fixing the interview process w/gant laborde, cio of infinite red a react native first consulting company

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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.com is how to get in touch with me old fashioned email social media at tdesint. D E S S E Y N. 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. Let's get people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? And then we'll go from there. Well, I am Gantlaborte. I work at a wonderful software development company called Infinite Red. Infinite Red is the go to React Native company.

If you do anything with React Native, you see us. We throw the conference, the React Native conference in the US. It's called Chain React. We do the React Native newsletter, which is awesome. And we also do the React Native podcast, radio podcast. So we also meet with the meta team, we meet with Amazon, and we meet with a bunch of different people. We write SDKs for companies like Zoom. If you need something to work on all platforms, React for all platforms, that's React Native and that's what we do. I love that. I got a question before you dive into an interview. I want to ask, as a recruiter, we're recruiting on some React Native roles.

So like if if if infinites infinite red is looking for more folks, we have people. So that's my shameless self plug there. But that's only is good. Yeah. But how hard is it as a react developer to learn react native? Cause as a recruiter, I need to tell my team this. And it's, it's, so here's the thing. It's not hard, but it is more and different. So if you were to do a react, is all your react principles right across the board, you know, react comes out with this, this kind of logic hooks came out. Hooks were everywhere, right? You know you get that same concept go across the board Now what happens is when you go to web you sort of a web takes some really interesting things for granted You have a DOM you have Sort of like these these sort of sandbox to work in to access files and people can kind of access it a certain different way It's real easy, but once you sort of put a layer of abstraction distraction where things are no longer called you know and web it's called a div and Sure worst or name we stick everything inside of a div Don't get me started But over in a react native you have this thing called a view and with a view It's it's like that's the name and then when that goes to web it becomes a div Okay, and it goes over to Android it becomes something native in Android when it goes over to iOS it becomes something native and nice.

It goes to Apple TV or Xbox, it becomes the native thing in each of those. So there's this layer of abstraction. So you have to speak this sort of take the things that you normally have, you just learn this new set of language and then you learn this platform independent sort of like style of programming that sort of is a subset of what you normally kind of get out of web and so you have to work with more specific tools and it takes practice, you know, but it's not terribly hard. What really comes out is that if you do it a lot, then you can do web but you can do everything else as well and that's really nice.

So I'm going to tell you this, I don't know what happened to the market but while I'm working, we're working on a ton of React Native rules and again, I won't work on the work. We'll get to the interview process because we're both passionate about it. But I have a react native guy on the show. So I'm going to ask him some damn questions. Yeah. Yeah. Is it hot right now? I don't. Oh, yeah. It is. Okay. Yeah. Here's here's an interesting thing. Like, meta sucks at look, sorry, every my friends, is meta, you suck at marketing your open source. Despite reacts under promotion, it sort of took the web world by storm by being like an excellent sort of thing.

They don't market as well as Google does. And remember, Google had Angular out there and they have developer advocates on top of developer advocates. Like when Google does something, everybody hears about it. To the point where it's a little confusing because you're like, hey, pick a lane, Google, you want me to learn Dart or you want me to learn Angular or you want me to learn Go or, you know, how is this? How am I supposed to be doing? Now that you want you to do this other side, it gets a little confusing because they're so great at advocating, depending on what stream you listen to, you get like almost conflicting knowledge from Google.

On the other side of things, React to React Native has sort of been a proof-based process of like these things work really well. So they get adopted by really intelligent people. And then when large companies like Microsoft is building entire apps and they're building word They're building Word in React Native and Amazon's using React Native. You've got all these companies start to use React Native, then we'll have React and React Native. Then all of a sudden, then people say, this is where the jobs are. But you don't ever see the call to action. It just sort of happens secretly because they're working on the code.

