networking, consulting, and more than a salary w/ jason bock

full transcript

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

Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco, VACO.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email social media at tdesintesnyn. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. Jason, give the people what they want, who are you, what do you do, and we'll go from there. Sure. So my name is Jason Bach. I am a developer advocate at Rocket Mortgage. I've been there now for just over a year and a half.

I think my start date was June 12th of 2020. Yeah. Years run together. It's been, some 2019 till now, it's just a blur. Yeah, that's as about to just say, it's like, man, the past couple of years, for some odd reason has been really kind of a blur. But yes, I've been there for just over a year and a half. I've been a software developer in many different roles and ways for about 25 years now. And most of that actually, until I started working at Rockin' Mortgage was working at consulting companies. And that was my mindset for about 23 years until I joined Rocket. So it's a little bit about just, you know, just the background terms of my career.

I also do a lot of speaking and writing and presenting, you know, streaming for Rocket Mortgage. We have our stream now on Twitch. I've written some books in the past and much articles, all that stuff. So that's like the short show of who I am. I love it. So Chris times in, he goes 2020. Yeah, 2020. Yeah, Chris, we can always count on you. Elliot, yes, the last show of the year. So I appreciate y'all for hanging out. Pia, good morning from Vegas, Usman, Craig from Charleston, my favorite city, I think, period, but don't tell Nashville that. Kia, what's going on, good morning. All right, so Jason, let's dive in, man.

So Jason and I were chatting off air, and I always hang out with my guests like 10, 15 minutes beforehand, try to get an idea of what they wanna talk about, meet them, hang out. So Jason, the one they wanna dive into first, because I'm fascinated with is, Jason was a career consultant for 23 years. And I was like, nah, I'm going to go full time now. So first off, we've talked about consulting a little bit this week. So if you're kind of rolling your eyes like, great, here's another consulting talk. We're going to touch on a high level because we got a lot of other types to touch on.

But Jason, what are just some things that if people want to get started in consulting, just to think about, and I know this is a kind of a sparrow. I didn't ask you, I was going to ask you this. But what are just some general thoughts there? So, yeah, I mean, I did 23 years of consulting at four different companies. Most of that 20 years was with a company called Magenik, which they no longer exist. They got bought by Cognizant. Okay. They got bought after I left. There's no correlations there. But still, so I had this mindset for a very long time in terms of how you approach your job and your career from that particular view.

you know, just because I left and I went to rock it, you know, that was the right decision. I think it was the right thing to do for my life, you know, but I don't regret either all that experience from being a consultant for that long of a time. There's to me, there's definitely some advantages to it. You get to not end to be clear when I was in so I wasn't an independent contractor. So I didn't know. So break that down real quick, because again, I want to try to educate people. I think a lot A lot of people are sitting on the sidelines that maybe want to do contracting or contract to hire a freelance, but they just don't know the difference.

So break that down. Yeah. So the companies I worked for, they were not like contract for hire or they wouldn't try to place you per se. It was, they were consulting firms that would go out and work with other companies, other clients to, you know, to get these gigs, get these opportunities to work on projects and stuff like that. And then we would fill those roles in those positions. So I was never interviewing for jobs per se for a long time. I would just be working full time through those companies. And I do know some friends of mine that are independent contractors. They go out, they do all the stuff themselves.

And it's just, it's really what you're looking for. From my perspective, it was nice to work for a company that they still provided the 401K and the health insurance and all that other stuff. if you're an independent, you know, one thing is you tend to get all that income coming into yourself, but then you got to do your own taxes, you got to find your own insurance, you know, so it's kind of like, well, what's important to you? And I think that's something I'm going to mention probably a couple of times in the stream is, you know, what is important for your career. But either way, you know, from a consulting perspective, I'd say some of the advantage are you get a lot more opportunity, a lot more work in, more verticals, and get a diversity of views in terms of like how other companies work, what their cultures are, what they do, what they do well, or what they don't do well.

So, you know, if I think back like of all the companies that I did actually consult that, I can't even probably come up with the list. It's been so many over the years, you know, from really, really small shops to these massive huge companies. Some of the disadvantages are, you know, you're not necessarily owning what you build or what you do. And you also sometimes have have to deal with those corporate cultures over and over and over again and adjusting on the fly. And that can be kind of draining at times too. So just like anything else, I think there's things you have to weigh on both sides.

