr. (06:05)

And then you have officers, but I say three-ish because there's this weird segment of what's known as warrant officers. Warrant officers, those Ws, those folks exist in both the Navy Marine Corps as well as the Army. So I'll just kind of quickly break down those three groups and then Desiree, we'll go back to your question. So on the enlisted side, you can have a person who starts as an E1,

Desiree Goldey (06:24)

You sure?

Lee Cage Jr. (06:28)

that makes it all the way up to E9. Now, think about an HR manager within an existing organization. Perhaps you have a site HR manager, maybe you have a regional HR manager, maybe you have a corporate HR manager. They may all have the title of HR manager, but the scope of their responsibilities may be very different. The same is this. It is just like that in the Army and in almost all of the branches. I could be a unit HR manager.

and a sergeant or staff sergeant. I could be a company HR manager as a staff sergeant or sergeant first class. I could be a battalion HR manager. I could be a brigade HR manager. All of those are different levels of scope and responsibility, no different than the way that a traditional organization is assigned.

Ashley King (07:19)

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (07:20)

Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (07:20)

⁓

And then you have your warrant officers and I'll just kind of go from a listed to warrant. Firstly, my desire, okay, Little Lee has always dreamed of being an officer, but specifically a warrant officer because warrant officers are like the consultants of the military. They are the experts in their field. They know all things related to their specific domain or function.

Desiree Goldey (07:42)

Hmm.

Lee Cage Jr. (07:43)

And then you have regular officers, those lieutenants, captains, you probably heard of those ranks before, majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels. Those officers are wonderful. We love them. But their span and control is so broad that they're more like VPs. Okay, they're more like your VPs, your SVPs, your EBPs. They may know a little bit about a lot, but they have such a broad amount of span and control that they don't tend to be able to get really

Desiree Goldey (07:47)

Yes, of course.

Interesting.

Lee Cage Jr. (08:11)

in depth into a specific domain. Whereas, Warrant Officers, they are the experts and your enlisted personnel are always the people who are actually getting things done.

Desiree Goldey (08:22)

So interesting. ⁓

Ashley King (08:24)

mean, it's a whole entire translation service whenever you're in TA that you have to accomplish.

Desiree Goldey (08:26)

my gosh.

Lee Cage Jr. (08:29)

Yeah, I mean, I remember I went on this interview some time back and we'll skip the name of the company. But the first question that the recruiter asked me was, have you ever been deployed? Which obviously, let's just say it's illegal to ask the question. But what do you do, right? What do you do when you're a service member and you're really trying to go after this job and you're really trying to disassociate how people think that every service member has some type of illness or ailment or PTSD?

Do you answer the question? Do you correct the person on the spot? There's so many layers to that. ⁓

Desiree Goldey (09:02)

Sounds,

that sounds, I wouldn't even know what to do if I was that person. I'd be like, you know what I mean? Like, what are you doing? And why are you even asking me? Right?

Lee Cage Jr. (09:09)

Yeah, so I just skipped right over it, right? So I just kind of

moved past it. And then she asked, know, so what did you do in the Army? I said, well, I'm still in the Army. And my job is in HR. I'm specifically, in a all, at the time I was in a all HR company. That's 125, 150 soldiers who all we do is support the Tennessee Army National Guard as a HR company. So we're...

Desiree Goldey (09:27)

Mm-hmm.

Lee Cage Jr. (09:35)

detached or attached to a specific function of, let's say, MPs who are deploying or infantrymen or infantrywomen who are deploying. So we attach to them to provide their HR support. And so she's like, so what does that mean? I'm like, so you have regulations, right? State or local regulations. You have rules and policy. We have the same things. We just call them ARs, Army Regulations. We just call them...

Desiree Goldey (10:00)

So what if you do spend the whole

interview-ing- interview-educating-er?

Lee Cage Jr. (10:03)

Educating,

Ashley King (10:03)

Yeah,

Lee Cage Jr. (10:04)

yes.

Ashley King (10:05)

pretty much.

Lee Cage Jr. (10:05)

So by the time we got through this, you know, 30 minute, it was supposed to be a 30 minute interview. I've spent 15 minutes or so educating her on what the army is and what a MOS is and how what I've done in the military actually translates to be an enabler for the organization. We only had 15 minutes to actually talk about the job.

