Uber's Career Opportunities For Our Military Community with Army Veteran Michael Pett

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Let's address the elephant in the room here, right? Not everybody that works at McDonald's flips burgers, not everybody that joined the Air Force flies a plane, and not everybody that works at Uber drives a vehicle. Okay, so when I, when we speak about Uber today, we're talking a lot about our corporate roles, right? Our earners are drivers that are out there. Those folks are the heartbeat of our business. They are, they're the backbone. They're what's got us where we are today. We love them, we value them, right. But those folks are independent contractors. I'm speaking about hiring folks into corporate opportunities and corporate roles, right? So really getting to leverage those those fundamentals, right, skill sets, education, right and soft skills that they've gotten while serving or post military or if they're married to some.

Warriors fall in, it's time for formation. So today, I'm joined with an Army veteran, who now serves as the head of veteran and military programs for the well known innovative company that you know, and I know, called Uber. In today's episode, you might be surprised, and you might see Uber in a different light, that'll make you understand that there are really a ton of opportunities for career growth, after the uniform. Today, I'm joined with Michael Pett is going to discuss his own transition out of the military, and how Uber plans to connect with the military community and the career seekers out there, after the uniform. Michael, thank you for joining us today on the Morning Formation Podcast.

I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Listen, man, the honor is all mine. I had seen so much online articles and different postings about Uber, and how they're looking to bridge that gap between the military community and their company. And so I had to reach out to you to get you on the podcast. Because I understand that many times there's more than, more than meets the eye when it comes to opportunities. And so I really appreciate you taking your time out of your busy schedule to come out and join us and talk to us about Uber and how they plan on connecting with the military community. But before we get into all that, Michael, would you mind sharing your own military career transition experiences as well?

Yeah, absolutely. So my transition journey is going to sound fairly similar to a lot of people that are probably tuning in, right. You know, I left active duty after 15 years, I had an idea as to what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to work in the corporate space, somewhere within recruiting, because that's kind of how my how and why my active duty career kind of ended. You know, the way it did. I was kind of burnt out on it. But I knew out of all the things that I had done in the military, that was something that that was a good skill set that I could bring to the table in corporate America. So much like everybody else to transitions, you know, I kind of did my research, looked at companies, big name companies, because, you know, I went with what I kind of knew about. Kind of looked a little bit deeper in regards to, you know, is there an employee resource group out there? Are there gonna be other veterans out there that I can connect with? Something to where the, you can really bridge that gap. Ultimately, I met a dear dear friend of mine, who worked for a company called Accenture, which is a really large global consulting firm, and they had a strong reputation. And he said, you know, hey, you might want to check this place out. So he referred me and really a few weeks later, I was I was employed there. Now, here's where it gets a little tricky, though. Okay. You know, I'm Mis Mister uniform every day. I don't know what it means to become a contractor. Okay. And for those y'all listening in a contractor is different than a full time employee. You might both be putting in 40 hours a week. But that contractor doesn't necessarily have paid time off, right, no vacation time. They may not have any insurance benefits, they may not have a 401k they may not have a lot of things. So I took a leap of faith. You know, I really did. I said, You know what, I'm gonna try this contractor route out and I'm gonna see how it plays. And lo and behold, six months later, I got converted to a full time employee. I wound up taking over the team a year and a half later and we did amazing things. Now that sounds like success story, right? Sounds like nothing that happened along the way. Right? Let me tell you, eight days in to my role at Accenture, I was calling up active duty recruiters again. I was scared to death, I felt like I made the biggest mistake. There was a language barrier. I wasn't knife handing anybody, you know, per se as a senior noncommissioned officer. But I was, I was out of my element. And I was scared to death. So what I began to do, and I'm sorry, all this is a long winded response to this question. But I started taking down notes, because I knew that if I, my goofy self was having a bad transition, wasn't assimilating, wasn't integrating properly, I knew that our brothers and sisters after me, were also going to go through that. So I started taking the notes down, figuring out ways to kind of crack in, learn more, do more, be better. And I turn those into really books that we would give our future veteran and military partner employees. And it's what I do here at Uber to, to really ease in that pain of transition. So basically, to answer your question, I went through the transition like everybody else did. I didn't have a whole lot of assistance. I didn't go to Harvard, you know, I didn't go to you know, like one of those amazing Ivy League schools out there. You know, I went to a went to a school, I felt like I checked the blocks. But sometimes, you know, as veterans, when we exit the military, we feel like life stopped while we were wearing the uniform. I'm here to tell you all, it did not stop. And I had it sprint to get caught back up.

