episode 10 live - how to work with a recruiter

full transcript

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Again, Paternity Guidance Council 2.0, the live edition. When I say live edition, this was a podcast where I just interviewed people not live and then I put it on the podcast. And then now my main podcast that I'm putting all of my efforts into is unicorn finders. So check that out, www.theunucornfinders.com. I am with Jake Shepard and Daniel Thompson, both Vaco dudes. We have some pretty cool guests. We've had Nader Dabbitt. He's a senior developer advocate at Amazon AWS. We're having Mark Daddagash next week from Australia. Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. I wish I had a really cool accent. I have a best friend who has an Australian accent.

He's fantastic at it. Good morning, Tae. I can't see you. I can't, I don't know. Is this Jason? Jason, is this you? I don't know. So as always, text me if you want to get job search tips And then here is my VACO website right now. Again, that will transition to TailDestion.com after the new year. So let's go ahead and dive into the live show. Recruiters and how to navigate working with us. So again, this is very interactive. If you have questions, throw it in the chat at me. If you're watching on Twitter, no one's watching on Twitter that commented, retweet me so people can see this.

But we are going to dive into navigating with recruiters. The recruiters essentially are, we're kind of the used car salesman up today's industry. If you're a used car salesman watching this, I'm looking for a new car potentially. But at the end of the day, we are the used car salesman of the industry. So I want to give some practical tips and tricks on how to navigate working with us. Because I get a lot of questions, LinkedIn user, yes, Jason, you need to fix that. I don't know why I can't see you. We get a lot of, I get a lot of questions. Hey, listen, you talk about all the time networking on your own, and you barely talk about working with recruiters.

Are you saying you should work with recruiters? No, I'm not saying that. I think it is a one-two punch. The job search process is a one-two punch. And so I want you to work with recruiters. And so my thing is, for working with recruiters, sound by, see your question, I'll get there in a second, Well, working with recruiters, you need to have a few of us that you work with. Now, your question is fine. Okay, Taylor, that's great. How do I look for recruiters? Well, there's a little tip that I give and my team got mad at me here in Nashville when I said this because a lot of them were under the two year mark.

But I would look for the two and two rule. So the two and two rule is they've worked at the same company for two years and they've been in your local market for two years. So I talk about this a lot. I say this all the time. It's incredibly important. And the reason why I think it's incredibly important is because I've worked in Nashville for six years and I still am learning things. I don't know everything. I learn new companies every single year in regards to who's hiring, who's not. Hey, what's going on, Luca? From Nigeria, it's good to see you, ma'am. All of that, right?

I'm still learning. I say they need to be in your city for two years and need to be a same company for two years. So recruiters have a tendency to bounce around if they're not good. I'm going to call it like it is. We are heavily commissioned. My compensation is 60, 70% commission based. If recruiters, if you stink at your job or if you're mediocre, you don't have to stink. You don't have to stink. There are a lot of good recruiters out there who don't stink who still bounce around. But typically you have to get the base raises if you have to bounce around, which is another thing I'll dive into.

The fact you have to bounce around companies to get compensated equally is a whole nother rant I'll go on. Actually, I'm going to write that down. Compensation, moving around. That being said, two and two rule. You're probably asking, okay, great Taylor, do I let the recruiters come to me? Do I go to the recruiters? What does it look like? How did conversation yesterday with the developer, junior dev, moving out to LA? She's like, hey, I'm terrified. I'm terrified I'm going to have to find recruiters in LA. Here's what I do. And by the way, Chaf, you're listening, that's the developer. I need to still make those interest for you.

But what I would do is I'd find one recruiting firm. And I'd ask the one recruiter, I just interviewed one recruit firm, hey, love to work with you. Who else do you know in the city who do things well? I have two recruiters that I send all my people to who I think do well at other companies. Because here's the deal. At the end of the day, I want to place everybody. But I meet 500 people a year and I only place like 50 of them. Right? So 10% of the people I meet, I only place. So what am I doing with the other 450 people?