Desiree Goldey (10:24)

So I think what happens is we see these like MOS codes or these titles and a recruiter who sometimes can't even barely function and it's running through a million applications gets to that because of bandwidth or whatever gets to that resume and they're like, I don't know what this is. It's like looking at my taxes. I need somebody to describe it. So how do we stop recruiters from panicking? I know there's sites out there to help you translate but.

Lee Cage Jr. (10:36)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

the Army calls it MOS's, the Air Force calls it AFSC's. The Marine Corps has something that they call it Navy Coast Guard Space Force. We all have a thing that we call it. But I think the most important thing of note is to me, every service member is a leader. Every service member has project management experience from day one. Why? And I'll tell you why.

Desiree Goldey (10:53)

Cough

Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (11:16)

When we go to basic training and we spend 10 weeks out there missing home and missing mom and dad and cousin and Pookie and Ray Ray and them. And then we then go over to our our job specialty school, right? Where we become whatever it is. I have a few of those jobs. So anything the Army has, I can drive. I was an 88 Mike trucker. You should have seen me. I know you should have seen me. I a booster seat in my head because I could see over.

Desiree Goldey (11:24)

Uh-uh, got Pookie and Ray-Ray.

Lee Cage Jr. (11:43)

So I can see over the hood of the 18 wheeler. I was literally was so smart. Team, team, was 115 pounds when I went to basic training, my rucksack and equipment weighed about half of my body weight. I know, I know, but I was determined to get through. But that said, how do you educate yourself is really one understanding that every service member has project management experience.

Desiree Goldey (11:46)

Nuh-uh.

Ashley King (11:47)

Aww.

Desiree Goldey (11:57)

⁓ jeez.

Lee Cage Jr. (12:07)

Every service member who is MOS cued or who has completed basic and their advanced school or advanced technical school has the equivalent, if not significantly more time spent on that than almost any associate's degree that a person could ever have. And here's why. When you go to basic training or you go to an AIT, the Army calls it Advanced Individual Training School, every day of our life is spent in that course. It's eight to 12 hours a day.

Desiree Goldey (12:31)

Right.

Lee Cage Jr. (12:33)

We take multiple tests a day out. went to a advanced leaders course two years ago and literally our morning started at 5.30 with PT. We were in class by seven. Our day ended at four. We had homework. We had regulations to read. had all of these sorts of things. have tests. have, I mean, it is a lot. And what most employers don't realize is that when we do those things,

Desiree Goldey (12:43)

which, ugh.

Lee Cage Jr. (13:00)

we actually get college credit for it.

Ashley King (13:02)

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (13:03)

wow.

Lee Cage Jr. (13:03)

So the Joint Training Commission has things out there for us to get college credit for all the things that we are doing. So yes, your service member understands what it's like to meet a deliverable, to meet a deadline, to have intentionality, to have focus. We have something else that I like to call GSD. I don't know if I can say it on your show, but it's basically we get stuff done, OK?

Desiree Goldey (13:25)

Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (13:25)

We and so for some folks, they walk into their civilian jobs fresh out of college or maybe with some experience and they may get overwhelmed by, this company doesn't have all the training that I want, which is important. Maybe this company doesn't have all of the knowledge management that I want, which is important. But service members that I know, and I'll talk a little bit about some of the smartest ones I know, they get stuff done. You don't have a training manual. We've created one.

Desiree Goldey (13:52)

Right. Right.

Ashley King (13:54)

One question I have, so, cause you mentioned that the training can, you know, cross into school credit. What do they count that equivalent for? So like if they just do the training, what does that like equal essentially? Like what did they say is equivalent?

Lee Cage Jr. (14:09)

Yeah,

so for basic training, typically get communication pieces. You typically get some project management credit. You typically get things around writing. We have combat arms, which is great. But yes, we do shoot weapons. We don't call them guns. They are weapons. So yes, we do shoot weapons. But that's a small part of the purpose of basic training.

Ashley King (14:21)

Hmm.

