hi my name is Sam Sussman I'm with ferric ax I apologize for the delay I've been putting this video off for quite some time I interviewed Boris Khan recently and talked with him about the dod skill bridge program and some of the questions that you on my LinkedIn page have actually had questions about these questions I vetted them a little bit and just made them more grammatically correct and that's the only real difference between the questions that were typed on my profile to messages that came in through LinkedIn messaging to talk about the dod skill bridge I first want to start off with what the program is the program is a internship opportunity for active duty military during their last 180 days of active duty service in order to participate and a learning opportunity that could potentially lead towards employment with your small business its cost free meaning you can register through the DoD skill bridge comm website and get your company signed up to participate the cost associated are just gonna be your training cost that can either be internal formalized training where they get certifications and there must be an opportunity for employment and following the internship DoD skill bridge is wanting to move towards an 80% post employment opportunity metric which is going to be interesting to see how its implemented without further ado I'm going to switch this over to the interview with Boris Khan unfortunately due to DoD restrictions we just did a phone interview so there will be a graphic on the screen instead of the actual faces of myself and Boris Khan if you have any questions please feel free to comment below this video I'll be looking at the comments and responding as needed if you need any help reach out to myself as well on LinkedIn my name is Samuel Sussman I work at Fair code and I'm more than happy to help out if you guys need help thank you alrighty Boris so first things I want to kind of start with questions is going to be around what is skill bridge Gilbert and I chose an employment training opportunity for separating service members to allow them the opportunity to and enhance you know rights go up to opportunities in its alien sector hopefully with a high probability no cost too low cost to them with trained providers that have established partnerships with employers and sometimes employers themselves providing those opportunities and those could be in the shape of pre apprenticeships apprenticeships internships and hopefully those programs include the mentorship opportunities as well while they're there cultural simulation all that good stuff that I was just otherwise assistant not only I transmitters number but really any anybody that an organization will want to onboard and to make sure that they have a successful onboarding process and have a successful candidate to be a viable team member in the long run and what motivated you to work with the skill bridge program well first of all I'm a transition editor myself but for the last few years I had the wonderful opportunity of working somewhat in this space from running the credentialing voluntary education programs with the transition assistance program and I felt that this was a wonderful opportunity and program that number one Congress gave us the authority or DoD to allow our service members to participate in so not just we have the benefits packages too for our members to you know get professional and personal development opportunities while they serve their country but also a upon their near end of separating from servers they have the opportunity to log while still getting full paying benefits from the DoD and services to have a time to if you will try out an opportunity and get that assimilation started so that transition is the stress of transition if you-all is reduced I personally believe it's an amazing wonderful platform and hopefully it continues to be a thriving program for not only our service members but for with our partners but also for the communities that are participating as well so that kind of leads me to the next question of one should servicemembers actually start looking for these opportunities and when are they actually able to start the conversations with their chains of command about participating in a DoD skill bridge program that's a great question hopefully they're not trying to get into the program two weeks before they looking to go on terminal leave that's a little wrong time to do anything so transition assistance cap is offered now up to 18 months out and hopefully at least a year out so we always say be career ready so the best thing you can do is never too early to start so we say leadership and us we believe that if you served your country for years or 30 years we we owe you the opportunity to thrive you know in career 2.0 2.0 or otherwise but the best time to start looking or at least thinking about I'm considering anything you're going to you know do it that we have enough time to look at all your options and considerations at least you know a year out but six months out so skill bridge is an opportunity you can do up to 180 days most programs are eight weeks to 26 weeks or are mostly about 22 weeks at most so even if you identify a program six months out you stood up plenty of time to review and look at some of the options available and there's not an option there is available on individual can seek out and if I other partners we're always expanding daily and identifying new partnerships for discovers program so we haven't yet you know found that sealing the command engagement should also start just as early because sometimes we're always finding commending on the command triad if you will the leadership is not aware so it's cover just a fairly new program an authorial given to the DoD back in 2014 so from from a government standpoint it's very new there hasn't been a lot of advertisement so we look from a grassroots level and the successes so those individuals who transitioned and view skill bridge you know please reach back and talk about your successes and and so we can had the lesson to learn we take those and those help you develop and contribute to our policymaking but also our rigor to make sure we have quality and come on and compliance from our partners as well so I would say no minimums are not only talk six months out should search member you know me having a conversation with their Banyan command and for themselves just to make sure they have enough time to get all the paperwork ready and notification and I'm sure some of these service members are kind of gonna be listening to this and wondering all right what paperwork do we actually need to do so what's the underlying instruction that they need a reference for their request sheds to go up there