Lessons Learned for Vets
Lessons Learned for Vets
Military Transition Q&A with Ryan Griffiths
For the first military transition Q&A of the season, Lori speaks with Ryan Griffiths, an Air Force leader 9 months from retirement, to translate a First Sergeant’s responsibilities that include pay issues, emergency leave, recognition and crisis calls, into relevant HR and employee relations skills that land interviews. We dig into how to rename military titles for the market, how to build keyword-rich resumes that pass ATS filters and how to lead with outcomes instead of military jargon.
Ryan’s path spans munitions, recruiting, first sergeant duty, and a first-of-its-kind candidate outreach team inside AF Special Operations Command. That outreach work becomes a blueprint for civilian talent acquisition: launching a program from zero, marketing the value proposition, sourcing in nontraditional places (think CrossFit competitions and large events), and converting interest into qualified pipelines. Lori explains the power of swapping terms, such as FMLA-equivalent instead of military leave or executive leadership instead of command, and shows how a few precise keywords can unlock the right searches without stretching the truth.
We also tackle a growing hazard for transitioning service members, job search scams. We go through some tell-tale signs such as LinkedIn DMs from “recruiters” who can’t name the role, push for phone numbers and use Gmail addresses while claiming big-brand employers. Learn a simple verification process of checking their profile activity, connections, company domains and public job links before you engage. Don't fall for high-pressure deadlines, pay-to-play promises and off-platform chats without clarity.
If you’re aiming at HR, talent acquisition, or operations, this conversation gives you a clear translation guide, a resume tuning checklist, and practical guardrails for vetting opportunities. Subscribe, share with a veteran who needs a boost, and leave a quick review to help more service members find their footing.
If you have an idea for an opportunity that matches Ryan's background, you can connect with him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-griffiths1/
Learn more about Lori's resume and LinkedIn services, where she specializes in helping translate military terminology at www.getresultsresumes.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://tinyurl.com/llforvets22
Subscribe to the podcast and leave us a 5-star review. Please share this with other veterans who might need help as they transition from the military!
The Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast is sponsored by Seek Now and their Drive Academy. Seek Now is the property inspection industry's leading business and they created Drive Academy DoD SkillBridge and CSP internships to teach transitioning military service members and veterans skills that prepare them for lucrative and rewarding careers in the property inspection and insurance industries. You can learn more and apply today at www.internwithdrive.com.
Welcome to the Lessons Learned from US Podcast, your military transition debrief. I'm your host, Lori Norris, and I've helped thousands of military service members successfully transition out of the military since 2005. Thanks for tuning in to hear the after-action reports and real stories of your fellow veterans who are here to help guide, educate, and inform you as you navigate your own military transition. By the way, if you find value from today's episode, please share it with others. Leave us a review and post about us on social media. Welcome to the Lessons Learned from Us podcast. I can't believe that we haven't done one of these this season yet, but we are here with a military transition QA, and I am joined by Ryan Griffiths. So Ryan, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Lori. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_02:So we met because Ryan messaged me, which we're going to talk a little bit about that today. And uh so this is why nobody messages me because then I suck you in. I'm like, hey, you want to be on the show?
SPEAKER_01:Whoops.
SPEAKER_02:Just kidding. I don't know. I promise I don't I don't attack everybody that messages me with uh an invitation to the show. But Ryan, I because you are willing to come on, you're in the midst of your transition right now. I think you're about nine months out, is that right?
SPEAKER_00:Correct. Eight, nine months out, yes, ma'am.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so you're in the thick of it right now. And um, and so because you are in that part of the process, I want to give you a chance to tell the people that are listening a little bit about your background, kind of what you do really well, what you're looking for, when you transition, because you just never know who might be listening and might have a role for you. So tell us about you.