Lee Cage Jr. (14:34)

walked into, I remember going to an organization and they were like, Lee, why are you training your team on everything you're doing? I said, well, that's a military concept because the faster I train them, the faster I can get promoted. So the concept of team, the concept is moving as one systematic in synergy operation. That is what we are excellent at. So those are the types of credits we typically get for basic and core training.

But you have tons of training, get every almost every portion of your career you have. And I'll just go for the army here. You have basic leaders course. Then you have an advanced leaders course. Maybe you have a senior leaders course, SLC. Then you have first sergeant and master leaders course. You have command sergeant major schools where those types of leaders are leading all sorts of things. You have captain's career course, officer basic course, warrant officer X, Y, Z course, every portion of

your career, about every two ranks or so, for you to make it through, there is significant courses that you have to go through in order to lead people to places they have never gone before. And the military takes it serious.

Desiree Goldey (15:38)

Yeah, I'm sure they do. They better! No, I'm just joking.

Lee Cage Jr. (15:41)

I mean, you can ask This is safe.

Ashley King (15:41)

Can I ask you a weirder question? Can I ask like, okay, sweet beans,

sweet beans. Weirder question for you because how much of their leadership courses are actually about like empathy and like actual like human centered? Because I find that those two often contradict as far as like critical thinking and like with an empathy plus.

Lee Cage Jr. (16:04)

Mmm.

Ashley King (16:07)

you know, you're a leader who tells them what to do, they need to listen what to do, but don't critically think about it. And I don't know, I feel like those are two conflicting thoughts. So like, how do they actually train you? And is it more compatible with Department of Defense? Or is it actually more compatible with like the world we're in? Like just out of curiosity.

Lee Cage Jr. (16:24)

It's yeah, no,

that is an excellent question. So let's talk about it a little bit. When a regular manager has and I'll pull on the active duty string a little bit. When a regular manager has an employee, they work together from nine to five. John goes home. That manager ceases being responsible for John. When you are a sergeant, staff sergeant, sergeant, first class master sergeant, first sergeant, you are responsible for your soldiers.

100 % of the time, all of their days, lives until they are no longer within your care. That is a very different responsibility. So when when John goes out and let's say gets a DUI, they're going to call the sergeant, John squat leader, team leader, platoon sergeant, platoon leader to figure out how John did this, where you were, why weren't you watching John, what's going on in John's life, what's going on with John's financials.

That is a very different scope of responsibility than you have in the typical civilian world. So when we talk about training our leaders to be leaders, we're not just training them to be leaders to guide them through deployments, but they are also in some cases, career advisors, life advisors. When John goes on a deployment for nine months and Sarah, his wife, you know, does some hocus pocus and has spent all John's money, or when Sarah goes on a deployment,

and Sarah's kids are back at home or Sarah's husband has spent all her money while she's in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever. That's a different level of management that you have to have. So empathy is a core function, but we also have to stay focused on the mission. We have committed to protect and defend the constitution of the United States against both enemies, both foreign and domestic. That is our mission. Less than 1 % of all Americans wear that uniform.

Desiree Goldey (17:58)

Right.

All right.

Lee Cage Jr. (18:09)

That is our mission. have a 16 year old sister who never intends on joining the military. My mission is to provide the covering that she needs, whatever that looks and feels like here or abroad to protect and defend her and everyone else I like and love and those that don't even like and love me. So it does require both the leader and the service member to compartmentalize in some cases to focus on the mission so they can make it back home so that they can then focus on the things that.

And the spirit of things, sometimes a little bit less important than the mission at hand. So our leaders are not just, you know, are not just transient. I remember my mom and I'll kind of overshare here a little bit, but 2014, my mom got very sick. Neurosarcodosis, sarcoidosis, COPD, MS stuff. I mean, just all the things. And my mother is a nurse.

Ashley King (18:40)

Got it.

Desiree Goldey (18:41)

Hmm.

Lee Cage Jr. (18:59)

She is used to nursing other people, but she is horrible at being nurses. ⁓ Nurses are the... And she is a Jedi. Okay. She is a Jedi, but she is horrible at being nursed. Okay. That said, I remember going to my command team and saying, hey, listen, you know, I can come to drill, but if I come to drill, that means I don't have a caretaker for my mom.

