navigating ai and your career - all things ai 2026

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What's going on everybody? Good morning. How are you doing? Yeah, all right cool real quick before we get started I've had three cold bers this morning where I'm absolutely dialed I'm I don't like to be confined to a space so I'm probably gonna be walking around I hope that's okay first off everybody pull out their phones I do this with every single talk everybody pull out your phones pull out your phones pull out your phones Some of y'all still not pulling out your phones pull out your phones open up LinkedIn open up LinkedIn If you're like I don't know what LinkedIn is we got talk about it And real quick 30 seconds connect to the person to the left and right if you real fast tell them they look great and you're glad that they're here today All right Let's get into this all right, so I Go walk around who am I all right?

So I am currently VP of global community at Ross that digital powered by torque basically We are the one sponsoring the coffee and so yeah I cut listen listen I we cut an extra check Because we ran out of coffee yesterday at 10 a.m. I said that can't happen So if you have not stopped buying grab coffee, please do so The whole thing that the way torque works with Ron said is we are the jobs platform I'm gonna get into it today one of the key things about this job market is you need to connect and you need to get real jobs When you join the torque platform You get matched with actual jobs in the Ross that digital ecosystem Ross that digital is the massive company And my job is a personality higher my entire job Is just to make friends and make people feel loved on we have a ton of things we do within our torque discord torque.dev Max-us discord love to have you.

I've been in the talent Solution space for 15 years now like I said I truly have placed over a thousand engineers indirectly. I did some quick math using AI. It's probably close to five thousand now And then a little bit about me. This is my wonderful beautiful family shot to my wife for supporting me and allowing me to be here Yeah, absolutely good. You can get up to her. I have three beautiful kids We just had a newborn It was not expected just FYI and so I Am mediocre golfer. I am an ice hockey player. I have a corgi I have a miniature donkey. I have three horses and we live on a farm outside of Nashville.

So Here's here's the so the talk it's so funny and and I wonder if those individuals in here There was there's three individuals sitting next to me I was editing this talk and they were like I don't know if I want to go to this talk And how was just they're working was they're working listen it I don't know if I want to go to this talk This talk sounds clickbady and doom and gloom. It's just gonna be doom and gloom Here's the deal folks this talk is not doom and gloom this talk is to tell you that you all are going to be okay It's going to be good that market is still good There is doom and gloom and unfortunately the headlines are capturing that but I want to go through some stats here, right?

First up there was over a million tech jobs posted in 2025 per indeed and Robert half The Bureau of Labor so takes it's it's it's blah blah blah is out here saying there's gonna be Substantial job growth projected for engineers and listen in my network people are still getting hired I have had I mean just even on my ex-phaw my LinkedIn phone. There are still people out here getting jobs I want to let you all know this is it's okay. You're going to be okay But I will also tell you this You actually have to do the work so let's get into it a little bit more what's slowing things down.

I get this question all time like Taylor What's going on right so let me give you kind of quick baseline first off the great hesitation? long interview cycles ghosting who's been ghosted in here not not personally in your dating life No, okay right near shore and listen at the end of the day. I think near shorering is has caught a vibe Right I think companies realize that they can hire in lat Am And so that's eaten away at it right? I still think we're unwinding from the hiring binge that occurred from 2021 to 2023 And this the great smush. I did not come up with this term This is my guy Lawrence Lockhart want to give him props.

He's a great job engineer The roles are being intertwined with AI. It's crazy So that's what's kind of gummy not everything Yes, there are some numbers that we need to address Junior devs folks coming out of college You're a little screwed right now Right, but but this talk is again two parts. It's giving you hope But then also giving you the tactical practical things to stand out in today's market. All right, let's move on For I will tell you this It's not AI's fault necessarily I think AI has got a terrible marketing problem And I think the fact of the matter is is that most individuals most companies are blaming AI Because it's easier to blame a technology than a person that you can't do your job correctly I heard a man heard a man.

