job hunting thoughts w/ john-michael mccasland

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco, VACO.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email social media at tdesntdesseyn. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. John Michael, don't want to put too much pressure on you, but you got a lot of eyes on you this morning. So man, give the people what they want, just a quick backer about who you are and what you do. Yeah, so my name is John Michael McCasland.

You can call me JM or John Michael. I've been a front end engineer, with a little bit of back end here and there for about five and a half years or so. Worked like on product teams initially as a junior, like primarily like internal teams and made a transition into e-commerce, working directly for merchants. A couple months ago, I joined a new team called UpScribe, and we're actually providing a new subscription management platform for e-commerce brands. I love it, I love it. So John, Michael and I met, I think how long has it been, two months, three months? Yeah, two or three months. So let's talk about your job search, man.

I mean, I think it happened pretty quick. I think you had a lot of success. So can you just break down maybe some things that you would suggest to people or just kind of talk about to let people know that they're not alone. Yeah. So for me, I did a boot camp initially in 2017, and then kind of just went straight into freelance from there. And I spent three, four years in freelance. And then one of my clients eventually hired me full-time. That was my first full-time role. It was a little bit of a culture shock. Now there's rules and an organization that I exist in, and I can't just bounce off and go live a freelance type of life.

So that was a little bit of a culture shock. And I really enjoyed working at that company. I was really excited to be working with Shopify in a long-term environment. Free land, it's like a lot of times it's like stop and go. You like leave a project, maybe 90% there and you wanna keep iterating over it forever. don't always get to do that in a type of environment. So for me, like working at that, like I was working at Hintwater on e-commerce front ends, really just learning constantly. I made a post the other day, like they're hiring a new engineer now and it's like, you know, a million things were added to my tool belt by working at a non-tech company.

But with that, like, came from caveats, like there wasn't a ton of room like for technical growth or mentorship because we're working on a smaller technical team. And so I kind of made the decision that I wanted to work on a larger software team, where I should have more opportunities for technical mentorship. But I really had no idea where I stood, right? Because I was freelancing for like my entire career and then took a gig or a full-time gig with the client. And so there wasn't a lot of negotiation or back and forth or applying for other jobs, multiple offers. And so when I started, like, I decided, you know, I was ready to make a change and like, And it was kind of lost.

And so I applied to a couple of jobs, took a couple of recruiting calls and wasn't really sure what I was looking for in terms of salary, what was reasonable, what type of organization or role I could pull. So I gave Taylor a call and Taylor hopped on the phone, he helped me work out my resume. And we polished up my LinkedIn and stuff as well. And it was night and day, my inbox literally exploded. I still have messages I haven't been able to get to is like, really awesome. It's like this stuff like really, really works. Like, and yeah, like I mean, in January, like I guess like the beginning part of December in January probably took 50 like recruiting like screening calls.

And that many. A lot. Like I was super stressed just cause I like, I was really gunning for like the best possible like lifestyle fit for like my next role. And like I did get into like a multiple offer situation. I was like super eager to accept one of those, but it didn't quite feel like incredibly stoked about any of those roles in particular in the time of trouble choosing between them because of it. And at that point, you know, I was ready to like start dropping down like some of the calls that I was taking and like pursuing fewer opportunities just choosing from what I had.

I was on the phone with one recruiter, dropping some of these future interviews that were coming up. He really wanted me to interview and get those jobs, but none of them were quite lined up. He did give me some really good advice and he said, listen man, I know you're taking a crazy amount of calls and you're working your full-time job and trying to live the rest of your life. I just encourage you, if you haven't found the perfect fit yet, don't stop. like the next two, three weeks, like they might be really stressful. You might be stretched really thin. But if you keep interviewing and keep taking calls, you're going to meet new people and you're eventually going to find like, you know, the perfect gig.

Yeah. And I kept doing that and eventually I landed on the phone with Brett, my current manager at UpScribe and the Lead Engineer Grant. And we were like in and done in like 48 hours, perfect fit, like so much overlap in terms of my past experience and what I was doing that it was just a no-brainer. And I almost like didn't take the call with him. I was dropped it. And so I'm like, just because I was stressed out from like, how many calls I was taking and like turned it out to be the absolute best bet. I'm curious, like there's so many things to unpack here.

And I love all that what you said. Let's break down a few things real fast. One, how did you find out your worth? Because, you know, because I think people struggle with that, right? Coming from boot camps, coming from freelance, like they don't know where they stand, like do you have any suggestions? Yeah, so like a little bit of Googling. And then also like, I remember going into the call with you I said, I don't really know where I stand, but I know I want to double my income like this year. And you know, that's kind of gutsy to say, but you know, and I didn't double my income, but I like did take a pretty large salary increase.

