w/josh carroll + working for free

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We are live this morning with a guest that I almost forgot about what's going on everybody Thank y'all for tuning in. I'm obviously I'm getting the updates. We're going live and everything I gotta wait till the link didn't push into the notification But I have a guest today Josh Carroll Hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee But he is currently at my favorite place in the world, which is 38 down Florida Josh. Thanks for joining me man Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on Taylor Yes, and a little then again. Thank you so much for following up with me this morning Josh sends Josh sends me a DM again nine.

He goes hey, so what do we do this morning? I was like we talking about Well, I forgot about Josh, but Josh is a wonderful sport and still will in the hang For those of you who are watching at us, comment us let us know where you tune in from I know Josh We love to see your beautiful face. I would love to see your beautiful face and also too I've had a lot it by the way. This is a little rant a little rant here I've had some people go man. I love your show. I never comment Listen just comment. I'm not gonna like pull you up on stage or anything like I can't do that on this platform If you are watching and if this is your first time, please let me know I'd love to hear from you if you have any questions for Josh We're we're this thing's probably gonna go a little more than 15 minutes, but Josh is also gonna start You know drinking a peony claw down the beach here soon, so I won't we won't go too long But if you have any questions, we're gonna talk about leveling up your career taken on free work How to separate yourself and interview process?

Josh is a CIO. CIO Josh right CIO CIO CIO CIO CIO So that's what Josh does so Josh can be a great resource for you this morning kale what's going on good morning Kayla from Florida. Hey Are you a 38 I swear if more than one person on this on this live show today's a 30 hour be upset What's going on man? It's good to see you simmer G. Caleb from New Jersey I love it. I love it from Florida again If this is your first time, please let me know there are people watching so I'm gonna go ahead and start And keep this thing off so everyone thank you all again for tuning the guidance counselor to point out this morning I'm very excited to have a good friend and a hiring manager on today So this one's gonna be a fun one for everybody watching for those of you who are tuned for the first time Please let me know for those of you who are tuned for the first time.

I'm going to give the quick background about why I do this Because probably great kinds of two point. Oh, what is it? What is it? Like why do you why are you doing this? There we go Benjamin there you go. I appreciate man first time. I love it So the reason why I started guidance counselor two point out is because when the pandemic hit a year ago I realized there's not a platform for individuals for the tech community to join together to watch To be able to learn something and short small segments today will probably go a little longer than 15 minutes I have a feeling but I wanted a place where people can can comment Have a ability to slide into other people's DMs to network right?

So Caleb can slide into Benjamin's DM and go hey Benjamin I saw you on Taylor's shirt today. I would love to connect with you right there's no place for that conferences of stopped meetups of stopped We're getting back. We're obviously that's starting to change now But that's what this thing is for right? guidance counselor two point out came out of the fact that I want to keep the guidance counselor In the shin through told everyone that resume should only be one page long so that being said That's why I do this enough about me rambling. I want to go ahead and dive in Josh Carroll in 30a Josh given a background about yourself high level Who are you?

What do you do and then we'll go ahead and talk about why the people are gathering here this morning and that is taking on free work So Josh go ahead buddy Yeah, so I'm actually so I'm a software developer by trade. I guess you could say and in many ways I still feel like you know a software developer art Don't do that in my active day-to-day job probably for the benefit of my team No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be that kind of yeah And so I take her mostly on the side in my spare time now But did that for a long time and then I got into doing consulting Been doing consulting for the past probably you know 10 years and as a result of that have seen a lot of teams a lot of companies You see patterns emerge and you start to understand you know kind of where the problems are And so I really love you know helping teams you know come together and be able to organize and move you know quickly and achieve things that they could And so now I am the CIO for tag resources and I'm just helping kind of build out the team Meet some of the challenges as they continue to grow and especially in the financial sector You know helping to kind of build some some software within that to not only help us but to help everybody else as well I love that so so for those of you are watching this conversation came out of the fact so I tweeted one day You know the power of networking the power of sliding DMs.