Yeah. Now while you were in uniform, Michael, did you set yourself up for success? Did you knock out any college or any certifications or anything like that to help with your overall transition?

Yeah, I mean, I did. I was, you know, I was kind of a loner, you know, not really a loner. That's, that's kind of a bad label. But I really did kind of know that my military career essentially was going to have an end. So I knew that I was going to take advantage of all of the, you know, educational benefits and military offered. No kidding. Like, I straight up how to plan like, I knew I was going to go and finish undergrad and do all that. So I was one of the lucky ones. I went to a big 10 school, went to U of I wrapped up, you know, undergrad, cool. Stayed enlisted, you know, went up through the ranks. I know, you're a Mustang, but I you know, I stayed the enlisted, you know, out because I love training people. I love being around Joe, you know, and I loved having that ability to kind of shape and, you know, the future leaders, you know, of the United States Army.

Yeah and I think when you when you mentioned loaner to me, what what that means to me was, you kind of decided to do things on your own without a whole lot of help. At least that's how it was for me, man. Like, when I got out, I did not seek the help of taps. I did not seek to help anyone else. I just did it myself, which is the one I think big mistake that I made. And I probably should have, you know, sought the help of folks out there that kind of had already been there done that before. Did you experience the same as well?

Absolutely. You know, I think when all of us were a capping, you know, for, you know, and processing out, we were looking at that time, like, Hey, I gotta get my stuff straight. Wanted my household goods to make sure that they get home, on make sure that like, my family has a bed for me, you know, or something along those lines. You know, plus, you know, this we talked about already. Right. You know, I'm a Schofield guy, right. So when I was, when I was leaving, you know, to go halfway back around the world, to back to Chicago, you know, I needed to make sure certain things were going to be there. And guess what they weren't. My family wasn't even Illinois anymore. They had moved to Georgia. I was coming back, you know, so like, there's all these things that I had to kind of wrap my head around. The last thing I was concentrating on was a capping, right? Checking those little blocks. That wasn't, that wasn't my style. I knew I was going to school, everything else could wait, that's, and that was something that I truly do regret not taking advantage of those on base resources.

Yeah, same. Same goes for me. And I think it's the same for a lot of people too, because even now, today, when I speak to people that are still in uniform, and I try to talk to them about networking, they're like, "I don't need that," you know, and they, they kind of blow it off. And I'm like, You're gonna regret it, you know. So it's, you try to reach the folks that you can. You just try to talk to the folks that don't want to listen, and hopefully someday they'll actually get it. But you mentioned you were recruiter for a number of years. You know, and I spoken to other recruiters before and the feedback that I've gotten out of that specific position was that, that job skill of having the soft skills I should say, of being a recruiter, actually translated over to the civilian side. Would you also agree with that?

Oh, 100%, you know, so a lot of you know, well, I mean, all the Army recruiters, I can't speak to everybody else. But I would, I would assume that all branches go to a similar style of training, right? But with that, you get sales experience, comprehensive communication skills, right? All these amazing tools, you know, that you think in when you're serving, you're never going to use these things again.

Right.

But as you look, you know, through that other lens, right, as you look towards the exit, you know, that that's a lot of stuff you can bring to the table with you. And that's going to shine really, really well. When you go through the interview process. The cool thing about it was, you know, I hitched my wagon to the right company, or companies, right. And people saw that value that came from what I learned in the army.

Right. Yeah. And that's my point exactly, is a lot of times people don't see the translation. And when I had heard a, actually, it was a sergeant major that mentioned that to me, that his time in recruiting really helped him as far as being a civilian in real estate. I was really surprised. And he said, Yeah, the soft skills that I learned in recruiting really helped me out. And so sometimes it's kind of hard for people to draw those lines between the skills that we utilize, and we actually put to use on a regular basis in the military, and how they can be utilized on the civilian side. So I thought that was quite, quite fascinating. And just to pivot. And by the way, just to comment real quick, I think it's absolutely fabulous that Uber has positioned somebody like you, as a representative, to be that bridge between the military and the civilian career field. I've seen too many times, other organizations will put somebody in there that has never served before. And they won't quite understand the culture, and they don't quite seem to get it. And so it's refreshing to see you Michael in that position. And Uber actually taking into account the opportunity to put someone like yourself there who really understands, like what's going on and what people are looking for when they get out of the military.