I need to get them connected to other places. So what I would do if I were you is if you talk to one recruiter at one recruiting company in your city, ask them, who else do they know at other companies who do a good job? If they don't know, not a big deal, but that's just a really, really good question to ask. Yeah, housewife question. What is the best way to find recruiters in my area? Yeah, what I would do is I'd go to the search bar and LinkedIn All right, go to the search bar in LinkedIn. Just type in recruiter. That's it and Filter out your city and what I would do is I would start looking at the two and two role.

Really what you want to see I almost filled my coffee just then what you really want to see is you want to see somebody there for at least five years like The sweet spot, if you can find somebody that's been at the same company for five years and recruiting in your area, Josue, like you Fort Worth, for five years, like they're pretty good. Most of the recruiters that I trust and respect at Vaco outside of my team, because my team is very good in Nashville and we're under that five year under the three year mark, is the five year guys and girls, right? Like there's a lot of people at Vaco have been here for a long time, longer than me.

I really respect them and what they do, they are better than me. And so that's one thing I do. So again, search engine, search recruiters, search your city, and then go from there. Again, if you have any questions like hostway, comment, I'll throw it up, we'll talk about it. So then, so let's talk about the next thing about working with recruiters, right? So the next thing is you need to do a Zoom call with them. You need to do a Zoom call with them. I have talked to so many developers that have been so caught off guard because I asked for a Zoom call. like, oh my gosh, all these recruiters just wanted to a phone call.

I'm so why would you not see somebody face to face that you would trust your job search and the next step in your career and you just have a phone call? That's me, Saflin. You would not trust your finances with your financial advisor if all you did was phone call with them. Like that's what recruiters do, I think recruiters, we have this used car salesman kind of vibe. We need to have confidence. I put out this video a lot. Recruiters need to be market experts. We know the market. I know Nashville pretty well. And so we need to be market experts. We need to have confidence.

We are the same as a financial advisor. We are the same as your accountant, your tax guy or girl. We are that from a job labor and market expert and placing you and writing resumes. So recruiters, if you're watching this, if you're a recruiter watching this, get on it. Be confident. Add value. Know that what we do is very important. Because I think a lot of times we're just like, well, we're just recruiting people by. And we just kind of see ourselves as this meek. I used to send emails out. I used to send emails out. They're like, hey, I'm another recruiter. Please, I hope you talk to me.

K, thanks. No. Now I'm like, hey, listen, love to work with you. Hit me back. Let me know. I love to work with you. Hit me back. Right? I am here to add value. And if you don't see me that way, that's your loss. That's your loss. Yeah. Dang, every recruiter's DM's, dead phone call. It's like, clockwork, I'm telling you, man. Like if a recruiter offers to a phone call, they're like, nah, I'm good. I'd probably move on. Cause that means they listen, it doesn't take that much more effort to do a phone call or a zoom call than a phone call. That's it. It's, it's the same same thing, same thing.

So again, so those are, um, Kathy, you're too kind. You're too kind. I appreciate you. So again, right. And, and, and so if you don't get good advice from the get, you need to move on. There are a ton of recruiters. A ton of recruiters out there. Historically, here's another one. Historically recruiters work. So Darrell, Darrell, Brian, may I appreciate you always coming in with a good question. It's also a great profile pick, by the way. Historically recruiters work to place regional contracts, fake roles. I think you misspelled some. Many firms are now 100% remembered. How recruiters adopt into that model? How can I find them?

Yeah, so this is another one, right? So this is why I have a personal job board because a lot of my jobs are remote now. And by the way, for companies, if you're not remote, listen to my rant yesterday, because you're gonna fall behind, very behind. And so historically recruiters, yeah, how can you find them? I would, if you find a recruiter that you like locally, locally, ask them, ask them for a recommendation at their company, somewhere else. Like I can send you five recruiters in that, in VACA right now, in different cities that recruit software that are really good, that are better than me.

Right? And so like that's how you do it. leverage the recruiter that you like and trust and try to work angles on other areas. I hope that answers your question, Darrell. Elliot, random recruiter prospects and software devs have really gone full call first usually zoom. Random contractor perspectives and software does really go on full call first usually zoom. Okay, cool. There you go. Awesome. Awesome. So anyways, so we're 15 minutes. I didn't really get through anything I wanted to talk about because all of y'all have asked some pretty great questions. Here's one question that I got earlier. Samba, hi Taylor, how's the market going to be in the coming year?