I tweeted about hey You should take on free work if you are trying to get experience because the one thing that I hear and see a lot is hey Taylor I Can't get a job because I'm a junior developer because I don't have I don't have experience So how do I gain experience? I say take on free work and then I never hear from that person again, right? So Josh slid into my DMs And Josh goes I have lots of thoughts on this I would love to talk to you And I go great join my live show and he goes I'm gonna be ignorant here Do you have a live show?

I said great even better Let's hang out and you can see what I do So Josh let's go ahead and dive into this topic taking on free work the job search right now the markets crazy hot Let's just dive in specifically for free work. What are your thoughts on it and expound on that for me for a bit? Yeah, I mean I think for me the big thing You know one everybody you know you do a great job I think in your Twitter feed and everything else of trying to explain to people What it is hiring managers to dealing with you know when you are the applicant?

It's really easy to feel like you're just you know like nobody cares You know that kind of thing and it's not that it's that you have to put yourself in the position of the hiring manager and go that like just recently I Posted a job for a junior developer position. This was like a month or so ago I got it well and it was national and remote, you know Within 24 hours. I had 160 resumes to look at and so you know out of that 160 I think I called maybe 20 people to set up You know phone screens with some interviews and how to those 20 I whittled that down to five people to kind of go through the the final interview process and selected one right?

So I would have loved to have selected all five of the people that I don't know talk to me But you just can't right and so the question becomes like how do you stand out in the pack right and and I got that a lot A lot of junior developers. I talked to over the phone They all were saying the same thing of like what would you recommend to me to get experience and I just hold them You know kind of straight up like They were like it is a GitHub a good thing. I'm like well Maybe right the problem is is that with a lot of the get hubs that are out there I look at them and guess what they all look identical right?

It's like oh I've seen this project before and it's because somebody followed it to do and went through or you know To do NBC or something like that, you know and they all look the same right and It's like that's fine. It's even gotten down to the point where I know what coding school people graduated from by looking at their get hub Right and so you have to understand that that that's the baseline right like that is baseline average and you need to just Go one step above that and so for me as a hiring manager. I would rather see one project that you took on yourself from start to finish and Just did completely doesn't even have to be fancy right it could be a simple contact manager or something like that But I want to see something that you didn't necessarily find a cookie cutter tutorial from and you took it yourself from start to finish all the way through and And you can explain it to me right like if I can sit down and you can really talk me through and I can tell you did it And you're excited about it that carries more weight to me than anything and it does take a little bit of time But I wouldn't say that that's like a massive amount of time right You know in terms of putting that in but that will definitely make you stand out as just being able to have a project that you can take You took from start to finish and that you can explain to the hiring manager and what it was you did and not just Oh, I cloned this project, you know from GitHub and I changed a few things and I publish it right So let me ask you say for everybody today.

We got a few more Anthony what's going on time for work. Yes. Go ahead and do a thing Anthony, but you have a wonderful day. Kathy. It's good to see you I think that's a new headshot. So I love the headshot. So So Josh the question I want to ask you take on free work. Yes or no, I'm putting you on the spot Yes or no, I'm sure there's a butt gonna come here. Mm-hmm answer the question for me.

I would say yes But right, you know the the butt is I would I think taking on free work, you know, you can do that in the sense of you don't necessarily have to take on free work That is for you know somebody else's, you know pet project that they're gonna take advantage of you or whatever Just get free work out of that kind of thing When I say take on free work what I'm really talking about there is putting in extra effort, you know That's again above and beyond and so sure take on free work go contribute to an open source project if that's

something that is Works and is motivating and that kind of thing but not just I change the comment here I found one bug but like really getting involved, you know or again take on free work in the sense of you know What I've got this idea in my head for a project that I'm I want to build something that there is no tutorial out there for me to build Yeah, right like I like you've got your own like let's say I don't know great example I don't know like maybe you you like baseball cards So you like magic togethering or Pokemon cards or something like

that and you want to build an app that's gonna help you organize all of that Like go build it, you know and and then turn around and be able to show that often demonstrate it and use that as an example So you said one thing while you're chatting before we went live and you said it doesn't have to be a lot more work Just an extra hour of your day, which we probably all have break that down I want to hear your thoughts like because I think people go Free work.

