Thank you for joining us today for Understanding Compensation and Benefits with Cedar Sinai Healthcare Systems. My name is Jill New. I'm the Career Programs and Outreach Manager, and I'm pleased to introduce to you Jennifer Delatte from Cedar Sinai Healthcare Systems.

  Good afternoon everybody. My name is Jennifer Delatte. I'm the Veteran program administrator for Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles. I'm joined today by Christina Seward, one of the talent advisors on my team, who is also here to speak about some of the positions that she has available.

And really excited to talk to you since I am fully in charge of all the veteran and military spouse recruitment as well as recruiting for transitioning service members. So, I'm actually a United States Army Reservist. In the military I actually do IT, so nothing related to recruiting and HR, but my degree is in Human Resources and Recruiting.

I'm also a Certified Veteran Recruiter and a Certified Recruiting Academy Recruiter. And I've been with Cedar Sinai now for six months, a little over six months. And I'm here to really just facilitate the entire process for veterans who are applying with the organization.

I also advocate for military spouses. I myself am a military spouse. My husband's on active duty. So I want to just let everybody know that if you're willing to apply at Cedars, if this is the ideal career path for you, please communicate with me because I am here to help you through the process from the minute you apply to the minute you interview, and then get that job.

I would like to turn it over to Christina as well to introduce herself. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining today. So glad to meet you all and answer any of your questions that you guys might have. My name's Christina Seward, and I've been with Cedars now for about eight months. So I'm a senior talent advisor here.

I typically oversee corporate services, positions, and administrative, social work, so really excited to get to know you guys and answer any questions that you guys might have about our process.

Thank you, Christina. So we do have quite a large team here of talent advisors at Cedars. There are about 20 of us, and we all focus on different areas.

Primarily, I recruit security positions, command center operators, security guards, corporals, and sergeants, as well as some admin positions and program coordinators. So each one of us has a designated area that we cover. We have an entire team that covers nursing, but as the veteran program administrator, I am able to connect you with the correct recruiter for the role that you have applied for.

So, with that, we do have quite a large operation, and with, everything that we do here, we are a magnet hospital. We are number one in California and number two in the nation, and these rankings came out this year, so that's very exciting. We'll also talk a little bit later about some of the accolades that we received for some of our partnerships and, just some of the military initiatives that we do and what we've been recognized for.

So you would be learning from the best of the best. We are the top research, teaching and academic facility in California. We have such an amazing team here that truly cares about patients and the work that we do, and making sure that we are, providing that groundbreaking research and clinical trials and things like that make Cedars one of the top places to work in California. We were established in 1902. And we are one of the only hospitals that have a dedicated veteran support initiative. So it is a very unique organization. It's really important to, our chief HR officer that veterans and military spouses and transitioning service members have representation.

It's really important to our Chief Diversity officer that we had an employee resource group that was created to support our veteran staff and make sure that they were recognized and supported throughout their careers. And we're also making sure that we have dedicated support for our veteran patients. We have a whole volunteer services team that you know about,

partnerships within the local community that support veteran initiatives and funding for research and things like that. So within the organization itself, we have about 300 veterans right now, maybe a little bit more and we currently employ over 15,000 employees across the entire system, combined with our medical group and our medical network as well as our two campuses in Marina, Delray and Cedars.

But throughout every single, department, every single unit, we do have veterans. And for each and every one of them, I do provide support. If you are looking for a career that is stable, and that you know is essential, the healthcare sector is what you'd want to consider. Especially during the pandemic, we saw how valuable our, healthcare workers are.

And you know how incredibly needed they were. And now you know that sense is just growing. So it is one of the largest sectors. It employs more people in the United States than any other type of industry. And it is a very rewarding career. If you're looking to continue service in some way, shape, or form, healthcare would be the sector I would say that definitely has the ability to provide that value for you.

And I did mention that we do have two big hospitals. One is in the West Hollywood area, and one is in Marina Del Ray. We have probably about 50 combined, through the medical network and the medical center as well as the medical group, as well as over 50 clinics throughout LA County. So if you're looking to relocate to the LA area, we've got so many opportunities for you and probably right now over 800 positions are posted.

I'm gonna turn it over to Christina. She's gonna talk a little bit about benefits. So our benefits here at Cedars are some of the best, even from previous organizations that I've been at. So you get medical, vision, and dental — there are usually, two to three options on what you can select depending on your situation.

There are four weeks of paid time off per year, and then of course you get the holiday and sick time. And then, of course, we have a retirement plan. So there's matching up to 50% or 3% of your salary for the 403b pension. And then another thing that's not on here, we also offer tuition reimbursement.