And you know, I guess it was like just setting the goal and then like talking to people, finding mentors or people that might know. And in my case, you know, that was you, like talking about what kind of salary I wanted and you helped me set my expectations, like almost immediately. Did other recruiters help you set expectations to or is it because you talked, and again, I, you know, I didn't bring John Michael on to give me props. I brought him on because his story is at work and the process worked. It just happened. We talked early. careers help you redefine kind of your salary to like did they give you some tips or at all?

Yeah, I mean I talked to you know a lot of recruiters and you know that I was kind of like invaluable experience because I gained like you know I talked to 50 different recruiters and with all of them I got like slightly different responses on on that front you know some like you know were pushing me like you know well like higher than my expected range and then there was something that you know didn't think I could pull that. So you constantly had that conversation so you kind of knew the range of where you need to be at. Let me ask you this 50 calls that's a lot you know I talk all the time about making sure you have like maybe a work specific email to keep up with everything maybe Trello board maybe something to kind of keep up where you're at in the process.

Did you do any of that? Like how did you keep up in time block 50 calls from recruiters? Yeah, so first off was getting like an email address that was going to be just for that communicating. And then second piece I fired up a trelliboard and did kind of a Kanban style, like almost like a CRM. So like every touch point like that I had with each recruiter in each company that I talked with, kind of went through this flow that I designed in Trello. Okay. And then how did you, did you have a specific day that you took calls? Did you take calls whenever?

Did you use Calendly to set up all these calls with recruiters? Like how did you organize your time? Because I think a lot of people that are listening and watching right now, I think probably struggle with time blocking. So did you, do you have any tips or tricks at all from time blocking all those calls? Yeah, not so much. I think maybe I was a little bit too lenient and working with other people's schedules. That's what contributed to a good chunk of my stress. I was really just eager to meet as many people as I could. Because working remote my entire career, I felt like I was in a like social silo a little bit.

We're all online, but I wasn't getting a lot of FaceTime, you know, like with really anyone at my company or like really anyone else in the tech world. So like one of the big takeaways, like I feel like I made a bunch of friends. There it is. And I met more people in the tech space than, you know, I've met in my entire career just in Jamey. Well, I talk about that. I mean, I think the interview process, I think the interview process is basically force networking. Yeah. I mean, you're going to meet a lot of people, whether you like it or not, you might as well take advantage of it.

And so if you were to do the job search again, or there's people on the job search now, what would you do differently this next time around? It's a good question. You know, like, I think towards the end of it, I started to get into this headspace where I like, and I think this is a benefit of, you know, doing 50 recruiting calls or an insane number, because after a, after a while, like you start to get a little bit more comfortable with who you are and how you're presenting yourself like to the interviewer and like yeah, and it's like Like you just kind of like here.

I am. Do you like me? Do we connect like you know less about trying to prove something? They're oh, I love that so much Would you say that you got better at telling your story because you were saying it nonstop to these recruiters? 100% yeah, I I mean, I hate to say it recruiters are kind of your way to practice interviewing. Like, just talk to a recruiter. Now, let me ask you this. I'm also curious for my sake. Out of those 50 calls, what percentage was Zoom video versus phone call? I did a lot of first phone calls. First phone most likely. Occasionally, and I'd say probably like 5% of my recruiting calls actually happened on Zoom.

Maybe a little bit less. a lot of phone calls, lots of like, you know, quick, like LinkedIn back and forth. Yeah. And then I wasn't getting on Zoom a lot until I was like meeting first person at the company or getting into actual interviews. Do you as a job seeker? And again, this is these are all these questions I'm asking you just as a recruiter. Do you feel that recruiter asking for a Zoom call first thing? Is it too much? Do you feel like you know the recruiter maybe a little bit more if you you have a Zoom call first, like I'm interested to hear thoughts.

And this is mixed, right? I have a ton of job seekers ago. Zoom calls with recruiters from the first thing are stupid. They waste too much time. I can't do Zoom calls all the time. But I know for me, I just feel better when I meet somebody face to face. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts. There's no wrong answers. Yeah, I think my preferences are kind of like constantly evolving. You know, maybe based on like anything, maybe based on my stress level or like busyness that I get that particular time. I think, I really do appreciate the phone calls upfront because I think sometimes job descriptions can be a little bit cryptic or not clear always in like what is exactly like a hard requirement for the gig versus a nice to have.