chains of commands and where can they get more information on skill bridge so the easiest thing to do is don't worry about the instruction because we're here writing it but there's a Dodie outboard and most of the services have their own variants to the Dodi thirteen twenty two point two nine and it doesn't even reference the word skill bridge so that's why I would say not concerned board if you want the most up-to-date information about the skill bridge program just visit DOD skill bridge has given us a warning go or use google skill original come up and we have on all the details for across the services depending on which service you are affiliated with if the vendor is not listed there they simply fill out the contact us and it goes to our contact management system or if you have an additional question answer for yourself you simply fill it out and goes to the whole service and we will help you out so we we've tried to streamline it and make it as easy for you as while you're certain you're serving the country to get information or you can go to your local screen family service or Education Center to get more information about the skill rich program as well so again just basically Google or Bing and skill bridge or DoD skill burns and you'll get the website we have information from both the member side to the industry partner side and you can command if they want to have information we have tabs for that as well and then a fake use and resources absolutely and then for those of you listening I'll be sure to include a link to the DoD skill bridge websites that way you guys can click right in from this video another question that came from my LinkedIn network was about the overseas aspect so what about service members who are separating or retiring overseas and how is this program able to shift into a worldwide opportunity instead of just for those service members stationed within the US that's a great question that keeps on coming up so we're continuously working on that there's a sofa agreements of having skippers came out and I'm very self agreements are in place that don't allow us to obviously have on base presence etc and a lot of the partners that we have currently don't have let's say presence there possibly so there's issues with rzx patriotism and all those kind of facets so we're continually working through that with our GC and our components overseas we're also working with our partners to see which ones do have that global transnational presence that would might be able to have that forward capability working on pilots so and you might see some of those pop up here and there opportunity wise so for the latest and greatest you know be on the lookout on the DoD skill website so we are looking to do that expansion FY 2021 space so if pharmaco wants to be one of those great so those would probably come more from an online based approach or a hybrid and or some of our DoD partners if you will that our contract base so always welcome and if anybody has a great idea there what we're listening so you know so contact us and or respond to the Lincoln ad and we're more than happy to do more luck or explore I don't have all the best ideas so myself or the team absolutely brought up a LinkedIn ad which leads me to the next question is there going to be some increased funding for kind of advertisement and published media to kind of get the skill bridge name out into the commercial market so this coverage is an unfunded requirement or unappropriated but we leverage our vast network of partners once upon a waiver and better there's also our Energy Partners surprisingly I don't know if we do have a problem or issue from an industry perspective we get about 55 enquiries from industry partners a day so from it from an inquiry standpoint so we're pretty busy from that regard but when we go out there we do champion the program to promote to promote as well we have companies like Disney and northern Grimm obviously those are easy ones to kind of leverage hiring our hero's has been a great partner as well and LinkedIn as well but if somebody has a question about a particular industry partner or anything like that if you don't see them on the dod site please just email us or provide that information we'll try to reach out sometimes it's also the difference between do those industry partners why be skilled bridge partners as well and just as I mentioned before they're not aware of the program simply B of what's entailed how much responsibility there is what is the liability factors and Department waiver did provide wonderful opportunities in regard to liability factors from that they are not the responsibility of the provider you know the first number is still a source number of the departed offense because we are providing the pain benefit so that relieves a lot of liability questions there from our partners in the program so their employee meant training trainees that's a huge part and hopefully this hardest conversation that goes out there so there you know skill bridge participants and the industry partners and our industry partner and so there's coverage partners in essence so that alleviates a lot of those confusing messy legal and HR problems that we used to have to deal with that concerns about though we're seeing the influx of industry partners coming in but if any any particular questions or doesn't see you and your partner yet please let us know with 55 coming in a day that's got to be a really stressful situation so that kind of leads me to something complete opposite of what's your favorite part about working with skill bridge why should I have a lot of skill bridge out of my whole portfolio of Prudential aim because it's really alkaline space because at the end of the day we have so many programs in the DoD they're beneficial to the service members work with skill birds particularly there's a significant impact to our service members and doesn't matter what your background is it directly correlates to employment and it reduces so much stress and that occurs during that time frame for the last 12 months and those first four to six months post separation I remember how all stressful those were for me and I'm sure many of those individuals were going to be listening to this podcast and likewise I remember going through that and those individual are thinking of separating understand it and then at least skill bridge the one there's one huge benefit of skill bridge is it helps alleviate that tremendous stress factor and it is pretty satisfying knowing that we're as a team able to contribute to that absolutely and it sounds like this is more of alleviating stress not only for the service member but also for these business partners that you guys have because it seems like