So I know that it used to be, Jennifer might be able to quote me on this, but I think it used to be six months you had to be employed, but now they started. Your first day. So that's something that's really awesome. So if you are, wanting to continue your education that's something that, for certain positions we might be able to help you guys out with. Absolutely,

and if you do need a license or certification renewal, your department can take care of that as well. For example, if you need to renew your LPN or your security guard card or get your BLS updated, that can definitely be taken care of by the organization through our tuition as. I also like to mention, if any of you have pets, we do offer pet insurance.

We have fringe benefits and perks and stuff. They offer gym membership discounts. They offer cell phone discounts. There are so many great, perks to working at Cedar Sinai.

So, you heard all this great information. You can't wait to apply. How does that process look for you? So first and foremost, you're going to go to our website because all of our positions are posted on the website.

Communicate with me as much as possible. Let me know what requisition you're interested in before you submit your application so that I can actually review your resume before you submit it, so that way we can make sure that you are actually tailoring your resume to the job posting. I do wanna let each and every one of if you are a veteran or a military spouse, actually get a little bit more of a handheld approach than any other type of candidate that comes through our pipeline. I always ask that you let me know the requisition number.

That way I can actually look it up, tell you who that designated recruiter is for that position, and then actually I can tell you how many people have applied for that role. So if you are applying to a position that maybe has over 50 applications already and the managers already started interviewing, it may not be a good time to apply to that role. We can take a look at something else that's maybe similar or something that (inaudible), and you can still get through that process pretty easily. I can do my best to nudge, the hiring managers and some of the other recorders on my team. But I wanna be able to do that for you and actually come with a prepared resume that's tailored to that type of position.

I ask that you do consider the level of position that you are applying for. If it requires 10 years of experience and maybe you only have four or five. We need to meet all of those basic and minimum requirements first. I always ask the candidates to be very honest with themselves and honest with me.

I wanna set you up for success. I don't wanna put you in a position where you're automatically gonna get a rejection, or we don't even get your application because the system automatically rejected you. Yes, you do have somebody physically looking at that resume. But we also have a system that will ask you job-related questions and ensure you meet the minimum requirements.

Otherwise, it just gets automatically disqualified, and it might not even come to us. So please consider the level of position that you're applying for and make sure that you meet all of those minimum requirements. I also ask if you are a veteran, whether or not you attended this presentation, a job fair that I was at, or if I sourced you. I asked them to use the Veteran Outreach source code because it will flag your application.

It will say that you are a veteran. I encourage each of you to self-identify because that's how I know you're a veteran candidate, and I can support you. When veteran applications come through, sometimes the other recruiters on my team will forward me your application to say, Hey, I just got a veteran applicant.

Maybe they didn't, didn't meet me yet, but I'll get their application forwarded to me, and then I can reach out to them and say, "Hey, thank you so much for self-identifying as a veteran. I'm here to support you and I can actually set up time with you to prep you for your interviews."

I can help you career plan if that particular position doesn't work out. Now you're on my radar. So where it says, How did you hear about this job? You'll select Veteran Outreach from the drop-down. And then that's how we flag your application as a veteran. I want to let you know we get many applications for the positions we post.

It is very competitive. We are the number one hospital in California. When you communicate with me, I'll be able to, like I said, tell you how many people have applied for that role. I will probably encourage you to apply for more than one position. That way, we maximize your chances. And I want to talk a little about the background check process and pre-employment screening.

First and foremost, I like to be very transparent and tell everybody that we require the Covid vaccine with the booster. Sometimes we can get that waived. If you have a religious exemption or for health reasons, you really cannot receive that shot. It will go to a review board. But it is something that we do.

We do have a very thorough criminal background check. We go back seven years, and we also will collect five references from you. Two of those five references must be a manager or a supervisor, and you can text them or email them a link to complete your actual reference check. We do not call them.

It's all done through a system. There's a drug test that you will take, and there is also an employee health screen that we. We'll make sure that you have all your required vaccines. We'll test you for tuberculosis and hepatitis and do everything to ensure that you are not at risk of exposure because you work in a hospital.

And we'll also, for certain positions, we'll do a color-blind test, an audiology test for certain positions. And the day you go for your employee health screen, you will also get your badge picture taken. It is quite an intense background check. When we extend offers, we typically leave about three weeks for processing time.

So it's not a fast process. We are thorough with it because of course; we don't wanna put you at risk.

