AT&T Public Sector: a supportive culture for cleared professionals

Transitioning from a military or government job to civilian work brings many questions. How do my skills translate? What can I do with my clearance level? Will it be easy to adapt to a different work culture?

Associate Director of Resource Management April Martinez recently sat down with the ClearedJobs.Net podcast to discuss her experience at AT&T and how our Public Sector team creates a culture like no other in the field.

Check out highlights from the discussion and listen to the full podcast below!

You began your journey as an Arabic linguist in the Army. Now you’re the Associate Director of Resource Management. How did that happen?

I had the honor and the privilege of serving in the US Army. When my duty assignment was over, I got out of the military and I was like, “What am I gonna do with myself now?” Everything else, including my sock color, was decided for me in the military, and so now I have to make all these decisions. And so I just stayed in sort of the intelligence community, right? That’s kind of where I grew up in my formative years. I’ve done almost every job you can do in Intelligence from technical to management. If it’s a job in here, I’ve probably done it or been around it, and I just sort of evolved, I guess, into this role over time. And I love it. I get to work with military people, people leaving the military, all kinds of different government people and agencies, and the people here at AT&T. They’ve all really been a real joy to work with.

What exactly does resource management mean in relation to talent acquisition?

We bridge the gap between talent acquisition and all of our various vendors and the various programs that we have. We see all of the needs in a more holistic way, versus a lot of recruiters, who kind of have a specialty, right? Some are security, some are networks, or executives, because they know the language, they know the people, they’ve got good connections. We take our broad knowledge and help recruiters get people into good areas where maybe they might not know. So you see a person in there like me, they’ve done a million different things, you know, like, where is the best fit? How can you leverage that? That’s our job.

What kind of work does AT&T Public Sector do in the cleared community?

We really focus on what AT&T is well known for, which is networks. You see the commercials all the time about how the AT&T network is great, and most of our public sector work is built on that same platform. We do a lot of network engineering, design, support, maintenance, upgrade. We leverage our strengths in this space so that we can really bring value. We do other tangential things with that. The administrative stuff that comes with that; finance people, contracts people, legal people, we try to bring all of that stuff together. But our core business is really the communications infrastructure for all of these agencies.

What are the security-cleared positions you are typically hiring for?

We have anything from public trust all the way up to the highest levels of clearance. You’ll see a lot of network engineering, architecture, NOC, administration, and maintenance for all of our various customers. We’ll do some systems engineering, Linux. You’ll have project managers and finance people to support all of those things. All of those things will come with different clearance levels depending on need and program.

Where are these jobs typically located?

The majority of the work that we have is going to be in the DMV area. If you think about it, that’s where the majority of the government is. And so we go where the work is really, but there’ll be some things in different areas. Out West, there’s a couple of locations and down south, and everything like that, but the bulk is in the DMV area. Almost all of the work is on-site. There’ll be some work that is in our AT&T facilities, but mostly you’re going to be on-site with the customers.

What is your advice for those needing to transfer security clearances?

There are so many variables that go into this. It’s going to be which agency? Which poly? How current are you? What was the readout? How long have you been in access? How long since they looked at you the last time? Sometimes that’s forever, and you’re thankful, and then you go to move, and you realize that you shouldn’t be thankful, because now they’re going to look at you again. Know where you stand, right? Know when was the last time your case was reviewed and where your poly is. Is it current? What was the readout? And that’s going to help you better position yourself when you’re looking to cross from one agency to the other. So you’ll have a better understanding of how difficult it might be, or how time-consuming.

What is AT&T’s company culture like?

AT&T is very stable. I have never been anywhere else within this cleared community where you have such a dedicated, stable workforce. Most of us are so used to seeing people move. If you’re somewhere five years, it’s oh my gosh, you’ve been here five years. That’s amazing. I’m going on 10 years, and I’m still kind of new. There’s a lot of consistency here. We have a lot of effort here to really bring up the young generation. We have a lot of internships here and apprenticeships to really grow young, new technical talent. So there’s a lot of drive here to really bring up good young people.

What kind of benefits does AT&T offer?

They’re phenomenal. I mean, they’re really, really an amazing benefit package. Every benefit that we have is really about care for the people here at AT&T, for parental leave, wellness for your family, like being able to take time to take care of your family. It’s really important here that you take care of yourself, right? There’s a lot of resources for work-life balance, and the whole culture here is centered on that.

Do you have any advice for transitioning military members?

Get some help on your resume to translate your skills if they’re not an exact match, which they’re not likely to be. Take it from the military, your MOS, and translate that into industry-standard language. Talk to a recruiter. They really know what that language is. Have them help you get your resume formatted and put in a way that shows the skills that you have. Also, understand your clearance situation, because not everybody in the military has the same level or the same anything. So really understand where you are on the clearance side, and then understand what your transition window is. We see a lot of people that come to the job fair and they’re transitioning in two weeks. That’s very hard to transition smoothly, get all of the things moved over, and really make sure you have a really solid landing place. You really want to start three-to-six months out your job search. Talk to a company, have them check you out, see what your transition time is going to be. That’s going to help your transition go so much smoother for everybody.

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