Any predictions? I mean, so Samba, great question. It's getting better. So I use the example of speeding, right? Like driving speeding. We were 35 in a 35 mile an hour for a while. Before COVID, we were going 90 miles an hour to 35. Right? We were moving before COVID. I would say holidays have slowed. We're going about 30. We're going about 20 to 5 to 30 miles an hour and a 35 right now. Right? So we've slowed tremendously. The holidays have finally slowed. The past few years we've never slowed during the holidays and we're slow right now. And then, but I think next year, I think it's going to be more I think that's why you need to lean on recruiters more.

And yeah, I think it'll get better. It is getting better. It is getting better. Wow, a lot of questions coming in. This is fantastic. Keep commenting. LinkedIn user, I don't know again who you are. I'm sorry. Why is it that recruiters describe roles in an over complicated way? Every role requires five years of experience, full stack, entire... Listen. this body of a 24 year old LinkedIn user, can you just comment who you are, your name? Cause I love that. It a body of a 24 year old. Because recruiters don't know cause they're not educated technically, they're not smart, they don't know technical terms. Right, if you check out my job board, it's two sentences.

Hey, this is a full stack Ruby role. You're gonna be focused on AWS. If you have any Angular, that's a plus that's what they're gonna be working on. That's it. I think a lot of times people mask, I think a lot of times people mask and over complicate the job description because they're insecure and they don't know anything. So they hide behind a bunch of facts and details, right? And I think that's people in general, right? People who are insecure, people who don't know things, hide behind facts and figures and data and all that. And so for me, it's like, listen, this is the role if you want it or not, it's not that complicated.

So yeah, that's why recruiters, I would also, it's not always the recruiters fault. I would also tell you that recruiters get job descriptions from HR at the actual company, right? HR is flawed. HR from a job description perspective is flawed, it's messed up. And so it's not always on the recruiter, but a lot of times it's on the recruiter. And so a lot of times hiring majors don't know how to write job descriptions There's not a lot of emphasis on that and so that that's why it happens. So part recruiter part Company more questions coming in. All right Elliot I will say that your advice was gold to find good recruiters You take them good night.

I appreciate there's a crew so much the two-minute phone call recruiters that are business Do you say to ditch you say to ditch? Yeah, that are all business. Yeah, I mean listen I just wouldn't call them back, right? If they just wanted to do a phone call and move on, I wouldn't work with them. Would you share recruiting El Paso? Hey, email me, email me, tailor at vaco.com. Taylor at vaco.com, please. And I don't know if, is El Paso close to Dallas or San Antonio or Houston? I don't know geography. So shoot me an email, tailor at vaco.com. Elliot, what do you advise doing with recruiters who reach out to you about roles of nothing to do with your skills.

How do you flip that to better roles for that? Yeah, this is a great question, right? You always gonna be thinking leads, right? Always leads, always, right? Every phone call, every phone call you have needs to turn into another lead, right? You always need to ask. I posted some link, didn't I posted some Twitter like, you always need to ask for something else. Never finish a call with somebody. And be like, okay, thanks. It was good chatting with you. Bye, click. Hey, Elliot, it was awesome chatting with you. you have anybody else in your network that you think I should get connected to. That's incredibly valuable.

Elliot, what I would say from a recruiter who calls you and not through your skills. I would ask them, okay, hey listen, I don't do this. This is what I do. Do you have anything? No, I don't have anything. Do you have another recruiter either at your company who specializes in this? Or do you know anybody in your market that you respect that I could also talk to? Right? That's what I would do. Taylor, keeping them real to, Hey boss, it's always nice when your boss tunes in. Hey, I have a quick hack too by the way, quick hack. I'm like really big on this.