Desiree Goldey (19:03)

And a Jedi, by the way. His mom says Jedi.

Ashley King (19:07)

⁓ alright.

Lee Cage Jr. (19:19)

My command team said, take care of your mom, but what else do you need? What resources do you need? Now don't have the EAP like you would in a civilian organization, but we do have yellow ribbon. We do have specialized dollars that have been set aside for the care and well-being of service members, their families, their kids, so forth and so on.

you

Desiree Goldey (19:39)

This is deep stuff, I'm gonna tell you. It's really deep, because he... Yes, of course! No, go, I got, I got, I got something for later, go ahead.

Ashley King (19:42)

keep asking more weird questions? Are you about to ask a weird one? Okay. Do

Lee Cage Jr. (19:44)

Yes.

Yeah.

Ashley King (19:48)

you? Okay. and I guess I'll just ask it plainly.

And I know the answer is a lot of different things, but in your perspective, what is everything that we're doing wrong? Like what is everything? It wasn't really, no, because I mean, I mean, we definitely are, we're not, but like, again, we in this position within talent HR, whatever space that is that we're claiming today, ⁓ we have an opportunity to actually create a norm that might, you know, set trend to other organizations or things like that. So like,

Desiree Goldey (20:09)

Hahahaha!

Lee Cage Jr. (20:18)

Yeah.

Ashley King (20:20)

what are the ways that we can actually swing through that like people listening can actually make an impact? Because I hear stuff like this and I'm just like, all right, I don't know, I'm a can we fix it Bob the Builder and I'm in that era right now and today's but yeah, like what, like where do we get it all wrong? And what can we do like today besides obviously sharpening our translation skills today? Like what can we do?

Lee Cage Jr. (20:44)

I mean, so a lot of recruiters spend time learning the business. They tend to understand in some cases what the business needs in some cases. ⁓ But the candidates, all candidates are not created equal.

Desiree Goldey (20:50)

Yeah, I was about to say, be nice.

Ashley King (20:54)

Yeah.

That's ideal.

Lee Cage Jr. (20:59)

And I realized that I have a bias when in doubt, I hire the veteran. I know that this person is trainable. I know that they're coachable. Your veteran will be coachable because we give coachings and we don't give those nice civilian coachings where you say, Sarah, you've walked on water all year long. We're going to give you this X, Y, blah, blah, blah percentage. And we are just so grateful that you are here. No, no, no.

If one of my soldiers, or if I am late to a formation, I am liable to get a counseling statement about managing myself and my time. As a result, I'm used to being coached.

If that soldier is or service member is not doing what they need to be doing, there's going to be paperwork in their lives. They are used to being coached. They're used to having those conversations. So I always default to the veteran because I can train a person on how to do configurations in a system. I can train a person on how to have a consulting presence, which most veterans have a presence about themselves anyways.

⁓ But I cannot always train people on being good people, about being on time, about being accountable for themselves and for others. I can't always train people that, yeah, I know we work to five, but some days you might have to work to six. You look, you packing up at 4.45, job's not done. I can't train, in some cases, everyone to not have excuses. Now there was this poem that said excuses are tools of the, I won't go all the way down it, but.

Desiree Goldey (22:26)

Yeah. Yep.

Lee Cage Jr. (22:28)

most of the service members that I know, and I want to talk a little bit about some of them, are exceptional in that case. And so for recruiters, for those that are in talent acquisition, if you don't understand or if you see service member on that resume, let's give them a shot. If you can, present them to the manager, help them.

Ashley King (22:44)

Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (22:47)

If you can, without violating whatever rules you have within your organization, if you're not gonna move them forward, especially if they are coming from active duty, tell them why not. Because typically speaking, when service members are moving from active duty or in preparing to retire, there are some really phenomenal job programs out there that really help. ESGR is phenomenal at helping with resume writing and recognizing employers who support the garden reserves.

There's H2H and other programs out there. But until you have been in front of yourself, excuse me, in front of a recruiter, you are used to selling yourself. On the military side, we call it brown nosing. On the civilian side, you call it networking. There are some things that we have to... There are some things that we have to...