I can just really say that me and Jennifer partner a ton with veterans whenever she gets candidates that are veterans. We always collaborate and see how we can work together and find veterans at home.

Just so we're here to advocate for you and get you in the door. Perfect. Any questions in the chat box? Yeah. So it looks like someone had a question for you about determining the pay range for roles that have the experience needed, but maybe the experience is ancillary and not direct. When we're looking at a position, there is a budgeted range for the salary, and I'm just gonna use a senior admin, for example. It will start with very minimal maybe experience, which is required. It'll start at maybe $24 an hour, let's say.

And it can go up to $43 an hour based on how many years of experience and what certifications you have. If it's related to the field, we will consider that maybe you did admin work in the military, right? We will take that into consideration. We also look at the department's equity, so we want to ensure that we're being fair.

We're not creating rate disparity. Within, you know those incumbents, right? So if somebody came in with eight years of experience and they're making the midpoint, and you also have eight years of experience, You would also be offered that fair rate. We wanna make sure that you are fairly compensated. We also wanna make sure that you have room to grow.

We also every year do a performance merit increase. If you are at the very top of the bracket, you'll probably get a lump sum increase before, if you haven't been applying to move up into a different type of role. Or you'll get up to, I wanna say, they do three, four. Based on your performance, that happens once a year.

It just depends on when you're hired. If you're hired before April, it will hit in October. If you've hired from April on, it will hit in April. So we want to ensure we're looking at the whole picture before extending an offer. And there will usually be some negotiation room.

We definitely wanna make sure that we're paying competitive rates. So our payroll team does, frequently, do pay rate reviews and make sure that we're, we're competitive with the other hospitals in the area. But we're just looking at you as a whole to determine pay.

So we have tons of positions available at Cedars.

Obviously, we have anywhere from nursing to security guards to human resources to patient financial services, communications, and research admin. Specifically, I can touch on a little bit about what I work for. So again, I oversee social workers, so anyone with a masters in social work or if somebody is a licensed social worker, those are positions that I work on.

So if anyone here is interested in those, let me know. I also work in administrative positions, which might be an administrative assistant or senior assistant. We also have patient service representatives, and you can come in with no experience if it's level one.

So, what those people do is just work in a department, insurance verification, and taking payments. So, those are a little bit about the roles that I work for. Perfect. I cover these security officer positions. The command center operator positions some of the dispatch positions, and most of those roles do not require any experience.

For security guards and command center operators, we do require them to have a security guard card and a valid driver's license in the state of California. And just either a GED or a high school degree. Many of you will be very overqualified and maybe not interested in those types of roles. I also have program coordinator roles, project manager roles and admin positions, senior admin positions, and executive assistant leads.

Those are very heavy on ideally having a bachelor's degree and some experience as an admin. We also have pathology and lab. Many of those will require state certifications. Medical assistance will require state certifications as well as LPNs and RNs. So I do like to be very forthcoming. At the bare minimum, you would need to have a BLS; if you're a nurse, you must pass the NCLEXs.

We're gonna talk about the new grad program as well, which is a great way to get your foot in the door. I know many people are also interested in remote roles. We have just a handful of remote roles and can work remotely in about nine.

Most of our remote roles are gonna fall in IT and telecommunications. We have a very large enterprise system. We have about 150,000 users in our system. And that includes all of our medical network and medical group. So many of our IT positions are gonna require a lot of experience.

They're not very entry-level roles. I will tell you. And mainly not the help desk. We actually outsource our help desk. And some of our IT positions will require experience with Epic. So that is something to keep in mind if you are an IT professional and you're looking to get into an IT role. So I do like to be very forthcoming with that.

I've done a lot of presentations for IT students, and I like to just be upfront and say that they're not all very entry-level roles. We do have a help desk that does collaborate with us. So even though it is an outsourced company, we still work together if they have openings.

So, if there is a veteran with a background in cybersecurity and wants to work in that area, I can still work with the IT recruiter and share your resume and try to get you some recognition and get that through the process. We also have a big need for support services.

Stewards in our food services department have a big need for environmental tech. People that have hazmat backgrounds because of the types of. Materials that they use in the hospital and the exposure. So they need to be hazmat certified and know how to clean properly in a hospital setting.

We have an amazing communications team, internal communications. We are looking for a digital executive director with strong social media, website design and things like that. So those are all great opportunities to get your foot in the door. Research coordinators, if you're interested in research, academics and clinical trials, that's all. Just such an amazing way to get your foot in the door.

