Kathleen Smith 00:48
Welcome to another episode of Security Cleared Jobs: Who’s Hiring & How. This is Kathleen Smith over at ClearedJobs.Net, joined in our virtual studio once again with my fabulous co-host, Rachel. How are you doing today?
Rachel Bozeman 01:03
Kathleen, you're always so kind and generous. I'm doing amazing today and excited to be here, and even more excited to learn. Who in the heck are we talking to today?
Kathleen Smith 01:14
So today, our guest is Jacquelyn Weber, Senior Recruiting Manager at Celestar Holdings. Jacquelyn, we're so glad you could join us today. Welcome.
Jacquelyn Weber 01:23
Thank you. Good morning.
Rachel Bozeman 01:26
Well, we are so excited to be here, and I am really excited to dig into a little bit more of your origin story, if you will. I know nobody ever woke up and said, "Hey, I'm going into recruiting." But yet, we all fall on this amazing little journey and do some incredible things. I heard you have kind of a fun story about how you got into recruiting, and I’ve heard it said that nothing good happens in a bar, but I think you might disagree with that.
Jacquelyn Weber 01:55
My background initially started with admissions recruiting for colleges, and I did that for probably half of my career. Funny enough, I was sitting at a restaurant one evening having dinner with one of my girlfriends. We were having dinner and drinks, and there were these gentlemen sitting at the bar. We started talking, and they were in the defense industry. One of them said, "Hey, I have a friend that's looking to hire someone," and I said I might be interested. So that’s literally how it happened. My first job in defense contracting was with Quiet Professionals. My first interaction with Celestar was with Lori Larson, who is part of the leadership team. They had been in business at that point about 16 years. I think the thing that really drew me to Celestar was that the leadership team had been there pretty much since the beginning, with Greg, who is the CEO, and the other people that worked there had been there for a very long time. That was really what drew me in about Celestar. I was looking for longevity. I was praying, "I hope I get this job," because it just felt good, and it’s been awesome since.
Kathleen Smith 03:06
That sounds wonderful. So tell our audience a little bit more about Celestar. What does the company do for the cleared community?
Jacquelyn Weber 03:15
First of all, our company is owned by Greg Celestine. He’s the CEO, and he is prior military. What we do is contracting staffing mostly, but we have to go after those contracts and then manage and staff those contracts once we win those awards. This is not a giant corporation where you’re more of a number. You say someone’s name, and most of us know who that employee is, unless you just started working with Celestar. Even with our contracts, it really is more of a close-knit environment. We really try to engage with our folks that are on contract.
Rachel Bozeman 03:54
Wonderful. So you did mention staffing and hiring. Tell us a little bit more about what kind of positions or skill sets you’re currently seeking to fill.
Jacquelyn Weber 04:04
Primarily, what we do is more on the intelligence side of the industry. We have a lot of those niche positions. You’ve got your data scientists, identity data management instructors. As far as greatest hiring needs, mostly all-source analysts, SIGINT analysts, imagery analysts, but mostly what we’re focused on is the intelligence analysts community.
Rachel Bozeman 04:31
Awesome. So we don’t get to ask this question often, because you are located in Tampa, where there’s humidity and plenty of sunshine out there. Where are your positions located? Are they all in Tampa?
Jacquelyn Weber 04:43
So we do have some in Tampa. We have a contract at SOCOM, but the majority of our positions are located in the National Capital Region—Maryland, Virginia, DC. But we do have positions in Hawaii, Nebraska, Ohio. It looks like we’re going to be venturing into possibly even California and also Germany. We’ve got people in Germany, so all over the place.
Kathleen Smith 05:08
That’s so wonderful to hear, because so many people think that government contracting and working specifically in the intelligence community means you’re limited to either Virginia or Maryland. But it’s really great—Nebraska, Ohio, California, Hawaii, Tampa—all really great places to be. It sounds like several of those places don’t have to deal with the traffic that we have to deal with here in the Washington, DC area. I understand that most of your positions require a CI polygraph. Is that correct?
Jacquelyn Weber 05:42
Yeah, I would say the majority of them do. DIA contracts—we have several of those—and those require the CI poly, but we do also have positions that are public trust, secret positions. We don’t have anything full scope poly at this point.
Kathleen Smith 05:58
So when we’re talking about specific security clearance levels, we’re also talking about people who have to be on site. Share with us a little bit about how many of your positions are really on-site, or do you have flexibility—remote, hybrid—a topic that many of us have to talk about these days?
Jacquelyn Weber 06:16
Yeah. So all of our positions, unfortunately, are on site. Especially with the administration and the changes that are going on, we have maybe one or two that allow for hybrid as of right now, and that could very well change. But yeah, all of our positions are on-site. TS/SCI with CI poly—if you find one that you’re not on-site, it’s very rare.