The code's shining through with very little advocacy. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. I want to give a shout out to your people who tuned in. Lavanda, Alex, Chris, Brett. Thank you for that, man. Ricardo, Arthur, Albertus, Mark, Hamad. We got the crew today and I love it. All right. So thank you for that information with React Native. So now, now, now to the main event, interview process. So, you know, this is something. So for those of you who remember who I had Jamin on a while back, we talked about the interview process and we kind of broke down some things that Infinite Red is doing.

You know, I still, I still want to, I still want to talk to you. So super high level right now. Yeah. Where do you see the biggest issues with the interview process right now within the tech community? Well, the interesting thing is the motivation of the company, if it's like a boom and bust style company, then you see that they make the most amount of money by just filling seats and then squeezing them out when times get hard. So you have to be careful of where you're going. Jamie did it, sweet recently. He said, oh, I went and worked for a big box company because of job security.

And the truth is, it's funny to put that post out right now. But if you've done that post a year ago, everybody would have been like, yeah, that's true. And it's interesting, it's the actual motivation behind the company. I know that as a sort of like a job and a headhunter, like one of the things that you have to do is kind of get an alignment of identifying with the values of the company are, and add values of the person and kind of getting them in place and making sure that they align. But for most people, it seems like it's weird. You know, like they want to make one resume and they want to hand it out to every single company.

And it doesn't, they don't want to touch it or modify it or adjust it per company, because that's a lot of work. But the truth of the matter is, if you're not even going to read the position that you're going into and actually like research it just for a moment, then you're so hungry that you're going to get the fault of first availability rather than best fit. And I think that's one of the things that your job really helps with. You know the people and you know where they're landing. And that's really important. So when people are just like, hey, I need a job. And then they think about it one dimensionally.

I need a job and I need this number, right? Not realizing that that number comes with twice the amount of work. or something like that, or half the amount of self agency. It's just, this is the mistakes that a lot of people make. And so I think that that's one of the biggest issues when people are looking for jobs. They look at one dimensionally, they don't wanna change per each place. They're just worried about writing the code that they're thinking about writing, rather than finding a place where they fit as a person. I know that sounds super like kippy-dippy, whatever, like that, but the truth is, let me tell you that, all this gray right here.

This, this tells you like at the end of the day. Same. Yeah. Well, you've made it look stylish. So if you have gray, you're hiding it perfectly. But by the end of the day, like money, money is one dimension of a significantly multi-dimensional problem for you as a complicated human person. And disregarding that is the formula for failure. Sure. 100%. Real quick, going back to React Native real quick. You got to answer for Kevin, what resource would you suggest to learn in React Native? Oh, yeah, absolutely. OK, so look, here's one thing I'll say. I'm going to plug something that we've done quite a bit.

When I first got into React Native, there was just some blog posts were out of style. Some of these things were like a failure one way or another. And it was just really hard to kind of keep something that was alive. So I created this one repository called Ignite. Ignite for React Native is doing fantastic. I'm no longer the main maintainer. It's got over 14,000 stars on GitHub. And what happens is when we get hired to do a project, here's the first thing we do, Ignite, and then we create our app. Okay? We create the app for the client and that puts so many things in place.

So what's the first thing that you're gonna wanna know how to do as a React developer? How does screens work? Like how do I show another screen? How do I like navigate this? How do I kind of like, what are these resources? What are views? What are texts? I usually use paragraph tags or whatever else. Just go play with Ignite. We have Ignite cookbooks and everything like that. So Ignitecookbook.com, look for Ignite Maverick, which is our latest release. We've got 800 developer hours that we've paid for as a company to maintain open source because we use this constantly. And it's a fantastic resource for anybody.

If you just want to get jumped in to a giant kitchen sink of amazing things that you do in every single app and see all the example code on how to do it expertly, then go look at Ignite. I love it. That's awesome. So back Dev is great to see you as well buddy. So going back to the jobsters, that was the job seekers. What do you think the biggest issue is with hiring managers? Specifically. I guess I dare say I'm going to go back to the values. what they're looking to do. Now some of them have metrics that they have to hit. You know, we have to hire this many people or this or that.