So when you can get on the phone, you can just hash through those kind of quickly. and it's like a little less labor intensive than getting on as a new. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love that. We had a bunch of people chime in. I see y'all like crazy right now. I mean, we got Raymond, Chris, John. John goes in this while my mill, my name is Michael, people call me JM, and I graduated from boot camp. It's one of our evil twins. I love it. Samantha, Brandon, what's going on? Brandon is my brother's. Brandon. I've never met another Brandon before. Mary and I love it.

Christine, it's so good to see you. Lifestyle fit matters. Good job setting boundaries on your end. Yeah. Britt, I'm glad you took the call. That's my manager. I love it. I love it. Matt, good morning. Josuea, good morning. John, coming in, obviously agreeing with the job specific email. Again, so many comments. Christine, I basically summarized with what you just said. I love that so much. Let's see here. Hunter.co. So I've heard of Hunter as well. is an awesome alternative to Trello for job-sacking, the job-seeking, the UI is really, really smart. Yeah, I've heard that as well. So for those of you all, check that out.

Shoot me a DM, because I would love to hear more about your experience with Hunter.co, Michael, so shoot me a DM. Cool, so let's kind of move on to the second part of this conversation. And I think it's just interview experiences, how you felt treated where you're currently at, what endeared yourself to that company. So can we talk, I guess, first thing about maybe some onboarding, and then maybe some blockers that you felt during the interview process. Can you talk about just the importance of the interview process and just how it makes for a better experience? Yeah, so one thing I started to pick up on was when I felt like interviewers were being honest or dishonest with me, whether it was like, maybe, I don't think anybody's ever like being, you know, like, necessarily malicious, but like, I started to like, ask questions like, hey, are there, like, do you have any concerns, like, about me in this role, what's gonna prevent me from getting this, like, like, how do you feel?

You know, basically just a vibe check at the end of the call, like, what's gonna happen next? And, you know, I knew immediately in that moment, like, in most of my calls, like, whether or not we were gonna be moving forward on either end. Like I guess like I just had felt like some intuition like on whether or not like an interview was saying like, oh yeah, like new concerns, see a little bit or like, you know, sometimes that meant like we're not gonna call you back. Sure, sure. But also like, I really, like one thing I really appreciate about upscribe, you know, I came in with a couple offers on the table already and I said, listen, like, I took this call because like there's just insane overlap on the subscriptions front and I'm really interested working with you guys.

But like, if we're gonna do this, like I'm so stressed out with all that. Like it was like at the point where like, you know, I couldn't do anything except be honest. And like, did you say all that in the interview process? Like I'm super stressed out at this point. Basically, yeah. Like maybe not like verbatim. And I was like, I've been through a lot of interviews. Like I was maybe not gonna take this, but I really want to like see what you guys are doing. Cause this is really exciting. And at that point, you know, it was really clear like that they wanted to keep talking and then moved really, really quick.

Like that's what, you know, really, or I guess one point they're really solving. So, so you, so you send some things to me about, you know, Friday, happy, hangouts, unlimited PTO, rest and relaxation sprints, impact of engineering and quality, shifting mental models. I think all those are kind of around culture within organizations, right? So, so, so let's kind of break that down. Maybe highlight So it's up scribe a remote company remote first So talk about some culture stuff right Friday happy hour hangouts because I'm trying to pick people's brains to Wall and trying to do it with my team because I lead a team But then also to trying to make it where other people can kind of cheat off all of our papers So talk about maybe you know some the you know a limited PTO the Friday happy how are hangouts?

else. Let's start there. Yeah. On the unlimited PTO front, that's like one of those things that I feel like can be an awesome thing at a company, but also has opportunity to either be abused or a trap, right? Yeah. And one thing I'm noticing it subscribes, we get regular reminders, like, hey, did you take any time off this month? When's your next vacation? I get a monthly a big reminder from Brett to make sure we're taking time off. So like, and it's like, I don't know, we've kind of created a culture where it's like, you're not like asking like necessarily for time off, you're just like giving your team like, you know, plenty of my ample heads up and we're, I mean, we're a small team.

So we just try to work together to make sure that everybody can live like their best, their best life. And you know, if you're doing that, you can do your best work. I love that. Live your best life, do your best work. I think that needs to be like a shirt or something. Yeah, I'm sure it is. But yeah, like we, so I, you know, I think the first like part of culture like is like allowing like space and not like trying to like create it as a serily. And I've definitely been. Oh, hold on, hold on. Allow space and not trying to create it.

