It was a banner year for “Talk About It Tuesday” (TAIT). Our LinkedIn livestream celebrated its second anniversary and brought you another full year of tips, advice and information on VA career opportunities.

Today, we’re sharing some of the episodes that really resonated with viewers this year.

Advice aplenty

A big part of what we do on TAIT each week is find ways to help you in your journey to a job at VA, and much of that comes in the form of advice tailored to job hunters like you. While we presented a great many tips for you throughout the year, two episodes in particular seemed to resonate most with our audiences.

“There [are] a lot of different things that can help an application get better or get you moved to the hiring manager,” said host Mike Owens as he discussed how to get your application to rise to the top.

But to help break down the discussion into something a little more manageable, we talked about using “the three Es” — experience, education and enthusiasm.

Another of our most popular episodes centered around tailoring your federal resume, and Owens hammered home some evergreen advice by sharing, “You tailor your resume, because if you submit a generic resume, your resume may not accurately tell the hiring manager that you’re not the perfect person for this position.”

Guests galore

We welcomed numerous guests onto TAIT this year as a way to hear not only from people who have found employment at VA but those who have gone through experiences that we think would be valuable to our viewers.

Two of our guests, Veteran Kelly “Murph” Murphy, winner of Season One of CBS’s “Tough as Nails,” and Will Williams of VA’s Veterans Canteen Service, ranked among our most popular broadcasts this year, and both offered insights.

When it came to transitioning military personnel and their plans for what is to come after their service, Murphy had some valuable advice: “Take advantage of every opportunity because you never know where it will lead you.”

In turn, Williams offered some thoughts about what it means to join the Veterans Canteen Service, but his words easily apply to every job here at VA: “Get ready to be a servant leader. Get ready to take care of Veterans, to have a great personality, to come in and work alongside your coworkers as a team.”

Open opportunities

Something that also drew the attention of our viewers were the actual opportunities available at VA.

In August, our broadcast on the Military Spouse Employment Partnership struck your interest. This program allows military spouses to explore employment opportunities and connects them with VA and other government agencies where their skills and training might be a good fit.

Then, when we talked about entry level positions in October, you responded again. From administrative assistants to motor vehicle operators and more, we showed you some of the unique jobs that are available at VA if you don’t have much experience or just don’t have health care experience.

Asked and answered

Several of our more popular episodes this year featured viewers like you in the spotlight, thanks to our regular question-and-answer sessions, which we host the second Tuesday of every month. In addition to regular host Mike Owens, we were joined by Kendra Wilson-Hudson and Tim Blakney of the National Recruitment Service to get you the answers to the questions that were on most of your minds.

Whether you were wondering how to include your volunteer work in your resume, how to translate your long-term experience to careers at VA, or just how to put your best foot forward when it comes to your interview, our team was able to offer plenty of evergreen advice to those you hoping to join us at VA.

“A lot of you left a lot of great questions for us. Thank you all for the great, overwhelming response,” Owens shared during one session, a sentiment that we absolutely share as we close the book on 2022.

Work at VA

We want everyone in our TAIT community to know we appreciate your viewership, your readership, and you interest. We do this for you, and we hope you’ll continue to join us in the new year and beyond.

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3 Comments

  1. Major Weed December 29, 2022 at 16:57

    Excuse me! I’m sick of seeing all the hoopla about how great the VA is! The VA declared nuclear war with me in 2010, basically saying I never served in the military during my 34-year career and has been calling me a liar ever since! I have lost everything, which is dead wrong a veteran shouldn’t have to lose a thing to get enough help to care for themselves and their families, and still, I can’t get any help from the VA, and the medical treatment/drugs they are pushing, I should be dead! I’ve been crying for help since the VA started calling me a liar! The one real help that I have been looking for since my 1992 injury has been “respectable employment”. Still looking 30 years later and still getting the same old BS. Go to the State Workforce Office and the DVOP (disabled veteran outreach program) program, well 30 years and the same old BS! You (I) must do the work but there is no direction on what work I need to do? Questions without answers is what I find, no answerers to my questions. Let’s not forget go a VSO (veteran service officer), same old BS nothing, you don’t have a claim because I don’t have my file. Well, it was never given to me. Remember service members don’t get their files and DOD is so good at losing them how can they have any legs to stand on in court. We can’t find the service members file, that should say okay everything the service member says is gospel! But then there are things that have happened to veterans that there are no courses of action on to seek recourse for damages done during service or in the veterans dealing with the VA! If I could find a job using my military skills, equivalent skills, and my education I’d be set for life, but since the VA started calling me a liar, my credibility has diminished greatly. Which means my employability has diminished so much that all I as a retired Officer can find is manual labor which is getting beyond my physical capabilities as I am over 70 years of age. Supposedly age discrimination is against the law in this country, but the law isn’t enforced at any level even in the Federal Government, who has agencies that refuses to talk to senior citizens, even if they are veterans.

    Oh, here is a real chiller, I applied for a DVOP & VSO jobs, so I know what the job description are, and was eliminated because of a civilian job conflict in joining a 3-Way call. Now the local state keeps hiring these younger people and I feel discriminated against because I never get any help that leads to anything positive, including help for my wife in finding educational benefits to help her better herself and our situation.

    Okay, I’m finished! If anyone reads this I’ll really be surprised, but should I hear from anyone who thinks they can help I’ll probably pass-out dead!

  2. David Saroni December 29, 2022 at 14:33

    This info is priceless. How can I find out more?

  3. Carol Breiling December 29, 2022 at 11:51

    My name is Dr. Carol Breiling, PsyD (with cleared teaching credentials in California). I am a Retired Disabled Veteran 100% VA rating. I just experienced the biggest challenge of my life this past year trying to get my spouse eligible for CHAMPVA, as we are not TRICARE eligible, but the way it is worded in DEERS at the time I retired would say that I qualify for TRICARE. We have 3-systems (DEERS, TRICARE, CHAMPVA) I call “The Triad” that needs to have their eligibility policies worded quite differently and not so vague. Even the employees, auditors, and customer service reps at all three agencies do not know what qualifies an individual for PDRL (Permanent Disability Retirement List) and what that means in each of the systems.

    I would like to help make these qualifications clear (not vague the way they currently read) to the average layman so that employees of the Triad and Veterans can understand what they actually qualify for and how to update their records in DEERs. It’s been an 18-month nightmare for me since I became 100% permanently disabled (after being officially retired in DEERs). My husband was found eligible for CHAMPVA and then his eligibility was quesitoned. Immediately I saw in my mind all the bills I could be liable for should his eligibility become dishonored. I had to fight to have all three systems understand their own verbiage as to what qualifies a veteran and their spouse in CHAMPVA and TRICARE.

    Can we use my expertise to make effective change to the Triad so that an average person can understand what they qualify for and so that all three agencies will have the same verbiage…. or what a veteran must do to update his/her information or changes of information in the DEERs system and why it is important to do so.

    It is no wonder there is such confusion the policies and eligibity criteria creates for veterans, like myself and my spouse, and why the systems are so overwhelming that many do not use the benefits they already earned. If I can be placed in a position that rewrites policies for disabled veterans and retired veterans that would be great. The employees of the three systems are confused because of the current vague wording among the Triad of Veteran-serving agencies. Please let me know. I am available to start immediately.

    V/r,

    Dr. Carol Breiling, PsyD, CATC-V, AMFT
    CTC Cleared Teaching Credential, Cleared Activity Supervisory Credential
    US Air Forece (Ret.), 100% Disabled American Veteran

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