laid off twice in a year...now what? + gc 2.0 w/emmett naughton

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[Music] good morning everybody happy about say Monday it's not Monday happy Tuesday uh it's good to be with you all today Taylor it's Wednesday week's flying by um flying by happy happy Wednesday uh to be totally honest with you uh that is my state of my mental side of things right now so uh I'm I'm a little all over the place um and uh so just bear with me so yes happy hump day today's Wednesday um I'm very I'm very happy to be here with my guy Emmett um Emmett has an amazing story um Emmett's been on the show Once talked about power networking um

Emmett um created uh coder dads and we can touch on that briefly here in a second but coder dad was was uh is a great slack Community I'm a part of and Emmett's just Emmett's the guy so there are people that I observe from afar on Twitter and Emmett's one of those guys that I'm a big fan of I'm I'm in his corner and and and he does it the right way so Emmett I know you're here on the call I'm talking to you in third person like you're not here but you keep doing you um but uh for everybody who has tuned in and

say Hey would love to hear from you uh again the reason why I tell people to say hey comment is because like we're not in the metaverse yet right like we're not hanging out with like you know our goggles on that would be pretty sick though guidance counselor 2.0 on the metaverse we all had avatars it'd honestly be a conference at that point which was pretty cool um so but we're not there yet so if you don't comment or you don't say hey uh no one knows you're watching you're like Taylor why the hell does that matter the reason why that matters is because there's

a lot of people on the show that Network on this show like the dming people like I've had a few guests tell me they're like hey can you tell your people to connect with me when they connect with me send a note because I I get like 30 invites so the community here is amazing thank you so much but the reason why I tell people to comment is because there are peo ple who actually Network on the show so so if you're not watching if you're not commenting you're missing out um second thing ask questions right so Emmett has an amazing story we're going to

dive into it here in a second I'm gonna stop running my mouth um ask questions and it's a great resource to learn from um you know he's gone through the the things that most people are going through right now right and so we're going to talk about that um finally want to give shout out to a few of my partners um but first off that conference right so I'm very blessed to be keynoting that conference in July um up in Wisconsin um as you can see over here there's coffee beans so that conference is the official coffee sponsor of the show uh that one over

there that one's actually my favorite because it's a light roast but there's a few others a medium and dark roast go check it out a conference that sells coffee I'm a big fan of um second I want to give a shout to David Roberts so David Roberts I've had on the show a few months ago David Roberts has a book and uh he wanted to partner with me to to give my audience a 10 discuss 100 bucks so it's 90 bucks um and it actually so he was a software developer turn recruiter and I really like his his Cadence how he does things he really

gets it and so I think if you're struggling on the job search and you know you you want to forego some coffees and spend 90 bucks I I really truly think I think this would would make sense um because again he is somebody who was a developer who is now a recruiter who sees both sides of it so go check that out um also finally just people Alice good to see you Victoria Eugene my guy Chris Sophia Psy Wendy Anna um from Canada I love it uh fritzen from Orlando Florida I love it cool awesome well enough let me run my mouth Emmett give the

people what they want man who are you and what do you do and uh then we'll go from there so yeah I'm I'm Emmett um wild crazy ride into into Tech and um just be in myself gets you there and showing up 100 authentic in social media you never know where a connection will get you um I think that's uh take care take every call and find figure out what's you know say yes to everything and figure it out after the um after the fact yeah yeah I love it I love it so um and it's good to see y'all and again Anna I love

that Anna's used David Roberts book definitely recommend it um so definitely go check that out Alex good to see you so Emmett so let's get into it man let's let's give let's set the stage right two laid off twice in one year some people are getting laid off just once you get after fighting tooth and nail to get into Tech yeah so so talk about your story again right so so get it into Tech tell me tell me what you did before you got a text so let's start there so so I I have done if if there's an odd job odd job that you