Rachel Bozeman 06:40
Absolutely. So now let’s pivot just a little bit and talk about fun stuff. Not that all of the locations aren’t fun, but let’s talk about culture. Tell us a little bit about the culture and how you would describe the culture there at Celestar, and who would really thrive in your organization?
Jacquelyn Weber 06:57
We’re definitely looking for the best of the best talent. We’re putting these people in positions where they’re working with the direct client, and we try to keep it a little bit more fun, a little bit more laid back. The culture here at headquarters is actually very relaxed. You could come to work in sweatpants if you wanted to, and some people do. I have not yet done that, but some people do. It’s very relaxed. Our CEO—everything is open-door policy—and our CEO, our CFO, and our COO, they all do some traveling. They go on-site, meet with our employees, meet with the clients. They do this quite often. They take them out to dinner and just try to make sure that everyone feels that they are being seen, that we’re happy to have them here, that they’re part of something good.
Rachel Bozeman 07:42
Very cool. So you mentioned the headquarters, and you mentioned the C-suite there, but I heard there’s really somebody else who’s running the show. Dare I say, Princess? Maybe a mascot, maybe the real mastermind?
Jacquelyn Weber 07:54
Yeah, definitely. Princess is a full-size golden doodle, and she is just the sweetest dog. She’s here every day, and we all have treats for her, so we’re always bringing in treats. She comes to our offices.
Rachel Bozeman 08:08
I’m just jealous to hear that there’s a doodle that’s well-behaved, because maybe Doug needs to be trained by Princess. We can swap stories later.
Kathleen Smith 08:18
No, Doug usually makes an appearance on the show anyway. So I heard you mentioned in our pre-call with our fabulous team that you’re seeing a turn from what was a job seekers’ market to an employer’s market. What does that mean in practicality for a cleared professional, and how should they modify or augment their job search?
Jacquelyn Weber 08:46
With the new administration, I think that’s really where we’re starting to see the turn, because a lot of those government positions that everyone flocked to before for job security are now actually taking a turn. A lot of those folks are out there flooding the market, trying to find something. Previously, we hired such good-quality employees that the government client was stealing them from us all the time, which was sometimes frustrating, but at the same time, it was great for our employees. We always want to see people do better. But it’s taken a turn with those government jobs—people being furloughed. It’s kind of more in the employer’s hands now, because there’s so many people out there looking for jobs. You can have job security in contracting; I think that’s one of the misconceptions out there. The word "contract," I think, is one of those things where people seem to assume that it’s short-lived, and it’s not. Most of these contracts are four to five years, but even then—most companies, I would hope, I can speak for Celestar—when we have employees on these contracts, we want to keep them, whether that contract goes away or it’s re-competed and someone else takes it over. Retention is a big thing, and we really want to keep those folks with Celestar. So it’s definitely taking a turn. I’ve noticed a lot of folks reaching out to me recently that before only wanted remote or hybrid. We didn’t offer that out there in the contracting world, and the ones that did, it’s going away. You have to be a little bit more careful, I think, these days, about being so diligent in having these things that you require. You have to be a little bit more flexible about that, because I think there’s going to be a lot more turnover.
Rachel Bozeman 10:31
Always change, and that’s what makes recruiting fun. No two days are the same, and no year feels like the year previous. So we’re always staying on our toes and doing—
Kathleen Smith 10:41
Mind if I jump in? I forgot how to use the mute button before. I know it’s technical, but I just haven’t mastered it yet. So Jacqueline, now that it’s more of an employer’s market and you’re seeing a lot more candidates, how does a cleared professional really stand out? What do they need to do to get your attention if you’re looking at 10 resumes or 15 resumes of candidates who have similar skill sets, similar security clearances, similar education? What are they going to have to do to get your attention?
Jacquelyn Weber 11:24
It’s funny, because I see a lot of resumes every single day, and one of the things that I tend to run into more often than not is that people don’t have information on their resumes. They leave things off, like their clearance level. If a recruiter has to ask someone what their clearance level is—and mainly for new recruiters just breaking into the industry, they might not realize or know that if someone is an all-source analyst, they more than likely have at least a TS/SCI, but that’s not always the case. You always want to make sure that you’re putting your clearance level on your resume. You want to put any kind of certifications or training, honestly, the years and the dates if you can, because that is also sometimes important to the government client. You definitely don’t want to have a 10-page resume—a lot of recruiters won’t even look at it. But you definitely want to make sure that you’re putting that important information on there: any kind of skills, any kind of training, any kind of software, any kind of systems that you have used and have experience with. Those are very important to have on there.
