Kathleen Smith  00:48

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Security Cleared Jobs: Who’s Hiring & How. And it's always fun to be in the podcast studio because I get to be here with one of my dearest friends. And Rachel, you are one of my dearest friends. So, how are you doing today, Rachel?

Rachel Bozeman  01:05

You know, if that doesn't just warm my little heart, I don't know what will, but I have a sneaking suspicion we might have a pretty good guest on here that might warm my heart. So who's here today, Kathleen?

Kathleen Smith  01:17

I'm happy to say that today's guest is Melissa Jensen, MJ, Technical Account Manager for RACTSOL. Welcome to the show, MJ.

Melissa Jensen  01:27

Thank you, Kathleen and Rachel.

Rachel Bozeman  01:29

Well, we are excited to learn. And we like to always start at the very beginning, and it starts with you. So how in the heck did you end up there? And what are your responsibilities at RACTSOL?

Melissa Jensen  01:41

Well, it's been a very nonlinear career trajectory. My career kind of started off where I was in army Intel, and then I met the high requirements of having a TS/SCI and a pulse, so I was command directed to cyber. But since then, I've had the opportunity to work as an offensive hands-on-keyboard operator. I've also worked in incident response and incident response management for defensive cyber operations. I've had the pleasure of working preventative cyber missions where my mini claim to fame was getting 27 minutes ahead of bleeping computer for log 4j dissemination. So that was kind of a big deal. That's one of the larger publications that cyber folks are interested in knowing what's going on about. Then I took a slight shift and pivot, where I worked for recruiting and sales and account management, and eventually that led me to a career for back office and program management, but I've actually been working with RACTSOL for over a year before I was hired. I initially signed a contingent offer with them, and I was going to be a contractor working on one of their programs, but after the interview, the position lost funding. I took a different opportunity elsewhere, and then when that position concluded, I reached back out and it was the right time for RACTSOL and the right time for me. Now I'm pleased to say that I'm a Technical Account Manager at RACTSOL where I'll be spearheading and being the battering ram for the brand new services component, where we're working to both enhance our customer footprint while also growing it.

Rachel Bozeman  03:17

I love a good origin story. That was so good, MJ. But I know I'm gonna butcher it with my good old Louisiana accent here. So RACTSOL. I can't even do it, MJ. So tell us, what does it stand for? What is the acronym for RACTSOL?

Melissa Jensen  03:35

Absolutely. So RACTSOL stands for Roseman Advanced Computer Technology and Solutions Corp. So it takes after Antoine Roseman, our fearless leader and visionary icon CEO, as well as one of our lead architects on program.

Kathleen Smith  03:52

Tell us a little bit more about what RACTSOL does in the cleared community.

Melissa Jensen  03:57

Absolutely. So RACTSOL is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business and we have a small disadvantaged aid status. Where we really thrive is that we provide emerging technology like IT systems to both federal agencies and federal customers for more than a decade. Where we really stand out amongst our peers is with information system engineering, zero trust architecture and development, software engineering and system administration, where really our goal is to provide innovative solutioning. We work really closely with our customers and have a deep customer intimacy, where we work with even our TDs or tech directors. We help them build out their solutions across your infrastructure. And we currently are pleased to serve DoD, IC and federal Civ agencies like Air Force, MARFORCYBER and Veteran Affairs.

Rachel Bozeman  04:58

You’ve just got a couple things going on over there. A few here and there. Not too much, ha! So tell us a little bit more about the types of security cleared jobs, or kind of, what are those job titles and where are they located, MJ? Because you know they're going to want to know that too. Just give it all to them. Just tell the people what they want.

Melissa Jensen  05:16

Perfect, perfect. So currently we have system admin positions open, ISSO, ISSC, ISSM, like informational security, operations, software engineering and system engineering roles available. But we're always open on the market, looking for anyone that works with system integration, network design and maintenance, storage architecture, data scientists. So pretty much if there's a position that touches it in an intimate way, we want to have a conversation with you. And currently, our biggest footprint is located in the DMV area, that's District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, where we predominantly focus out of the Fort Meade and on-campus local areas. But we also have new business relationships, starting in the San Antonio region in Texas, and we're closely zooming in on Augusta, Georgia, where there's the cyber center for excellence. And we currently have open roles in both Tampa and Doro, Florida, supporting one of our government entities down in the Florida area as well.

Kathleen Smith  06:19

So since most of your positions, many of your positions, I think all of your positions, require polygraphs, and we know it's going to be SCIF work, what do you do to offer a little flexibility? I mean, I know this has been a topic for a lot of people that, you know, we get a little worn down being in the SCIF so much. So what does RACTSOL do to help people who are in the SCIF all the time but need a little bit of flexibility?

