x's and o's of networking (solo show)

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So, not working. All right. So when it comes to this stuff, I think there's a few ways to that. Well, I think there's like the Slack and Discord channels. Again, Dad's an tech group, the friend zone, those kind of tackle two things. There's going to be another Discord. I'm going to start mentioning with my new job, but again, just waiting on everything to go through. Can't wait to announce that. So I wouldn't say if you're not in a Discord at this point or Slack, like virtual coffee with Becca and that crew is great. And I know there's some other really, really successful I'd say it's great to see this morning.

But I think it's a really good thing to do with the other very successful Slack. Yeah, 100% dude. I also do that in hockey too, right? I just, back to playing defense. I have no idea what I'm doing. Get in a Slack that they're scoring this for. Like if you're not in one, you're not even networking. Like that's just where it is, right? You know, I talk with a lot of people really Slack and Discord network is really, I would say, come on, let's go, but you know, I know some people that are part of 15 channels. I'm not saying you got to do that.

I do think it's better to go deeper in one than more shallow in a few, even though I don't take my own advice. But the thing I want to talk about say is networking on late then, right? And so I want to go ahead and share my screen this morning. But what I want to go over is the tactical advice on how to network, right? So I'm not talking about networking for a job right now. And I've talked about this time and time again, you should not network for the like, you should not slide into people's DMs for a job, if that makes sense. If you see a job posted and you immediately messes that person and you don't know that person and you're like, hey, I want this job, that feels very dirty to me.

Like that feels very easy, slime ball, don't do that. Right? The way to network is to build rapport over time based off certain topics. And so what I posted in the, what I, what I, what I talk about in the friends and community this morning is let's say, let's say that you're implementing TBD in your test in your dev environment, right? So test driven development. And so I'm going to go and pull up, I'm going to go and pull up my LinkedIn. We're going to walk through this together this morning. Let me zoom in a lot. All right, so you all can see that, right?

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go up here. I'm going to go test driven the development in jobs, right? So these are all of the jobs that pop up. And again, now you're like, Taylor, well, don't, don't network about a job. I'm not networking about a job. I'm networking with people at a place that has a job open, but around a certain topic. Right? So let's do test driven development. Let's do day posted. You always want to go in the past 24 hours. You really always want to make it very narrow because LinkedIn does a really poor job of data quality around job search and job stuff.

So you really want to make it narrow. So this one, you know, this one. So there's so few things I work out, right? So photonics has a photonics QA engineer, right? It's a design tool. And again, I'm not going to get caught up in the job. What I want to do is I want to do with two things here. Always look to see if you have connections, right? So here there's seven people that went to the university of South Carolina that worked here. So I'm actually going to click, I can click on that. Can't click on that. So I'm going to go to the seven people.

I want to go to synopsis right here. I want to go to people. Right? And we've done this before, but just follow me here. So I want to, let's see here, try to figure out where they studied, where they studied, where they studied. Here, I'm going to click on this. So I'm trying to do something fly for some reason. There you go. Seven people. All right. So these seven people, I believe, let's see here. I don't think we're doing this right here. Let me see. Let's go go to South Carolina. Doesn't look like it. No, he did not. Oh, yeah. Well, he went to the US, the USC.

That's not quite the same thing. Let's see here. Let's go to Chang. So basically, all right. So the search is not quite working. This is a little buggy. I don't waste too much time on it. But so let's do this, right? So let's do, so let's say I do find somebody who did actually work at Googie University South Carolina. So first on, let's just say, Doway actually went to university South Carolina. Right? What I would do is I'd messes to Doway. But hey, Doway. I would see if our South Carolina go Game Pots looking for a job right now. Or we're trying to implement test driven development into our environment right now.

We'd love to chat with you about test driven development. Same. And so I would messaged about that. And what I would do is I would go through because they have a job open that has test driven development in it. So I would go to people who potentially could help you with that. So you know, probably a staff engineer hit up the rock, right? Maybe hit up Ben, right? So that's just one thought here. Again, same thing here. So let's do, let's do another term, trying to think of like another term. Is there a term that I can use with with with Intech, y'all, y'all, chime in here.

Chris is great to see you this morning. So again, the whole point is is really trying. So here's I don't know why hold on. I don't know why I can't figure out people at South Carolina. I should be able to click. All right, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Found it. All right. So these eight people here all went to university South Carolina, right? And look at this. They're all mainly recruiting, right? There's a product done, right? So what I would do is I would always start out with people who you went to school with first, right? So hey, Andrew, saw you saw, you know, go, you know, go Cox, go University South Carolina.