So if you were to break it down, I'm going to say my thoughts and I want you to definitely disagree if I'm off. So for me, freelancing is a wild west. If you're like, I want to travel the world, I want to, I want to set completely my own schedule. I want to be, you know, maybe you're single. Now, I know a lot of like married with kids like, like that freelance. But like, if you're just like, it's just me, I don't have to worry about anybody else, then freelancing could be an opportunity for you right now. Again, like Jason said, like, you got to do your own taxes, right?

Be careful with that. And because you'll get just be careful. And so we're like, Yeah, be very careful. So like all that being said, like that's freelance, contracting with like a recruiting company, right, like a VACO or like your company that you work for for 20 years, that's a really good in my opinion, middle ground, where I think if you want, you don't want to stick on one company one project for a long time and you want to bounce around and have different exposure and experiences of industries and tech, but you don't want it to be the wild west. I feel like contracting is a great opportunity.

And then there's direct hire, which obviously we'll get into there. So I wanna hear your thoughts. I mean, is that relatively accurate? Generally, I mean, again, for just as just my experience, to me, if you talk to other people and what they've done, they might have their own view on it. But I'd say generally, I agree with what you're saying. The freelance independent thing is, you just have to make sure that you're, you know, you're really willing to sell yourself in terms of, you know, how do I get that next gig? If something's not coming up, what's the next thing in the pipeline? You know, it also has some risk involved there because maybe the client you're working for suddenly had a downturn and they're like, yeah, you're done today.

Nothing gets you. You're done by how would you do? Your income has literally just been cut off. So you have to make sure that a lot of the independence that I've talked to you, that I've talked to you that it's like, you gotta have that buffer there. Yeah. You know, just to make sure, and that's a good thing to do in life in general. But I think especially when you're independent consulting, you know, you have to make sure that you're always thinking about what's the next thing and what's gonna happen if the current thing is no longer the thing. Yeah. So absolutely, absolutely. We wanna give a few more shots.

We got a few more people trickling in. Yolanda, good morning. Alan, it's good to see you, my friend. Hopefully you're doing well. Obviously, yes, like Chris said, shameless plug. Listen, everybody on here, go follow the Rocket DevRel team. I mean, here's the deal, right? Like, I've been able to meet a lot of amazing people on conferences and I will tell you this, and I'm not being sponsored by Rocket to say this. I'll back that up, you're not. I'm not. I will tell you this, y'all have one of them, and we're gonna dive into this with culture. Y'all have some of the best people I've ever met in tech.

I mean, the kindest, the most caring people who wanted to foster the tech community and have real conversations and be open, like shout out to the Rocket Dev World group and Jason and Chris and just all those folks. I mean, you guys are crushing it. What's going on? It's good to see you, Brian, Chris, Alicia, yes, Rainy. Alicia was good to see you last night. I met, so shout out, I met Alicia. So Alicia and I met virtually in 2020. We have never met in person. We both live in Nashville and we finally met last night in person. Alicia was great to see you. LinkedIn user Good Morning from Nigeria.

I love it. And Chris goes, I will back that up. Hey guys, all right, I get it. All right. So let's dive in to kind of the next topic and the importance of networking and especially as an introvert, right? So everybody on this call, I'm an introvert. Like I said, I mean, I am like, I've worked out this morning cold shower coffee like I'm I'm just jacked up right now, but I will tell you this. If you saw me last night at 7 p.m., I was tired. And so networking wears me out. Jason, let's talk about that. How do you network as an introvert and not feel fake?

Yeah, because that's exactly what we're talking about. That's what I, if I bring it to like a non-place that isn't involved with like professional work and the job and the career, you know, I'm married to somebody that married for 24 years. Yay, shout out to Liz. Brad's man. I'm five years in, I'm like, yeah. I'm welcome. Her family, like my family was smaller, a little bit more quieter. She's one of six siblings and I don't know how many, like cousins, nieces, nephews, grandkids, great kids. It's like an ex-family. Huge, yeah. And the first time I went to visit like her family at a holiday get together, I had to like find separate room after a while.