You mean like create like try to create culture just allowing people to have the space? Yeah, like I've heard like friends being at different companies like where they switched from remote to like onsite because they want to create like a culture. And you know, that's like a forced like thing, you know, now everybody has to go to the office so that we can. That's not culture. That's not, that's forced culture. Yeah, that's also not good culture. Yeah, yeah. And like I've subscribed like I just feel like we've taken so many intentional steps to make sure that one, we have opportunity to get to know each other a little bit better and it's not forced.

We use this app called Cosmos, have you heard of that? No, do I need to check out? I think it's rad. I thought it was a little cheesy at first, but it's kind of a metaverse type thing in the browser. So you have a little avatar and we basically have an upscribe office. And so for happy hours and some meetings, We'll go into cosmos and we have an office with different rooms. And if you like go into one of these rooms and somebody else is in it, you basically get a zoom feed on top of this game. And so you go into a different room, you can't communicate with that person anymore.

And you're now talking to other people. So we have like a board room in there and you can see like, Oh, like so and so it's talking to like whoever like it's kind of neat and there's games in there. And you know, I think all of these things that have opportunity to be like super easy but I think the first step is just like creating opportunity to like hang out like in an optional way and I think like I think it's really like like an individual thing like to I guess like lean into some of these things and like be vulnerable and like get to know your teammates across like departments and I think like one of the benefits of being at the startup like is that like we're a small team and that's easy right now.

And there's just a lot of intention on allowing the culture to develop now and kind of create some guardrails for that. So that when we do grow and we're 40 people or 100 people, we've done some pre-work to allow things like that to exist. Absolutely, Brad, if you're still watching, if you want to grow to that much, hit me up. I can help you all staff up people. Anyways, moving on. So talk about smooth onboarding. I'm interested with that, right? Did, I mean, did Upscribe have a fairly, I mean, listen, I don't expect any company to have like the most smoothness onboarding, but I'm curious to hear your experience and how that made you feel.

Yeah, I love the caveat at the end. So when I joined Upscribe, Brett had a document written out called 3069D and that was kind of like, I'm a homo like that. Yeah, it was like crucial for me to know like what's expected of me, you know, in the first month, second month and third month of my role there. And kind of outline the projects that I was gonna be working on. Yeah. You're not knocking anybody, but like in the past, like, you know, I've kind of worked on this schedule of like everything's needed like yesterday. And I don't always know what I'm gonna be doing coming in like on Monday or Tuesday, it's gonna change based on the fires that we put out.

Yeah. Ripp was really intentional in making sure that like I had opportunity to like know what I was going to work on for the next three months, you know, to an extent and then be able to set goals myself, like just my own self-agency to make sure that I was able to complete those. And then she also like in those like, you know, tasks and projects over the first three months, She placed a lot of intentional blockers in my way and also had tasks that included me meeting all of our agency partners, all of our teammates, everybody that I was going to be working with, leadership in the company.

And all of those meetings were put, like the responsibility to schedule and plan and make sure they happen was put on me. So there's just a lot of accountability and transparency in it that made me feel confident what I'm doing on a day to day basis and confident, you know, that like, I'm going to be able to figure like this rollout and I'm going to, I'm going to maybe. So, so, so they, so she outlines like the top people that you need to chase down and meet with. Yeah. And in the document, I love that. I need to, I need to add that. If there's any way you can share that document, I'd love to see it or at least maybe we can talk about it and bring work of it.

if you're watching, I'd love to see it. I love that. So let's talk about, there's a few questions that have come in. James comes in, thoughts on applying to companies with good culture, but products or services that you don't fully believe in versus limiting who you are applying to looking for both. I must say this, that is an own decision. I think that's a very individualized decision. But J.M., if you had thoughts on this, what would you say from the sound of it, you would hold out for both because that's kind of what you did. Yeah, I was happy enough, like in my current or my last role, that I didn't want to make a change.

Like I didn't want to take a back step, like in lifestyle fit. I like, I think I have a tendency to overwork. And I think that's our generation. Yeah, right. And I was really like, I guess like, you know, I was doing tons of side projects, like because I wasn't fulfilled in like the actual code I was writing on a day to day break basis. And so like, you know, to like, like achieve fulfillment and engineering, you know, I'm doing side projects at night on the weekends and just getting super burned out, like with the intention of doing something fun. And I kind of like threw my job, I kind of like like have the realization that if I'm going to be a happy whole person, I need to take the engineering skills that I have and I need to find a role that like, it's going to be really fulfilling.

