raleigh .net user group meetup

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Hey, what's going on? Super excited to bring this episode to everyone. Sorry for the delay I've been on vacation for last two weeks then spending the last week at the office trying to catch up on work It was a wonderful vacation came back with a corgi puppy for those of you that do not know I am absolutely obsessed with corgi puppy. So super stoked to have a little puppy at my house now wanted to bring this episode to everybody so this is from a meetup that I spoke at in Raleigh right before I started vacation. So for those of you that do not know I spent about a year in the Raleigh, North Carolina tech market.

I got super invested with the guys and girls at the Raleigh.net user group or try nug for they call it and I had the wonderful pleasure to go back and speak to a great room full of individuals and this podcast is going to be a little funky with the audio so I do want to prep for that. I did not have my mic set up properly but we did talk about a lot of great things and it went for a very long time so So hopefully you guys can at least pick up another two out of this podcast for you to use the next time you're on the job search.

Few things as usual. If you can, please, please, please rate this podcast in the app store. This will allow it to gain some traction and be discoverable for others who are on the job hunt. Also, if you need to reach me, social media is the best way to do it. specifically Twitter, that's at tdesint, d-e-s-s-e-y-n, but that is the same across all platforms, Snapchat, and Instagram as well. Finally, if you do need to reach out to me and you don't have social media, shoot me an email, taylor at vayco.com. Hope you guys enjoy and I look forward to bringing this one to you all. Hey, I'm in New York, but I have run into it on the west coast.

More of a surprise because I've had people I was like, oh, you're older than we thought you'd be. I bet you haven't said that to my face. You're a lot older than we thought you'd be because you're a developer, and we don't expect that. Because both of our developers are like 19 years old. And I've heard people say, well, we don't hire developers over 23 hour company because they age out. I mean, do that little sketchy, OK? I don't care. Do you have any series where you can see Google? I mean, yeah, you know, yeah. You know, yeah. I mean, that's the problem I make.

They just, they all sit there. You're like, man. And you'll have things like, obviously, you have like, you know, what, I have to do my resume. I've got blocks of like 20 years, you know, put in one paragraph. I still have a five-page resume. But people look at, you've been doing this a long time, haven't you? And then there's still like oversurprised you to still stay current. Although East Coast is not so bad. On the West Coast, you do start running into, you do start running against, actually whatever I don't know if you guys know, so it's the left Microsoft, he's the year old son, and I just, I don't know if he forebooked this.

But he read their problem, he was their new another company, And they're like, even though he wrote some of the tools, it was leading the team, they wrote some of the tools inside of the internet explorer for the dev tools. Is it Ryan? Which I hate to say? No. Huh? Ryan, hit me? No. No, I brought here. He's on his farm doing work. No. Anyway, big, big, big, big thing to talk about here. Yeah. I mean, again, this is what I'm saying, right? I'm just one person and this is just what I see. I mean, I had to have a, we also let everybody know I'm also VP of the dot at user group in Nashville as well.

So I've been that for the last three years and we have a pretty active user group, not as active as you guys would be meeting once a month. But, you know, Jean and Jerry is our career panel and basically we have a very transparent conversation. Basically what's going on right now just with some other developers. managers and you know we had to have tough conversations about discrimination in the workplace right from like an age of sex perspective and you know I and I had one individual who obviously has been burned and was it was very you know frustrated and communicated that to me and I said listen I said I'm one person I go I haven't experienced any of that and the five years have been a national I've seen guys that are like retirement, you know, or benefits and whatever, and get a higher degree, for example, because they have great skill set.

But on the other hand, we had a guy named Bill Walzer in the Android group, and he was interviewing for Android jobs, and he showed up at some of these places, and as soon as they saw it, they were like, oh my god, he's like 7. So he made a joke out of it, and he talked to him and said, well, that's for senior developers. Yeah, check that out perfectly. I'm basically you're a bull at tree and I wanted a bull at tree and that's where you're going to have to be like, there are all those guys like 28. Yeah, and again, I mean I'm just one person then, ultimately at the end of the day I can only speak to really what's going on in the ashbooks, I've been out of this market now for five years.

Yeah. But, so are you. So no, I haven't experienced any of that personally. I think as long as you keep your skill sets relevant and you know how to interview, I think that's another thing too, right? So I think if there is a caveat to age, and trust me, I see a bunch of hipster millennials think they're hot shit too, but I think there also is some entitlement from a senior perspective, and at the end of the day, Don't be a dick right like I mean that does a good life model in general But I also think I have a lot of these seen I have a lot of older individuals go in an interview and They're like yeah, I crushed that That's great first off.

That's a kiss of death for recruiters If anybody comes out of the interview goes I crushed it probably didn't do that great just a little behind the scenes but second off from Egg, what the heck are we in a wind tunnel now? No, it's a car. It's a wind tunnel. But another thing too is that the feedback we get, that's usually a note with these older individuals, they come in, they were just jerks, right? So I mean, I think keep your skillset relevant, we know, keep the skillset relevant and don't be a dick and you can find. But I think a lot of times on both ends, the younger age group group and also the older age group that can kind of come into play.

So what else? This is good stuff. It's all good stuff. How do you recommend preparing for an interview second? Yeah, so if you listen to my podcast, actually I interviewed David Green here in Raleigh and we talked about some white-wing books. I hope your screen's okay after that one. So my podcast called I hope guidance counts are 2.0. It's on every app store. But basically I interview senior developers and hiring managers on their job process, what they look for, what they hire, and David Green, we go over basically about, there's a few white boarding books that he recommended on how to study for it. I would also, and this sounds so trivial, but be able to speak to what's on your resume.

I mean literally like we have these guys that like have all these in like for me I can talk super high level about it and if you like say hey I see you you use like react and in this project like how did you guys use it like what was the functionality for it? And like I can usually like tell by the way They talk if they like actually use it or not But like a lot of recruiters can't and also what happens is is they go hey How many years of X do you have? How many years of Y do you have? I'm gonna go ahead and submit you.