Let's talk about what you're, you know, hiring for or maybe somebody on your team. You always want to start there. But again, the main thing, I feel like I'm glad a little bit. The main thing I'm trying to get across right now is you need to focus on networking with people around the topic and ask questions. I'll never forget Connor Bush. He was on my show like two years ago. Connor, we probably need to get you on if you ever watch this. Again, to talk about it, he wanted a job at Netflix. So what did he do? He did not sit there and just message people at Netflix asking for a job.

What he did is he took something that they were trying to implement at Evernote to place he was at beforehand and started messaging hiring managers on LinkedIn at Netflix around how they implemented this tool or this system or this test driven approach, right? And what happened was that he continued to do that. And he told me he messes. He would like update me every day. And so many people did not get back to him. But a few people did. And one of the guys, they had so many conversations that guy was like, oh, I think you'd be great working here went through the interview process and now Connor Bush is at LinkedIn.

I mean, Netflix, I need more coffee. So again, incredibly important when it comes to networking on LinkedIn, pick a topic, pick something you're trying to learn. Right? Let's say you're trying to learn AWS S3, the S3 portion of AWS, remember that. What I would do is I would literally, first off, I'd probably find AWS communities, right? My buddy Ben, who's in dad's attack, Ben Pyle, who's like a big AWS guy. I know they have Discord, hit up AWS here. And I would just mess, I would just start messaging people with AWS S3 experience on the LinkedIn. Hey, you don't know me from Adam. I'm trying to implement AWS S3 with my dev environment right now.

Do you have a few minutes to talk about? We'll talk about it. That is how you network. You don't network by saying, hey, so and so, I see you have a job online. We love to talk about it. No, you network somebody adjacent to it again. That's what I've done. When I started my recruiting career, four years, five or four years ago, four and a years ago at this point, I didn't start a recruiting podcast. I tried to go after my, what people call ICP, ideal customer profile or, yeah, ideal customer profile. And I went after what I wanted, which is basically I wanted to bring on decision makers on my podcast that went higher from me.

So what did I do? I created this podcast. I never talked to my folks about hiring or me hiring for them. I bring them on the pod. They get to know me. They know I'm a recruiter. And then if they need me, then they have. To be totally honest with you, if you're on the job search, I think you should have a podcast. I think it's the easiest thing to do or not even a podcast, like a Twitter space or a LinkedIn live, right? Because a podcast, I think a lot of people's brains means a lot more. Just go live with somebody on LinkedIn every day.

Like I do and just talk to them about what they're working on or you're trying to learn something, right? Like if I was a junior dev, here's a content idea. If I was a junior dev, I started LinkedIn live show called Learning Me. So teaching me learning me. And I would basically interview senior folks on topics I'm trying to learn real time, life. And it'd be like learning learning me, AWS S3 with so and so. And like basically you would just interview somebody like you're trying to just learn from them, right? And then what's going to happen over time is you are going to endear yourself to these senior engineers.

And if a senior engineer has a spot on his or her team, and they need to hire somebody, they're going to think of you because you're doing it very untraditional, right? Nathan comes in here, search for a sales time, if you're waiting until you need a job starting out working, you're already working from behind 100%. Again, if I were you, I would try to have a conversation in the end in the chat. I know one of the things that I was really big on when it came to networking early on in Jacob COVID, as I said, message everybody and have a conversation for 15 minutes with them or five minutes with them after talking with a lot of my engineer and manager friends specifically, Kelly Vaughn was born on Tiana's great to see you this morning.

I know higher manager has time to do anything right now because all of the middle manager engineers are gone. So everybody's gonna work. So you're going to have to build rapport in the DMs, right? So like, let's say again, Kelly Vaughn, for example, she posts a job. You mess up during the DMs. Hey Kelly, I don't know if I'm a fit for this role. I'm a big fan of the friends of me, right? What that shows to her is that you're paying attention. One of the ways to really, you know, level up. So like Pat, I'm used Pat, for example, right? Pat, you're probably still not watching, but Pat, for example, Pat's a director of engineering, right?

So if Pat posted that he was hiring for a role, what I would do is I would say, hey, Pat, I'm actually dead. I'm actually in Dads and Pat with you. Right? What does that do with Pat? That immediately builds recognition in rapport, right? When you mess up somebody and do not build rapport, like you could be in the Dads and Tech meet up with Pat and you could be like, hey, Pat, I see you have a job posted on your website. We'd love to talk with you about the role, right? Pat's getting 15 of those DMs a day if he has a role posted, but what's really gonna make you stand out is if you're a dad, you go join Dads and Tech, you comment with Pat, go back and forth in our Discord a little bit, then Pat posts a role three months from now and then messes Pat on the Discord or messaging my LinkedIn and be like, hey, Pat, you know, it's Taylor from Dads and Tech.