I grew up southern Baptist. So if you want to say some a man go ahead All right, so and here's the deal right companies hired eight business lines to worked out looking at you block Right zero interest rates bad bad decisions were cheap Right and listen I talk about all time big tech is controlling the headlines But the end of the day it doesn't make up for the whole entire market That's where you have to be careful where you're putting your attention and comes to this market Mackenzie's out here saying 32% of exact expect AI to increase their engineering workforce And like I said AI's a convenient cover for decisions that were already coming next slide.

I am a sailor anybody grew up sailing Yeah, a few of us. There you go. So What makes a good sailor? Sailors reading the wind right I'm not that smart. I'm the one that usually does all the grunt work, but Where is this heading and I want to give you some stats here on AI? 35,000 AI positions were posted Two x the amount of AI job postings Jen AI gross up 170% with a wage gap is increasing pretty tremendously When it comes to AI read the wind. Where is it going? Say I next slide and listen if you want these slides. I'll share them. I use gamma by the way.

Shut up gamma. I'm not getting paid for this. That's great Here so it was here in October and all things open heard my keynote in October Sweet 60 all great so So let's let's talk about the reality so one of the things I feel like when I started recruiting Startups were kind of viewed as this like Anomaly just like I don't want to deal with them. There's not there. There's risk It's not safe. I think fast for now. Nobody's safe I just want to get that across to you right now whether you've been out of company for one year 10 years 15 years Nobody is safe And I think you need to get that into your schools right now And I think you need to start operating moving forward in your career like that because at the end of the day I feel like all of us we like comfort We've like a paycheck don't get me wrong.

I do too My wife loves to spend money, but at the end of the day Nobody is safe But the fact that the matter is is look at these numbers AI right now and AI startups are booming if you are not a part of an AI ecosystem We're gonna talk about communities and what to look at but if you are not Showing up to some local startup meetups if you're not networking with founders you absolutely need to do so Because right now the numbers speak for themselves moving on All right This reminds me this internet age Reminds me of something called react. Anybody ever heard of it if you would be all yeah, all right So what happened with react when I was recruiting and react came out there were two types of people There are the people I still want to use jQuery And then there are people who wanted to use react And I will tell you this what I have seen anecdotally in my career is that the people who resist into change had problems Upleveling their skills Insane it out the job market right now y'all is not the time Just stick your head in the sand AI's here Your out of the AI conference if you did not know that already right like listen the shift the shift right now Is when react came out times 10 you cannot deny this you have to start working in it.

All right, so like I said you're not behind Look to the persons who left a ride you and say you're not behind just just just just get them a little encouragement this morning Yeah, some some of y'all some of y'all didn't even look at the person to left a ride you you just went you're not behind You're telling your own self like God Dan you're not behind All right, but I will tell you this I went on paternity break in January January 4th is where my baby girl answered into this world And I sat and I saw the internet unfold in six weeks and it was the first time my entire career where I felt behind and not even a developer Six weeks six weeks You can't deny this All right again Curiosity is going to be the thing that is going to advance your career Right and I'm I'm sure I'm gonna talk about this again What I want to tell folks I've had a multiple conversation in the hallway track you do understand that your code is not the thing that gets you in the door anymore That is now commoditized Because you know what?

Guess who is in his hotel remarks 9 10 p.m. I'm clogged doing some crazy crazy shit me right Your code is not that they need to get you in the door the way you solve business problems is What's gonna get you in the door right? I'm sure I'm gonna repeat that again because that's just a fire quote feel free to tweet me by the way If you want to follow me on social media hands in the corner Age is not a factor so it's interesting the torque discord We do weekly virtual sessions resume reviews networking strategies etc. And one gentleman goes Taylor. I'm 52 Am I too old for AI?