SPEAKER_00:That's true. All right, thank you. Yes. So, like Lori said, I'm Ryan Griffiths. I will be retired from the Air Force in July with over 23 years of service. Um, and I have a unique background that started with me being an ammo troop, munitions. Um, and then, you know, I've kind of jumped in and out of that career throughout my those 23 years. And um, I've really found my passion in wanting to help others. Uh, the first one I I did was I became a recruiter, uh, really enjoyed that, um, you know, uh helping people, things like that. Tried to stay in recruiting, but ammo pulled me back, and that's fine, uh, because I was able to uh become what I my next interest was in being a first sergeant, and so um I was able to do that, and once again, it's you know in the lane of helping people, and so uh was able to do that for a while and really, really enjoyed that. Thought I was gonna ride off into the sunset in that uh capacity, and then ended up getting a random phone call from um some a leadership, uh someone within leadership, and and they found out I was a previous recruiter and they were wanting to start up an outreach squadron, um, which was the first of its kind. And so uh after interviewing for that, I was able to become the senior enlisted leader for the newly um Air Force Special Operations Command outreach squadron. And so, really, you know, I'm back in ammo now. Um, but yeah, I've I've had a unique career and I found out that I just enjoy helping people. And so I currently live in Navarre, Florida. Um, and for my post-Air Force uh career, if you will, I'm looking to do something within the talent acquisition and recruiting. Really anything in the in the HR field. Um, and so I'm currently looking for a skill bridge opportunity starting in around January of 26 and uh would be available for full-time work while on terminal um in May of 26.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So I now you and I have talked about this, right? So we're gonna translate some of that because you told us you were a first sergeant. There might be someone in the Marine Corps listening or you know, in the Army. A first sergeant's a very different thing, right? So what would you translate a first sergeant in the Air Force to be?
SPEAKER_00:Wow, yeah, that is always a very tough question, you know, when people ask me, What is what do you do when I was a first sergeant? Um, really, any and all things people, uh, they say people is our business at the at the training, and it is. Um, it can be it's 24-7, you have a phone, and um, it can be anything from you know uh bailing someone out of jail, uh, you know, to to really um you know, being there for the personnel, whether it could be on their worst or their best day, typically, is is a lot of what you see. And, you know, it could be from you know, they're not getting paid uh properly, or or you know, um, and so you could help them with their finances, or you know, maybe there was an issue back home and someone is in the hospital, and so you need to get them flown out immediately to, you know, um, but uh, but really just just anything, you know, that that you can help out with with people within the office.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So I'm gonna I'm gonna translate a lot of what you just said, right? Because that's what I do, right? So um, so I would say a first sergeant in the Air Force is a human resources and employee relations manager, right? You are there, you are the the people leader for the executive leadership team of, you know, whether it's a squadron commander, the wing commander, whoever at whatever level you are being in that first sergeant role. Um, and so you talked about finances, right? So um, I'm not getting paid the right amount. I just got a promotion, my pay isn't right. So that's compensation, right? That's payroll and compensation. You're not doing payroll and compensation in the in the military, but you're the first stop I come to if my payroll is wrong. Or I got a promotion, my and my um, or maybe I I signed uh an extension to my contract and now I'm getting a bonus. Like that's all compensation. And so that kind of falls under that human resources compensation umbrella. Um, you talked about uh someone's family member is in the hospital and we've gotta get them that the leave to get them, you know, just to visit them. So that um, you know, you don't call it this in the Air Force, but in the private sector, we have FMLA, which stands for the Family Medical Leave Act. And so someone gets uh injured, or like, you know, if my spouse, your spouse, not mine, has a baby, um, you know, you've got to take leave, right? Um so those are like just the terms that you use to speak about your experience as you're telling someone those. We probably should leave the bailing them out of jail part, uh, you know, uh true. But I like how you said you see them on their worst day and their best day, right? And I think that um helping people navigate the challenges they have at work, but also helping them navigate the promotions or the commendations. And I mean that's great. So like some of the things that you said, if we just kind of change the language of them as we're talking about them, now someone in the private sector is going to be like, oh, I know exactly what you did. You were the human resources manager, or you took care of anything employee relations related. And this is what I I really talk about a lot on the show is like sometimes it's just changing the way you speak about your experience and your skills so that other people can understand them, right?