Appreciate that. Yeah, that's that. I mean, it is right.

Yeah,

I think it's, you know, I'm not going to speak, try and speak in a generality here. But, you know, there are a lot of companies out there that try and go with that optics play. You know, stuff somebody in there, you know, you know, make it...I call it the military ready versus military friendly exercise. Were, you know, military friendly, yeah, it's a cool little badge you can put on your website, but are you ready? Do you know what our community you know, endures in on a day to day basis? Do you know what a mobilizations like? Do you know what, you know, a PCS is like, Do you know what, you know, all those things are? I do because I went through them myself. Right. So I'm so grateful for the opportunity. I'm grateful that they have the vision to see how the value that we as an Armed Forces community can bring. And like I said, it's so thankful that I hitched my wagon to this company, who itself has gone through its own growing right. You know, we've got TV shows after us. We've, you know, our history is widely researchable. Right. So we know that we're putting our the right steps and right feet forward to get, you know, to get more folks from our community right here.

Yeah, definitely. And I think I think you'd be in that position is certainly a step in the right direction, for sure. And just to pivot to talk about Uber specifically, would you mind talking to us about the Uber military veteran partner, the MVP, what's the mission of that? What's the Purpose?

So our main mission is to hire active creates, right. We want to hire external talent that's transitioning from the Armed Forces community, in every country that Uber has a footprint, right, that is one of our NATO allies, right. We're going to hire those folks. Now. I'm not talking it. Let's let's let's address the elephant in the room here, right? Not everybody that works at McDonald's flips, burgers, not everybody that joined the Air Force flies a plane and not everybody that works at Uber drives a vehicle. Okay, so when I when we speak about Uber today, we're talking a lot about our corporate roles, right? Our earners, our drivers that are out there, those folks are the heartbeat of our business. They are they're the backbone. They're what's got us where we are today. We love them, we value them, right. But those folks are independent contractors. I'm speaking about hiring folks into corporate opportunities and corporate roles, right. So really getting to leverage those those fundamentals. Right skill sets, education, right and soft skills that they've gotten while serving or post military, or if they're married to somebody. We act as internal consultants. Right? So I educate the business on a daily basis in regards to what a profile looks like. Back in the day used to be go to war, go to jail, right? That's that was the recruitment strategy in the military back in the day, right now we've got more folks going back to school and earning your degree in the STEM field than our civilian counterparts. The post 911 generation is the most educated generation in history of the armed forces. Think about that? Why wouldn't we go after this amazing community, right? So we have to continuously educate them, right? And share that, you know, shared shared diversity metrics, share all you know, all those, those big sexy terms that they love to hear, share how we can help them achieve those goals, right. And the last thing, IRAC creates, all right, you have to create a red carpet experience. First thing I did was took a look, listen, feell approach, right? Check out the current state of Uber and figure out where we want to go. We didn't have any onboarding, we didn't have any integration programs that we're going to help our community, right. So I took that book that I kind of talked about earlier, right? Where it's got all these amazing resources, coupled that with mentorship and ambassadorship programs, and now we're creating that red carpet experience. Is it perfect? No, no, it's not. It's not. I got a long way to go. But we have the right folks here, we've got the right leaders here. And we're working together each and every day to try and get something that our community can be really, really proud of.