I would argue that the older you are the more life you see and the more problems you can now solve Right, so I want to encourage you if you got a little gray here or balding like me which I'm very insecure about at this point You're not late but start now all right moving on how to get started listen I'm not gonna this is not a talk. I'm not technical. I know I'm not gonna sit here and tell you To do this and do that you can go to a bunch of other talks today But I want to give you a high level because I feel like these type of talks need to happen because most of us are Not even looking at AI pick a tool Take a tool.

Okay, if it's cursor Claude Claude needs to sponsor me at this point Like you know the code X. I don't know there's so many freaking tools out here. I don't know would you something? Let me ask you this raise your hands here. I like crap participation Who is using AI in their daily workflows raise your hand? Good sweet majority of the room some of y'all raise your hand. I really hope at the end of this talk that you start okay? Start today go to your hotel room Open up Claude pay the 20 bucks a month start Right, and we're gonna get into some strategies on how to help you in your job search for you to start I think a lot of times what I've seen is that developers that I made a mistake.

I'm done AI stupid Don't do that don't do that Keep working at it. Keep shipping away at the end of the day. You store the driver. You just have a better GPS now Okay, use X who in here is on X. I don't want to I don't want to hear a bitch and about X But who on here is on X and uses it raise your hand Not a lot of y'all. I will tell you this my wife tells me all time So why are you on X all the time? I'm like, I don't know if there's a single platform where I can get real time Feedback on where the market is going then X.

I'm not saying you need to post. I'm not saying you need to become a content creator What I'm saying is get on X It's a name. I know about the list feature on X lists. You can create customizable lists where you just follow certain people Pick people in the space that you admire. We're loving if it's me Right, but pick people and engage with them follow them right? I mean literally I've learned more about AI in the last six weeks on X than going to any workshop I Said it all right use X please all right next thing Well, let's talk about starting to use AI in your job search and I think one of the problems I think one of the problems with AI is that you don't know what you don't know and I Still don't know a lot But I'm just gonna give you some basic things that can help you at least start thinking in the right direction First off tail your resume now there's a difference between tailoring your resume and making it right your resume Please do not let AI write your resume.

I can tell everybody can tell if it looks like a duck talks like a duck. It's most likely a duck We don't want ducks. We want bald eagles fam. All right tailoring resume like like for me I've been digging around because communities kind of this vague role that a lot of companies are starting to dopped and And I've been even on on claw going like hey, what about I How does my background work with this part of the job description? How does How how can I pull in what I've done here with this part of another job description? Right it allows it use it as a prompt to get your mind thinking close a skills gap This is a great I think one of the ways to really really figure out where to go upload your job upload your resume upload a job description Ask at the cross-reference see where your biggest gaps are because that simple folks Personalized code outreach listen in today's world.

You no longer have an excuse for lame Code out reaches. It's just done like you You will be falling tremendously behind if you are not using AI to Analyze somebody's profile where some similarities, right? You could also just look at it too But let's just for this sake use AI for it, right? Optimize your LinkedIn throw a sword in the AI. Let's see what it says right. I think it's incredibly important Next use AI to prep for interviews. I will tell you this if you come unprepared for an interview You are not you are not smart There's no excuse now You can run a quick search on AI.

Hey tell me about hey, I'm interviewing for torque Tell me about torque tell me about what's going on some latest findings You can come into an interview and give really key points, right mock interview. I think the biggest thing I have a laser to this thing's cool So I'm a man there's very simple things get me excited Build your star stories. I think one of the biggest issues that see time and time again is resumes It's just fluff. I don't know what you've done. I don't know how you've moved the needle. I'm a great communicator I work well with others. No shit. Everybody else does too All right use use AI to drill into hey, what have I done?

How I've done it? What's what skills have I Specifically developed with this right research to company get critiqued you can read the slides. Let's move on all right use AI I added this last night And guess what I used to do this AI right yeah, Claude right so I said hey Claude. I'm giving a presentation tomorrow to a bunch of people who hopefully show up Let me know how I could use you to find a job Networking at scale Connect a Gmail draft follow-up messages. Also, they may see the latest Claude release that happened last night Where like takes control of your screen? Yes Happened last night it takes control of your screen.