Sorry you had a job posting up. It seems like I'll be a fit. We'd love to talk with you more about it. Pat's immediately gonna remember you from Dads and Tech. You see what I'm talking about? In today's world, the cold DMs, the cold apply, the cold everything, very rarely works. I would say less than 5%. It actually works. And that's why you gotta keep like, you know, go to a meetup and go to an in-person role, it has a bunch of meetups, right? At least they did when I went out of it when I lived there for you, right? You know, all the Discord, right?

Every Discord I'm in, we're eventually gonna start going live in a Discord, right? You just have to show up. And it's kind of like planning the seed, right? Every time you show up to a meetup, every time you show up to a live stream, every time you comment in the Discord, it's planning a seed, right? I've got a few comments especially from Pat to the end. Let's see, let's see, or Tiana. Oh, you know, decided to leave the John, take a big hit, but we're hot. I'm around, talk around. Hey, listen, Tiana, girl, I hear you. I do the same. If you left your job and decide to take a big hit, I'd be on LinkedIn too.

Also, hot take, total sidebar. I love working on vacation. I feel like my creative users are through the roof on vacation. I have to talk to the wife about it, and I'll do it all the time, but like if we go to the beach for a long time, like a week, I usually work out of a coffee shop for a little bit just because like my juices are obviously flowing. Pat comes in talking about kind of our networking structure. We talked about if you can help me make a nickname back to you or pop out with crowd of 100% or you can be in the back of someone's mind, they reach out to 100%.

So yeah, again, very, very key here. Tiana, I've been soft searching for like six months after I get my own arm, I get a dive back in jobs. I love that. Again, I joke about it with Jayman, Jayman Post, Jayman Home, Grady's CTO, Infinite Red out in Portland. He posted this tweet a while ago and he was like, I'm trying to get better at LinkedIn. How do I do it? And I tweeted and it got a lot of attention. I said, delete every single other app off your phone, social media wise, other than LinkedIn and you'll eventually the muscle memory will eventually learn to go there.

I think that's the truth. It depends how serious you want to think networking. Right. If you are really big in networking, I would literally take, I would literally dive in a discord and dive in to LinkedIn. If you're good at Twitter, keep Twitter on your phone, but Twitter could be more of a distraction than anything else. So again, in my opinion, so I made this shift four years ago. Everything on social media was around that looking at this point. And I just made that shift. And so again, and also give back, right? If you're in a senior spot like pattern, your senior, your career, like myself, like giving back and also another form of networking, right?

The reason why I do this live show is to give back to the community. It is another way of networking. So sweet, awesome. Cool. Perfect. I think that's it. I think that's enough of me. Yeah, I'm today. Robert, hello. I'm just wrapping up. So again, recap on networking people who just tuned in like network was like a question, comment, et cetera, right? So like literally if you reach out to somebody, never mention the job, right? Never mention the job. Always mention, hey, I would love to learn from you. Hey, I have a question about this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think get in the discourse, get in the slacks.

They don't have to be mine. They don't have to be the friend zone. They don't have to be dad's intact, right? They can be any virtual coffee with better. It was like, good, just don't. James Quicks got one. Danny Thompson's got one, right? Just get in one and start commenting, start engaging. And then finally again, just give back, right? Give back that scale. I think it's the best way to do it. Post on LinkedIn consistently. LinkedIn right now is LinkedIn right now is like the professional version of TikTok. You can gain so much traction on LinkedIn right now because it would be organic reach. So please do that.

Cool. All right y'all, well again, we're going to see this morning, Katie. I appreciate it. It's good to see you. Yeah, I absolutely love this, Rob. I usually ask what they use with their jobs. Like again, never ask about the job. Ask about the person. Make them feel special. Everybody likes talking about themselves. Why do you think I do this live? So y'all, thank you again for tuning in today. Tomorrow I'm off. Got some stuff to do in the morning. Wednesday, I'm back with John. Hold on, John. Hold on, he told his name full name. John Van Devere, he is a senior AI engineer, staff AI engineer or a toxin AI stuff.

But we're also going to talk about his latest job search. And then we have my guy Jason Torres on Thursday. So y'all have a great one. I appreciate you all. Have a great Monday for you, hear me checking on dads and tech or the friends zone dot L. L. And I will see you. Oh, 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. There's 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 it, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me at T-Dasting on all social media handles and I hope you have a fantastic day.