It was Jason, I go to the bathroom. That's what I do. I just like just sit down and hang out. And you know people that have this this extrovertive mentality is like I would hear sometimes from her parents. Great people by the way. I'm not cutting down. He's so quiet. You're about to go into Christmas. You better say that. I mean, even if not, like you gotta say that on air. They know this. We've talked about this, but it was kind of like, he's a good guy, but he's quiet. He's so quiet. And I think the thing with extrovert and introvert is introverts will love they will talk your ear off If it's a topic that's of interest to them, correct I think that's the one you know where I see my father-in-law He will just go out like if we were to go to lunch or something when we'd be visiting with him and say he'll talk to anybody And I just can't do that to him.

That's genuine. That's something that's just he that's the way he is I'm not I can't just go up to somebody and talk about things or if they start going on to a topic that Doesn't really interest me. It's really hard to it feels fake You need to show interest. Yeah, and so when I'm at a conference or I'm sitting at a lunch table Or whatever the case may be it it's harder for me just to kind of go hey Who are you I feel like I start having that salesperson mentality? Hey, how are you? What can I talk to you about? Yeah, exactly. You know, shoot a redavin or whatever.

Whoever's gonna listen to the podcast afterwards, they'll be like, what is Taylor wearing? It sounds like he's like in a windbreaker. Yeah, I am. I was gonna give you, well, give you a little grief because I live in Minnesota and I'm like, you know, you wanna talk about cold. That's, that's cold right now. So I talked to somebody from Minnesota literally last night, he was a recruiter and he's trying to figure out kind of what I'm doing. And he's from Minneapolis, Minnesota as well. So, hey, and everybody, we're getting comments right now. If you're an introvert, I want to hear from you. And also too, if you have thoughts or have questions for Jason on how to network as an introvert, definitely, definitely thought up.

Kiyo goes, I find the dog. Chris goes, that's such an important point. As an introvert, I have three rules for hectic gatherings. Chris, please post those because I want to pin those. Pia, obviously, props. He's so quiet. So Brian goes, being at least somewhat introverted, Networking online has definitely helped, especially having a baseline of who they are. Yeah, so again, I mean, Brian and I talked about Peglake Porker as a barbecue place here in Nashville and Brian, our messagingee and Brian was like, have you ever been to Peglake Porker? And I was like, oh my gosh, that's like the best macaroni and cheese ever. Actually, and Chris Demars has been to Peglake Porker with me.

So again, that's incredibly important. Chris goes, take breaks, I can leave if I need to. I'm just trying to make one friend tonight. Ooh, I love that, Jason. So let's keep going on how the network is an introvert. I do agree with Chris Scott, not the Mars. Now that I don't agree with the Mars, well, it's a great process. Showing up right now. That yeah, for introverts, I think that's the thing is, people that have that kind of like salesperson mentality and I use that because my dad was a salesperson for many, many years and I met a lot of salespeople as I was growing up.

And they, when I did that kind of thing, that's the mentality that I see and it doesn't feel genuine to me and it doesn't feel real. And it's this, I got to meet 50 different people and I have to have all these contacts. But I think Chris Scott did really nail it in that, maybe it's just one or two that you meet at a conference. And to that point, I will bring this up. There was one time that I was at a conference and this is still back in my consulting days. And I was talking to somebody at the table, we just started to talk tech and everything else.

And he had kind of a subversive reason to it in a positive way because he wanted to get a little bit of feel for the company I was working for. And we're like, hey, we need, we have some needs, we have some things that we need to get done and we're looking for people to partner with. And you know, who can I talk to you? Now I'm not the sales person. I said, I can get you in touch with the people to start another conversation. That ended up being a huge gig for us. Just this one little half hour conversation at a table, wasn't anything, you know, that big of a deal at the time, but just because we made that connection that ended up leading to a lot of business.

So that's the other thing too is you never know, especially depending upon what you want to do in your career where these things can lead. But like you said, you don't have to be at a conference and sit down for lunch and try to talk to eight people there at the table and then quick move to another one and talk to them. Because I'll tell you this, most people at the table don't want to talk to you. Well that's the thing too. Yes, exactly. They've got their phones here and they're just like sometimes just doing this. Please don't talk to me. Please don't talk to me.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I've actually, I've actually unlocked that early because so as a recruiter early on, I was like, man, I got to talk to everybody. Right. I got to talk to all the people. Also by the way, I'm going to finish this thought if you guys have any great icebreaker questions for the holidays with family, let's go ahead and throw it up here. Let's make this kind of a holiday Christmas thing. If you have any questions you love to ask family members or just networking questions, throw them up. I would love if you would share those here. I also realized early on, I was trying to talk to all these developers and they're like, listen, I tell most recruiters just go to user groups and just shut up and just sit there.