Melissa Jensen  06:47

As a fellow SCIF survivor myself, I completely understand the daily grind of walking into a windowless environment for hours on end. So where we really work with the flexibility with our teammates and our employees is we greatly benefit from the relationship we have with our customers, which allows us to have the flexibility to have early come ins or late leaves. Or you're able to compress your schedule or expand your schedule to kind of meet your daily challenges. Another effort that we've recently just developed is, we implemented a new policy for lifestyle leave, which directly impacts some of our newest employees that may not have enough time to rebuild accrued PTO or leave over time. We provide a certain amount of allotted time off for birth of a child, adoption of a child, foster of a child. And it's not just solely focused on children’s aspects, but we've broadened our horizons, where we can use this allotted amount of leave to really address any sort of life-altering events that turn up that don't necessarily have a line item number, similar to like a billable hour.

Rachel Bozeman  07:57

I love it. Life happens. And you're there to make sure that they can be there for life. I think that's an incredible benefit. So thank you for talking about that. Something else that went into effect at the beginning of this month, Maryland passed their new pay transparency law. Why do you think transparency is so helpful for both the company and a cleared candidate?

Melissa Jensen  08:17

So I'm a huge advocate for pay transparency, and I think that it can only help everybody have a better understanding, not only of where they rate themselves but also where the positions are kind of within the market value. So I think some of the benefits are that it increases fairness across the board, both from candidates and from employer perspective. You don't have somebody sitting next to you making a huge disproportionate amount of gains or losses different from you for completing the same work. Additionally, I think it really, truly empowers the job seeker above all. And because of the cleared nature of our work and because of the touch points that we have with a lot of transitioning veterans, there's so many times where veterans just don't have the background in understanding salary negotiations or what that really all adds up to. So it will help transitioning service members when they realize, Oh, I'm not getting housing or BAS and all of these additional price points are going to add up. So what is the salary that I should be looking at to maintain my quality of life? It also reduces negotiation stress, because, to be honest, it's a very personal subject. I always advocate in the game of Chutes and Ladders, you always want to climb that ladder and never slide down that chute. So it kind of just helps the candidate put in perspective the amount of work they're willing to contribute to the role, what they would be valued at. And then I also think ultimately, from a market standpoint, it really allows us to show that transparency and show that willingness to go above and beyond and advocate for the candidates to be at the market rate and not try to lowball them or not try to undersell them.

Kathleen Smith  09:58

Totally awesome. Love that. Love the passion that I can feel behind you. You know our listeners can't see you, but you're just like, really excited about this. So I think that's absolutely wonderful. So MJ, I love that the description of your company is small but mighty. Share with us a little bit about the company culture. I see the gaming chair in the background. You've talked about competitions and things like that. What makes RACTSOL a good place to work?

Melissa Jensen  10:24

Honestly, the small but mighty aspect is really near and dear to my heart, being about 20 people total. We have 25% veterans in our organization, 25% females in our organization, and every single female is in a leadership or decision-making or mentorship capacity. So one of the first things right off the bat was, I have never been in a room with so many people like me before as a woman in STEM in a cleared environment. So that's a number one show ringer. But there's so much more that RACTSOL truly has to offer. We have, in addition to our mission statement, we also have a culture statement, which is HOPE, which stands for Helping Other People Everywhere. And it's not often that companies have what I would call a culture statement. And the way that we strive to achieve this goal is with a huge volunteer component, where for every hour worked as a volunteer, employees are able to earn either cash or PTO awards from it. One of the most recent events that we have is stem CX, which is a small cyber educational organization focusing on underprivileged students in the Baltimore area. We this month, just had a supply drive for barks, which is Baltimore, Animal Rescue and Care Shelter. So we have scholarships that we're currently soliciting for candidates to write essays for. So we can give them a little bonus here and there, and we want to invite them to our holiday party. We plan on having a sponsoring of a family in need. We do toy drives, and we do 5Ks. We also donate to the Ronald McDonald volunteer house. And in general, we're always finding ways to do drives, whether those are back-to-school drives or pet drives. I think that really sets us apart in ways, because it's not often that a small company that is so lean with our margins goes out of their way so dedicatedly to support the local community.

Rachel Bozeman  12:27

So amazing. I love it.

Melissa Jensen  12:29

There's more. There's more. So that's just what we do for the greater community. Now what we do for ourselves is we have at least one monthly event where, with a small company, you would think that it would be hard to get a lot of us out to gather, but we have at least a monthly happy hour. We've done camping, crab feasts, and axe throwing. We've gone to the Shogun, MMA fights in the live Casino. We've done baseball games, escape rooms, and our mini claim to fame is our annual holiday party, where we have all the bells and whistles. But other ways that we really focus on our employment development is with our career advancement and tuition reimbursement program. We've just upped the ante from 5k to about 6k and this applies to any sort of conferences, courses, training materials, and it's really what we try to establish by fostering positive, inquisitive and a curiosity culture that really we do the best that we can to complement your training and growth. So if we can come up with a reasonable justification for you to learn something that may not directly correlate with your skill set, but it's something you want to do, the likelihood that it happens is very high here. And one of the ways we do that is with an internal platform. We call it RISE, the RACTSOL Innovation Sandbox Environment. So for all the techies in the room, it's really just a real-world, customizable place where we can play, break, model, emulate and destroy tools, and also look for curious, new ways to use tools to reintroduce to our customer base. So finally, the last thing that I definitely want to brag about, on top of education, on top of monthly gatherings, on top of volunteerism, is this company is definitely family first. Family always comes first, and that's one of the reasons for the new push for the lifestyle leave policy we already went over. And we're always looking for different ways to give back to our employees. I find that it's incredibly refreshing. I don't know if that has something to do with having so many female decision-makers in the room, but that might be something to it. I've been thrilled working here. The family-first environment is definitely refreshing in a world where so many billable hours tend to either make or break. That's kind of RACTSOL’s culture in a nutshell.