I got to take on 40 hours. I'm already working 40 hours We're right so so so so Exvella that comment for me. Yeah, and I think I had you know one of the analogies I use a lot with Candidates as I tell them, you know, it's like look if you're I work in the far company that does retirement Funding event management, so You know, it's it's right on the tip of my mind, you know with that But if you're if you're 20 and your friend is 20 and And they invest the hundred dollars a week and you invest 150 dollars a week In 10 years, you're not going to be just 50 percent richer, right?

You're going to be like five times richer because you put in just a little bit but because of compounding interest I actually remember many years ago So I've done a lot of conference speaking and a tailor that's actually how we met was a conference But you know conference talks take time, right and nobody's paying you most of the time to do that And so the average conference thought that I do probably takes me anywhere between 40 and 60 hours to put together, right? Now that's spread out over several months And I've never gotten paid for that, but I would say that my career has directly monetarily benefited from a conference speaking And so So when we're talking about like extra time and again, it's not like it even has to be a you know like every single day Regimental, you know, you got to put in this amount of time, but again putting in just a little bit of extra time to go You know read the docs do something program Play around with things is going to yield you net benefits that are way way way higher than what you think and in three months You won't just be a little bit better, right?

You're gonna be head and shoulders above most people because most people are 95% of the people out there for the most part are probably just putting in the bare minimum And so it doesn't take a lot of extra effort for you to really stand out from the crowd So Benjamin, thank you for commenting again Benjamin first time viewer already contributing. Thank you sir. This is why we do this I'm worried I'm passing up pain positions by taking on volunteer positions because four people from my boot camp already got pain positions at the same level experiences me I'm gonna say something first and then Josh. I want you to hear your thoughts first off Benjamin stop comparing yourself to others Because the comparison game is gonna give you anxiety It's gonna give you pimples and it's gonna take away your appetite and you don't want any of that Right listen at the end so I will tell you this I work in an industry where everyone's production is sent out to the entire company every Friday I am not at the top.

I am far from it at the top But I'm not worried about that because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to do me and I think for me Coming out of school the biggest issue that I see with people coming out of code school and boot camps is they start comparing They get nervous. They start pressing and interviews Guys like Josh can feel the desperation it comes off as poor and you get more and more frustrated and you get more and more rejected Josh thoughts on Benjamin's question Yeah, absolutely. I mean even to just what you were saying there Taylor which is you know, you know, Benjamin.

It's like I mean again, let's say you know you spent the next couple of weeks, right? Instead of you you know being super super concerned with you know Trying to hunt down and do interviews and all that kind of stuff I'm not saying that you need to stop that but let's say you spent a couple of weeks and you really just Dug in and you built something from start to finish now again I'm not talking about necessarily anything super complicated here But being able to know that hey, I built this thing from start to finish all the way through and That gives you something to differentiate yourself actually a great example Just recently so one of the senior developers that are hired and in this market today senior developer.

It's a really big investment and so I was looking for something and I really loved you know talking to the guy and everything that was looking for something Just a little bit extra and he did the most amazing thing This is the only candidate I've ever had do this and it blew me away He actually went through a side project that he had built and he recorded a video and just stuck it up on YouTube It wasn't even anything fancy and he just walked through the app and he was like I did this Yeah, I was unbelievable Because it demonstrated so many things that demonstrated his communication skills his knowledge everything I've been preaching to one guy He used to be a frequent viewer of the show hostway is in Houston I told hostway you need to get on loom the software is a loom and Great piece of software one of their desires was a Nashville and you can walk through a project and What that will do is that will first off?