Then you get the interview and then you get grilled because you have some technologies that you're really wanting to learn kind of spread throughout your resume. Sprinkle throughout your resume. I would say have your resume very accurate into technologies and products you can speak to. If anybody wants to email me, I have a resume template that I send out. I actually got it from a Raleigh office when I worked here, it works really well. I think it looks really good. I've tweaked it a little bit on what it looks like. I have business cards, so feel free to come up afterwards and get that out of email to you.

And it's worth wonders with every developer I've worked with. But I think another thing to know more one-page resumes, like I want to kick the guy's counselor into shin, whoever said one-page resumes, like I'm tired of that, give me more. As much as recruiters can sell you, your resume still needs to have the necessary verbiage, right? I'm gonna be honest with you. Y'all are terrible at writing resumes. Like, this is the way it is. I'm sorry, but like, let us help you with that. And use a recruiter that wants to help you. I think that's another key indicator. So I listen to a lot of business guys.

One of the guys I listen to a lot is Gary Vannerchuk. I'm sure some of you are part of him. He always talks about this 51-49 mentality, right? Giving more than you take. And my thing as a recruiter is if I can't place you, I still wanna help you. I still wanna help you write your resume. So I wanna help you do, you know, talk about some interview stuff or, you know, role play on, to talk to your boss about how to get more money. That is a big thing a lot of recruiters don't do. And so I would look for a recruiter who's willing to go the extra mile and sit down with you and go over those things.

Because, because we don't do that enough. And so the recruiter, the way I break things down I'd like to see a super high level of a project that you've done. So let's say you've worked at the same place for a while. Have you been the same place? Still you haven't jumped since, right? Exactly. So somebody like you, I would specifically spell out certain projects that you've done. I would do a project overview, basically, if you were talking to your mother. Hey, Mom, I developed an app. You go on Facebook and click log in. That is me, right? Something like that. Then what I would do is I would go into so much technical jargon that your mom can understand, but higher majors can.

And then what I would do is I would recap again the complete stack of the specific project. And then I usually recommend three to five pages. And if you've been in the IT industry for any longer, I would say with any longer than seven years, I would say at least three to five pages. I would say nothing more than five though. I would say that's getting a little too long. Yeah. I transitioned from engineering to software about two years ago. Awesome. So about half of my resume is engineering stuff that doesn't necessarily apply. Right. The experience itself, but it doesn't apply to software. Yeah, for sure.

What kind of length of resume would you expect from that? So what I would do is, so first off, for the last two years, have you been doing your own stuff, trying to get experience, or have you actually been with the company? I've been doing both. Doing both. So I would, my recommendation to you depending on, so if you have two years of experience within a specific company into a specific software development work, I would probably keep, I would probably outline that with five to seven bullet points for sure. And have, you can almost have one page between a technology overview to start, you know, I'm a, you know, former, you know, engineer turn software developer, currently doing X, Y, and Z at X, Y, and Z company wanting to do ABC, dive into everything, but I would still probably list like two or three bullet points for your past few years before that and get as quantitative as possible.

So I'm really bullish on this. A lot of people like give me like, you know, like I feel like on your resume like can work well with others like yeah no kidding you've been doing it for a while. You obviously work well with others for the most part. So basically, and the reason is, so it's very sobering, it was very sobering to me, so my dad was a restaurant manager. He managed to outback steak on some my hometown for 25 years, And it basically was killing him, literally. And so he finally left and he didn't know what to do. And so I rewrote his resume, helped him write his resume.

And it was very, because I deal with sometimes developers become transactional to me. I'm not going to sit here and say, I'm like the best recruiter of all time. And I take care of every single person I work with. Like at the end of the day, I get paid when you get placed. So like there is some transactional quality to what I do, but it's very sober when you have to help your dad with it. And so that was really good for just my business because I was able to sit down with developers and go, hey listen stop putting the work well with others say Hey, this app I worked on save the business 30 million dollars, right?

So for example Here's here's a specific takeaway if I when I start tables at Outback Steakhouse and I said my My responsibility was to take food to the guests and help them and make sure they are taking care of. Or what about this? My resume said, serve tables average $1,000 in sales for a top 10 out back in the entire country averaging $5 million a year in sales. Which resume is going to get the look of the hiring manager? I think the more quantitative you can get with your resume and still obviously bringing the tech side of things, I think, I mean, I'm telling you, good resume, I look at resumes for five seconds for five seconds.

And if it doesn't have what I'm looking for, it's gone. And I probably look at over 100 resumes a day. Five seconds and five pages? I mean, how do you manage that? I do so. I do so. So I need, yeah, I'm a speed reader. I actually hate reading. So my thing is, is I look at your current position, if you've listed out what you're doing and I could get a very good sense of what you've been doing in the last, probably two positions, position or two. The rest of the five are for when I meet with you to go over your background and then HR at the actual client and the hiring manager at the actual client.

That's more for them. So that's kind of what that looks like. And when I say five pages, I quickly look at it, and then I move on. It's basically true. So that's what that looks like. Yeah. Circifications? Not needed. No value. No. No. So does it add any references or like, you know, if you're good, I can't remember the best name certification. That's you, any? Nothing. I mean, the only certification that I really see in today's market is more infrastructure side. Again, I can't speak for anything outside Dev, right? Like I'm super narrow, but I feel like I can speak very well to the 1% that I focus on.

I know a lot of security stuff is security search, like C, CIS or CIS. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. That's exactly. Exactly. I would say those are still very clickable that I've seen from a dev side. I would say cloud. I would say the only dev certification because it's still such a new field for the most part that companies are, that sticks out. sticks out. Like I've had a few resumes I've submitted and guys on the guys I was going to talk to that have had the AWS server Azure cert and it goes a longer way than somebody who just has like their Microsoft.net cert or something that.

So I would spend more time volunteering the time you take the study for a cert I would take on new products learning new technologies for free. but you know, no resume trend. There's a no resume trend? That would make my job so much easier. I'm moving back. Don't tell us that. I don't know, even here, when years go, I mean, I'll be able to go out and say, if they need my resume, they don't need the hardening. But the thing was, now people are using GitHub accounts, or blog posts. They're not really linked in and going off to that. You hear Facebook, but it's totally different.