I think this is game changer for the few people who are still watching again. Thank you, 19 minutes through this and you're still watching. Here's a big hack, you ready? Five finer critters you like. Five, five recruiters-ish that you like, right? You're not gonna like all five, I don't think I have five friends. So you're not gonna like all five recruiters. Here's my tip for you. I get goosebumps, I get goosebumps. I can't see it because I'm wearing long sleeve t-shirt. Also shout out, Vayko, this is the most comfortable, long sleeve t-shirt ever. I need another one. It shows off the traps. Have the fiber cruisers, BCC them.

Find a job opportunity on Indeed, on Dice, on CrewBuilder, whatever. Take the job opportunity. BCC all fiber cruisers and email them. That job opportunity. Hey, just checking, do you have any leads to this company? are you working on this job opportunity and see what happens? I will tell you, I can't get goosebumps. If you implement that today, today, you will find a job in 30 days. Nope, false, not 30 days. That's kind of aggressive, like 90 days, 30 to 90 days. Like that is absolute game changer. Do the BCC, I don't know anybody's done that yet. BCC five recruiters, send them job leads, let them work for you, let them make email introductions, and then the rest will follow and it will be an absolute game changer.

So again, hopefully the people watching that got that. Julio, what's going on man? Just dropping by real quick, say hi, busy at work, having on some day. Julio, I appreciate you buddy. Always tune it in. This is Mauricio Martinez. I don't know why my name is not showing, love you, but thank you. Also funny joke. Logan, CPA. I'm getting a kiln watching this. This is kind of cool. Do you think C-suite searches should take a different approach? Example, given higher non-continency route. Yeah, C-suite searches should take on different approach. I mean, yeah, I think the job search and finding people is flawed, I'd say change it up.

I'm kind of curious, what are your thoughts? Comment below Logan if you're still watching, but like what are you saying, like not contingency recruiters, higher knockers. Yeah, I mean, so typically from a C-suite perspective, there's something called like retained searches or I'm drawing a blank. We have it at Vaco. Our Vaco Arm is focused search partners. They focus on C-suite level stuff. And it retains searches like very, very in-depth. And that's what they do. So they don't hire a ton of like just typical recruiters like me, they focus on the C-suite side. But again, right? Like to be honest with you, I think if you're a C-suite level recruiter, you need to be putting out content all the time an interview and CEOs and CIOs, CMOs every day, every day.

Because if you're a CIO, CEO, CTO, and I see you doing an interview and I really like you, I'm gonna wanna work with you, which is kinda what I'm trying to do. So that's just a thought. What else? Gold, Gold on the BCC. Brandon Arvey, what's up, man? Kathy, thank you so much. Logan, should I hire a firm to look for me? Yes, Retainer? Yeah, I mean, listen, like, you know, we do retain searches. So if you're looking, obviously hit me up, tail at vaco.com. So we typically, so we don't, there's no recruiter, at least I'm not aware of, there's no like, contract recruiters that work for you, right?

You could probably work in that deal, if you wanted to. I read an article a while back about San Francisco that recruiters were basically becoming agents for developers, like specifically working for the individual. That's not typically the case. But if yeah, I mean, shoot, if you want to go out and, I mean, yeah, go ahead. If you want to go out and hire a recruiter and pay them to go find you something, I think that'll work. I think that'll work. Elliot, again, coming in, again, keep the questions going. This is a great, this is a good hangout session. I appreciate it. This is awesome. This is great.

Elliot, if you get rejected on technical skills and experience, junior applied for mid but the recruiter loved you. It was culture fit. I found that I'm ghosted. Why do they ghost and how do I stop from getting ghosted? So, um, well, so recruiters ghost and I talk about this a lot recruiters ghost because we're really busy, right? And that's not an excuse. It's not a good excuse, but we're just really busy, right? I put this out on content like typical recruiter has to meet 15 people a week, a week, Right, so it's 500 people a year. If you're with me, that's close to 3,000 to 4,000 people that I've met.

I have to keep up with all of them, not to mention, keep up relationships, not to mention like there's so much administrative like bullshit. I hate to say it's just it is. It's administrative bullshit that we have to do on our end to submit people to get everything rolling, right? It takes for everyone. So I think a lot of times you don't hear from recruiters because we're busy. Now, how can you make that stop getting ghosted? Keep checking in, keep checking in, keep checking in. Like I have developers out to keep texting me two, three times. I'm not perfect. I bet some developers are watching us like, you know what?