can think think of I've got it so um I worked at a bus Factory I've worked making chandeliers really fancy stuff that you see at conference Halls that all these tech people can go to now it's like oh no I made that um uh and then working working as a janitor at the hospital I was like I needed something that you know got to pay the bills and feed feed the family and um and then so being a janitor at the hospital led to listening to podcasts and then it was like oh code newbies what's that yeah code newbies podcast and they were they had

a they had an episode um talking about networking and Twitter and this is six years ago so like really heyday heyday of Twitter yeah this has been back when Twitter was good yeah yeah I mean it's it's the it's a traveled relationship yeah so yeah so so you heard the podcast you got on Twitter and then what and then what I was do is while listening to podcasts while I was working I would tweet out a link to the podcast I was listening to with like one or two that's something I preached and I and that was before him and I knew each other and

but the biggest thing is you tag the um the bigg est thing I've learned is you are going like if you cheer other people on and say look what I found they will eventually turn around and go who then they come to your profile and they follow and then I feel like I'm just I'm like I'm taking your your Ted talk right like yeah and this is great and I'm not paying Emmett to say this this is literally all organic but it it it's literally just like if you if you find that cool Tech project that cool product that you know you just be curious

and then you go oh I can find out who built this in either shout them out get on a call with them like that's awesome yeah like um and I'd it's amazing that we can do that now um and the other thing is the barrier of Entry to learn to code or to learn Tech stuff is you need a computer and internet yep there's no you don't need you don't need hockey skates you don't need pads you don't need like like you're not breaking your stick right yeah coding at night yeah um you know you you break your skates you're ah crap gotta buy another

and they're they're not cheap by anywhere else um so so how did so how so so who was your first job again was it with Kelly was that your first it was it was Kelly and so how did Kelly find you Twitter I bought her freelancing book um I posted that I got my first client from her book um and I don't think I've told told you this or the community but I almost said with Cadillac just imposter syndrome but not that it was I I had just gotten a rejection from a big tech company after seven hour long interviews spend over two weeks you

just shot and I got told I wasn't technical enough after the seventh interview yeah which is [ __ ] by eight and it was by it wasn't even by the people I talked to it was like I hate that it was like the recruiter that like set up the last call like I hate that um so yeah I almost said no I had it I had the DM to Kelly all filled out ready to go going I don't know I don't think I can do this so did Kelly reach out to you and go hey Emmett thanks for tagging me that's awesome are you open

to a job I actually have a junior spot open is that so that that took it took years man it took so I've known Kelly basically since I started this job like Tech or Twitter and yeah and then it comes down to just seeing what she's doing sharing it being like hey this is awesome keep going um it wasn't it wasn't an initial like I got my client first client from her book like that's not how it was like I already knew of Kelly before that I bought the book sure sure um and all all of while I'm doing this I'm working full-time at the

hospital yeah so um and a lot of it is like you spend five or ten minutes you spend a dedicated time being meaningful on social media you're not just scrolling you're not you are commenting you are sharing your liking actually looking at stuff that's you're interested in yeah you know you hear so much uh like oh social media is so toxic and it's like well if you create your feet the right way yeah I I don't see any toxicity the biggest toxicity I see right now is some Versailles stuff that's about it so again like that's it we won't that's a that's a whole nother

uh yeah exactly so so let me ask you this so so then you got the job so you're going to tell Kelly no obviously so that's a lesson right there always say yes to stuff right yeah Kelly obviously there were some there were some budget cuts that happened you were back on the streets again per se um how did you get picked up by your second company and that was lumo or lero yeah so that was again networking and podcasts um are you serious I didn't know that yeah so Laurel is um it's it was it started off as um Dave Rupert in his web

agency um in Trent and Reagan and then they're like we're finally going to do a product yeah they got some investment money and then they were like Dave saw that I was looking for work and it was it was two weeks you so you were out of work for after Kelly laid you off you were out it was it wasn't Kell y but yeah the company knows that yeah um sorry Kelly should watch this yeah so uh so but so did they see you on Twitter yeah so I had I had but this is this is from sharing every shop Talk Show podcast episode because

so shop talk show is Chris coyer and Dave Robert talking about web development oh they've been doing it for 10 years they're on like episode like 400 and something so did lauro lyro follow them or something or so lauro is Dave Rupert yeah crazy man that's awesome I didn't know this I didn't know this part that's awesome so so Dave knew of me from sharing every every podcast episode you know um and then he's like we're gonna take a chance on you brought me in and then um that was octo and then I got laid off October 2022.