Okay, I'm gonna go to real quick. So I think that is what has led to the over staffing of all these companies. So I saw this as a TikTok, I'm sure. So it was obviously true. I saw that the actual act of hiring and leadership is all jacked up because a lot of, So leaders have to hire to increase, though leaders have to chase after spend, to increase hiring to show that they are a better leader, then get promoted because they're growing teams. Yeah. When they actually don't even need a higher, like, I mean, again, listen, listen, I, I, my heart goes out to all the people that are going to laid off right now.

Please hear me with that. But why does Twitter have 7,000 employees? Yeah. I, I don't know why. Google's got like 200,000 employees. Or I mean, seriously, like 120,000 or something like that. Yeah. I just feel like there's so much bloat. It is. When you're, you are trying to distill down something, you get these silly words that are taboo words at each company, like impact, like measuring your impact or measuring this. And those get tied to your promotion. So specifically, you set up this game and then people game the system. That's how it's always gonna work. When you're no longer looking at people, you're looking at numbers, immediately people start gaming the system.

Any one of these dehumanizing systems that are out there, if you spent three weeks making one, so it can't be broken, then that means after four weeks of your employees using it, they're more advanced at gaming the system than you are. The only way you would be able to do it is if you continued to advance the game, it is the same level as they advanced in playing the game. Right. Right. And the trick is this, this imagination of this scalability that kind of comes from that. Now you can get like people who've worked with huge companies and they, you know, they have systems that will work longer and better.

But I mean, I know some people who did fantastic work and they go to their interview And they work their heart out. And what happens is at the interview, they're like, oh, I'm sorry, we can't promote you to L7 or whatever, we can't do any of these things because this metric, this or not. And what happens, they lose that talent. That talent goes away to where they're appreciated. And then someone else who just knows how to not get fired ends up on hooly roof, you know? And they're just up there and no one can fire them, but they honestly nobody wants them there either. Right.

It's just a, it's kind of gross to look at that. And so I say metrics over values is the worst thing that can happen. For someone with a hiring manager with values, then finding those people is actually enriching. You know, if you're looking to hire and you know what, you know you're going to put a person in a job that they're going to love, You don't work for a living. You're enjoying connecting people for a living. But if you have a number of people you need to hit and someone's just not good enough in negotiating their salary and you get them into another spot, I mean, then it feels gross.

And people carry that grease throughout their lives. How do y'all combat that infinite red? You know, I'm curious on, because, I mean, from the sound of it, I mean, again, no one's perfect, but I think y'all's batting average is pretty high and our attention is pretty high. And obviously talk with Jamie a little bit of a few months or definitely talk about it as much as you were willing to share about the secret sauce of Infinite Red. Oh, well, yeah. 100%. You know, our first meetings with our CEO, like, so people do, they kind of, we have sort of a minimum set of standards that we need for our, for selling people, like we're 100% US based company, US and Canada.

So the first thing our thing does, we do have an automation that says, look, we're really sorry, you know, we appreciate it. And we don't even let them fill out a bunch of information. First thing is it just says, as a matter of fact, our careers.infant.read is like a really fun form. You should definitely check it out sometime. But what we do is we just kind of immediately, we're setting the vibe. And you know, we're also, we're making sure we get the standards set there. But then I'll say this, you know, we're very lucky counting our stars is that we actually have a lot of people who come to us rather than us going to that.

Okay. But why? But why are people? Because I know I think it'll be an answer. But why are people coming to you all? Because I think that's the problem in today's world is that companies don't understand marketing and content of brands. You're right. You're right. That companies don't understand that. I worked at one job once and asked them to send me to a conference. It was a bunch of paperwork and complex stuff. And then I finally got to a conference. I was so happy. The next year I was like, I need to go back to that conference. I've made friends and made connections. I've got all these great things.