I've been ghosted by Taylor. And if you are watching that, I do apologize. I have ghosted people before. I just forgot to text back. And so again, And that being said, just keep checking in, keep checking in, keep checking in. Don't take it personally. Do not take it personally, right? The job search, you should not take the job search personally. And that's very, very hard to do. It's very, very hard to do. But do not take it personally. But just keep checking in. So, Ellie, I hope to answer your question. Thanks, Logan. Yeah, I love the BCC tactic. Yeah, I mean, listen, no one's done it.

Hey, if you do the BCC tactic, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tie it with that. The BCC tactic. If you, if you do that and find a job, please let me know. please let me know. Carl, Carl, my man from Raleigh. Dude, how you been? It's been a bit, like seven years, eight years. It's so good, man. I'm so glad you're commenting. Hope you're doing well, dude. Hey, I think I may be in Raleigh in January. So maybe we can hang early, say hey. Carl, it seems to be common recently to see job descriptions wanting hands-on technical managers. Are you seeing this trend? I found that the actual amount of hands on, they think they want, really isn't that, but they're stuck on that idea.

Yeah, so listen, this is another thing that we can get into. And again, I mean, we're going on almost 30 minutes. I didn't play on this. This is so cool. I mean, seriously, I'm just grateful that you guys are commenting. It means so much to me. But so my thing is, is that from a, Everybody needs, so yes, there's a management leadership and management in tech is flawed. I did a podcast with a director of engineering here in Nashville at Core Commerce, Alicia Novin. He is awesome. Check him out, check out my podcast with him. We talked about vulnerability and leadership within an IT organization, how to build that.

And so, you know, Carl, like you're saying, yeah, everybody wants hands-on managers, right? That's what's so weird. Frankly, Carl, I'm a hands-on manager. I have to recruit, right, at the whole another conversation. I have a team of nine and I have to recruit, right? This is why I do this now, because this is my way of recruiting, right? And so you have to be hands-on. I do think that a lot of companies don't know what they're looking for, right? I think so many companies do not know what they're looking for. and it really affects the job search process and it pisses off the job search job seeker.

Sorry, I'm cussing today. I'm just very hyped today. The coffee's kicking in, got some sleep, seeing some old friends like Carl, it gets me all excited. But it really, it really pisses off the job seeker because companies do not know what they want and they're so tied to what they think they want and not open to hearing Other people during the job search and who they interview and what they need. So yeah, Carl again, hands on. Yes, I tell all of my developers I work with and Carl, I may have told you this like 20 years ago when we worked together. You got to say technical.

You got to say hands on. If like to me, a death sentence in tech is moving completely hands off. And that is a problem within tech. That is a problem with in tech. So Carl, absolutely. I will look you up. We'll get something on the books. Brain and RV, my buddy. If people want the most qualified person for the job, is there still value in hiring someone off word of mouth? Word of mouth hires are from within your circle, and we know that internet and services like yours engage, mostly people outside your circle, wouldn't it be best to use you since we are looking for the best and not just a qualified person?

Yeah, I mean, brain, I mean, this is kind of, you know what's funny is this box is really big. So I look like Wilson off of Tim the Toolman Taylor. Remember Wilson, the neighbor, you can never see his mouth. So I look like him. Wouldn't it be better to use you? Yeah, I mean, listen, if people want the most qualified person for the job, that's why I use recruiters. That's why you use me, right? You use me because you want the best person within my network, right? That's why I'm doing the live things, right? That's why I'm putting out content, because I want you to know as a hiring manager, I want you to know as a job seeker that I'm not dumb, that I'm not dumb, right?

And so, yeah, word of mouth hires, that's why you hire recruiting firm, because literally we are the word of mouth, but we tech people out. So we're literally the best of both breeds. We tech people out, we know everybody. So then you find us, you have, again, this is what my brand was yesterday, you find us, you want interviewing you hire us and boom, you're done, you're done. We take all the guesswork out of hiring, for the most part, we're never perfect, I'm not perfect. Kyle, good question. Do you place more contract roles or full time careers? I would say pre-COVID, we're both, I would say now with COVID, I would say now with COVID, much more contract, much more contract, a lot of contract.