Ashley King (23:28)

I see what you did there.

Lee Cage Jr. (23:33)

work through if we don't have that experience, if we've spent the last 20 or 30 years giving our lives in service of the people of the United States of America.

Desiree Goldey (23:40)

Yeah, mean, that was kind of my next thing was like, how set up are they to come into the world of work? Right. And how can we support them in their, you know, if it's not my company, what to as they go forward. And it sounds like that feedback loop is is really essential as they present themselves. I always look for people who are in the service, obviously, because of my background, my stepdad's in the army, blah, blah, blah. But because I know their their rigor and their ability to perform, but not everybody

searching for that. And I think it is such a tool for them to hear that feedback if they have an interview with you as a recruiter, right? And they miss out on translating for me their experience and how it relates to that corporate environment. But I also think we need to be a little more empathetic on the other side and say, like, this person just came out of active duty or whatever and give them a little bit of grace to that as well. I

Lee Cage Jr. (24:16)

Yeah.

And the military spouse

as well. mean, the military spouse, that person is, I think, the unsung hero of many stories, because for most of their, especially, you know, if they've been married for longer than a day, they are having to move every two to four years, which means unless they have a remote job, they are having to find a new job every few years. So then people begin to ask, like, why?

Desiree Goldey (24:38)

right right yeah yeah

Ashley King (24:38)

Hmm?

Desiree Goldey (24:45)

Right. ⁓

Lee Cage Jr. (25:02)

Why do you have this? Why are you moving so much? Or the organizations that don't understand that their taxes associated to that spouse have to be based off of their home of record and not the state that they currently are in working. Which is also a really big thing, a big challenge that I've had with some employers. But in either case, think Desiree, there's a program ⁓ which I've had the pleasure of being a part of. I'm actually in the second cohort.

of this program at Emory. So Emory has a top 20 MBA, blah, blah. They have a bunch of commas behind their names, know, award winning, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But a few years ago, General Ken Keane, who used to be, I believe, over Army South, went to Emory and collaborated with them to create a program called MBV, Masters in Business for Veterans. It's like an MBA for veterans.

Ashley King (25:51)

Hmm.

Desiree Goldey (25:52)

Hmm.

Nice.

Lee Cage Jr. (25:55)

and Emory's second cohort, which is happening right now, I've had the pleasure of being class president of that cohort, but also collaborating with 40 other veterans from every branch, with the exception of the space force, who are at various portions in their career, still in the military, recently transitioned from the military or long since got out. And what we are finding is one, I think Emory realized the same thing that we're talking about today.

One, they wanted to offer a world-class education to veterans. Two, they have really worked to bridge for the veteran the disconnect between my military career and what I could or should or possibly do on the civilian side. But they have even rung in civilian employers working with the CMC, the career management people.

Desiree Goldey (26:45)

You

Doing great.

Lee Cage Jr. (26:47)

I love them. I love them. just don't know their acronym. Okay, Sissy, I love

Ashley King (26:50)

Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (26:51)

you. If you hear this, shout out to y'all. But has really worked with that group to also help employers understand what does the veteran bring and what from your organization do you need to have the right infrastructure to support them? Great example. I am still in the National Guard. Now, most people think the National Guard is one weekend a month.

two weeks during the summer.

Some people still don't realize that we get paid, but that's another funny story to tell you at another time. It's like, is this volunteer? I mean, I did volunteer, but I do need the check, The check, please. But one of the things that has been a really big challenge is what do you do with, as an organization, when your service member has drill? What is your obligation? Not just,

Desiree Goldey (27:18)

Yeah

Ashley King (27:24)

You

Desiree Goldey (27:27)

Right, thanks.

Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (27:41)

the legal obligation. But what is your obligation to provide a safe and productive environment for that service member who has that commitment one weekend a month? For my particular unit, we don't do AT or annual training in the summer, which is very odd for some employers who think that they know all the things about the National Guard. We know everything.

Desiree Goldey (28:01)

Right, they know everything.