Actually, do the opposite not talk. Well, I was just going to say though, I think this is one thing we talked about with networking beforehand and the importance of it, even if you're introverted, even if it's something that is outside of your comfort zone. Building those relationships, even if they're one or two or whatever, you know, at a conference, whatever, that can be gold. Leading into how I got to Rocket, I was at a conference. Like it was the last one before COVID, like I said, nope to everything. And I ran into somebody that I've known for many years, Ted Neward. Oh yeah, I'm interviewing Ted.

Like I've never met Ted, but I got hooked up with Ted. So I'm interviewing him next month. And I met him like 15 years ago at some language conference at Microsoft and it was awesome. It was a techie. I was like, I learned so much there. And that's when I first met Ted and should be told when I first met him, I'm like, you know, that was my first impression. And if you're watching, we can break this down. We can break down this meeting when you and I hang out in January. Yeah. But the more, I mean, I would just get to know him more and more at conferences and just, you know, and just, you know, we kept that relationship going, that thread going.

And as I got to know him better, you know, I got, okay, now I get more things. So the point is, I got to know him, build this relationship, react this conference. And you're just like, Hey, how are things going? And you long story short, I said, you know, he saw my reaction. And he's like, Oh, what's going on? And then a little bit more of an insight. And he said, you have time to talk. And we ended up going off into a corner and we talked for about an hour and he taught and then that's when you're talking about some of the opportunities that we're at at that time quick and loans which is not where I can mortgage.

And so again a relationship that started 15 years ago and it's not like Ted and I talk every day you know that's not it but it's that up that led to an opportunity to where I am now. I love that I love that so again if you have icebreaker questions for the holidays throw them up because I'm gonna go hang out with my wife's family in Kentucky and I need them. So go ahead and throw them up. Yeah, so Chris goes going back up here. I giggled at this. He goes, he's so quiet. Yeah, no offense. You're wearing me out. Bro, isn't that the truth?

Isn't that that you also didn't realize we'd go off the rails about introverts and holidays. But here we are. So let's see here. Miriam goes, if we're ever at a networking event, the other come find me. I'll network for both of us. I love that so much. Miriam, I love that, I love that a lot. Chris goes, what's your favorite thing about your job? Oh, I love that. Not what do you do? What is your favorite thing about your job? I love that. Pia goes, I simply don't have the bandwidth to set a goal to connect with 50 plus people to Vint. Yeah, I mean, listen, going with Pia's setting and kind of what Jason and I've been talking about, I really had to change my strategy going to conferences.

I used to get really overwhelmed. When I started speaking at conferences back in 2018, I was like, I got me to everybody. I got me to all the speakers, I got to shake all their hands. And it's like, man, like shit's exhausting. And so for me, my strategy now is I really circle about five names that I really want to meet. And usually, it definitely the people I don't know. And my goal is just to find them in the crowd. Like my goal, like I'm like a heat seeking missile, right? Like my goal is I'm gonna come to you, I'm gonna hang out. Now you can be like, Taylor, I feel like that's fake.

No, I mean, I can see that, but also too, like I also want to meet people. I truly do, but I just can't meet everybody. So I don't think there's anything wrong with that. What else? Alicia, what is this? You asked for icebreakers. I need to share some of that with my heart last night. My wife told me how last night while I was chilling on Taylor that she had one of those icebreaker question packs. And she asked my six-year-old girl, who challenges and helps you be better? I love that. Oh, and that's easy to ask. I love that, I love that Alicia. So, and again, y'all keep commenting, but I'm gonna continue on.

So this won't become a holiday family event session. So let's go on to culture, right? So we got the last nine, 10 minutes before we wrap up. So you've been, you were consulting for 23 years. You made the jump to rocket. Talk about culture and how important it is. And really right now just with COVID and the job market, I mean, can you shed some light on that? Yeah, I'm glad we're gonna be talking about this, because I think it's definitely an important thing, especially if you're looking to go to a different place. The thing I have in my mind is, what is that equation for you?

Like there's all these different variables to look for at a place where you're gonna be being employed at. And sometimes I think people look at one variable, which is salary, which is important. Don't get me wrong, that's important. But how much is that way for like insurance 401k and time off and a lot of things including culture. You know, and what that is to everybody is different, but you want to make sure you know what that is to the best of your ability because it matters. And one thing before I joined the rocket is, I was at a company for 20 years and I was there for that long because I enjoyed it.