And they were like, eh, now, you know, we were just going to put this extra project on there or this, like, it's, it's nothing. And I was like, ah, it just kind of crushed, you know, my soul and that. And then when I think about, you know, first work with Iffit Red, I was like, hey, I want to speak at this conference. They're like, go, enjoy it. And when I went there, I was super happy. Everybody who saw me and interacted with me and talked with me were like, okay, yeah, this is great. And then what that means is we started a reputation and Jamie speaks at conferences, Todd spoke at conferences.

of people got to see us, got to talk to us, got to sit down and have a drink with us. I mean, and you, that person tells 10 people all the time. And it's not really like we're trying to make that happen. But that's what happens. That's just how humans work. And so when people show up, they're like, hey, I listened to your podcast, I met Jamie and once. Right. And then I had an ASOD tweet that y'all did that was really nice, you know, where you said kudos to one of your employees. Yeah. Those three interactions end up being something where they go, you know, I wish I could go work with them.

And then they get in the interview process and what happens is they'll usually say something like, yeah, my wife really hopes I get this job. You know, it's like, I've been talking about y'all for a while. And that means a lot, you know? And so I think that's a big difference. People who realize how much important that the kindness is, kindness at the center of it, get that benefit companies that think about metrics and growth and things like that, they're going to be like, do you get to work with us? And if so, fill out this resume, then go on this form online and fill out the same information again.

And then we're going to put you through five layers of tests. And then we'll see if we like who you are as a person. There's just such, there's just such an issue in tech with literally like, I say this all the time. It's not, hey, we like you. Let's see how we can fit you in our organization. It's proved to us that you wanna work here. And I feel like that mindset, I feel like the company's like the Infinite Reds and there's a bunch of other companies that work for that, that get it and are all listed. Yeah, there's a lot of really good ones.

try to put you in a place. It's a whole principle of trust. Some people out there are like, you have to build my trust. But for me, I'm like, I trust you the first time I meet you. And then you just chip away at that trust, right? And I feel like it's that way with hiring. Companies don't come in immediately and go, you know what, I trust you, let's just kind of get through this thing and see if it works. Instead, it's, I don't trust you, make me trust you. And it just is this ass backwards way of thinking. What's really funny is our CEO, Todd Worth, if you meet him, he's got this superpower of making him.

I've already met you. I've got to meet him. He's got a superpower of like, basically talking to you, like he's known you for 20 years. And I love that about him. And that's why he's at the beginning of our process. He's basically, he's talking to people and he's getting to a real person right away. And that's really kind of like an expensive use of your CEO. Very expensive, yeah, yeah, 100%. But it takes a lot out of them, you know, especially when we get a lot of applicants. The first round, that's crazy. Yeah, well, not even the second, the first. Yeah, he's our first person to talk to you.

That's nuts. I mean, there was one company that I worked with recently And they were really bought into having their VP of engineering, like close the deal. Every deal, the VP of engineering came in to close the deal. Now, then it got to the point where they were scaling because they just got their series C, like they started to scale like pretty tremendously. Like that, that, that could not scale appropriately. Yeah. But I still think having a leader on to either start it or just anywhere in between, I think is vital. Yeah. Uh, absolutely. Like there was this wonderful talk by the company us two which did the what you would call it the Imagination Valley game.

I forgot what with the game was, but they get all kinds of really cool contracts. And then he was talking about how it sounds like some of you do on drugs. Yeah. It's a it's yeah, it sounds like the new name for some iPhone island. Metapurse or something. It was really cool because what you were talking about is like the structure is flat and it's built off of trust and it's built off of this kind of connection there where any person is got sort of like the equal standing of another person. And he scaled that to I think us to as like a 200 person company might be even bigger now or something like that.

But you're right, if it's not there and you're right, it's hard to scale with it. You know? So I want to bring in Dev's comment real quick. It kind of works what we're talking about. But companies also simply can't stop thinking about metrics, right? How do you decide how much you prioritize metrics over things? So you talk about Infinite Redwell Quick and then I'll kind of add some thoughts with Vaco and my team specifically. My specific thing is that metrics are a tool and not specifically and you can't have and be the end. there's zero chance that you could, there are some things in marketing that are, I'm sorry, immeasurable.