So I know not many of you have a healthcare background, but I do wanna say if you know a veteran or military health that has a nursing background and is recently graduated within one year, we have an amazing nursing new grad program. This program is about a year long. It does require that you have a bachelor's or a master's in nursing.

And you have you must have passed the NCLEX, which is the certification to become a registered nurse. It is didactic training where you get hands-on clinical experience with the patients and education from the nursing team in a classroom setting. You must have a BLS, which is Lifesaver or a cs.

So you must have that active certification from the American Red Cross or the Heart Association. Upon completing the program, you would be offered a level two nursing position with us. And they do have certain areas that they will place you in based on your experience. So you might be in the ICU, you might be in the emergency department, you might be in step down.

It depends on your experience, but you get to choose a few areas that most interest you.

Another question before we get to the next slide. It says, What would you say are some common missteps or things you wish more military or veteran veterans knew about the application and hiring process? Yeah, absolutely, and I will tell you from my experience, I would say, Is tailoring the resume and using a blanket resume that's maybe not up to date or maybe doesn't pull in the keywords, doesn't have a skill section or a professional summary.

These tend to be the biggest things I will add when I review the resume with a candidate. Make sure that they look. They have that perfect resume that looks like a great fit for the role. It's really important that you self-identify as a veteran. Some people will not even include their veteran status on their resume.

And that's a huge no-no for me because I want you to shine as a veteran. We have a dedicated team that partners closely with me, and we're all very excited to hire veterans. So making sure that you do self-identify is the first. And just pulling in the keywords from the job description.

If you feel like it's something you have to force, that's not the right fit for you. Let's find the right fit for you and communicate with me. So if you find out that you didn't get a position, Don't drop off my radar. I'm still here to help you. I'm still here to career plan with you, so please make sure that you just keep me up to date and let me know.

Let me know if you didn't receive feedback on why something didn't work out. I'll touch base with the recruiter and say, Okay, maybe it was the way you answered certain questions. So you and I can work on that together. I think it's important that you aren't afraid to ask for help.

And I think oftentimes veterans are so self-sufficient. They don't know when to ask for help or how to ask for help from a recruiter. I'm very approachable. I've been there. I'm such a champion for veterans because I didn't know how to ask for help, and I kept getting rejected, not knowing why, and not knowing why my resume kept going into a black hole.

I don't ever want somebody to have that same experience. So I make sure that I am a different type of recruiter and an advocate, and a liaison between my recruiting team to help you maximize your success. So I know that was a big answer, but I just wanna make sure that you all understand it's so important to tailor your resume.

It's important to provide recruiters with clear direction in your professional summary, communicate with me, and ask for help if you feel like it. So please reach out to me for all of those things.

Just to demonstrate some of the military-friendly initiatives, we have had this position for over five years. And initially, when we built the program, our first partner was the military spouse employment program.

We continue to grow that and get success stories from some of our veterans or military spouses. On our staff, we have about 19 military spouses that we've identified, and this year, we were recognized as the 2022 Military Times Best for Vets employer list. We came in at number four in California.

Out of all of the different employers selected, there were 175 of them across the country. We came in at 109. But when you look at us by region and what we do for non-profits, I think we were number nine. And for California, we were number four. So that was an exciting accolade to achieve in the Military Times.

In June, we signed our statement of support with the public-private partnership or the P3. And the P3 is an initiative backed by the United States Army Reserve. Lieutenant General Jody Daniels wants to ensure that reservists only serve part-time have gainful employment full-time, right?

So we are a P3 partner. We will go out to different reserve units and do a little career fair with them or just jump on some of their webinars and talk about the opportunities we have, and that's how we ensure we're actively recruiting those who are still. In addition to that, in July, we signed our statement of support with the employer support for Garden Reserve, and in, I believe, on September 11, we were actually invited to an event and recognized with a certificate of achievement for everything we're doing to support our guard and reserve.

Across the branches. Really exciting because the ESGR also offers opportunities to recognize your employer. As far as accolades go, three of our leaders have already received the Patriot Award which is. Just demonstrating how supportive our leaders are for those who have to deploy or serve part-time and have extended drill weekends.

And we're ensuring that all of our National Guard and Reservists are equipped with the necessary resources to ensure that they are fully covered and don't have to worry about work at home while serving their property. In July, we also launched our employee resource group VetConnect. So VetConnect is the very first employee resource group that Cedar Sinai was able to launch, and we have quite a few members that are actively participating in ways to give back to the community, ways to recognize veterans and make sure that we're providing that amazing level of support to our veteran staff.