Yeah and you know, it's fascinating, Michael, is, you had mentioned to me before, I talked about September 11, and how we're 20 years out from that. And that was really the kickoff of the Afghanistan war. And then shortly thereafter, we had the Iraq War. And you had mentioned before, and it's something I hadn't even thought about myself was how we're 20 years out, which is at that point, where we get a lot of folks retiring out of the military. And these are folks who have spent their entire lives, you know, going into Iraq and Afghanistan, getting the education. And so they're going to be looking to transition out. And what I really enjoyed about your, your point that you made about that was how Uber was positioning themselves to kind of be that bridge of, to kind of bridge that gap of meeting those folks when they come out and getting that talent and adding it to their own workforce. And so, yeah, that was quite fascinating. I hadn't even really thought about that before, right? I know, a lot of people that are just retiring out of the military here in the next couple of years,

It's wild to think, right. We're gonna go through a real mass exodus across all branches, right across all militaries, to where folks are going to be looking for that next opportunity. And I'm gonna tell you something that I really haven't never shared before. But I want to say how proud I am of tech companies in general, right, during COVID, during, you know, workforce reductions across all tech companies, those of us that sit in kind of a leadership position within the veteran space, if we were, you know, going through that workforce reduction, right, we know each other, right, we, you know, we're we don't harbor talent, we share talent. And we all work together to hey, we've got so many so veterans, so many, so partners have, unfortunately, they lost a role, you know, due to what was going on in the economy or the climate, right. And we found ways to like, share talent, you know, check out these profiles, can you do anything for these people? Right. Those are the ways that, you know, we've kind of worked together behind the scenes, so that way, as this mass exodus happens, you know, we can still create opportunity, right? We share in talent across regardless, you know, if it's Uber, if it's Amazon, if it's Meta, we're trying to come up with ways to continue to help our brothers and sisters out.

Yeah, that's what I love so much about when I was reading about Uber man is and, and specifically so I know, we've mentioned so many things during this podcast so far. But Michael, from your own experiences and from your own experiences, as you know, the head of military and veteran programs with Uber. Why is Uber an ideal place for veterans, military spouses or service members transitioning out of the military?

Well, if you think about, like, some of the soft skills that we have, right, you know, whether you were a commissioned officer or an NCO or even a junior enlisted, right, we are leaders, right? We are always thinking about, you know, next person up, right and what do we what do we have to do? We're always mission focused, right? You know, we're extremely resilient people, we have the ability to overcome adversity. Look at Uber, right Uber is constantly coming up with ways to crack the code and get into different industries, right? And we need people that aren't going to take really, you know, no for an answer. Right? And I mean that in a professional setting, but take no for an answer, right? They're gonna find ways to make things happen. And what was the one thing we all said in the army? Right? Make it happen? Right? So right, we have a really wonderful profile that aligns with a lot of the great roles. Is it a one to one? Heck no, right? You know, and nothing's a one to one comparison. But there are a lot of positions that we've got, whether they be in operations or project management, right to where you can take a lot of what you've done in the military, and bring it right to the table, you might need a little upskilling, you might get need to get a couple of other things under your belt to make sure you're the, you know, the perfect fit. But that's that's the way it is with whether it be Uber or anywhere else, right. But Uber recognizes that value. But let's not forget about our military spouses, or as we call them military partners, right? They've been holding it down. I know, the NCOs are the backbone of the Army, right? I know, I'm going to change that over and military partners are the backbone of the military, right? Whether they continue to work, or they're holding it down at the house and taking care of everybody, right, or they're going through those PSCs it's right, or, you know, rolling from roll to roll, country to country, state to state. My gosh, you know, they're afforded the same opportunity, as any veteran, any current service person, right. We want to make sure that they have the opportunity to be successful, too, because they go through that transition journey, right alongside their partner.

Right, yeah, totally. And I, I used to host a room in Clubhouse where I had the likes of military spouses, servicemembers, Veterans, all under one roof. So I would hear everyone from the military community and some of the issues that they were having. And it also here, some of the resources that we're reaching out to help out those folks. Because it really is one family, when it comes to not just a military veteran, but also it's everything that they go through from deployments to TD wise to moves and all that stuff. It's felt throughout the entire family itself. And I love what you said about making make it happen, because I have done some research on Ubers history, and they have overcome a lot to be where they're at right now.

You gonna burn me with those questions? Is that what you're gonna do?