Create content because right now I want to sit at home So what's the best way to get Josh's attention to post on LinkedIn to post on Twitter? And it shows that you can communicate so Josh Thanks for affirming me Well, and again, this is back to what I was saying is you know I was telling you know Taylor of just You know, we're talking about this beforehand of you know Knowing kind of the rules of the game and that you know As a hiring manager again, you know if you get you get a hundred and sixty two hundred resumes that you're looking at You're literally get to a point where you're just going nope nope nope nope nope.

I'll call this person Nope nope nope nope. I'll call this person But occasionally you come across one where somebody's got something and it's not colored cancer your as a maze those are more annoying Hold on hold on hold on all right Listen Josh say that more time for for the few people who are still watching say that one more time And I'm gonna I'm gonna cut this clip with my media guys And I'm gonna blast the internet with this clip say that one more time The the fancy colored resumes are more or annoying than they are helpful Well that concludes guys counselor So talk about that right so let's dive into that a little bit.

Why is that?

Well again you're you're trying to optimize you know for speed with this and so you're not not Out of callousness but out of necessity again You got a hundred and sixty people who have submitted resumes and they are waiting on you to get back to them with some kind of a response And so if it takes me ten minutes to go through a resume The realistically I'm just not gonna get to them and there may be a diamond hidden in that stack of resumes So I've got to just you know go through and you're looking for patterns And you're looking for stuff that stands out

And so the problem is when you hit an arty you know fancy resume with a bunch of colors and things You have to stop and you have to sit there and now I have to go trying to all Yeah, I have to go find all the information and most of the time 95% of the time the information's not good anyway So it's kind of like now you've made me annoyed him the information's not good So I love that all right, so we're gonna wrap up here I want to give the people something tangible To kind of take with them because that's kind of my thing

right What would you advise right now for people who are looking obviously you're doing the right thing with your organization hiring junior devs as much as you can as much as you can What are let's do both sides?

So from a CIO side CTO side what advice would you give? Other CIO CTOs right now who are struggling for staffing their teams and just this market in general Let's start there and then we'll go to the job seeker side so talk so answer that question about the CTO CIO side things Yeah, I would say absolutely the number of really supremely qualified junior developers out there is significant and as long as you're not limiting yourself to a geographic location So give up on having people in the office and accept that you need to become a remote first or remote friendly culture Because now you can look across the entire you know continental US or anywhere else And find great developers right the pool is huge And the from a junior developer standpoint Know that the hiring manager again is sifting through a mountain of resumes And if do your homework Pretend your hiring manager look out there and see what other Junior developer resumes look like that and say okay, this is the bare minimum This is the average and just make sure you just notch that up just one level right?

It doesn't take a lot to stand out And and do that I would say that you're gonna do really well because you're really as a hiring manager I'm really just looking for somebody who I know is going to Is going to be a good decision to put on the team because I don't have just myself and the money I'm gonna spend on a salary. It's also the impact to my team which I'm very protected over And I want to make sure that I don't throw somebody in there who's going to completely disrupt You know the entire team and the makeup of the team So again, it's if if you're asking a company to take a chance on you You need to be able to sell that, you know That hey real quick Caleb comes in with the last question Josh.

What projects would it press you? So Caleb Josh did talk about this and And Josh correct me from Rama basically you said it's not it could be any project You need to be able to communicate it. Is that correct? Yeah, it just own it right I want to see ownership of the project from start to finish um and not something that again The projects that impressed me are not necessarily fancy projects It just projects that you can communicate to me Every single aspect of that project every decision that you made I want to know that it wasn't just a boilerplate You know something you pulled off the shelf tinker with it and then pushed it up onto Heroku or something If you can tell me like I made every decision about this project from start to finish again It could be as simple as a contact manager.

I don't care. I just want to know that you owned it from start to finish I thought I love it man. Well Josh Play a little beach music To get you out of here If you haven't checked out the app check it out I'm not sponsored check out pull side FM Further record. I'm trying to get sponsored by flow shirt company domen and try to get sponsored by pull side FM Just 80s vibes always But again, Josh thank you for hanging out with me Absolutely appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I like to be each and Let's do this again. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

All right brother Take it easy. Thank you all