So they're not even using resumes anymore. This is more of a West Coast thing, I think. But that's coming here. I feel like you should just go live out West, it sounds like. Yeah. That was his lease tour. Well, that's right in Logan. What? Yes. I mean, so I will say yes, there's some fluid into what you're saying. So I placed the guy, he actually started today. He took, so he was a junior dev, took eight months of he worked pro bono at an actual company to get specific.net react experience. And his resume looked great, but he provided a ton of code samples, his GitHub, was able to kind of spell out some other things, had a good LinkedIn presence.

All that stuff matters. So like for us, the resume still matters. But I think if you're well connected like you are in the market, the resume doesn't matter as much for you. Right. So I think if you're able to have your resume looking really new and your GitHub looking really good. There is a link to that if you want to. I think if you have the web presence like Twitter, huge on Twitter, right? I don't know about y'all but like I'm all over driving super bowlers about Twitter lately probably last year. Yeah exactly. So that being said I mean I would say it's probably you know the whole no resume trend I would say it's a trend because you're really networked in.

We're talking about a junior guy and the market just moved from LA like me. His resume is still going to be it. So. As a person who's been a hiring manager, who's been hiring, for me I had a thing in it. There's a thing going around. They said, well, what the said, it was a 501 with aligning to it. We don't want 501 developers. And what a 501 developer does is apply the clock. You're not a when you're not a door. You're not going to need more coding at home. You're not coming to the fact that people are coming to you're trying a lot in a user group or a JavaScript user group.

Put that down. I'm sure a member of these extra activities, because that shows us not just a job for you. And me is, if I'm a hiring you, I think if our person is dedicated to learning, then someone is sitting there and just filling the seat. 100%. Yeah, I would say that's huge. As a hiring manager, and also some back to what you're saying, for engineering, the fact that you did you solve problems? Did you take situations, you solved that problem, and you solved something? I'm gonna look at that as a hiring manager, and if you're gonna do fix something, I will see you figure crap out, because honestly software development is, everything's gonna be for me new to you, anyway.

So as a hiring person, I won't know that you wanna learn, so I just thought about that out there. That's why it means to me is I don't give a crap about your resume, frankly. I can't remember. I'm sure. I'm on a blog post or do you second phase, but what are you doing? Are you coming to meetings? You know, are you speaking? Absolutely. Attitude. I've had a good role attitude for it. Yeah. It's like Code Camp and some of the open presentations. Is that what's including the rest of the day? Like speaking stuff? Well speaking, I haven't done any of that. Oh, you don't want to just like attending?

Yeah. I mean, for sure. We have one client, Nashville, that wants quote unquote tinkerers. So they literally, we have to submit their resume. They say, I want you to ask the developers what podcasts are listening to, which now should be my podcast for everybody. So podcasts, what books you're reading, I don't read books, obviously podcasts, what conferences are you attending. We have to submit that to the client. And so, you know, and one of my other podcast episodes, I talk about being a social developer. So, one of my good friends that I placed in Nashville from Chicago, he's a JavaScript React guy, he's at a VEMP right now.

And he and I were kind of talking about our podcast and the talk switched way differently than I thought it was going to. We just literally talked about Twitter for like 10 minutes, just using Twitter. And Kyle Welks is his name. He's super active over Twitter. Whenever he has a problem at work, like a coding problem, he tweets it. And then of course, I try to tweet back at him. Like I know what I'm talking about. This is really funny. No. Oh. I'm like, just press escape. That's all you gotta do. Just close it down and restart it. It'll work for you. Yeah. Just hit the computer a few times.

But he's been able to network a ton. And it's allowed him to basically one learn from other people. I mean, I know you've been super active on Twitter, too, with your speaking engagements. And it allows you to broaden your network, but also show that you can't. I mean, I think there is this thing that's being pushed lately. I've talked with one of my other guests on podcast was I feel like there's a push lately for software individuals to just have more empathy and just to have much more understanding and it's not all about the soft skills. I mean the hard skills and the tech skills and literally one of the guys talking to goes absolutely.

There's more of a push right now, you know, the whole don't be a dick thing. It's more prevalent now than I think it ever has been. And I have clients that are willing to have to hire people now who don't necessarily have the skill set but who are just good people So just FY there kind of I'm seeing in the market Yeah, so I mean interviewing I mean interviewing for us too like so I would get with a recruiter who and and I'm really answer your question and kind of go into another thing because we haven't touched yet. I'm probably the most foolish on this one point, is find a recruiter who can coach you through the interview process, and to tell you who you're interviewing with, and the personalities you're interviewing with, and the team structure, and who's the problem child, right?

Like, I think that's really important, and we'll educate, because a lot of times, recruiters go, hey, can you do a phone call at smart three o'clock? Yes, okay, great. And then like, some hiring manager calls you XYZ company and you have no idea like what you're gonna talk about what questions are being asked like who they are as a person for me like I'm again I don't bat a hundred percent I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm perfect but for the most part I really try to be bullish on hey here the four people interviewing with here they're linked in I've placed two of them they're really good dudes I have a beer with them they're super chill one guy moving from Oregon I see that you know you've lived out in the Pacific Northwest maybe you that's combined with them on that.

Be able to kind of educate individuals so when they go into an interview, it's almost like just chatting with a friend because he already knows so much. That's my angle. And then if you feel like maybe you're not the best at interviewing, come in and actually interview with recruiters. Like just use us as a trial, like trial and error. There's a lot of us out there. You could get a lot of practice if you really wanted. Um, but, um, I don't know if that answers your question at all. Does it answer your question? Um, no. No. Right? Right. So-so-so-so, re-ask the questions, re-ask the- You were saying that you were the people.

I was trying to figure that out. Like, how are they gonna figure that out? Like, how do we show that? Yeah. Like it's like- How would the hiring man know a person is good? So, for us, yeah. So, I tried. I try so so so so I try my best to match And they guess not my end is match candidates with the companies that would fit culturally So when you interview with them There should be a fit Does that make sense? Like I'm not going to submit you, so let's say you and I meet. And you're like, I don't like a wide open seating. Again, this is just, I don't know you, so we're just talking here.