SPEAKER_00:For sure. Yeah, and and we'll talk about it later, but that's why I reached out for a little help with my resume because I know what I do, but I need a little help.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and you know, like let's talk about it, right? Like we'll we'll we can kind of change up the order of what we were planning to talk about because we're kind of uh talking about you and how you're talking about your experience. And right, you know, you reached out to me as someone who had listened to the show, um, which on another issue we're gonna talk about in a minute. But one of the things you're you said, well, could you look at my resume for me and give me give me some input, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:What made you reach out and about your resume?
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, um, I've been going through uh a couple years ago, I actually thought I was going to to retire um and then ended up making rank. And uh, you know, I re-enlisted and and accepted the stripe. And so that required at least two more years. So really my rough draft, my resume has been kind of worked over from past couple at least two years. And so um, but you know, I'm not the the most savvy, you know, with for one, just with all, you know, um being able to put what I think on paper or what I know on paper and and making it translate. And so um, and especially with with the first sergeant stuff, some of the things that I I have done, it's it's really hard to capture, if you will, everything. And so um I just uh that's the one thing is I knew what I've done, and I'm proud of what I've done. I just couldn't translate it very well, um, and especially within two pages. So uh so yeah, and that's where that's why I think I I initially reached out, you know. Um, and obviously, luckily, you know, you were willing to look at what I had at the time. And when you called me, you know, you just called me right out of the blue. I guess my phone number was on my resume. So, you know, and at that point, you're like, hey, you got, you know, make some notes. I started making notes, and when I got to page 10, I'm just kidding. But when I got when I got a few, you know, a few uh notes jotted down, I'm like, uh, so yeah, let me go ahead and be your client. I need help.
SPEAKER_02:So I I'll just like I've got your resume that you sent me here in front of me, and and just like some of the very initial, you know, inputs I gave you is um first and foremost, when someone skims a resume, what they tell me is that they look for job titles that are relevant, right? And your first three job titles on page one was munitions leader and senior advisor, senior enlisted leader, outreach squadron, and first sergeant and HR advisor. And I I first I was like, I I I know, I know that what you were doing was relevant because I know what an Air Force first sergeant does. But if the first thing I saw was munitions leader, and I you know, I don't think the word munitions or ammo belongs on your human resources resume, especially because you told me you wanted to do recruiting and talent acquisition. And so um, you know, like I you know, we looked at like how do we translate that? How do we explain it? And what we ended up doing is we said, okay, well, your munitions leader, your current munitions leader, your senior advisor role, like you're overseeing human resources and staffing, right? You're overseeing strategic planning, production, logistics, like that's an operations manager, and an operations manager oversees all of those things. And that's kind of a natural progression from human resources. So we just translated that to operations manager and then talked about the human resources aspect and in within that, right? The next one, instead of senior enlisted leader, which is a military term, we called you the county um candidate outreach and recruiting program manager, right? So because that's what you were doing, like you had a program that you're you built it from scratch where you were out looking for specialty candidates, right? You were you were spreading the word of the special forces program within the Air Force, and um that's a pretty cool program that you built. You did the marketing, you created all the communication for it, you went out and found the candidates and these very unique places, right? You told me you went to CrossFit um CrossFit competitions and NASCAR races and you know the places where you might find the people that were the right kind of person for the role.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Pretty cool, you know. It's like if I'm a company and I want to build a new recruiting program from the ground up, like you've done that.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:But that other one didn't tell me that yet, right? So yeah, sometimes it's like I I talk to people a lot like you, then I'm like, well, where why isn't that on your resume? You're like, yeah, that that's a great point. And so I do think that sometimes the value of having a conversation with someone about your resume or about your experience is like I'm not living it and in it every day. And I can kind of step aside and go, like, we don't need to talk about that, but this over here is really important, right? So like the jail bailing out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's extra. That's just a bonus of being a horse sergeant.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But I think those are the like that was the first thing I saw. Um, and I heard you when you introduced yourself, you told me you were retiring and how many years you'd served. And what was the very first thing I said to you about the first line of your resume, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you did. You said you're like, man, that uh when yeah, the the intro line is saying 23 plus years or whatever, it's like, man, I'm that kind of says that you're old.