Otherwise, I'm going to keep like burning the candle at both ends and like just continue to burn out. And maybe, you know, not want to be an engineer. Anyway, and that's not what I want at all. It's like my favorite thing. World. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Raymond, thanks for the kind words, man. I appreciate it. Jordan, what questions are good to ask in the interview process to get an actual look to the company's culture before committing to an offer. Did you have a set amount of questions like laid out? I'm curious. Yeah, you know, I feel like my question's kind of evolved and I wish I had like a written list of questions I asked or ones that I would fall back on.

But I just tried to keep like a really conversational like interview and you know, when there were like perks like like unlimited PTOs. Like what does that really look like at your company? You asked that, like what does that really look like? Yeah, because I'd never, I mean, I'd honestly never worked anywhere that had unlimited PTO. And I was like, you know, kind of, you know, I've been dreaming about it for years, you know, what does that really like? And then like you start to hear, start to hear a couple years ago, like some of the negative caveats that could occur. And so just like out of curiosity.

And again, you know, back to like the point on like doing bulk interviews, But you eventually get to this point where like, I don't know your skins, like maybe a little bit more slick. You're a little more comfortable asking questions that maybe you wouldn't ask if you were, I guess if you didn't have like 50 other interviews. I'm kind of true. Well, would you say your questions got a little bit more poignant and less bullshit the later in the interview process you got because of how just tired you were of the process? Like would you say your questions got a lot more intentional? Yeah, I think so.

I wouldn't advocate necessarily for just trying to make yourself tired, but before I was an engineer as a musician and on the creativity front, when you get up in the morning and just start writing, it's kind of crazy what can come out that you didn't expect. Sure. And so, and there's also this concept that my wife continually teaches is like quantity over quality in certain aspects of creativity. And I felt like that applied in this scenario. Yeah. Because yeah, you get loose and you can ask a little bit more pointed questions with that as much of a consequence. 100%. So we're gonna wrap up here.

I have a 10. I could talk to you forever, but time flies when we're having fun. We still miss like three or four topics. But I wanna end it here. what's just some general advice for people, anything that we didn't cover, anything that you wanna impart on, maybe hiring managers, right? Maybe hiring managers, you wanna tell them something? Or job seekers, do you have any last final words of wisdom? Yeah, I mean, I'd say definitely try out something like a Trello board or Hunter.io and really, especially if you're going for your first job or your second or third, like, you know, or, you know, where I was and kind of like, you know, mid level and looking for like best lifestyle fit really go for like the quantity.

Because like, I don't think I never would have necessarily like picked up scribe out of a bucket and said they're going to have the best culture. It took me getting on a call with them and then it like, you know, just blossoming from there. So I'd say take as many calls as you can, you know, and while maintaining your sanity. Of course. Yeah. But yeah, do that and just meet as many people as you can. Any advice for hiring managers that like, now's your chance to like, tell them some things that you wish you could tell them in the interview process. Yeah, I mean, I'd say like, just be honest and upfront.

And like, I'd be frank with people. Like I had a couple of interviewers like with me that said like in the interview, you know, I don't think this is gonna be a good fit. And that's great for me, because I know, like right away, right? And it's like, I can spend less time focusing on this and then maybe get an answer like why. Yeah. And yeah, so like hiring managers, I just say, be real. Yeah. That's like, you know, cliche or like whatever that may be. I love that. Awesome. Well, y'all, thanks for tuning in to guys, Council 2.0 on this wonderful Friday. Y'all go connect with John Michael.

I'm so grateful that he's in my network. He's a wealth of knowledge. And he's moving out to Colorado. Moving out to Denver. So if anybody's watching some Denver, please check with him, grab coffee lunch, whenever he gets to the town, make him feel welcome. John Michael, stay on real quick as we end, I wanna say bye to you. Michael goes motion for part two of this episode. We will do a part two. As long as JM will come back with FLEM partners. Yeah, absolutely. Well, awesome. Well, y'all have a great one. I'll see you all Monday. I have a principal engineer in Nashville. He's gonna be joined the show actually placing on his current gig.

And we're gonna talk about career progression, getting to the staff principal level. So it's gonna be a great conversation. So again, y'all are fantastic. Thank y'all so much. Y'all take a piece. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode. And I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it.

So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, tailor at vaco.com or at T. on all social media handles, and I hope you have a fantastic day.