I did it last night. I said I said Claude I need you to fill out this this these forms for me. I need to get this analytics I gave Claude the password at logged in it pulled all the analytics for me by itself I came out of the shower not the journey you know that and there were all of all the reports that I wanted as a manager right in front of me did not do anything Crazy crazy crazy application pipeline management. I think this is a this is the thing that most people miss People have one conversation six months ago like ah, that didn't go anywhere Or hey, I applied to a job three months ago never heard back from follow-up use this as a way to To automate a lot of the things that you're dealing with I will also tell you this too if you can talk with a hiring manager and say I use they I in the job search for all this How do you think that's gonna look?

It's going a little good for the record, okay? Daily job alert briefing listen runs get get searches set up. Hey, I'm targeting series A series B companies Who just secured their funding can you send me a list every morning? With the jobs posted that are in the X space Is everybody understand this there? We got it cool a lot of blank looks out here. I'm I'm trying to bring the noise this morning All right, I understand all right now bill with AI we talked about that talk about it publicly But for tree falls in the woods and no one's around here did it fall. I don't know You have to make a name for yourself now you're probably like Taylor.

I'm junior Taylor. I'm this Taylor. I'm that excuses I will say there's one girl in our tort community her name is Naz. I bring her up all the time NASA's a junior engineer She talks all the time about learning AI and NLP and computer vision. She's junior all she's doing is documenting her search And guess who I'm talking about here I'm not talking about Sarah. I'm not talking about Beth Come on naz why because I see her build You have to start making a name for yourself because what happens is you start making a name for yourself Then other people want to start talking talking with you And again, I'm not asking you to be a content creator.

I'm just asking you to talk about what you're doing It's that simple Show up in person you guys are already in the top 10% When it comes to an up in person this is where the opportunities happen This that's why I get people to connect when we start the conversation Because listen your next opportunity your next investment your next manager could be next to you you do realize that I Think we forget that it was show up these things. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna work shop. I'm gonna take some notes. I'm not gonna talk to anybody. I'm a leave Well the content's great You're here in network Other just FYI other people in this room are here in network to Don't be scared Introduce yourself make friends be kind.

Is that some folks get a mentor? I don't know how I would navigate the job search right now if I was technical if I didn't have a mentor You got drive the release that's a whole another conversation and talk about the mentor mentee relationship and how to do that A lot of while we won't get in that here find a mentor Reach out to somebody reach out somebody you trust hey, hey, I would love to chat with you once a month about this Are you free at 10 a.m next week? I would love to put it on your calendar 30 minutes. I'll come with questions You need to drive that conversation Find a mentor ask questions be curious Use LinkedIn listen.

This is a whole other talk. I have to I'm not gonna get into it listen linked in I still think X and LinkedIn are where it's at I Think you you're using it you post on LinkedIn about what's your building about the successes you've done You engage with others you connect with others The way that algorithm works by the way the people you recently connect with see your content first on their feed So if you're out here building see a man there you go you get it you get it. Yeah So so if you're out here building and talking about something So here here's what I would do very practical I like practical right I feel like a lot of these talks are like high-fluff and you just leave you like I don't know what the fuck the person just talked about Sorry, I had caffeine I curse a little bit What I would do is I would talk about what you're building whether it's a business whether it's a platform Whether it's a feature whatever on LinkedIn then what I would do is I would Use LinkedIn I would connect with the individuals in that vertical so if you are building a AI tool for admin assistance to Better themselves and making this up on the spot here.

I would really start connecting with admin assistance See what I'm saying reverse engineer everything drive people to your profile So then as you're building it and you're connecting with these admin assistance. They're seeing your building. They're gonna go I would love that Right so I've gotten all my business Right I'm moving on build something and Put it out on the internet. All right. We just talked about this. I won't belabor the point here But I think at the end of the day if you sit here and think your resume it's just like dating It's like dating right. I would say who would hear single but I think it'll get a little weird.