Lee Cage Jr. (28:04)

My

particular unit, because I'm at Joint Force Headquarters, we have rolling annual trainings. So it could be a Monday, it could be a Wednesday when my Master Sergeant needs me, it could be a Friday, it could be whatever day it is to meet the mission and needs of the Tennessee Army National Guard.

Desiree Goldey (28:19)

Hmm.

Lee Cage Jr. (28:20)

Right. But I've been really blessed to have, especially my most recent employers, both of which I've submitted in the last five years for ESGRA awards because they figured it out. They figured out that if you create a space where the service member can thrive, you are rewarded way more than the service member ever is.

Ashley King (28:29)

Thanks

Can I ask because right now I feel like the specifically the National Guard is super relevant like thinking of Minneapolis. So like what would an employer do in this scenario or should an employer do in this scenario if they're like, you know, a statewide deployment? Now what? Bloop. Yeah, because I have no clue, literally. No idea.

Lee Cage Jr. (28:57)

Yeah, so I love the so what now what, right? So yeah, yeah,

Desiree Goldey (28:59)

Hehehehehe

Lee Cage Jr. (29:02)

one myth is that

the service member has a ton of notice and as a result, you as the employer should be given that notice. That is a myth. In some cases, the service member has notice and we are asked to give you as much notice as possible. But there are some things that we just should not give you because you do not have a need to know, okay?

Ashley King (29:19)

Mm.

Desiree Goldey (29:19)

Right.

Lee Cage Jr. (29:20)

Two is, some cases it's 24 hours. The National Guard doesn't just respond to the political things in the world. The National Guard also is assigned deployments like active duty, but also national disasters like the flood in Nashville in 2010, tornado response across multiple states, feeding.

Desiree Goldey (29:36)

Yeah.

Ashley King (29:36)

Mm-hmm.

Lee Cage Jr. (29:42)

Hungary, other specialized missions, and most people don't realize that every governor controls a military. The National Guard serves at the leisure of the governor and then the president. So if the governor has determined that this, you know, these folks are going to be sent to Memphis, for example, I'm in Nashville, then I am going to Memphis tomorrow. Employers,

Desiree Goldey (29:49)

Right.

Lee Cage Jr. (30:05)

who want to help ease it, why produce more compression for the service member? That person is already packing bags, leaving spouse and baby and mama and daddy and again, Pookie and Ray Ray in there. Okay, I don't know, I have no one in my family named Pookie and Ray Ray, but I feel like I should, but they're there, they do, yeah. But you know, that is already...

Desiree Goldey (30:11)

Right.

Ashley King (30:13)

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (30:18)

Boogie and Ro-Rae, here we go.

Well, they're there. They should. Yay.

Ashley King (30:25)

They get a lot of shouts man, they're feeling

it.

Lee Cage Jr. (30:31)

has a certain amount of compression for the service member to include potential pay challenges. Because for some of us who are in professional senses, what I make as a director at the top, the fifth largest accounting and transformation firm in the world, it's very different than what I make as a service So the good employer, would say, if there was a list of things a good employer could do.

One is, how can I help you? What do you need from me? Shout out to Nicole Fleshman from BDO, who I also worked for at Cross View and also worked for at Cross Country Consulting. But she asked the question. My very first assignment where I had a school or whatever, it wasn't, my gosh, what are we going to do? It was, how do I help you? What do you need from me in this moment?

What does your spouse need from us as an organization? It's insane to have a little bit of common courtesy, decency, respect, care for others.

Desiree Goldey (31:24)

I

and I think that should go across anything, by the way, people listening to this, like, we should be asking how we can help people. I don't know. Maybe we lost that a little bit, but. Right? Right.

Lee Cage Jr. (31:31)

Yes, so, but that's

Ashley King (31:31)

Yeah. Yeah. Notice our first question in the podcast. Like what should we be doing? Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (31:36)

Exactly. Right. And then the

second thing that the employer can do is tell me how much time you are going to be out according to what you know. Typically, our orders do give some time frame, but those orders are subject to be extended. The legal component is that the employer typically has to hold our job for up to five years for any blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's UCI. Most employers are familiar with that portion of it.

but it's the human decency portion of it that you realize that this person isn't just your employee. They are wearing two different hats that require two different levels of responsibility. And typically for most organizations, the one here is not life and death.