Kathleen Smith 12:27
Awesome. Thank you. I think that we have so many new cleared candidates in the market, and we’re going to have to be retraining all kinds of new candidates who haven’t had to look for a job in a while. My team and I are out in full force helping people, but it’s always great to have some words of wisdom straight from the recruiter. Rachel, what’s up next?
Rachel Bozeman 12:51
Absolutely, and I’m glad you came off mute for that one, Kathleen. That was a fantastic question, and so much goodness was shared with our listeners there. So, in the same spirit of getting advice from you, Miss Jacquelyn, if you don’t mind, some folks will take a position, get in there, and maybe they’re in there for a month or two and start going, "Maybe I didn’t make the best decision," or "I’m a little overwhelmed," or "I’m not sure if I did the right thing." Do you have advice for those folks on how they can be successful if they’re starting to have that moment of regret or fear that they made a wrong choice?
Jacquelyn Weber 13:27
I think one thing to keep in mind is that companies or government clients are looking at resumes to see how long someone has been in a certain position. If you’re jumping from contract to contract, that’s not going to look good, because what that says to the company, as well as the client, is that you’re not someone who’s going to stay. The turnover that can occur there—it’s costly to bring just one individual on board onto a contract. So when you get someone who’s only been in that position for one or two months, a lot of companies won’t ever look at you again if you’ve gotten into a position and, after one or two months, you’re calling it quits. It definitely does happen. Sometimes some of these contracts—it’s not easy to really read exactly, or know exactly, what the client is looking for. Sometimes the client doesn’t even know, it literally can be that way. But the main thing is that you really want to try to at least stay a couple of years in a position, because it just doesn’t look good for you to be jumping around from contract to contract.
Kathleen Smith 14:28
That’s really great advice. We did touch on that the other day with another one of our customers, because it may look like on your resume that you’re jumping from job to job, but you’re actually working on the same contract. You just have to write it on your resume that you’re staying with that contract; it’s just that the person who is managing the contract has changed.
Jacquelyn Weber 14:53
So exactly, there is that case as well. And often too, you will see it on resumes, and it may not be that candidate’s fault. Some of these contracts come to an end, some of them get canceled, some of them get re-competed, and they’re not picked up by the new company. There are going to be certain situations that can occur, but as long as you’re able to explain it, it’s not something that you were making a choice to do on your own.
Kathleen Smith 15:19
I think we hear Princess in the background.
Jacquelyn Weber 15:22
You do.
Rachel Bozeman 15:23
That’s wonderful. Well, she’s trying to give great advice.
Kathleen Smith 15:30
Thank you for joining us at our most recent Cleared Job Fair. We always love having people at our Cleared Job Fairs, because it’s just so fun to see people. A topic came up about keeping in touch with your security officer or your FSO about your clearance status. Want to share that story with us?
Jacquelyn Weber 15:49
Sure. A lot of the time when you’re transitioning military, there’s some things that can get overlooked. I’ve seen this many times where you’re transitioning, you’re retiring—whatever it is—you think that everything is good to go, and then you go to get into a contract position, and there’s something wrong with your clearance. Either it has lost jurisdiction or it’s out of scope—that can really cause a major hiccup for you, because it can take several months, it can take years, to get your clearance reactivated. While at the job fair, that’s an example that I gave. I met a gentleman there. He’s active duty right now; he was getting ready to retire in September of this year. I said, "Hey, let’s verify your clearance. Make sure everything is good to go there," because I have seen it where someone will transition and their clearance is no good. Sure enough, it came back that he was not in JPAS—he wasn’t even there. So it was as if he didn’t even exist in JPAS at all. He didn’t have a clearance. I told him to contact his FSO and let them know and find out what was going on there. It turns out it was an administrative oversight. That can happen, and that was just an example right there. I had another one that popped up just yesterday where we had worked with him in 2023, and we’re trying to get him on a contract, and there was an issue with his clearance. We had to re-adjudicate his clearance, and it came through just yesterday. So it literally took almost a year and a half, and we can’t wait.
Kathleen Smith 17:20
Oh, wow. Yeah, it’s always good. A lot of people will say, "Well, I don’t even know who my security officer is." Whenever I was teaching at any of the agencies on transition, it was like, you may not like talking to your security officer, because they’re usually telling you you’ve done something wrong, but you need to be sure that they have a cup of coffee, you have a cup of coffee, and you have a chance to talk about what’s going on with your clearance status. So it’s all very clear before you start out.