No, no, you know, it's, it's actually, I find it quite fitting for, for military members to be to be fitted with a company that's, that has overcome a lot of obstacles, because as veterans, we also do, too, right? And so you're talking about all these different things, expansive, like career opportunities within Uber? Could you explain how Uber is actually a tech company versus just a rideshare? Business? And what are what what are some of the lesser known opportunities for listeners out there?

it is, you know, having your, you know, food and goods and services delivered, right? So, for the end user, right, that's, that's how they look at us, right? They go to their app, they order what they want to either be brought to them, have them picked up, have it delivered, you know, there's so many different options to tout on our platform. But if you flip that, right, she's kind of like, why brought up not everybody at McDonald's flips burgers, right? We are a tech company, because it's our software that people are using, right, just like tick tok just like, you know, not to use them because I'm, you know, I'm a frequent user their stuff, but, you know, Twitter, you know, you know, meta, those are all tech companies, and we fall within that window as well, because we are providing services to a tech based, you know, app to provide there are folks are some of the sharpest people I've ever had the privilege of meeting. I mean, each and every day, I am just blown away at the level of intelligence in some of our offices, right? Whether they're fresh out of, you know, high school, in some instances, fresh out of college, right, what have you, these are some sharp folks. So it's really, really cool to be around them. It's almost infectious. You know, to hear some of them kind of have their their chats. Now as Veterans think about technology. Sometimes they get a little skittish. They're like, "Whoa, it's not my lane, software engineer. I don't know anything about that." Let me tell you, there are so many amazing using resources for free to the Armed Forces community to get them tech savvy, I know a lot of people are participating in school bridge apprenticeships, right? To get them up to speed. We have Academy programs, okay, and I'm getting actually to kick one off in a couple of weeks. It's called Boost. But we are going to bring in 15, folks, and we're going to teach them eight months worth of software engineering, they're going to be hired, they're going to be paid, they're gonna be brought on their full time employees, and they will work for us after they're done with their their training academy. But I'm thinking about that, that's designed to upskill them. Is a college degree required? Nope. Imagine that. Could you imagine being a software engineer at an amazing company like Uber, without a college degree? Now some of them might have them, right, because they got, but we are going to take folks that are leveraging, you know, a boot camp or an accelerator program and bringing them on. So as veterans and military partners, you know, exit out of the military, and they begin thinking, "Gosh, what's next? There's no way I'm ever going to get into technology, there's no way I can do this. There's no way I can get into that." I don't, I wouldn't be so quick to say that because there are so many exciting programs, right? We have a sales Academy, the talent acquisition Academy, software engineering, academies, data science academies. So all these amazing ways to kind of jump right in, work for an amazing tech company, and start really, you know, earning a great, great, you know, amount of money, a great benefits package to set you and your family up for the foreseeable future.

Wow, that gets me excited, to be honest with you, and just the just listen to your voice and listening to all the opportunities that are out there. You mentioned all these different academies. And these programs. Can you talk in further detail about the talent development and the career progression within Uber?

Absolutely. So you know, in the military, you know, if I'm a civilian, I can Google you know, our pay charts, right? I can find out, you know, two years, four years, I can look up, you know, ar 600, dash eight dash 19, right, and look up the promotions. Right, I can find all that material app and the corporate side, right? It's a little bit more challenging to figure out what you know what it's going to take for you to get to that next rung. Right. So when we bring folks on, you know, they're instantly given a mentor, all right, that person is going to help them better understand kind of how to navigate that, that you know, that lane that new lane they find themselves in, which is pretty exciting, right? You're starting a new thing, it doesn't matter if you spent five years in the military, or 20 years in the military. When you're take the uniform off and you start that next role, it's going to be somewhat intimidating. So having a mentor, that's awesome. Additionally, we have employee resource groups. So we we really try and nudge our new joiners to join them. Right. You know, for me, I need family, I need community, I need that sense of belonging. I need my brothers and sisters who've, you know, shared similar interests, right. So I immediately latched on to our veterans and employee resource group, you know, so that way we could continue to have, you know, the watercooler conversations, right, we talked about deployments, we talked about all that, right. And that helps ease in that transition process. Now additionally, we have clear guidelines on the competencies that you need to hit in order to get promoted. Sounds very similar to what you did in the military, right? You knew what school you needed to go to, you knew your PT scores and all that other stuff needed to be right in order for you to qualify for promotion, corporate sides, exact same, right? You know, as long as you're doing your role, hitting your numbers, doing what you've got to do, following the course, you're going to be good. And there's going to be people there that want to see you succeed that'll help you along the way. Sounds a lot like when you got to your first duty station, and you had a sponsor, right? Yeah. So you S1, S4 show you where the chow hall was right, all that stuff. We try and do that, you know, obviously COVID is impacted on how much of a high touch process it can be. But we really do try our hardest to get that and now with us getting back to the office, we do have a way better way of doing it. It's a lot cooler for for the folks joining.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I really appreciate how you know, you go to a new duty station somebody catches you, picks you up from the airport usually, and then takes you to in processing and takes you all these different places because it's it's a very unknown strange territory for you to be in a new place in a strange land. And so the fact that Uber recognizes that in itself is very impressive, because I can tell you that from my own personal experiences I've been with employers before, they've just kind of been like, here's your information, just walk down this hallway and figure it out. So it's good to see that they actually have someone to kind of meet you in the middle and kind of show you the ropes and get you acclimated to the lay of the land.