these business partners are getting a lot of benefits from being able to pull an active duty service member to come in learn the process and be molded into what that business once so what are some of the other benefits for skill bridge business partners you made so great points there obviously baking to get exposure to sown the best workforce out there some other great factors are obviously I'm drug-free individual we hear that a lot from our partners that ask those kind of questions there they have opportunity for individuals who know time management know ethics and morals individuals that if given a task or responsibilities from very what demographic doesn't matter what the age group is or ethnicity they already have those if you'll they already know how to deal with all those factors motorboats cultural exposure all these things are organizations are looking for and if you go from there and are risk factors and Turner's help bring that to their organizations and those are reduced risk factors for them if you will those are participating or striving from that we believe we see that because you know we've had organizations that say oh we just want to try it out with one or five candidates and they then want to keep coming back is this being one of their primary feeders for potential candidates for across their enterprise and you brought up that the lot of the companies are starting to use this for more candidate based are they charged a fee to participate or is there any fees from DoD skill bridge program that they need to pay or is this 100% free for all these business partners to participate at 100 I'm free so it's free to the partners to participate all we ask is they report back basically participation rates from the search numbers that they suppose we completed the program and then obviously the interview it went well and that while etc and then the employment outcome so those are really the measures or impact factors for our partners from that regard so 100 cent free and just a few requirements from our end and to make sure that we have a healthy relationship and their service members are getting the requisite needs that you know we would expect from dedicated time from our end and from there and were working with givers partner so and there's obviously no time that was wasted for them or they had a you know a wonderful experience from their end as well and you talked about the employers reaching back to give you some information about how the whole internship plant so it leads me kind of what I'm gonna assume is more of a voluntary base these internships of transition into actual jobs what we started to do since about June we've OSD office it depends on where we're at we're started to do enterprise mo use those things that older programs were grandfathered in so yes they're voluntary base but one of the criterias in ours is the metrics so we're starting to enforce that so where we might have had programs or in the past might have an training base with high successful or high probability of employment but partners were not reporting on those metrics they might have somehow even gone through and stayed on so that is changing that has been Jani so we're important we have that unfortunate because Congress wants those kind of questions because at the end of the day the return on investment is important so you know DoD agenda is pain pain and benefit it's a fair ask of at the end of day what was the outcome for search number and the outcome for the partner if the partner is invested so much time in the opportunity it's only fair for them as well that there's some return on investment from either successful interview that might have you know that this certain to service membership or you might have not accepted that position because they want to do something else but at least there was some kind of action that was taken in that regard so or those skills were taken and division wanted to take them to different locations so we understand there's various factors that occur we just want to make sure that due diligence you don't do profits with you always followed the agenda so with that metric being hiring on at the ends which sounds like it's going to be coming in the new instruction will it be post higher employment or will it be hired on with the employer so we work with both employers and training providers but for instance a training provider we would have looked to see some one of the pieces of either workforce did they have a network of employer partners so for a great example I would say Community Care Act name they might have a workforce center that assists that the individuals graduating with employment or so they have X identified 15 organizations that these individuals go through our what's a IT program coding program these five or six employers hire out of it and when we see that because we understand that no one vendor if you or one important feed the Machine of or say Alda was there than five hundred thousand over positions an IT so we understand that but and at minimum what we want to see is that there was at least at minimum an effort for an interview for a position and then what was the reason for no employment effect correct so that no employment effect if we're going to see a consistency of all we obviously we interviewed but they were not there I Canada there might be a problem with that so we can do statistical analysis on that XYZ we just don't want it to be somebody or some entity just running through about numerous bodies because that's an effective for them as well then it makes any sense in that regard nor do you want to amplify that more it makes perfect sense to me one of the other questions that came from LinkedIn was how many transitioning service members are approved by service location rank and they also want you to go down all the way to the MLS rating which I'm gonna be a little bit more lenient and kind of revise this question so it's a little bit easier for you to answer how many transitioning service members have participated in this program so far this past year and FY 19 we had over eighty six hundred service members participate so thus far we've had over twenty thousand service notes participate and that might look like a small number but if we take a look at the gross amount of individuals that actually annotate that they want to go for employment so majority of individuals that separate indicate they want to go down the education track and employment that is only secondary consideration what we do but we are starting to see is people who consider education they realize always like I'm not going to make enough money when I'm going to go on to education I'm going to need employment and that again I asked our whole community of separated