We can try to you know Networking You're not gonna find your significant other if you sit on your couch Can everybody agree on that? If you don't if you sit on your couch on a Friday night in your single you ain't gonna find that person How do you find that person? By showing up by putting yourself out there a lot of similarities around dating and the job search. I will just tell you that Put something out there. Yes five minutes. Oh geez Okay, all right Get into communities talked about this torque is an entire we we have a great community But I think you absolutely need to start getting the community I've talked to multiple hiring managers.

They are not posting jobs publicly a lot of them are not a lot of them are Supposed to end their slacks and their discords right see a lot of phones out this must be a good slide banger slide I love it. All right Do that actually Keep cameras out because we're gonna get even better. Okay? My favorite communities take a picture of this So these are I am a constant player of the game student of the game player of the game. I don't know I I literally subscribe to other people to see what they're doing These are my favorite so far. I think torqued out dev.

I think what we're doing is great I really really truly think so we're kind of we're kind of reinventing the staffing industry But if you're like Taylor you curse a lot. I really don't like you. I get it Welcome to my world, but I would check out I would check out these hot slays are important is great. I need to work this anymore So Ben Lang's great 10 bucks a month. You pay you get access to his community The anti job or an expa 20 bucks a month get curated jobs direct directly to your email as released your skill set Open to work. I just followed Bella.

She sent an entire Her entire email is just Twitter links of open jobs those jobs aren't posting online Okay, you have to start finding where the hidden jobs are AI job boards with no if you want to take pictures also to if you just want the slide just email me Taylor at vaco Or take vaco, oh, no not that not that Taylor torqued out dev That was bad Taylor torqued out dev too much coffee brain things fast mouth doesn't move fast enough um AI job boards worth knowing pretty simple all right. Let me talk about this real fast So I know we're trying to wrap up and just trying to move fast Listen, I think there's a huge opportunity for people in here to develop AI solutions for small companies and make a lot of money I don't know if you have family and the mechanical engineering space or the mortgage space or the construction space There's a lot of automation that needs to take place I think that is where you start to leverage your technical skills to gain AI experience to then level up your job search At the end of the day companies want to see what you're building what you've done and if you are not looking for opportunities I mean opportunistic and it could be one hour week two hours a week.

It does not have to be a big deal But I will tell you this companies right now want to see what you've built. They don't know what you They don't know they don't care what you know theoretically. They want to know how you're solving business problems, okay? Is it time to pivot listen pin it I've actually never watched this show, but I do know this meme So listen, I will tell you this you're probably Taylor thinking it's like hey, I'm a JavaScript engineer Do I need to pivot? I don't know if you need to pivot But I will tell you this you can't stick ahead in the sense you need to start trying you need to figure it out Right start talking about it the two key two key people always bring up in this talk Ken C.

Dodds I mean, oh Ken C. Dodds he was a he's he was a react guy That's what I would say now he's an MCP guy because all he does is talk about Angie Jones the great Angie Jones Keynote all things open with me in October Java queen right guess what she's guess what she's known for now AI imagine that you start talking about online you start to become a thing to thought peace leader thing People start hiring you for it's crazy how that works right? Next thing listen at the kind of wrapping up here get off the couch Get off the couch One step at a time AI can be overwhelming even in my mind right now.

I'm giving this talk to you and I'm already thinking about like what I'm gonna Like work on to that to do AI back in my hotel room It is overwhelming, but just start start chipping away at this thing start to get comfortable act like you can't fail because listen We're all failing. Let's just say it like we're just we're not we're not we're doing the best we can Everybody in here is doing the best we can right so just just start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable Hey, you did it you listen 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 at t-dasting on all social media handles and I hope you have a fantastic day