Question 1

How much does the 8-week cohort cost?

Accepted Answer

Founding members join at a discounted rate below the target program price of $1,500 to $2,500 per participant. Exact founding-member pricing is shared with applicants during the cohort intake conversation — short email to musterbridge@polsia.app with your branch, MOS or specialty, target transition window, and the role or agency you are aiming for.

Question 2

What's the difference between the $99 bundle, the $297 self-paced course, and the 8-week cohort?

Accepted Answer

Three separate products that share a system. The $99 bundle is the resume-and-template package — USAJOBS and defense-contractor résumé templates plus the military-to-civilian worksheet, sold as a one-time self-serve download. The $297 self-paced course is the recorded 8-week curriculum taught by Johnnie, no live cohort sessions. The 8-week cohort adds live weekly sessions with Johnnie, recruiter introductions, and a personalized 90-day federal plus defense-contractor application plan on top of every template and worksheet the bundle already covers.

Question 3

Why is the founding rate not posted publicly?

Accepted Answer

Founding pricing is intentionally NOT a published number — it is set case by case during the intake conversation, based on whether the applicant is 12-plus months out from separation, has an active clearance eligible for reactivation within 90 days, and is targeting GS-2210 or cleared-contractor IT rather than a generic transition. Founding members trade the discount for honest feedback and the right to publish a documented outcome.

Question 4

How many hours per week will the cohort take?

Accepted Answer

Plan on about 8 hours per week across the 8 weeks — roughly 3 to 4 hours of live cohort time and 4 to 6 hours of async worksheet, template, and interview-prep work. Each week produces a working artifact (a translated duty block, a résumé variant, a cert sequencing block, an interview answer set) so the hours map to deliverables, not busywork.

Question 5

When do sessions run?

Accepted Answer

Live cohort sessions are scheduled with working members in mind. Specific times are published in the cohort welcome packet sent to founding members at intake — the call cadence slots sessions around duty schedules, terminal-leave windows, and members already employed while they take the cohort.

Question 6

Can I keep doing this while still on active duty or on terminal leave?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The cohort is built for the transition window, not for an academic calendar — many founding members are inside their final months of service or just inside terminal leave when they start, and finish their 90-day application plan on the other side of separation. If you are still on active duty, drops, TDY, and mission tempo are factored into the cadence.

Question 7

Is the cohort right for me?

Accepted Answer

You are the target audience if you held a signal, communications, network, server, help-desk, or senior-enlisted IT leadership role in the U.S. military, and you are targeting the GS-2210 IT Specialist series or a cleared defense-contractor role in Network Operations, Cloud, or Server Administration. NCOs in the 25-series and Signal Corps section chiefs are the canonical profile. If you are pivoting AWAY from IT into a non-technical field, this is not the program — see the question below.

Question 8

Will this help if I am pivoting to a non-IT field?

Accepted Answer

No — the worksheets, résumé templates, cert sequencing, GS-ladder mapping, and interview bank are all signal and IT-specific. If your target is logistics, HR, program management, medical, or any non-IT federal series, the cohorts templates and KSAs will not match your announcement and the approach will not transfer cleanly. We will say so in the intake email rather than enroll you and waste the run.

Question 9

Do I need an active clearance?

Accepted Answer

Highly recommended, not strictly required for the cohort itself. The cohort material covers both federal GS and cleared-contractor pipelines, but the bulk of the application-sprint work in Week 8 assumes a Secret or TS/SCI clearance eligible for reactivation within 90 days of separation. If your clearance has lapsed or you never held one, the cohort still applies — you will simply target the unclared federal postings and a narrower subset of contractor roles.

Question 10

What do I walk away with at the end of the cohort?

Accepted Answer

Every founding member finishes with: the military-to-civilian and federal-language worksheet; USAJOBS and defense-contractor résumé templates; a Microsoft, VMware, and CompTIA certification roadmap sequenced over 12 to 24 months; the GS-grade and locality-pay comparison worksheet; a federal and technical panel interview question bank; a personalized 90-day application plan across federal and cleared-contractor pipelines; and 8 weeks of cohort sessions with Johnnie Pippin.

Question 11

Are the résumé templates included or a separate purchase?

Accepted Answer

Included for cohort members — the USAJOBS federal résumé template and the defense-contractor cleared-staffing variant are both part of the cohort package. They are also sold separately as part of the $99 bundle for members who want the templates and worksheet on a self-serve basis without joining the live cohort.

Question 12

Will I get a certification exam voucher?

Accepted Answer

No. The cohort includes a cert sequencing roadmap (which certs to chase and in what order, mapped to GS-2210 KSAs and cleared-contractor demand), but exam vouchers for Security+, Network+, AZ-900, AZ-104, MS-900, Server+, Cloud+, A+, and VCP-DCV are the member’s own expense. Sequencing helps you spend those vouchers in the right order rather than collecting them.

Question 13

Is there a refund, money-back guarantee, or free trial?

Accepted Answer

No public refund or money-back guarantee policy is currently published. Musterbridge enrolls a small founding cohort in exchange for honest feedback and documented outcomes, so we prefer a fit conversation before any payment rather than a generic 30-day refund clause. Send a short note to musterbridge@polsia.app with your branch, MOS or specialty, target transition window, and the GS or contractor role you are aiming for — we will reply case by case and tell you honestly whether the cohort is the right run for you.

Question 14

What if I join and the cohort is not a fit?

Accepted Answer

Tell us in the first two weeks. We work with founding members one-on-one during Week 1 and Week 2 of the curriculum, so an early fit conversation is built into the run. If the live cohort format, the GS-2210 KSAs, or the material itself does not match what you need, we will help you redirect — to the $297 self-paced course, to the $99 template bundle, or simply to your local transition assistance program.

Question 15

Why is this different from a one-on-one career coach?

Accepted Answer

Generic veteran career coaching is broad: resume edits, networking scripts, interview prep across any industry. Musterbridge is narrow — every worksheet, template, sequencing block, and KSA map is tuned to the GS-2210 IT Specialist series and to cleared defense-contractor pipelines, and it is taught by someone who walked the same path. You are not buying coaching hours; you are buying a complete transition system built around the specific transition you are making.

Question 16

Why is this different from a generic resume service?

Accepted Answer

A resume service sells a rewrite — you send your current resume, you get back an edited document. Musterbridge is a system: worksheet-driven duty-block translation, USAJOBS-grade résumé templates, a Microsoft / VMware / CompTIA cert sequencing roadmap, GS-grade and locality-pay comparison, a federal and technical interview bank, and a personalized 90-day application plan. The resume is one artifact among several, not the product. Plus the founding cohort adds recruiting partnerships with cleared-staffing firms and federal IT hiring programs, so members finish the 8 weeks with an active application pipeline rather than a finished binder.