I don't like a wide open seating environment. I want to be at a cubicle. And I really hate agile. I just want to be super waterfall and just kind of do my own thing. And I don't want to work with a lot of great technology. I think I'm really good at C-sharp, and that's all I want to do. Okay, I'm not going to submit you to a super agile shop where it's in a wide open seating that is arrangement and it's just going to be a complete mismatch. I mean, like, fit people, not good people. I mean, like, the person who fits in them. I was talking about the technical problem.

So that's up to the hiring manager. So I guess I'm a person from my end. I'm a person from my end. Like, the end of the day, you're going to have to gel well on your own with the hiring manager but I'm going to try to get you and connect you with the clients I think you will able to gel with and they like you and want to before with you. Speaking of old people. I'm not sure if you have shown people. Sorry, sorry. Hopefully. For flight, I'll just go in. I'm not sure if we have what kind of projects, how many various projects and how should it be presented?

Yeah. A lot of questions. So, first of all, I would say what type of job are you going after, right? So let's say you're a dotnet guy and you don't know React and you want a job that's going to eat your React. I would want, from a recruiter perspective, to submit to the hiring managers, I would want you to be able to send me a GitHub with specific React code and the projects outlining with the company that you did to work with and what you've done before that company. I say what? Your self teaching. Your self teaching. Then I would study up really hard, send me GitHub code samples and then have a recruiter who can be extremely communicative on the front end that says, hey, this candidate doesn't have any professional coding experience.

Here's his GitHub. Here's some projects he's done on his own. Do you want to speak with him? It was always open source projects that could be your element. Yeah. Even if it's just a language translation, you're if you was doing code documentation. You could hear a committer on something, they like you. So. Is that hell? I want to make sure I answer people's questions, I don't want to be like vague. I got to the end. My wife gets on me for that. But I don't think if you guys are worried about your first knowledge point for an interview, pay me, I'll interview first on me if you look at it.

So last week, we had a promise. Last week, man, he had worked with me up. He had just got the job out in San Francisco. So he basically did an interview and went out there. And so his presentation was on his GitHub code. And literally he had about five simple projects. like there were not like low worlds but they were also not like of this really expensive application. Really what they were were little projects that were amber based applications that had like five or six different libraries that were pertinent to the job that he was and so he had built five or six apps where he had these different types of libraries that he didn't grade it and used to just go and he did it well and so this is this is stuff that he basically presented in like a two-hour presentation.

So it's not really in that code, but it's enough to show that you notice how to use those libraries and put them together for the sample up there. And it was enough to give them a job in San Francisco and move doctor and just do it. I'm not making this $300,000. We're in the 600 square foot apartment. Sorry, I'm asking San Francisco. I mean, it's not like to give them a project as like the super obstacle, as one of them said. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. So like you want to go and interview for a job that's using X, Y, and Z framework or library.

I think if you do the project on your own, do some sort of open source, I know there's a lot of, I mean, that's a whole point of open source contributing and stuff and being actively involved. I think as long as you can say, hey, hey client, hey recruiter, this is what I've done and have it very straightforward and plain and be able to explain it. Again, the big thing is being able to explain it, not only your projects, but what's on your resume. I mean, I made a little small, practically animated. Yeah. And got all those good space invaders. Yeah. Yeah. But that's it, though, right?

And I think if you can go in and do a few of those things and go and say, hey, K-client, I don't have this specifically. But here is where I'm trying to learn. How many people in here are leads or hiring managers? So just to get so kind of, yeah, there you go. So I don't know. I mean, would you say you would rather see some guy or girl come in with not the exact experience, but be willing to have it to show they've done all this side-product work? Don't be difficult with me. I'm so angry. I'm so angry. Kevin, this is a high-rate entertainment.

Yeah, but I placed it initially. So, yeah. So, my team? Yeah, absolutely. I've brought in someone who was an intern, just got a master's degree. Although I have a special case with a company where the people I generally interview are, they have to be a very high-end database developer. So I can't have low-end database developers. Sure. By low-end, that will mean you're not very good at your job. I mean also, green junior. Yeah, like this is a very complex environment. My team is a little special where I can bring in a junior person, build up a junior person, and I have done that. I've got two of them plus one.

They're a senior person to counterbalance it. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I just wanted to make your case more. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, again, the whole thing I've seen is companies want takers. And so I think if you can come in and show what you've done after hours, I think that's gonna go all the way. Right, like my intern, I pulled her in. She went to user group meetings, I found her there. And I was able to get her in now, she's working full time. Yeah, she presented too. She did. Wind forms? Wind forms, what about it? How? I'm just how well it was to demand you?

In Nashville, I actually have. There's actually been quite. I'm talking to Dust Hope. Yeah, but it's all right. Yeah, yeah. Believe it or not, I'm one of the, I believe or not, I don't understand. OK. So I would say for again I can speak in Nashville, I know the way I think we're at the end of the day, it's the world's world but I think there is a very needed market. If you want to move to Nashville, I have one client looking for ten, win four, developers. Jim, are you ready to do this? Jim, are you raising your hands to run with the Nashville with me?

Jim, you know, and the thing you don't have evidence is that file new windform projects are the most projects created in the year. Really? Yes. From Microsoft numbers, file new windforms is the largest number of products built. So if people sign windforms, it's still huge. It is. We need a quick utility. Yeah, well, you can see it on one of that too. If I want to test something, I have a file new windform that I love in the form. I'm playing with the code there, try it, yes. But he said exactly, just like that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I love it. I love it.

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I also use DevExpress. Okay. And I've noticed that it's been, you see that a lot in the magazine. Yeah. Is that being used? What's DevExpress again? So it's a whole lot of things. Yes it is. I would call it to you later. I mean, I would say from a toy perspective, I haven't heard the word buzzword, DevExpress. It's been tele-controlled. God, it's woman-controlled. Okay. So, I would say from a windform perspective, there has been a slew of it nationally lately. And we have one client, they developed military software, but they do some pretty cool stuff.

and it's all like, they do some VR stuff and whatnot, I mean it's, and also too, I don't know if I'm over speaking and correct me, everybody in here. From a software perspective, but they're doing some other crazy stuff too. But they do kind of the aircraft controls type things, and simulators, stuff like that. But what I don't want to over speak, but I'm also seeing kind of the market too, there's more of an emphasis on hardware as we move more towards kind of the VR area. I don't know, I'm seeing that a little bit more, I don't know if that's me over speaking as a recruiter, but I'm seeing more an emphasis in Nashville, at least from more of a hardware perspective.