To that point, right. You mentioned transition journey, right? That's a lot of why we have it set up the way we do now is because of my previous experience too right, like it's, you know, it was really, really rough. Right, there was a lot of, you know, just impostor syndrome. Right. So having that, you know, sense of community setup early, helped so much so much with our with our new joiners.

Yeah, and, you know, you've mentioned so many things that you have stood up created, just since you've been in your position. And this entire time, I didn't ask you about your specific position. So would you mind just talking to the listeners out there about what it is that you specifically do for Uber and the military community?

kind of goes back to that that consultant component, right. So we want to work with the business to show them the significance and importance of why we should really employ diverse talent, right? Military Veteran partner community is an underrepresented community, right? We know that roughly, you know, less than 1% of the population serves, okay? But with that, if we unpack that, from a numerical perspective, if we're looking at diversity inclusion, over 40% of our community is racially and ethnically diverse, right? Latin X, African American, right black and brown. Then when we look at our gender, right, our numbers in the gender, it's still very male, heavy, but there's a ton of folks on active duty that are married, okay, which allows us to really open that up to the partner community too right. The reason why I bring that as that even that stuff up is because that is attractive to business leaders, right? They want to make sure that they have diverse populations working within their business, because we know that if there's diversity of thought, right, there's going to be stronger outcomes, right? There's going to be stronger team cohesion, right, you're gonna have multiple solutions to solve the problem, right, that just makes for better business. So that's one of the things that I have to continuously do. Additionally, I've got to come up with cool and creative ways to find and attract our talent. So whether it be coming on here, right, or working with other awesome external partners that we have, right, whether it be the Pat Tillman Foundation, that's in tech, Student Veterans of America, you know, the list goes on and on, and on and on. I try and really hold on to those partnerships, as really, as long as I can do right by them. Because at the end of the day, I'm gonna be bringing their community into mind. And I want to make sure that it's so it's just a positive, you know, relationship. The other thing I have to do is I have to educate our talent acquisition force, right. Which, which can be kind of funny sometimes because of how passionate I am. I get it. Some folks say it's infectious, right or contagious, how passionate I am about community. Well, it's easy to be when you come from the community. Right? So going back to what you said about having somebody who hails from the community, there's a reason why my teams have been successfu. It's because I bring people from our community to hire people from our community, because we hail from it, it's kind of a win win. So whether it be from the strategic focus, right, the hiring focus, or the educating focus, those are a lot of kind of what you know, lanes I swim in, and in my day to day,

just to make a comment, man, I think you're doing an outstanding job, you've certainly got my attention. And I reached out to you, man and wanted to get an interview with you because I had seen so much buzz on social media and I saw an article about Uber and their overall, you know, attempt to try to bridge that gap between the military community and the civilian career fields out there. Overall, man, it sounds like you've done a lot of projects to try to set up within Uber to make that landing a lot softer for our military community. And so I appreciate that and I can hear the passion in your voice, man and how much you love what you do for a living. Now, ever since the pandemic, this has been something that's kind of been a sort of a big deal for folks out there. And I wanted to ask you like, as far as like work locations, with Uber being a tech company and in being fairly remote, is Uber fairly flexible with the remote working, or are there specific cities with corporate locations? How does that work with such a company like Uber?