Desiree Goldey (32:18)

Right, right, absolutely. You know, one of the things I've talked to so many people, Ashley has as well, when we talk about diversity hiring and how to do it, teaching recruiters how to do it, is they're always like, I can't find veterans. I don't know where they are. I don't know where they are. I don't know, I don't know.

Lee Cage Jr. (32:31)

⁓ If you're looking for a veteran, okay.

Ashley King (32:33)

They don't open their eyes.

Their eyes are closed.

Desiree Goldey (32:36)

They don't want to the eyes,

right? But it happens, right? It's just like you can't find black people, right? You know, it's like the same thing, right? So we hear this all the time, right? Like, hello! But is there some suggestions you can make for recruiters out there to find that great talent? That would be great to hear. I know, geez, don't get me started.

Lee Cage Jr. (32:43)

I'm here.

Yes.

Yeah, firstly, if you go to LinkedIn and you type

in MBV, that's Viennese and Victor, Mike Bravo Victor, anyone that you see come up with MBV, that means that they have a master's in business for veterans. USC has done 14 or 15 or so.

⁓ cohorts of their MBV program. Emory is on cohort two currently recruiting cohort three. Those are high speed, low drag veterans and we are looking for you back. Number two, you can go to LinkedIn and click on the Department of War. You can click on US Army. You can click on whatever the National Guard is in your area and you can see the people who work there. Okay.

Desiree Goldey (33:32)

Yeah.

Very

smart.

Lee Cage Jr. (33:42)

And it typically has not just their rank, but it typically has what they actually do. For mine, I have human resource management. Right? So you know, regardless of what my MOS is or what my F's blah, blah, blah is, I am in HR.

Ashley King (33:42)

Mm-hmm.

Desiree Goldey (33:57)

Yeah, I mean, it's that simple. yeah, it's okay.

Ashley King (33:57)

Also, I feel like there's a ton of community groups. to interrupt you, Daz. There's

Lee Cage Jr. (34:01)

Yes.

Ashley King (34:03)

a ton of those. There's also ways that you can like, not to be super sleuthy, but like you can like look up records and things of who does what, when, where, depending on how like deep you're really wanting to get into it. There's also, aside from free communities, there's also paid communities. So you can do like recruit military. can do, there's one that starts with a V and I cannot.

even remember it.

Lee Cage Jr. (34:26)

Yeah, mean, Syracuse University,

they figured it out. They have a phenomenal program for for veterans to train both veterans and their spouses. Wounded Warrior Project. You can reach out to those guys ⁓ who are doing phenomenal work. And there's this myth that they just work with wounded or, you know, veterans, but they have all sorts of services for veterans, especially during the government shutdown. They gave out a ton.

Desiree Goldey (34:29)

Yeah.

Ashley King (34:36)

Mmm. Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (34:36)

Yeah, great. Yeah.

Lee Cage Jr. (34:51)

had a ton of initiatives around to support veterans and the veteran community, or if you just cannot do that, okay, you can call me, beep me if you wanna reach me. I'm not Kim Possible, but.

Ashley King (35:02)

If you want to page me, it's okay.

Don't get me started. All right, keep going. Sorry, sorry, Come I'm about to start up again, hurry.

Lee Cage Jr. (35:09)

Okay.

Desiree Goldey (35:09)

jeez.

You are way too funny. No, do it! Alright, so... Okay, alright, alright. Thank you. I'm sorry, folks. Again, Ashley digresses. Yes. Whatever.

Lee Cage Jr. (35:12)

⁓ my goodness.

Ashley King (35:16)

If you want a Patreon, okay. Whatever you need me baby. It's all done. It's all done. We're out. Called out. Yeah, we should have charged them for that. Put that on the Patreon or whatever.

Lee Cage Jr. (35:16)

Mm-hmm.

⁓

my goodness, yes.

Desiree Goldey (35:29)

Anywho, Lee,

I know you wanted to talk about some smart people that you know and doing this work, but I also, you know, we're coming towards the end of our time together, but I wanted to, you know, also ask you to give, if you had a magic wand, you know, what would you be that one thing that you would fix in companies about hiring military and what would it be? So those would be my two things.