Rachel Bozeman  14:50

I love to hear the enthusiasm and just be able to really give the spirit of the organization. And you talked about how you're advocating out there in the community and doing different things, but I know something else that is wildly important there is just advocating for your candidates. And this is something you take really, really to heart. So tell us a little bit more about how you're out there advocating for the candidates who haven't signed that official paperwork yet that said they're part of the team. How are you advocating for them?

Melissa Jensen  15:20

So having been in the candidate seat so many times myself for these higher level cleared roles, and understanding the timelines and the trials and tribulations, it's almost like every job application is like the beginning of a quest, and then how many side quests does it take to get to the boss level? So what I try to do to advocate for the candidates is, by understanding the frustrations and anxieties that go hand in hand with every step of the process, I try to be as transparent as possible with the next steps or communication cadence, so they understand the steps of the process. But what I really strive to do is turn every basic prescreen call or introductory call, even if this is a candidate that does not necessarily apply to my roles, I try to use it as a mentorship call or something that I can give back to the candidates with. And being that I work so closely with a lot of transitioning veterans, I answer questions they may have about their clearance or contracting in general, or the landscape, or even real estate somebody's asked me about within the local area, and the transition from boots to suits, as opposed to something that I can't necessarily explain to people that haven't been in the seat that I've been in.

Kathleen Smith  16:33

I'm so thrilled that you said boots to suits. So we're talking about job search tips in general for cleared community professionals, so those who want to get into cyber and such like that. So first, what is a general job search tip for cleared job seekers?

Melissa Jensen  16:51

Even if you don't meet the requirements in full, say you're at 50-60%, apply to it anyway, but also do your research. Find somebody within that organization and informational interview them. That's not interviewing them to ask for a job, that's interviewing to learn what it is that they do, because so many transitioning veterans come from senior leadership type roles and they want to be a program manager or project manager, but them being in charge of a platoon, Squadron, company is very different than the lateral shift of having scrum rushes or filling in with the different policies and postures for both security, efficiency, camaraderie and it's just a different type of environment. So I would say, learn as much as you can by having real, live conversations with people, whether that's virtual, in person, but really don't hold back on taking every opportunity to informational interview, which doesn't necessarily sound like it's getting you the job, but just by arming yourself with that information earlier on and being able to ruminate and think on it, help you learn what you like and, more importantly, what you don't like about career trajectory.

Kathleen Smith  18:13

Is there anything as a female veteran that you found different in the transition process?

Melissa Jensen  18:19

I often encourage my female candidates to apply to jobs that they may not think they're qualified for, to ask for higher salaries than they would have expected, and to really challenge themselves to shatter their own imposter syndrome and their own glass ceiling. So I definitely take slightly different approaches when it comes to the humbleness and timidness of my female candidates, as opposed to some of my more bravado machismo candidates that haven't necessarily had to be the self-force behind their teams or their programs.

Kathleen Smith  19:04

Awesome. Totally awesome. I like that.

Rachel Bozeman  19:06

So you've had so many great things to share. I have definitely enjoyed learning a little bit more about all of those pieces. And I know our listeners have as well. So MJ, how can they get in touch with you?

Melissa Jensen  19:18

You can get in touch with me either by the company website at ractsol.com or you can hit me up at staffing@ractsol.com or mjensen@ractsol.com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn.

Kathleen Smith  19:43

Awesome. So MJ, thanks so much for joining us today. We really loved learning about RACTSOL and all of your great enthusiasm for employees, candidates, and transitioning veterans.

Melissa Jensen  19:55

Thank you. I've really appreciated my time with you guys, and I can't thank you enough for letting me share the word about how awesome my company is and hopefully enticing new teammates and friends to join our league.

Kathleen Smith  20:10

I loved MJ’s advice for female candidates. We haven't really heard that much on the podcast, and it still is something that we need to do. We need to break our own glass ceilings. We need to really sort of apply for those jobs that we may not feel that we're fully qualified for. There's actually statistics out there that men will apply for jobs that they're only qualified for 50% and women will only do it if it's 90%, so good for MJ on bringing that up. Rachel, what was good for you?

Rachel Bozeman  20:40

You just stole my words, Kathleen. You stole my words. It was just so refreshing. And I love the enthusiasm. It's so encouraging when you hear somebody that feels so passionately about their organization and an organization that's giving back to the community. I loved their approach to just volunteers, to the engagement of the team, having those monthly socials. And it sounds like a heck of a holiday party, so hopefully our invites will not get lost in the mail. Thank you so much. You know the drill. Follow the show, write us a five-star review, and make sure you come back for another great episode. Till next time bye, bye.