SPEAKER_02:I always preface it by saying, I'm older, so I can say that.
SPEAKER_00:No, but you make a good point because I'm not looking at it through that lens, you know. Um, you know, I need to be marketable to to these companies. And if it's not necessary, you know, especially, you know, kind of get rid of the fluff and and you know, uh maybe if you need to go back the past, you know, 10 or 12 years, but you know, within the the realm of HR and talent acquisition that I'm trying to portray, I don't need to go back to when I was in basic training for for HR, you know. So anyways.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So I think that yeah, I I definitely shortened your timeline um on your your resume. I translated the job titles on your resume, but I also put in a lot of keywords. Would you agree with that? Like I have keywords in there that were not in existence previously.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. I would totally agree with that. And I really liked how you did that. I believe, you know, um, with today's day and age where there's like these AI generators and searches, you know, maybe, you know, even to get through the first, you know, hundred applications, you know what I mean? Like and so you customized it with some some roles that I would be looking to apply for. You know, I gave you some some job descriptions, and and so I think maybe that's where you were able to grab these words and you know, insert them into my resume. And so whether it's a a human looking at my resume or you know, that first round to filter through the 300 resumes that came in to get you to the top, you know, 50 or whatever, you know, I think a lot of those words are gonna hit, you know, within that that scan, and it'll get me, you know, to to be reviewed and hopefully, you know, get an interview.
SPEAKER_02:And let's be clear, I didn't just jam them in there, they were accurate, right? You have those skills. Oh, for sure, right? You you just were calling them something different or you'd left them out. And I think that sometimes is the hard part is like maybe you know, they always say you don't know what you don't know, right? And so you haven't like really looked into like what are the keywords and do I have them, and you don't look at the compare and contrast, like you know, like we mentioned FMLA earlier. Well, the Air Force doesn't have FMLA, right? But you have an equivalent to it, right? And so we call it the equivalent to FMLA. We don't say I administered FMLA programs, right? So it's the same concept, it's just you know, we're using the term that it's called outside of the military, so for sure.
SPEAKER_00:And I would have never known that, you know, and in several of those terms, you know. I joined the Air Force, you know, at 20 years old, you know. I hadn't really, other than you know, working some pizza places, I hadn't really, you know, been in the corporate world. And so, and that's where you stepped in and really were a help uh with this process for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Well, good. Um, I just want to remind everybody that I do offer a veteran resume self-inspection checklist on the Next Revets website. So if you go to nextver vets.com and just look for the veteran resume self-inspection checklist, there it's I think 11 or 12 items that you can kind of go through and just self-evaluate. I give you the inspection item and then I also teach you a little bit about the resume on that form. So that's free to download. It's out there. Um please don't 100 people tomorrow call me and ask me to review their resume because I just don't Ryan happened to catch me on a really good day where I had time to call him. Um, but I again I I that's why I created that is so that everybody can have that value of the knowledge that I bring to reviewing your resume and giving you that input. So um it'll be great to hear if you know your new resume is more effective for you. You're still nine months out, so you've got some time, but I know you're starting to put in those skill bridge applications now. So I would I love to hear if you get some good feedback on it.
SPEAKER_00:So for sure. Yeah, I definitely will. I just remember seeing the final product compared to mine, and I'm like, man, you know, maybe I am, you know, somebody, you know, you made it, you worded it very well, and so I'm excited to see, like you said, you know, how it all shakes out. But thank you for the help on that for sure.