service members or transition service members if you have gone to school or go into school or even if you did do the education track what is your feedback do you need employment so those are I think in four important factors and more that are transitioning service members you need that peer-to-peer mentorship or evaluation that is not they're not able to get so we could see better participation maybe or more participation in the program but we're currently about from the program usage we're about thirty percent of those who want to be employed both service are utilizing this ship for instance utilized skill bridge that's a pretty good number and growing Ike I'll say from that standpoint with the program authorities only being around for four or five years and the other service and since you asked about the services the other services have only turned on their authority in the last two to three years so that's a pretty significant impact and we're probably gonna see only growth in the next few years from that standpoint so my ask is I was communicating back to the community about either your successes or your failures or just what what was good or bad so we know and also those that are going to be going through the process have that situational awareness what are some reasons why they wouldn't be approved for a DoD skill bridge program you know what level Berman's that sort of service members who are requesting to get a proof or skill bird's opportunity that resides at the command level for the most part in the army sometimes that also goes to the Education Center but for the most part I realize is the command level so obviously those who have served know all the various reasons why a command might not approve for the most part we have not seen disapprovals as much most commanding officers and the senior enlisted have seen they understand why they why this is a good thing but the reason for that might be parsing this requirement right if you're got a training exercise and manpower need XYZ or your stony little deployment and how they gonna get you out so all those numerous things could occur but I'm for the most part people who are separating or transitioning or retiring they are we haven't seen any nasty grams from research our service members or from commands that are not willing to improve the program most time so as we as we all know might be a mission requirement so one of the questions that you kind of brought up that I didn't put in the question let's prior is is there gonna be the manpower question these members are still attached to their commands with the new instruction is that going to change where they get detached TPU before participation so that way they can get a new service member or is that not on court yeah that's it that's a great question it's every service has its own policies without regard there is no we don't have that in the instruction so we're not going to be doing that because again when those kind of functions occur that means we're increasing manpower cost to the source and Congress has not always that far we can say hasn't indicated and that approach to be on an authorization TPU as you know increases our ia accounts if you will so now I have to say that in turn increases our manpower requirements that we have to request funding from Congress so we don't precede that authorization happening so for the most part we're managing that situation and the best way we categorize everything that happens there is um that serves no who's transitioning the last you know two three four months they're already doing everything they need to transition so are they contributing to the mission for the most part they're going through the cycles going to those classes doing all those things they need to do so it's already a non unit impactful individual so we don't see the need for from our standpoint lease we don't see that as a requirement nor would we see that our budgetary controls being shifted absolutely and then there was one that was another one from LinkedIn which I'm gonna kind of rephrase this to what I think they're trying to ask instead of the way they worded it so is there gonna be any consideration to allow for all service members including National Guard and reserves who were either on deployment for an extended period of time or something along those lines to love them to participate in kind of a transitional program after a period of time or certain actions they have to participate in in order to participate in this program first off I just want to start off with saying that reservist and guard and spouses are allowed to communicate with the approved providers on a space available and or if the providers have any interest to have these individuals be candidates they can outside of skill bridge if you will if they want to work out different or you know obviously they wouldn't be funded with paying benefits from Tod but if they obviously see the value of having a Guard or reservist and then it doesn't have to be within the 180 day window I want to put that out there because I think having the list of partners who are skilled partners is an easier way to also identify those military friendly employers correct correct that's number number number number that's number one number two that is definitely on a table and from both a policy perspective and from from from the hill Oh I'll leave it there so go call it and go talk to you and go call or support and put it somewhere else out of a rcent Wayne as well absolutely and then in case anybody watching this would like to ask you some more questions is there a way for them to contact you or contact the DoD skill bridge program sure again if you go to do discovers if you have additional questions we tried to put out as much relevant information about the program onto the site and into that fake use and resources as well and if you even have secured locations and for any partners that are prospective partners that want to be we even have separations that are there and all that kind of fun stuff from a state by state and locality and installations level but if there is information there that did not meet your needs again the continent to contact us is right there and we will respond to you accordingly thank you so much for meeting with me today and I do want to give you a huge shout out because the new website it's so much better from when I was in and when I was doing the transition process that you guys blew it out of the water with the renovations to that website thanks Emily we try to have our use user input UX and presence all that fun stuff so greatly appreciate again everybody's feedback is welcome and we that's how we get better so thank you for your time and thanks for the opportunity [Music]