So that's just kind of what I've seen. What do you see more VR? I know one client using VR. What's the Oculus? Is that VR? Yeah. So Microsoft has their new, their new stuff, which drives us with it. Yeah. They're calling it a mixed reality, which really is both virtual reality because they all have augmented in there. The augmented is, yeah, but, it's not necessarily what you were. Right. But yeah, so I just curious what you're saying. Yeah, it's just why he's not telling them. It's not a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. It's not the octopus. Correct. Not the Facebook octopus. No. Okay.

You're raising your hand trying to help? Yeah, I have a question. Yeah. So you already punted on how do you find a telepartum of a person? How do you tell an off-home company? Ha! It's a good one. Ooh, that's good. That's been a life. So I'm going to be completely straightforward here. I currently recruit for some awful companies. Can you ask the recruiter? Yeah. And honestly, if the recruiter, if it's a recruiter you want to work with, he or she will tell you straight up. Charlie, can they go credit? They have always been. There's some other companies that some of us have pointed through. That have not been so legit.

But they have always been like, yeah, this company sucks. Yeah, I mean, I always tell it, it is a work with the good bad and ugly of every client, right? So there's one client in Nashville, but I'm not naming names or any industries or something, but basically they have gone through tremendous growth. They've been a lot of new technologies. But because of the growth, there's been a lot of turnover and people kind of can get lost now. You met in your team? Say what that thing you were? No, we don't work with them. So I'll say listen, if you come in and you work here, you're going to get X, Y, and Z exposure for technologies.

But we've had some people leave because of this reason. There are some companies right now, one specifically that is not good at all. And we just have to be straight up. Hey, listen, there's been a new regime shift. It's a little dicey right now. Okay, so aside from the honest recruiter, no joke there. No, I was gonna make a joke about that. That's not really, yeah. Last door. So yeah, but my store, the problem is, if you had a good experience with a company. You never write something. Exactly. It's like real reviews. Yeah, it could be because the company is a bad company. because well frankly you were a crappy developer and I fired you because you didn't get your crapped up.

So you're going to write a mouth for a few of all my managers and idiots and he constantly got on like ace and a rank to get out of everything. So it's a case where there's a lot of noise. And companies are starting to gain the hell out of it. Yes, that's the other side. We're like a five star major. This is the best company ever. Every single day there's a new five star or a new pool. You can also, I mean, I mean, when I was looking I'm going to talk to managers. I'm going to talk up another company that's interviewing me. I'll even make you up.

I'm going to interview another company. And talk about how cool it was. And sometimes I'm going to be manager looking at me. And almost be on my phone. Sometimes I'm going to go, oh, did you want to interview there? And there have been times when you're just, yeah, this company sucks. Ah. I'm going to talk to somebody who's on the train. And I'm going to find out everything there is to know about the company. And sure, actually, if you can build or form with the person you're interviewing with, and you can actually get a lot more information, you can ask more questions that come down a path, and you can actually see the person's reactions and the things.

And I mean, that's why the people I interviewed with a community of all sorts of tricks, you're asking how you find out what good people are. Well, I do things to see what their reactions are. But you do the same thing as an interview you can go in and ask questions, do what their reactions are, see how, and just kind of take it. Oh yeah, I mean, you're interviewing them, as well, I mean, especially right now, it's crazy, the tech market is just nuts right now. I mean, I have, and I don't know, Ryan, can't test this, and any recruiter in here can test this, but we have candidates that just kind of interview, and they're like, ah, it's just not it, right?

And because they have like five or six other offers, or potential opportunities coming out, but the thing is, is those people, those individuals that I meet with, they interview the clients. They interview my companies. And I think that is a skill that not many people bring to the table is, yes, well, you are going to get probably bombarded by React questions for a React job. You also need to make sure you come with questions because, you know, today, it's your fault if you get placed at a job and you didn't ask the questions coming in. I mean, I had one guy that I had just placed.

I literally texted him and I gave him everything, all the information, good, bad, and the ugly. And he still, he still expressed his concern with me a month in and I should have asked him, I did. But I was like, did you ask the questions? Cause I gave you a heads up. As far as questions go, there's nothing more effective than maybe somebody talked about themselves. Yep. So you can ask them a bunch of personal questions, hobby questions, or maybe you can ask them people love talking about themselves. Research the major on LinkedIn. I guess know where they worked before. And when you leave that interview, if you ask them a bunch of questions about themselves, and they've talked a lot about themselves, not the job, not the company, themselves.

When you leave, oh, they're going to like you. Oh, he was pretty good. I know. You know, they trust, really, it's huge. There's an angel in it, some expressed an interest in you, and you talk all about yourself. You like that person, because they listen to you talking about themselves. They're going to think they love you. My wife, on our first date ever, I get to be able to talk with her with questions. And she literally makes fun of me. She goes, you interviewed me, and I go, what, they worked in it. And then, so. What's her boyfriend thinking? Yeah. I'm just saying. What's her wife's name?

Sure, let's just say Jackie. Ahh! What else? I mean this is all good stuff. Oh real quick, recruiter guidelines, I want to bring this up. This is my two cents. This is kind of a quick filter because I know everybody in here, let me ask you, just raise a hand. How many people get bombarded once a week on LinkedIn? Phew, it wasn't. Okay, how about once every three days? once a day. Yeah, exactly. So here's my little trick with this. And this is my little kind of thing that I'm pretty bullish about at these conferences I speak at and kind of share our secrets. I would only work with the recruiter that's been with the same company personally.

I would say for more than two or three years and has been in the local market within that market for at least a year. Because I will tell you this, I've been a natural for five years now and I'm still learning the market and I've been with Baker for seven. And so there's one recruiter that used to work in Baker years ago, obviously doesn't work here anymore. If you go to his LinkedIn, everything's like one year, ten months, one year, nine months, two year, one month, one year, eleven months. I mean literally it's like clockwork. And so if you can work with the recruiter and it's been the same place for more than two or three years and it's been in the local market recruiting the industry that you're in For more than a year, he or she should be knowledgeable enough to at least get you started on your job search.