I cannot measure some of the things that we do in marketing and the best people at marketing understand that and they come back and they show results. But if you wanna draw a line to the three things that a person heard to bring that business to you and show up to the sales meeting sold, good luck. It's just not how life works. Metrics are very important. You can get them in there, you can talk about them, but they can't be the end all be all. There's a human behind it, there's a game behind it, there's a bunch of other things. And also, metrics are statistics and statistics can be used to lie.

And it is so easy, like, if you've ever read any of the books on statistics, there's all kinds of the Simpsons paradox where you can show all kinds of weird things by using statistics. The metrics are great, okay? They need to be interpreted and all data comes with bias. all data comes with bias. So it's important to factor that in, find it, and then evaluate it. If a person goes out there and, you know, like I said, I know someone who absolutely crushed it for a company, and then he didn't get the promotion that he wanted. And I just, I was blown away. Like what a broken system.

I'm not gonna say his name or the company he worked at, but he's somewhere else now and it's their loss. Yeah, I think too, Deb. I think this stems, I think from the top, I give VACO a lot of props. So a lot of developers, I've talked to a lot of senior leaders in Gantt, correct me if I'm wrong. I hear it could take anywhere from six months to a year to get familiarized with the code base and start putting down code consistently, depending on the skill level and the environment, yada yada. Recruiting, three years. We already sunk costs for at least, I'd say probably two years at least.

And so, you know, I do have to, you know, I give Vaco props. I mean, they try to push down the metrics as much as they feasibly can and look at the human side of it. But I think it stems from higher infinite red, give them props, right? You guys, you know, it stems from the top. All y'all see, sweet gets it, right? And so it's just a mindset. Now, are there companies out there that are metrics heavy that are still good, of course? Of course. But I think you need to get to the heart of the company at the interview, which is incredibly important, which that's one of my goals for 2023 is to kind of really come out with an exhaustive interview question list for everybody.

So that's going to be in the works eventually. Ben comes in here goes finding the right fit is so important. The problem for job seekers is that companies can be in black box from the outside and networking is the only way to get looking. How do you, I don't agree with this. I don't understand why companies feel like they have to hide shit. I think it's because they're insecure that they don't know what their values are. Yeah, it's 100% like if you were to ask them what their it I'll go back and quote our wonderful CEO because he added some he says wise things all the time He also says equal amounts of really silly things all the time You love them.

Uh, what are the things that happens here is that quite specifically is um He said this thing like some for some companies the mission statements just that plaque on the wall That's like like it doesn't really mean anything to anybody doesn't do anything, doesn't move the needle, no one ever gets called out on any of that stuff. It's just a joke. And for those companies, when you ask them, you either get the fake crap or you, they're afraid to say what they really care about because it's too selfish. And then, you know, you go to some companies like Southwest Airlines, their mission statement actually drives down each decision that they make.

It is about giving a value experience to the user for travel. There's all kinds of stories about them cutting things because it didn't really change the value for the customer and adding things because it did. Super cool. I don't fly Southwest, they don't pay me or anything like that. I'm a Delta guy. But... Yeah, I'm a Southwest guy. They also don't pay me. But Nashville's a huge hub. So yeah, I do want to say this check out Ben check out curment actually anybody who watches this for listens to this now We're in the future go check out curment.io. So curment. They're out of Raleigh I've had the CTO on the show Chris Rathgab So what he's done is he has developed a set of core values that they interview on and that they are extremely extremely bullish about it and that drives their interview process I think he said he hasn't on their GitHub, but actually if you're not, I actually my, my recent email newsletter, I recap that podcast.

So I would highly go back, check out the interview Gantt. I mean, I would probably check it out just from a hiring, what he said and how we defined it with his engineering teams and how it drives the interview and the narrative. It's really impressive. So check out, they are not paying me, but I'm trying to get them as a client. So y'all send back that contract curaments. We can work together. Anyways, I'm Kelsey. Kelsey, hey, Vaconian, I love it. Just started two weeks ago. This was the first coming interview with that made the mutual investment clear and attractive. Wow. There you go. Nice. Don't take my word for it.