Rachel Bozeman 17:53
Absolutely, surprises are only fun on your birthday. Don’t let it be on your clearance. Not a good look. So you were able to share some examples of when the hiring process had some obstacles, whether it was a clearance or something else that may have popped up for that candidate. But let’s flip the script a little bit. Let’s focus on the good. Can you tell a recent success story that you’ve had in the hiring space, something that can give hope and inspiration to all of the listeners out there?
Jacquelyn Weber 18:21
We have had some individuals whose clearance was not where it needed to be, especially when you’re dealing with DIA—it’s a very rigorous process with them. You almost have to start from scratch, in a way. There have been a couple of candidates recently that we had to work through that, and the position was still available to get them on contract. So those are always positive stories. I’ve had on my team—I like to talk about my recruiters as well—I have a recently retired Army veteran who was a recruiter for the Army, and we hired him here to come on board and recruit for defense contracting in this space. He’s done a great job. This is something where I feel like one of the things that I love about this industry is that we’re really paying it forward to our veterans. It’s not just a corporate recruiter here, but also, when they’re going on contract, you’re basically doing the same job that you did while you were active duty. The difference is you get a choice where you want to go—they’re not telling you. Those are always positive things that we are able to do for our veterans. I had another one who I worked for at a previous company, and I was his program manager. I brought him on board as a recruiter. He called me and said, "Hey, I need a job." He was a geospatial analyst, and I trained him to be a recruiter. He came on board here, and it was one of our best hires, I think, that we’ve ever had, because he’s really been able to move. He became an FSO for us for a little while. Now he’s moved over to business development. Within Celestar, we really do like to promote from within. Often, I think people get caught up on the titles. It’s a junior position, or it’s a mid-level position, and this person is probably a mid- or a senior-level, but we just don’t have anything available at that time. You really could be doing yourself a disservice by not jumping into one of those positions and taking something for now and looking forward to that promotion, because we really do promote from within. We’d rather hire somebody who’s been on the job and promote them than bring someone in from the outside.
Kathleen Smith 20:16
So you’ve provided a lot of really great advice for our audience. I was wondering, is there one piece that you would like to share?
Jacquelyn Weber 20:25
I think one of the things that people could really take away is to humble yourself a little bit. There’s times when—look, I know that you’ve had 20, 30 years of experience, and you really probably should be making $150,000, $160,000 or more—but often that’s just not possible. In the contracting world, the money just isn’t what it used to be in a lot of the positions. Sometimes I see it more than not where it’s more of a junior person who is expecting to have this outrageous salary. Unfortunately, that just isn’t going to happen. I can’t take somebody who’s had four, five, six years’ experience and put them in a position where they’re making $130,000, $150,000. So I think really, just try to stay humble. We’re really going into an employer’s market now, and you just have to be careful with the choices that you’re making when it comes to jobs or salaries. It’s not always about the money. It’s also—think about the benefits and the cultures. Is it something that you are going to enjoy? Is it something that you’re really going to thrive in? It’s not always just about how much money you’re making or the title of the position.
Rachel Bozeman 21:37
Such great advice, and always a good thing to lean into and remember for sure. So you’ve given us some great advice, some great tidbits, and I know folks are going to want to get in touch with you and your hiring team. How in the heck can they get in touch with you?
Jacquelyn Weber 21:52
Well, we are all over LinkedIn. If you’re not following Celestar Corporation, definitely do that. I’m on LinkedIn—you can look me up and send me a message. Also, you can email us at recruiting@celestarcorp.com, or you can email me directly at jweber@celestarcorp.com. So lots of different ways you can get in touch with us.
Kathleen Smith 22:11
Wonderful. Well, Jacquelyn, thank you so much for joining us today. It was so great to meet you in person, and thanks so much for sharing your Celestar story with us.
Jacquelyn Weber 22:21
Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Appreciate it. Bye.
Kathleen Smith 22:25
So it was really great talking with Jacquelyn Weber at Celestar. One of her tips that she shared that I really appreciated was being in touch with your FSO, with your security officer, because she shared how many times it’s come up that there’s something wrong with the security clearance and you can’t transition to the next job without it. What’d you find there, Rachel?
Rachel Bozeman 22:47
Yeah, that was a great tip. But I also appreciated just calling out that compensation is more than just that base wage. It is the benefits, it is the culture, it is the quality of work that you’re performing. I think that’s such an important thing to remember as you’re going through your search—that you’re looking at all of those factors when you make that decision on where you’re going to land. So friends, we really do appreciate you taking the time to learn with us. Be sure to hit that follow button. And why don’t you text this episode to a friend—you know they need to hear this too. Be a good friend. Until next time, bye.
Kathleen Smith 23:23
Bye-bye.