Anything else, don't work with them. Don't work with these college guys and girls coming out here. I actually have a good friend, his job architect works at Deutsche Bank here in town. He and I were grabbing lunch when I was here and he was like, I feel like recruiters were what developers worked at.com boom. Like everyone wanted to be a developer, everyone wanted to pay a ton of money, everyone had a review, you know how to code 90 days. And then he goes through with it for the people who want to do a long term like me. And I go, yeah, that's exactly what's going on.

You get these college guys and girls that have no idea what they want to do in the other college. They're all like type A athletes that like couldn't cut into pros. And so they're all like hyped up and ready to go. They're overzealous and they're super annoying and they ignore the heck out of you. And it's just all numbers for them. And so if you can find somebody who's been at the same company for a little bit, they're able to kind of have more of a relationship with you instead of treating you like some sort of number. So I just want to go ahead and get that out there.

So what I know, how do people, how do you buy people? Yeah, so I'm going to say this is a great question. So I use dice a ton. Everybody know what dice is in here? Dice? Yeah. Holy cow, those people have like shook their head no. Great community. Oh, wrong guy. I'm going to show you guys here. I don't know if that's great. Dice, you have to be in technology to use dice. I don't really use career blur anymore at all in my searches because when I search developer, I get anywhere from construction to who knows what. I don't know what it's been 10 years ago.

Yeah, exactly. So I think crewmenor's got like a data thing that they got to fix. With dice, if I search the word developer, everybody that pops up is going to be a software database, whatever developer. So I would highly recommend that. I would also have your LinkedIn up to date. Now, this is caveat. If you don't want people to hit you up on LinkedIn, don't have it looking good. But David Green, a use of a lot, because we talked about it on our podcast, he, which I'm pissed off at him because he used like a professional, he didn't call me, and it really took me off.

That's beside the point, we're still working through it. He, if you go to his LinkedIn, his LinkedIn is perfectly spelled out. The way I want to see developers, so your LinkedIn is your summarized resume. So what I would do is literally three sentences, project overview, specifically specific technologies you're using and that's it. Because what you want to do is you want to tell the recruiter what you're doing, what technology you're using, and that's it. So there is, so thank you for bringing this up, there is a feature that not many of you guys and girls know and it's on our end. There's a feature that you can click and it says open to opportunities.

When I search for developers in Nashville, I immediately go, so let's say I need a dotnet developer with Angular 2. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, now we're a version you guys are on now. Basically, I go and I plug into LinkedIn, dotnet and Angular 2 plus. And basically what happens is there is a certain, and I maybe need to work to send my presentation of hey having slides, but there is a tab where us recruiters can go and click on open to opportunities. And it only pulls up the developers that are open to opportunities. Now, we can still message people who are not looking, but if you really want, if you're like in dire need and your company's like going under or there's a layoff, make sure you select that little button because you will get it in flux of messages from us.

But then what I would do is I would go through and use that criteria I said, and kind of weed out the kind of the newbies with the people who know what they're kind of doing. I still really don't know what I'm doing. Just. Yes, you do. So yeah, so I would say LinkedIn Dice is kind of where I like to play. I don't use Monster, I don't use Crew Builder. Those two things. I'm saying career builder, I have many polls and it's all data feeds. Really? I've got some people say, oh, I saw you in your career builder and I'm like, well, I don't have one.

So I love that maybe it's straight. I like indeed. Yeah, so indeed has a, indeed and dies are the same thing from what I've been told. At least on the recruiting end, because we got our accounting teams, got a license to indeed, and he didn't because it's the same data that pulls from dice. So I don't know what it looks like on your end, but I know indeed is becoming more with thing now. So I would recommend that. I would recommend. I would post it indeed. Wait, say that again? Guys? Yeah. Post to indeed. Come on, you and I. Gotcha. OK, so from a posting perspective.

Right. OK, well, I may need to look into that then from a record perspective. Glass store. So I don't understand. How do you, how do we, do we find? I've never found anybody in the Glass store. Is that a thing? You can search in the back. Can you? OK. Yeah. You can search in the back. You can search in the back. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, glass door's fine. Yeah, absolutely. I just from off on our end, and also I would only work with two recruiters, Max. Max, I think if you're not happy with two, find another one. Do you tell them to him they weren't the other one?

Absolutely. I literally sit in meetings and I go, don't let me be the only person you work with. No, wouldn't that, that excludes major corporate recruiters looking? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, corporate recruiters, So the reporters actually call you from the actual company. That's why I met agency like Vancot, Texas, and it was a half, well, but. Like I would work on only two of us because I would say maybe in Raleigh three, because you guys I think are a little larger of a market than maybe Nashville from a tech side of things, but a Nashville for sure just two. And if you have to fire one, tell them, hey man, hey gal, it's not working out, Nothing personal.

Don't call me anymore. What happens is we don't get the hint, we keep calling you. OK, we're going to have anybody put a different job in the sex pill anyhow. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, two degrees. Yeah. I'll often show the once you have a job secret in your day to day story or your stable. How often do you study? Or I'm starting using that. I will love that. I'll often show daily contact with the crew. Yeah, so this is another great question. See, I love it. I knew the juices get flowing longer, we keep talking. So I keep an email newsletter of the best people I work with, that I email out every three months.

But I don't spam. I say, listen, if you don't want this, tell me. But I'm just saying, hey, I need to do a shameless, self-plugged in my podcast. But basically it's value added, right? Hey, how are you doing? Just want to see, you know, kind of what you're up to. So I check in with like my good people every three months. If you didn't make the list, personal. I'm gonna go on the other flip side. flip side. So a lot of people, so yes, recruiters for the most part are terrible at their jobs. But I do want to defend us for a quick second. Hear me out.

Our job is to meet 15 new people a week. New, not the people I met last week, not the people I met last month, not the people I met last year, I met weekly. We have to turn through a bunch of people. I was gonna say another word. We have to meet a lot of people, and it's exhausting, and we can only, I think there's like a number, like a person can only keep up with like 120 relationships or something like that, or some, something or anything like that. For me, it's like three. I'm terrible at it. Yeah. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Two tops. No.