so this was before Elon took over Twitter this was before meta layoffs Amazon layoffs so I was like I'm good like I will find my next thing I was super optimistic and then I had 15 companies pull job offers or closed positions on me ah before you join them or after after to March when I joined no Commerce I had 15 companies pull clo either close house after luro after luro two no Commerce you had how many months it was five months five months and how many offers it was 15 companies closed hiring or pulled off pulled decisions after like oh we'll book the final

round and then then like cancel it and then like two days before the that that call they're like we're actually closing hiring yeah it doesn't surprise me or um you know take home project um yeah the worst one you spent two hours on a take-home project like psych and it's like damn dude really like well mentally what were you going through mentally it's not great right um I had um but we were we were fortunate to be in a space where with unemployment and savings we were we were okay but like I don't know many people that could go five months without a salary yeah

I mean that's um yeah and like it got to the point where um my oldest son was like I want to get dad a new job for hi s birthday like you know it's like BRB I'm gonna go cry right now right yeah um but five months I got a ton of family time in yeah yeah like that um you know got to do drop off and pick up from school every day like yep um Let me let me ask you this man what what did your days look like right because I think that's what people struggle with is like they get laid off and

that's why I'm trying to do a lot more content around scheduling your day yeah so yeah can you can you tell us so um I unfortunately have children that hear the sunrise and um you're not messaged about that yeah you know up very early um and like once they're up it's game time right like you you can't really like ease into your morning or whatever but it's like so I dropped my kids off the two boys at school that's a whole nother thing so they're they're at schools across town uh um so it was drop them off come home get get coffee and then um

I would try to book I was booking interview calls from 10 a.m to 2 P.M between ten and two turn into I like that um I opened up my calendly and started also just just meeting with people just anybody he would meet anybody that would meet um and got job interviews that way they're like we've known about you for a while um through through linked to Twitter I'm telling you I'm not getting Goosebumps right now because I'm doing your Ted Talk it works it just [ __ ] works so anyways um so yeah so it was like ten to two would just be like those

are calls right those are it's the quietest time in my house um because I've I've been on that like kids are home there's chaos happening and you see the hiring managers just eyes roll they're like this isn't gonna work like you can you can see it when you're talking because higher Rangers don't have patience and it sucks right I mean listen it sucks you can make the argument like well people need to be more understanding I understand but the end of the day like they may have 15 emits they gotta talk to and if Emmett has people in the background running around and Emmett's a

little distracted they're just gonna be like dude we love you but we got 14 more of you right well well look at these right now it's like oh we we got a thousand applicants for one position we're hiring I know um so yeah I mean it and then it came down to like once my kids are home from school and before that 10 am it was sending out emails networking um sort of being on my phone for like better or worse but like um yeah I mean it was and it was getting down to the point where it was like I may need I need

a job and I think a lot of people especially now are going to be at that point you know five six months in of not having anything because that everything like LinkedIn was like every day for like weeks was like here's 15 companies that are laying off 20 oh I mean it's I mean it's still happening I talked with uh I talked with the Dropbox engineering QA manager yesterday and she was like we had no idea I feel like we have no we had no idea so um it's rough it's right so that's another thing I don't understand how that like like how do you

not know that these things are gonna happen but upper management has to it just I mean makes that decision I mean we had to go through layoffs too and I had no choice so it just it just sucks um uh let me ask you this so mentally right did you get to a point where you were like I don't know what I'm doing or did you always be like I know what I'm doing I just need an at-bat wow no there was a lot of imposter syndrome there was a lot of um questioning maybe text not for me maybe like you texted me you're like