Contract to hire, companies don't wanna, Companies are trying to piecemeal projects. They do want these people full time. But again, it's a lot more contract work right now. What's going on? Jay Whistler, Jay Underscore Whistler. Carl, that reminds me of the JavaScript and say Design, Test, Deploy, Deep Like, Scalc, et cetera. Yeah, exactly. So that's going back to earlier post about they want a body of a 24 year old as well. Dad, hey dad, dad says, David Des says, my dad, you can tell, same person. I would say many supervisors give two hands off from operations to lose touch. Yeah, so I mean, listen, I'm gonna give a shout out to my dad, right?

My dad stays incredibly technical. He's in the restaurant industry, but he stays very hands on, very operational. I mean, he's been offered many times ago district supervisor, he's been a district supervisor. But my dad said it best, he goes, Do you want to play hockey or do you want to coach hockey? Right? I mean, he said that to me while go, because I asked him, I said, hey, how come you don't want to go manage a bunch of restaurants? Sounds fun. Yeah, the people sign up things. He goes, do you want to go coach hockey? Do you want to play hockey? I said, I want to play hockey.

He goes exactly. I want to play hockey too. So again, yeah, man, super measures get two hands off. I always think of the James Bond. I think it's James Bond. Casino Royale, I think. I'm not a really good movie person, but he takes the gun, and Daniel Craig empties the bullets, and then the bad guy tries to shoot him, and he's like, see, you've been away from the field too long. He don't know where the loaded gun, how heavy it's supposed to be. Kind of that situation. Dad, thank you for that. I hope you're not driving and commenting on that. Carl agreed on that. Carl, my dad, there you go.

A little conversation going. Elliot, have you taken on a candidate who didn't have the experience and they ended up being a good fit anyway? What did the person do to stand out and not get auto rejected? Yeah, I mean, listen, we sell, right? We have to sell, which is why, again, the whole argument of CBs, cover letters and is this still a thing? And we can get in that again. Listen, I'm gonna have to probably end this. We're 32 minutes in and we're still gonna start. Keep the questions going. I'm gonna try to counter real quick. I'm good for a little bit longer. So keep the questions coming.

This is good stuff. But we have to sell a lot right companies are like nah. We're like no Right we sell the Canada and a lot and a lot of times they work But what does that person do to stand out me they gotta be a go-getter they gotta be a go-getter They gotta be good to work with Right I mean the end of the day. It's not really skills. You just gotta vibe Got a vibe Right skills are great. You got to get skills to get in the door But you got to work well with others you got me a passion you got to keep looking I mean keep looking for always innovating new things learning learning learning.

That's what's important Hope that's your question though it LinkedIn user again, sorry. I don't know who you are for back end junior devs. How big do you suggest to have a portfolio? for back end so Portfolio just have all your projects on your resume all of them all and Notate them like they're real jobs I'm sick and tired of junior devs like saying side projects. No, that's your main project. Put month and year and date start date, all that. Even if it's three hours a week, put it down. Yeah, J.W.S. or IACOCA in his book management, so it's funny. J.W.S.S.S. or Dad if you're still watching, I think you gave me the IACOCA book.

Yeah. So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're showing what's up buddy. Yeah, yeah, LA come through clutch with the questions. Alright, cool. We're 34 minutes in. I think we're good. I think we're good on this. So y'all, thank you, get fatigued in to guidance counselor 2.0. That was a fun one. That blew up. I appreciate y'all time. Go follow me. social media at tdescent text me text me check out my podcast. Hey, oh, doesn't that are they go.com back to us. Hey, check that out. Got a lot of good resources resume templates. How to stumper recruiters with 10 questions. I'm going to talk more about this recruiters.

I think this is good. I think we're on something. So I'll go live tomorrow, not am essential. We'll talk about how to use a recruiter. And we'll go from there. Appreciate y'all. y'all have a great Wednesday and see you tomorrow.