Yeah. I always tell developers I work with, please annoy me. Email me. Text me. Call me. Because don't call me because I don't answer the phone a bunch. Text me. Email me. who stay top of mind with me get jobs. If they're good, right? The caveat is, I had one called Fusion Guy just bombarding me right now in Nashville. Like it's called Fusion. Yeah, no, right, not a ton of called Fusion going on, so, but he's just right. I say what? It's still being updated, I swear to God, I just found this out like a couple weeks. Seriously? Yeah, like they just kind of released this.

You're crazy. They get the message. I just believe it. So check in with the recruiter, right? So it's a little give and take. A lot of times like, oh, recruiter, talk to me. Well, did you fall off with them? No. OK, well, it's a business relationship. There's got to be checking on both ends. But again, I would say probably once a week for the first month and then if y'all can't get anything wrong, just go to every other month or once a month. But at that point, if they're not able to help you within the first 30 days, they're probably not gonna help you immediately, if that makes sense.

I would also start looking for a job sooner than you think, if that makes sense. Most people wait for, look for jobs when they get the layoff, when they get fired, and then you are, then what happens is, is you don't ask the questions on the interview, because you are stressed, you just want a job, and then you are miserable in your next job. So I told my brother, I said, You need to just constantly just keeping her head up. See what else is out there. Like I work with a ton of senior engineers in town. They're like, I'm not looking, but like just send me anything that's up my alley.

Like, okay, I will. Yeah. Hey, you talking a lot more than that one for a second. Yeah. How was the market for an architect? So what should you talk about today? So I always say this, companies can call people, whatever they wanna call them. So, from an architect perspective, I feel like that name is thrown along way more than it should be. Right? Literally, I had a guy get a CTO job and the company just threw the CTO title out because he wanted it. He's never had leadership before. He's literally an individual contributor forever and then threw him a CTO job title. Because I got him an offer.

And by the way, I had the decency to call back the recruiter. Sorry, little rant here. Call the recruiter back. Don't email him, right? Live it. How did a guy in Austin, he's a QA automation guy, called me up. He goes, man, I'm really sorry. My wife took it. I got a promotion. We can't move to Nashville anymore. I go, man, that's totally fine. I'm going to be in Austin next week. Set me some lists of things to do. Let's catch up. Grab coffee goes great. That sounds great. The other side of the things is the guy shoots a guy. me an email, I try to call him just to have a conversation with him he side buttons me.

Guys listen, it goes both ways. Yes we can be pretty shitty as well but don't like, don't ignore us when we're trying to help you. So to answer your question from an architecture perspective, just stay hands on coding. I would say the market trend, I don't know Ryan what you see here but like you're going to be more like to be honest. I tell everybody's like I want to move into management. Great, I'm not going to help you. Because we always get called for the developers. We don't get called for the managers. And if we do, there's only a few of them that are already in the pipeline that we can probably loop you into.

But people still want, people come to us. Again, this is just me, right? Two cents. But people still come to us for the hands-on coding. Which answer the question, do they go through for management? Internal. Internal promotions. Yeah, but then of course, no one wants to raise your hand because no one wants to get out of code. That's a whole other thing that's nice to see. I've talked to a bunch of senior developers about that. I mean, who's in the companies? Are our firms that do recruit between just one level management, or talking with firms that specialize in it? For sure, for sure. And they're out there.

But I would say just from a market intel perspective, just stay its hands on as you possibly can. I placed one guy, the most hands off of places, the guy was 90% in architectural meetings, hands on and he was still able to get a hundred percent coding job. Well, because you guys have... Yes, that's... No, I was just having a brain block. Anyway, thank you. The committee has thrown architecture jobs across the area. Yeah, I mean, they're there for sure, for sure. I just meant like long, like looking out past the architecture because everybody calls architecture, You can be an architect at IBM and I'm sure it's going to be a different than architecture at somewhere else and so and so right.

But I think at the end of the day just stick hands on. I mean I think people where you found those would be to get those goals and have things like Docker and things like that. Yeah. As you may as well. When you have that recruiters see that they get requirements for developers. Like they'll get a requirement for a developer but you're really in architectural position. I'm not going to say what we want somebody who understands deaths and debobs. Actually, just had one of those come to death. We're looking for a developer. Reading is when, okay, you want somebody who can architect how these forms are going to work.

You want the code deployment processes for this. Plus you want the architecture, how do you want to do these different data score strategies and all of this. So, yeah, I think, but if it's all different, The technology I have to mean is, you know, finger experience. I think they'll talk to you. They'd be at a bowl of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I needed it with a bowl of... For sure. Chip is a water man. Yeah. Alright, we'll go with glasses. Science is the early relationship that you had a good recruiter. As opposed to my usual, I go and go there with everything. No extra glasses.

I said, that's your class isn't it? Where are sluice pants? I've got the answer for beer too. My Irish beer. Yeah, I'm also... Few things, and again, I have things I have to work on. Right, I obviously, Kevin called me out, I punted on two questions. So I'm obviously not great at answering questions sometimes. But the thing is though, is that I feel like I do it fairly well. And so I'll tell you from my perspective. I think one, the recruiter wants to meet you. Why would you ever want to work with a recruiter who doesn't want to meet with you and be responsible for possibly your next step in your career?

To me, when I get the developers, like, oh, let's just talk on the phone, I'm like, why? Obviously, I don't mean much to you, which is fine. like my job I get rejected so much in my job but be being willing to me right so that's first I would say I would say the next thing is do they ask the necessary questions right so do they go through your job history you know do they really so So the question I always ask, like listen, I know what you do inherently on your resume. What do you want to do? Why are you looking? The conversations with the recruiter come back out of it and say, hey, listen, what's important to you?

I think it's a big thing. And also, the third thing is the warm and fuzzies, right? Talk about interviewing. When you interview somebody, they ask you a bunch of questions about yourself together, That's great. Does it feel good? Like, hopefully when people hang out and they're like, oh, I love to hang out with Taylor. And so I would say if you get that feeling, I would say, compared with the criteria I told you about staying at a company for certain. Also finally, I'm really bullish on LinkedIn references. There's a few people in here that have written references for me on LinkedIn because I want to show it to the dev community.