Yeah, so wildly, wildly receptive to remote opportunities, right, or hybrid roles? You know, what we're doing now is we've adopted the hybrid approach, right? Which is like a three, two, or a two, three, right? Three days in your office two days from home, or vice versa? Right? Some folks have full remote, right, they've been given those privileges, they've put in a specific request, they've been granted. And for those of you that are listening, and like, oh, gosh, you know, what do I do during, you know, the application process? How do I let people know? You know, once you make contact with that first, you know, person from our talent acquisition force, let them know, right away, don't omit it, don't keep it as a back pocket item, right? You know, during negotiations, right? Like, oh, I want to work remote, right? Just get it out there. We're super transparent. So, you know, today, I'm actually working from the house tomorrow, I will absolutely be in the office, right. So at the end of the day, we know that teams work together by literally working together, right, you know, the reports, and the data is out there, you know, but we also understand that not everybody is is there yet, not everybody is comfortable with going to that. So as people begin to do it, we're gonna see an uptick in people come back to the office. One thing I do have to admit little shameless plug here, though, we've got some amazing food, in our office. Our offices are really, really freaking awesome. So you can go onto our website and see them. The Chicago office that I get to go to all the time, the food, the people, you know, the vibe, I mean, it really kind of took me out of that, that post COVID funk, you know, that I was feeling. Right, where, you know, socially isolated, you know, so it really kind of got some more bounce back in my step, which I was super grateful for.

I know what you're saying, man. It's the same thing with me, I didn't realize that how, I guess sort of depressed, I was just being home all the time until I went back to the office and was interacting with people and got the sights and the sounds and the smells of being back in an office. But it's great to hear that Uber has those opportunities to work remote as well. And throughout this podcast, we've talked about your position specifically within Uber. We've talked about all the great opportunities within Uber as well, and how it's not just a rideshare app, but it's truly a tech app. And it's a tech company. And so with that being said, if anyone out there listening from our military community would like to take the first step with researching or connecting with you or someone from the MVP program. How can they do that?

Yeah, so there's a couple of different ways, right? So we've got our own LinkedIn group, right, they can join, we get out there. There's a lot of, you know, folks that I'll try and, you know, kind of post random stuff, you know, we try and keep it bipartisan. We try and keep it, you know, all armed forces friendly, right? The only real posts outside of roles, right, you know, posting specific positions that might be hiring for, we might have, you know, some call outs, right, some wins, we might celebrate on that LinkedIn. Or, you know, if there's a veteran or somebody's in crisis, we allow that stuff. But get on our LinkedIn group, follow us, we're gonna post amazing opportunities. Another great way to connect with each connect with me, right? I promise you, right? If you ask me a question, all right. If you asked me a question, and on LinkedIn in mail, I guarantee you, I'm gonna reply to you. Okay. If you just send me a random statement, okay, I get I get hate mail every day, I get random notes, right, I get people just making blanket statements. And that's cool. I want to help you. But if you don't give me a question, I don't know what to say to you. Right? So you can connect in straight up with me. And then Uber.com/careers/MVP . Okay, that's a great way you can land on our landing page. And you can learn a little bit more about the program that I've built with my amazing team, right, and the amazing folks that I work with every day.

Awesome, man. And my final question is going to be, you know whether you have any advice for our military community. Before I get to that, I want to ask you, what is beyond the horizon for Uber and the military programs. Can you talk about anything that's upcoming, any conferences, any events...or? Yeah, we're excited to hear that.

Yeah, totally. So we're definitely going to be at the MBA veterans Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in October. I know, this is like, "Well, I don't have an MBA." Well, I get it, right. But don't worry. There's other conferences that are going to be coming up. There Student Veterans of America's national conference, which I've attended, either virtually or in person for the last eight years. I'm like, like one of the most seasoned, you know, people within this space, that still goes to those, there's so so much fun. We're also going to, you know, we'll be at Afro tech, we're going to be at our equal we're going to be at like, every diversity conference that we can try and, and get into right, that are coming available. But we're also for those folks. There's a Spotlight and Security at Fort Meade coming up. Okay. So for those people that, you know, are within the military, you know, on the eastern seaboard, don't worry, we're gonna come and check you out, too. Okay, so we're gonna have a lot of things. So please, I encourage you follow our LinkedIn group, hit me up on LinkedIn, I always try to be as early as possible with the announcements. So that way, you guys can plan accordingly. So those are some cool things that we've got coming up.