And then we, of course, just had a huge luncheon that was hosted by the VetConnect Group for Veteran's Day, which we do every single year. But this year was really special. We were able to bring in the Surgeon General of the Army. He's a three-star general. And we're just continuing to demonstrate how VetConnect can reach every single veteran in the organization because we are so spread out we still wanna create that inclusive environment. So, it was a great way to bring everybody together and celebrate Veterans Day. So that's just a little bit of a veteran-friendly initiative. As I said, we have about 300 veterans and 19 military spouses on our staff.

So, all this great news. Now you wanna apply, you'll go to our website, job.cedars.edu. You'll click on the military veteran initiative site, which is within our career site, and it will take you to our military career initiative page, where you'll see some success stories at the bottom. Some of the partnerships that we've created are information on how to self-identify as well as the military skills calculator.

So you can put in your military occupation and find a relevant position within our organization. Or you could simply just search by keywords. So there are two ways to do that. And, of course, you're gonna let me know you've applied, and then I will work with you to help you get through that.

There's this cool website that I recommend all applicants apply at, and I think it would be great for veterans, also. It's called Job Heroes. So if you just go to Google and type in Job Hero, that's how you would get to it.

But let's say you were an admin assistant or maybe. That was your experience, right? So you would type in "administrative assistant job hero," and this specific website. It's great if you don't know what to put on your resume for your duties, right? We all have a sense of it, but maybe sometimes we struggle with wording it professionally.

So this website's pretty cool because you can go there, click into it, and it'll actually give you bullet points that you can just copy and paste on your resume. And then you can tailor it to however you want. But I think that's just a good tool if you struggle with maybe bullet points on what should I put as my experience.

And you can, of course, just put the ones you have done. But that's just the website I recommend to help if you struggle with the bullet point part of the resume. Perfect. Thank you so much, Christina. Yeah. So if you have any further questions, please take my contact information down.

I'm super receptive and very approachable here to help you. You can also feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I can always communicate with you. That way, you can send me your resume. We can do a resume review. If you find a position that you wanna apply for, we'll set up a time, probably about an hour, and tailor your resume to that position.

But I encourage you to look at the job site first. See if you can identify anything before reaching out. That way, we have a clear discussion and clear direction. Also, Christina, if you want to drop your contact information in the chat. You've been such an amazing help as we continue to identify veteran applicants, and you're also super responsive.

So, I wanna thank you. Christine is an amazing resource, and she does a lot of great sourcing she will work with me very closely if we identify a veteran candidate. I'm sure you can connect with her as well on. It's just; it's a pleasure to help share this initiative at Cedar Sinai and set us apart from other hospitals.

We are such a welcoming and supportive environment. I will tell you that there's an opportunity for growth and development. We're such an inclusive environment, and we do celebrate all the different populations that we employ. They recently launched, I believe it's a Black Women's Resource Group, a Filipino American Resource Group, and the Latinx Resource Group. Now that we have a Chief Diversity Officer, everybody is represented, and everybody is recognized. And I think that's so special, especially when you're in such a fast-paced environment, and you're so spread out; it's nice to know that you have that identity and are appreciated.

So, I hope that you'll find Cedar Sinai as an employer. We do so much to ensure that we have the best of the best employees, and we're developing our employees. And I will tell you firsthand I work with people that have been with the organization for over 30 years. We have some tenured people and some great mentors you will learn from.

And you will see your career take off at Cedars, and you will know that you have the support behind you as a veteran. So I hope you'll consider that as you begin your job search and as you prepare to graduate. But we are here to help you.

 If you guys are interested, again, just feel free to reach out or send any referrals, that sort of thing. So thank you again.  I just wanna say thank you for. Let us know all about the resources, process, compensation, and benefits that Cedar Sinai has. I know that you're one of the top hospital systems in the state, and I want to make sure that students are aware of what you have.

I know from randomly reaching out on LinkedIn to Jennifer that she's very hands-on. So that's great because I know students are telling us, "Oh, I applied and it went into the black hole, and I haven't heard anything." So, I'm excited to know that by self-identifying, that's not gonna happen at Cedar when that happens.

That's a great thing for you to know as an applicant. So again, I wanna thank you so much for your time today, and I can't wait to hear and see that our students are applying and having contact and making connections in the greater Los Angeles area and in the healthcare systems, which I think if you're not in healthcare, you think you can't apply to hospital systems and healthcare systems.

But businesses are businesses, and businesses need non-clinical people to apply. So, please keep that in mind when looking for employment as a student.

Thanks so much. Thank you. Have a great day, everyone.