I'm not another recruiter. So see if that recruiter... If you're getting an empathy from them, you can feel that. If you don't feel that, you're talking to a recruiter. If they don't care about you, then you probably shouldn't be caring about him. I work with Taylor. He cares about people. He wants to know who you are. Not paying him to say this whatsoever. Not. You're credit carding him. Yeah. You can tell somebody that they care about you and if they don't walk, because there are Do care. Perfect thing you were saying was this person is helping you on the next step of your career. Holy crap.

That's an important person. Do they care about me? No. Next. Find a way of this. And that's just the feeling you get. Yeah. One thing I do from, because we just hire, after I get back from vacation, I'm heading to the beach tomorrow. I have to train two more people when I get back. The big thing with me is I actually hate hiring people who have experience. I want to hire people who I know care and who I know just love love on people because that's the entantles. I can't really teach that. I can teach you the difference between .NET and Java or the big one, Java and Java scripts.

Watch out now. Watch out now. Watch out. It's the same thing. Yeah, exactly the same thing. Hey, the question of difference is actually kind of impressive. Thank you. So, yeah, I mean, I would say to the care. I think it's another thing too. So many recruiters are just not involved. And that's one thing I've been pretty bullish about with, like, speaking and stuff is like, I want to show you guys like, and actually do like this stuff. Like, my wife's like, do you listen to Ann other than tech podcasts? Because I want to know what's the latest thing that has your just released or what happened at Microsoft, at the conference thing, whatever.

So, how? Oh, go ahead. So, if you're on a job and you've been doing it for a while, then you're going to get some skills and then you start getting data right. So, you mentioned that college is pretty hot right now. So, let's take somebody to ask them a lot of college, but they're in a job where they've got some skills that are starting to get data. I go to the SQL user group and every time I ask a question about Azure and the cloud, SQL and the cloud, it's like people don't even react to it. It's like, oh, we just do SQL on our little servers in the company.

And to me it sounds like it's really good and data. So what percentage of your opportunities are you getting? Are these hospice type jobs where, you know, technologies don't apply? Not many. Not right. No. Yeah, Kevin's like, how much time we got? We'll go over as your people right now. Hospice type job. No, so first off, first great question. But I think you got to find what hospice technology should work. Because, yeah, but see, So that question is so dependent on the market and so dependent because like for me like if you asked me six months ago I would say there's no windform out there, but we sign a new client and now there's 13 jobs So it's like what percentage of your placements are things like that.

That's what I'm asking. Okay like maybe 10 15% Okay, but I would say Ph.B. stated to do hospice IT jobs. And he's got like 40% growth a year because he's just doing like, oh, we can do this. There's a lot of aim for, I've seen a lot of aim for him out there lately. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so here's the deal. So there's jobs out there for that. And if you want to stand that vein, you just got to be open to move. No, I would rather move like you said, go into the club stuff, I would like spend more time doing things. Exactly.

I mean, and so what people don't understand is that looking for a job is a full-time job. Like people, like, so if a recruiter asks you to edit your resume or like help with X or help with Y, like don't get pissy with them. Like they're trying to help you. And so, say what? You can't have a five. Yeah. It didn't work. Yeah, but the thing is though too, like you have to understand, and that's what I'm telling you kind of what I said. You have to start looking for a job earlier than you think. because there's a lot of things you have to be prepared and you have to get ready for, not only what the recruiters need, but also kind of on your end, updating kind of your skill sets and stuff.

But I will say yes, there are probably more opportunities out there, and especially companies use us for the newer stuff. Does that make sense? So I don't see a lot of the hospice compasses, or hospice, that's a lot of hospice compasses, client risk. Hospice, whatever technology term, And I'm sure you're referring to, because most companies come to us to find the stuff that no one can find, and then I do find somebody that gets six other offers before I can do it anyway. You go to a group, you come to the .NET group here. How many people are currently working in AWS and Azure regularly?

How many people on the SQL side are working in Azure, AWS, Google Cloud? Sorry, I haven't showed you there. I got that. Yeah, I got it. Got it. But it is a fairly small percentage. And of the group that are using it a lot, we're just using it as I has. Okay, I just need a cheap virtual machine somewhere. I'm still going to act with this on-premises mentality up here. And I think there are still a lot of good reasons to stay on-prem. I think that we will be on-prem for a very long time. Not least of which because you basically have to rewrite your applications to save any money in the cloud.

But it is a fair point that there's a large percentage of people who will say, I don't really want to go jump on this thing. Like, how many people are jumping into containers right now? Chip is, yes, but it's a relatively smaller set. You get jumping into containers? I know what I said. I know what I said. I know what I said. A lot of things internally used to have SQL DBAs, but now they have moved into a developer, DGA, a position. Oh, yeah, like a database engineer, whatever type of talent, what, what, right? Yeah. And so what I'm saying, when I talk about SQL groups, specifically, are people doing I mean, I still get mainframe jobs.

I still get, you know, I think there is I get some, but not a lot, right? I would take it 20% or something like that, but it's like, that's not something I would want to go focus on, right? And the things that I don't like that, I wouldn't want to go focus on those. I would rather go into doing what you want. But see, what I would do, and that's where I would pair with a recruiter because one of the initial questions we talked about trends, and I said, you know, kind of the dot now, the CI-CD stuff and then shit just validated me. He didn't realize it a few minutes ago when he was like, yeah, I just got sent a dot and an architect job with a bunch of CI-CD dev-op stuff, right?

Right, and that's where you have to partner with your recruiter. So then you call and say, hey, are my skill sets relevant? And I will tell you yes or no. And then if I say no, you need to be like, we need to get out. And so I think it's, again, having that constant communication loop so you know where you're staying in the market. Not only because of skill set, but also. Cool. Listen, at 748, I can keep going for like two hours, but I feel like there's some things and some stuff, some things and things. So thank you guys so much. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Bye. I appreciate it. I'm proud of you. I appreciate it. I'm proud for you.