SPEAKER_02:You know, one of the reasons that I started a resume writing business like back in 2004 is I used to work for Maricopa County and I was teaching the job search skills, and every once in a while I'd have the opportunity to sit down with somebody and and really work on their resume one-on-one, but it really wasn't what I was supposed to do in my job. I was really just a trainer. And I remember sitting down with a guy and we worked on his resume, and he looked at it and he's like, I'm gonna take this home and sleep with it under my pillow. I've never felt so important and good about what I do as I do right now, and I always that sticks with me still to this day. I think he was a truck driver, and he's like, I've just I feel like I'm the most important person in the world. I'm gonna sleep with this under my pillow. And I was like, hey, I'm kind of good at this. Maybe I should start a business. So and the rest is history, as they say, right?
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, no, I'm with him on that for sure. I agree.
SPEAKER_02:I'm glad it helped. All right. And I think that um, you know, we should be confident in the value that we bring. You know, I always talk about the difference between confidence and arrogance, and I don't want you to go into a the job search like, oh, if you don't hire me, you're gonna go out of business. Uh yeah, okay, let us watch us live without you, sir. But but I want you to go in knowing, like, yeah, I I do have a lot of really valuable skills, and I am gonna bring value to this organization. And and I feel like a solid resume can really help you with that confidence and learn how to speak to your skills. So I'm glad that you feel that way.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. No, agreed. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_02:So the first time that you reached out to me though, as a listener of the show, you sent me a message. I had never spoken to you, and you even said in your message, you and I have never talked, but um, and your question to me was about a recruiter who had reached out to you, right?
SPEAKER_00:Correct.
SPEAKER_02:Can you tell me a little bit about that message that you sent me and and the situation that you reached out to me about?
SPEAKER_00:For sure. Yeah, no, I yeah, I I I I was new to LinkedIn and new to you know all this stuff, and just kind of you know, building my portfolio and things, and you know, loaded a resume on there, my old resume. Um, this was right at the beginning of August. And um, and yeah, all of a sudden, you know, uh someone like messaged me and was like seemed to be super interested. I'm like, man, this LinkedIn stuff is cool. And so um, but you know, uh I kind of was looking at it and and I'm like, you know, I don't know if this is you know uh legit or not because I received a random direct message on LinkedIn that uh like I said, it sounded too good to be true. Um and so I just felt like uh you know they were just asking. I think I sent you the photo of it and they were asking, you know, um, seemed super interested, and and and I just reached out to you. I'm like, hey, I'm a listener of your show. I think I'm like I've binge listened like eight episodes straight, and and and I need some help because I I didn't know who to turn to, and and I was like, I don't know if this is legit. Um, and so yeah, I mean you uh you quickly responded. I think you researched into it for me, didn't even know who I was, and um you're like, hey, this person has like zero posts and like no connections and no followers. Um you know, uh unfortunately, I think it's a scam. And you know, and and I appreciate the honesty, but um, yeah, I pretty much stopped talking to them at that point.
SPEAKER_02:And this is really why I was like, hey, I think we really need to talk about this on the show because this is happening more and more. Um, and let's start by being very clear there are legitimate people that can and will reach out to you on LinkedIn. If your profile is keyword optimized and it's you've got a healthy number of connections and you're using LinkedIn as the valuable tool that it truly is, then there is a very good chance that legitimate recruiters are going to reach out to you. Um, I will tell you, like, I have a couple, I I had somebody come to me with a role and I'm not a recruiter, but I was helping a friend out basically, and I was reaching out to people randomly with like veterans, which is what we were looking for in this role. So it does happen. It really does. Well, that's good to know. So just because this one was a scam doesn't mean that everybody reaching out to you via DMs is a scammer, right?