Take Kelsey's word for it. I love it. Kelsey, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate it. And Brett says this is breath of pressure. Listen, there are good hiring managers out there. And that's my goal. Yeah. That's my goal for the show. You're putting value out. Like I've seen you talk at conferences. You have seen the value and the information. You do Q&A's. You educate people about what this process is. And to be honest, it's a significantly one-sided thing for people coming to a market. Companies owned by boomers and a bunch of gray beards that are just tired of stuff. And they just wanna be not bothered or anything like that.

And then you get someone who just finished a bootcamp and they're going up against that. It's a power imbalance that significantly needs information and clarity. I'm sad when I see people let go from some of these companies. I'm sad when I see someone go into an interview process and the other person. I'm not immune to what it was when I started programming 20 years ago. I've been to jobs interviews where I had no power and it sucked. Of course, I didn't have you to help me out back then, but it would have been nice. I appreciate it. That means a lot. And Emmett coming in again has always been an inspiration.

I love that so much. All right. So we got wrap up because I got to head to another appointment. Two questions. Okay. First question. What is your favorite holiday movie? Oh my goodness. I love actually like you sit down this morning. You're feeling festive. What's going on first? Love actually. Love actually. You're the second person this week that has said that. That's It's so good. I love Halloween. Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's like a Halloween movie because we've already passed it. But like, oh my goodness. Oh man, that's hard. That's hard. I don't know about that. But I will tell you, like, because for Halloween, the movies are generally just a few really great psychological thrillers and a bunch of jump scares.

I'm not a big fan of the jump scare kind of thing. I love... I like suspenseful... like there's a horror movie done here in New Orleans called skeleton key real great mind movie it didn't get nearly New Orleans yes dude we're trying to open up an office in New Orleans well then let's go to lunch come on down I've never been New Orleans here we go oh alright just everybody take a picture of him before yeah I suppose them to New Orleans I tell you what we'll just bring my video a video guide will document a night with Gantt. Yes, that sounds good. That'll be crazy.

All right, so last question, because this is called guidance counselor 2.0, because we had guidance counselors in middle school and high school and college, but now as adults, we really don't have anybody. It's more called therapists, I'm a big fan of, but I'm actually heading to therapy session right now. What is your biggest piece of career advice for your younger self? Oh, from a younger self. Yeah, like what would you tell your younger self knowing what you know now from a career perspective? I would say that, interestingly enough, my younger self was pre-world interconnectivity. I didn't have GitHub and all those other cool things. It would be just, just keep nerding out.

It's going to be amazing. Because I built websites. I'll say this. New Orleans is great for you to visit, and it's a great place to live. It's not a tech hub. So I was a little alone. I graduated class in computer science of two people. It was me and Tang. He went and worked for NASA, and I stayed here because I love New Orleans. So the truth is, it's been lonely, but in 2014 I started traveling to conferences. I started connecting. I started meeting people. I started virtually connecting with people and open source across the world. And now I travel the world every year. I just got back from London.

I'm going to Atlanta next week. It's so good. That's right. We're going to be in Atlanta together. Yeah. That's right. Yes, indeed. We'll have to do like a special live. 100%. Yeah. Yes. So I say just keep believing yourself and keep nerd now. And that's a great advice for everybody. Find out who you are and embrace the hell out of it. I love that. Dev, we just screamed too loud. He goes, my ears, I love it. All right, y'all, thanks again for hanging out with us today. We appreciate it. Gant, I'm going to bounce now. So you all have a great one. Go connect with Gant on Twitter.

He's a wealth of knowledge. Go get him on LinkedIn. Y'all have a great weekend. Happy Friday. And we'll see you all Monday. Peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode. And I am very grateful. because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes, and I myself rarely finish 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, Taylor at Vaco.com, or at TDESN on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.