I I'm about to submit my application to go back to the hospital to the hospital yeah because um and I think a lot of people you know social media you see everybody's best stuff right it was uh you and I were chatting about that backstage yeah it's you see every every day is perfect every day is looks awesome and like I'm not gonna let the bank take my house because I need a job in Tech no I am going to work at a place that would you know be and there's also like you did I've done this before right like I worked a nine to

five networks my face off and made it happen in like the Market's just weird yeah it's like it's it is very weird right now um I want I want to get to Wendy's question real quick um what what were you doing weekly versus daily so did you like like did you do something like I know 10-2 was your interview yeah so I was trying I was trying to book same week calls yes so did you use calendly for that too or did you do it yourself because I've heard people go I think it's weird if you're on the job search and you send me your

account only but also too like I also know how people are so did you have any success one way or the other so the way I use calendly is I made a coffee chat link and just posted that up and had that as my pin tweet okay hey if you want to talk to me book of time yeah and then a lot of it was talking to people and then them sending me calendar requests yeah um and I think the biggest thing is like if you can get on the call like same day or like within 48 hours you're still on top of your top

of mind yeah it's like I just talked to him I just talked to him and I just talked to Taylor like like I think that will get you further in the interview process of like oh I talked to this guy and this person two weeks ago like by the time the interview shows up you're not um well your top of mind you gotta say top of mind righ t the job search is just have my time let me ask you this did you have a follow-up system because I talk about this a lot of times about the follow-up is almost the most important part did

you have any systems around that because that's something you maybe could have done better I'm interested on you yeah I mean that's that's something I could have done better because they were I mean there were times where I was talking to recruiters and just like gone like what an answer my LinkedIn wouldn't answer like a text um how much how much of your day so so I'm gonna so I want to kind of spoil the ending here Emmett does have a job now and he's software developing right now I I don't I because we're kind of getting up on time a little bit I just

want to try to get to this what what did you and if we have time left over I'm gonna go back to kind of prioritizing today I struggle with how did no Commerce come about so no Commerce um CEO Jeremiah wonderful human being um he reached out when I posted that I got a job at Cavallo so like you know a year and five months ago and like congrats on the job you're working with Kelly that's incredible um you know best of luck in then I started following and seeing what he was doing and then um yeah and then it was just like just sort

of random check-ins being like hey man how's it going um but did you reach out to him to get the interview or did he see you you were on the market and he reached out to you he saw that I was on the market and was like I love you know love your hustle love your sort of attitude and then um would love to chat and then book to chat and it's uh yeah it's so awesome it's so awesome so let's so let's talk and Anna chimes in here I want to get to this real quick then that's so real Emma thank you for sharing

being vulnerable I've definitely had thoughts before maybe Tech isn't for me in the job search I keep pushing but it can definitely be discouraging 100 100 people yeah everybody belongs everybody belongs but and also like especially with the job market right now like take care of you first put on your own oxygen mask you need to pay bills um you can lose the ego and go work at um you hear my daughter in the background yeah yeah that was funny that was funny but like but it comes down to like like do you need to make rent like oh you do okay so let's let's

yeah yeah exactly gotta take care of yourself I love that I love that so so no Commerce reached out you interviewed you got the offer so let's talk so let's talk about negotiating right we don't say numbers but let's just talk negotiating I haven't had I haven't had multiple offers everybody is everybody is but like I've also like people like oh always make sure you have more than two offers I'm like how yeah like I just gotta get one right yeah yeah and people have asked me like well should I negotiate I'm like well how's the offer they go I like it and I'm like

the no like I like you you negotiate when it's needed and I think I you know I I think the market and and here's the deal right I've preached it I've preached it I've preached it last two years right I went back I'm going back on my word right I always always negotiate always negotiated hey no no not right now read the room read the room yes um so talk about so you got the offer it wasn't quite where you're at where where you have been right but talk about mentally kind of what went through your mind though still it came down to like um