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:But like you said, some of the red flags that I saw on this one, let me just see if I can open it up here. Because I remember they were saying, like, my boss is very interested in your professional field. Would you like to discuss the possibility of cooperation? If you don't mind, can you leave your phone number? My boss will contact you as soon as possible. And I was like, What cooperation? Like, what does that mean? Yeah, and what what is the field? Like, they didn't even know what your field was.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Very interested in your professional field. Um and I think your response was like, Well, can you tell me what kind of position we're talking about? And I don't remember if they even responded, to be honest, but it it was very so so very vague, right? So first of all, she was incredibly vague. She wanted, she was asking you for your phone number without giving you any information about the position. And so all I did was I clicked on her name. I went to her profile. And if I remember correctly, she had like uh no connections or maybe one or two connections if um and had never posted and didn't even um like their company name was was not even there. So like legitimate recruiters are out and active on LinkedIn all the time, right? They're um they're posting jobs, they're commenting on things, they have hundreds of connections. Um they're not, you know, this one doesn't have a photo even. So um I saw somebody the other day that the um Joe Biden had sent them a connection request and he had like two connections and so I think you know, probably if Joe Biden is out there on LinkedIn, he may have more than more than two. He probably has at least three connections, right?
SPEAKER_01:So I would think so.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm like, I don't know, Saudi Arabian prince always tries to connect to me and engage me in conversation. So, you know, I think it's just one of those things where sometimes we have to look at it and go, all right, let's look at this objectively, right? And so yeah, I just see I find um I kind of screenshotted hers. And so she says she works for uh Johnson and Johnson was the company that she said she worked for. And then I just Googled her name, which is a very unique name, and Johnson and Johnson, and there was no connection. And then she had zero followers and zero activity, and I think she had been with the company like a month or something. Well, probably not, right? Johnson and Johnson's pretty large. So let's talk about some of those ways to like spot fake recruiters on LinkedIn. Um, first of all, uh no like official company affiliation, very few connections or followers, no activity, no posts, no comments, no anything. Um all of that is probably an issue. Also, if they come to you with like a Yahoo or a Gmail account, yeah, yeah, and they ask you to email them at a, you know, Lori Norris at gmail.com, um, probably Johnson and Johnson is not gonna use recruiters with Gmail accounts.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. And it's it's funny you say that because actually, probably a week or so later, and I don't even think you are aware of this, but I I had uh made another post on LinkedIn about currently you know being on a job search, uh, what have you, and and there was a guy that made like within the the uh remarks of my post, he jumped in there and was like, Hey, uh, you know, I got a good friend hiring for for one of these types of jobs. Uh, here's his email address, you know, reach out to him and uh get the details about it. And once again, I'm still kind of new to all this. And I'm like, and it it was from it said from like you know, it looked somewhat legit, um, more legit, I should say, you know, Lockheed Martin, and and that would be something I would be very interested in. So maybe the wool got pulled over my eyes a little bit. But um, so you know, I'm like, hey, I'll email this guy. So I just but it was, it was at Gmail. And so in hindsight, I've learned a lot. But um, you know, I I emailed him, you know, and was like, hey, you know, we'll we'll see what this what if this turns out at all. Um and so quickly it turned into like, oh yeah, you know, we're we're you know, we've got like four or five candidates, we're gonna be closing out the position uh pretty soon, but um, we can go ahead and and throw your name in the hat, you know, and I'm like, oh wow, like, you know, and and the pay was good. I mean, I'm just like, man, okay. Um, but it it quickly turned into like um the back and forth through the emails, it turned into like, hey, uh, you know, we noticed some things on your resume, and uh, you know, if you can reply back within six hours and and you know, get it if you what can get it fixed, um, then we can consider you for this job. And I'm just like, you know, it started seeming a little bit, a little bit fishy. I don't know if he was trying to get money for me to pay for a resume service. I really don't, but I quickly, you know, um I was just like, you know, I don't, I don't think that that this is legit. And then I think more information started coming out quickly. All you know, these companies on LinkedIn are like, hey, if you see it at Gmail or something, you know, it's not us, or there's some scams going on over the the LinkedIn uh, you know, uh platform, be aware, you know, so it started quickly coming to light, but it didn't just happen to me once.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And you know, we're kind of laughing about this and making light of it, but I just want to be really clear. Like this is dis