Lee Cage Jr. (35:38)

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, our

smartest person I know that I think that you should reach out to other than myself if you're looking for bets is I'll give you two, Lorenzo Suarez. Look him up on LinkedIn and general, major general Matt Smith. Those are two phenomenal people that can help you find whoever, whatever type of veteran that you are looking for. Both are phenomenal humans. I'm not saying that they walk on water. I'm just saying that they could.

If they wanted to, they might, they might.

Ashley King (36:19)

They might glide.

Desiree Goldey (36:20)

Hey, Mike!

Ashley King (36:20)

They might.

Lee Cage Jr. (36:22)

And if we could fix one thing, it is just that we are not just, again, gunslinging folks. We are smart. Most of us have, many of us have, not only undergrads, any officer that you see, any officer above, lieutenant or above, any lieutenant or above, you can guarantee that they have an undergrad degree. Most senior leaders, senior enlisted leaders,

have undergrads or hired. Most of the people that I know, even in my cohort at Emory, several already have masters, but they decided to come back and be in this very unique program for the MBV. So we are smart, we are adjustable, we are adaptable, we will get shit done, and we want to be inside of your organizations. We are the leaders that I think many organizations need that are disciplined.

that are focused, that have empathy actually to your question earlier, that have empathy, but also don't allow that empathetic portion to completely overshadow, which can sometimes happen, the work that we need to get done for the business.

Desiree Goldey (37:26)

So powerful. this is a part of the conversation where we talk about the cognitive side or psychological side about the topic. Ashley will lead us in with call it talent outside the box.

Lee Cage Jr. (37:38)

my goodness.

Ashley King (37:38)

Howling outside

the box today is actually not going to have psychology, but a little bit of to do items on how to actually find veterans

how you can do that. So one thing that we talked about earlier is kind of their different ranks, titles, things like that.

But as stated earlier, you can use terms in your Boolean string, especially if you're doing it in Google, anywhere from W1 to W4. You can also do E1 to E9. Lee, if I'm saying weird things, please jump in and correct me. But a lot of those terms are relevant based off of various skill sets as well.

what you should do is you can go onto Google and find a matrix for the... yeah, Google! I don't know if you've heard of her. Yeah, she's like a tiny little goddess. Yeah, she has a lot of answers. But you can go in there and actually get a matrix that lets you know what the equivalent of these rankings are.

Lee Cage Jr. (38:19)

Cocoa.

It exists!

She's so cool. I love her. I love her.

Ashley King (38:34)

acronyms, the numbers, and everything like that. And so that way you can incorporate them into your Boolean string in a much more efficient, effective way. This is Talent Outside of the Box and how to think of ways to do it a little bit differently to provide a better experience for your candidates, your managers, and yourself.

Desiree Goldey (38:50)

Lee, this is the part of the conversation where we let you talk about how to connect with you, where do we find you? I mean, I know all the things, but tell our audience how to do that.

Lee Cage Jr. (38:59)

So

everywhere Lee Cage Jr., whether it's TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, everywhere it is Lee Cage Jr. So I invite connections. Actually, I think on my LinkedIn, you can click a box that says have a virtual coffee. is not a someone thought that it was a joke. They're like, I didn't think this was really going to work. last year, but last year, 48 people, 48 strangers.

Ashley King (39:16)

⁓ fun.

Lee Cage Jr. (39:24)

clicked that link to have a random conversation. And I invite everyone here to do just the same.

Ashley King (39:28)

fun.

Wow wow wow.

Desiree Goldey (39:31)

Aww.

Thank

you so much, Lee. It's been such a pleasure. Everyone, thank you for listening so much. You know where to find us. We're everywhere. We're the Talentless Podcast, Instagram, Blue Sky, LinkedIn, oh, YouTube, all the things, again, running out of breath. We're still looking for those dumb dumb talent stories. Send them in. We'd love to hear about the crazy chaos you deal with in your reality every day. And if you wanna drop them to me, you can do that at DesireeOfTalentlessPodcast.com. We'll give you a shout out. Love it so much. Till next time, bye.

you