I mean to be honest I'm Frugal to a fault like it's I'm cheap um I I wish I had your fruit Alex I'm not yeah I mean that's um yeah it's like making coffee you know I'm always making coffee at home it's uh I spend too much money out on coffee if I leave the house I gotta have a nice coffee on it yeah so you yeah yeah but again it comes down to like we were able to make it with just me working at the hospital sure we can do it again not that like you know it's not ideal it's a big pain in

the butt but at the end of the day it wou ld pay the bills I can still Network I could I could do um you know and it's like at some point a job is a job yeah um you know my wife was very much like hey like you should start looking elsewhere for yeah and it's not that I can't it's not that you can't do the job it's not it's like people that are incredible incredible Engineers designers recruiters they're getting let go oh yeah like so like I mean I had to let go more than half of my team and I would say 90

90 of them are rock stars yeah and it's like and like it's it's not you it's it's we're in a weird time yeah make sure your skills are good and like my networking and marketing and content is probably what got me to where I am and being a great job and being 100 you know this is this is the Emmett you're gonna get when we're hanging out having coffee in person at you know um at your house yeah yeah because I'm not I'm not traveling anywhere that's true well so so so then so then what I'm hearing you say then so you got the offer

it wasn't quite where you've been at historically and that's okay but you were just like listen it's a job it gets me it keeps me staying in Tech it's more than I was making the hospital I'm gonna take it right absolutely and and I think you got to be aware right and I think that's what I tell people you just got to be aware well and so and it's um the rules technical support so I'm dealing with customers uh and diving into the code and doing all of the stuff that you don't get as a heads down death um you're seeing more of the business

the business and like at the end of the day if a customer is happy with the product in how you fix the issue yeah they're gonna keep coming back you know it's we can relate this to the restaurant industry or whatever you know yeah you give somebody an incredible experience and they're like wow you know that's you know I'm gonna come back and tell all my friends too that's the other thing is you create a good experience for everybody and so let me le t me ask you this because because I think this is important to to show here so Emmett doesn't have like a

heads down coding job right like you know I think your title is what it's technical support engineering yeah technical support I think some people would balk at that like I want to be a developer I just want to be a developer I don't want to be you know a technical support person but I mean I mean talk about mentally like sometimes you get you do what you got to do right yeah and and like the other thing is like with the market being this way customer support and making sure that customers are just staying and not churning is probably way more important than this new

shiny feature going out yeah yeah absolutely so um well we're already at time it's crazy how time flies man it's a nuts um so let me ask you this uh any any last um uh any last words of wisdom or things maybe that that we didn't touch on that you want to say get off your chest um I mean um be be intentional be you know be yourself like I don't I don't know I want I want to be the person that you know via LinkedIn or Twitter when you meet me I'm the same person like same um because they're I've met some people that

totally totally different in person than online and it's like it's off-putting it's great uh last last question I asked this last time um you know shows called guidance counselor 2.0 for a reason I'm married guidance counselors in middle school high school college but now as adults don't really have anybody to turn to for career advice specifically what would be your biggest piece of uh you know something's gonna happen you're gonna make something happen it's a number of attempts it's the you're putting in the work you're doing the good things um yeah you never know where a connection is going to get you and I mean

that's that's this is a whole nother episode I left a book a few months out and I got I yeah I mean getting stuff from people that you look up to gifted to you because of how you are on the internet with active interactions like but yeah I mean cheering other people on got me to where I'm at so I love that that's awesome man be why everybody else's number one fan yes I love that so much I love that um well dude thanks for hanging man stay on real quick it's not gonna say about you backstage but everybody thank you for tuning in today

appreciate it Alex thank you for your kind words um it means a lot I hope you'll have a great rest of your today's Wednesday great rest of your Wednesday um tomorrow unicorn finders 9 30 a.m Central we have a pretty cool guest on um it's a startup out of Austin that is trying to gamify running uh your boy is not a runner so I'm fascinated to talk with this founder tomorrow um on that and then Friday recruiters Anonymous I'll be going live with one of our ambassadors Vincent who works at hirewell um about recruiters so I can't wait to see you all Thursday and Friday

I hope you'll have a great Wednesday Emmett I appreciate you a ton big dog and uh