Michael, you're definitely a hustler, man, and I can tell you're very compassionate about what it is that you do you create a lot of buzz, to the point to the point man, where I had to reach out to you and get you on the show, man. Because Uber is a very fascinating company, you know, from my own research. I think that there's a lot more to it than people realize. And so it's great to have you on the show to talk about some of those opportunities out there. And for those of you who are listening, please take it into consideration because Uber actually cares about the military community enough to put someone like Michael in position to help bridge that gap for us. And you know, Michael, just to final out the show today. Do you have any final pieces of advice for folks out there looking to do a career transition with our within our community? Or do you have any general pieces of advice for folks out there? And for our listeners specifically?

Yeah, absolutely. You brought up something earlier, I want to make sure that we hammer this one home, right is networking. I get it, you know, sometimes it sounds weird to reach out, right to somebody, or to cold call them, right? Let's figure this out. Right? Before you exit active duty or military or make that final transition homework, right? You need a LinkedIn account. It's absolutely mandatory, right? That's, that's kind of the way the business operates. Now, that is your digital resume. Okay. It's not only it's not a Facebook, it's not a Twitter, it's not a you know, your, your, your hinge or you know, some sort of dating app. Okay. LinkedIn is a professional profile that you've got to keep up to date, right? So that's one thing you got to have that. Power of networking is key, okay? Get on companies, websites that you're interested in, do your homework, okay? Please do not come up to people at career fairs or hiring events and say, "I was in 92 Alpha, or I was, you know, 13 Bravo or 11 Bravo. What do you what, what opportunities do you have for me?" We're not going to hire somebody who's one disinterested, hasn't done their homework and hasn't found a creative way to translate their skill set. Now, if you are struggling with translating your skill set, don't worry about we're here. That's what my team also does. We're going to help you rewrite your resume. Okay, we're going to make sure that you, you feel confident, okay, when you're applying for the roles, alright, we're gonna we're gonna go above and beyond. But guess what, I'm not the only one out there that does that. There are so many amazing people that really do give a damn. Okay, about what happens to our community. It's you, you're going to require a team to transition. You cannot do it by yourself. So please, if you you know, like, I don't care if you went to Ranger, right? I don't care if you were SF, I don't care. Okay. Just, that's awesome. And thank you for that. Right. You're rad and like, truly, like, I'm super grateful for it. But at the end of the day, just because you did that doesn't mean you can successfully transition on your own. Alright. Remember, we get across the finish line as a team that exists both in the military and in the civilian side. They don't necessarily have to be internal people helping you, but you do need to leverage your community. So we're here. We're here to help. We're here to educate. So please, you know, I hopefully I just gave you all some questions to ask me, okay. For when do you do reach out.

I think that's great advice, man. Very, very great advice, networking is absolutely essential. And I can tell you, as a veteran myself who struggled, I was part of that 80% That quit my first job within the first year. And I probably could have avoided that if I had just accepted the help, before I took off the uniform and put on the civvies. And with that being said, it doesn't matter. I mean, you could be laundry and bath in the army, if they still have that MOS. I mean at the end of the day, it's not your identity. And it's not doesn't define who you are. I can tell you that from my own personal experience. I have an MBA in project management, but my undergrad is in criminal justice. And I recently got a certification in project management. So I'm all over the place. And at the end of the day, it makes me more of a dynamic person. So if you're listening out there, take advantage of those opportunities for you to get those certifications that interest you. And make sure you follow. Make sure you follow Uber on LinkedIn, Uber MVP, right.

So it's, I'll send you all the information, but we have a Ubers, military veteran and partner recruiting LinkedIn group, right? Basically, if you if you hit me up, don't worry, I'll send you the link. And I'll take care of y'all.

Yeah, and I'll definitely put all that down in the show notes as well. So make sure you're following all these. I'm a little bit jealous, because in 2007, when I got out of the Army, the hottest thing out, there was Myspace, I say it numerous times. Now we have LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all these different opportunities for folks to connect. So I'm a little bit jealous of the folks out there that are making the transition now but you're at the right place here on The Morning Formation to link up with folks like Mr. Pett here, who provided so much information about Uber today, and the opportunities that are being provided for your future career. So, Michael, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Thanks, man. Appreciate you having me.

And for folks out there. As always, I want you to stay tuned, stay focused, and stay motivated. Warriors fall out.