I liked it. At some point, you know, things just started to change a little bit. If there's one thing, though that I felt we struggled with was that notion of culture. There are people that I would meet that came into that company. It would say to me, the first day I got on the job, I got into the office and I was told, here's your laptop, here's the address of where you're going to be consulting at Go. How do you get to know what the company is really like in that case? It's hard to foster a culture that way. And when I joined Rocket, I got kind of a hint of people that work at Rocket know all about the isms or if you've talked to people that work about a rocket, you'll hear the word isms.

I love it. And yeah, and I didn't know what the hell these things were. You know, I got a little bit of a hint of it, but I didn't really understand how pervasive the culture was at rocket until I joined. You know, you got this book, which is up in my shelf right there, you know, this isms book that talks about all these things that are related to the culture of the company. And you have what's called an Ism's Day. You literally get four hours of training on this. And the reason is, is because it's important. It's really important to the company for people to understand what are the goals, what are the mindset that we want people to have, how do we want people to interact?

And one of them that I'll point out specifically that I think speaks so much to me is we are the they. And the reason why is because for so many years I had, we are the consulting company, they are the client. I've had to completely try to rewire my brain for the last year and a half to not have that mentality because at the end of the day, it's this, no, it's not you're in this, this team and they are over here and they do this and they do that. At the end of the day, we are all that. And that means, you know, that means to some people, it may sound a little cliche, but that out of all the oisms that we have, that is the one that I think, I don't have it physically on my desk here, but that's the one I have on my mind all the time because I have to break that.

And I have to break that it is separate because it isn't. So you get this training, you get this book and it's one of those things that you really want people here at Rocket to have them in Talies. And I love it because it was a positive thing in a surprising thing in a positive way. And I'm glad that the company has that kind of culture. And that's the thing I want to tell people if they're going to their job search or if they're looking because they're not happy with where they're at and they want to look somewhere else. Yeah, I like Rocket. That's something I would say to people, look and see what we have.

But in general, I'd say wherever you end up, make sure to the best that you can, what is it like to work here? How do you interact with people? what kind of personas do you want to see from here? However, you can kind of tease that out from people that you're talking to. That that to me is really important. Other things as well, but culture at a company. Because if it doesn't work, that's happened to me in the past, I did work somewhere for six months. And that was such a clash and I was fired. So it happened. And that was a hard lesson to learn.

But if you don't have the same principles, the same ideas, the same views and things, or at least similar to some degree, it can definitely clash, and you wanna try to avoid that. So how do you think, this question pops in my head, and then we'll wrap up on this question, and then I'll let you kind of leave last a little bit of nuggets before you wrap up. How do you think a person can best vet out culture before they start? Ask, ask how important, you know, ask how important is when you are interviewing, and I think it's not just about culture, it's also just the company itself.

So many, yeah, and again, I'm, you talk about this a little bit, we won't get into this too much, but, you know, I'm old. You can tell I've been around a while and the interview process has been traditionally so much like we are interviewing these people that are coming in. Yeah. And I'm finding out more and more in recent history, it's like it has to be a two-way street. Has to be. You can't, a company can't just expect to grill somebody for hours on end and, you know, them just to say, well, yes or no. You know, they also need to interview you as a company because they may go, wow, this is not gonna work and they'd rather know sooner rather than later.

You know, they wanna get, they really wanna understand what the company's like. So that's the thing I would encourage people is make sure that you are getting time. And I think this is becoming true for people that are doing interviews at companies that say, make sure you leave time. We do that here, Rocket. We make sure that people that are getting interviewed, you get time to ask questions. But don't even leave that just to be like 15 minutes at the end. It's considered to say, make it like 30 and 30. I'm going to talk to you for 30 minutes, ask you questions, you are now going to get 30 minutes, ask me questions, you know, and find out as much as you can for me about what it's like to work here.

And it's okay to ask for another interview too. Yes, it's okay. Yep. It is. I mean, listen. And in some ways that might, you know, I think that might have it should come across as a good thing. It's like that person is really interested in understanding who we are. I think so too. All right, Jason, I know you got to meet in two minutes and so do I. Last nugget of wisdom you want to leave for the people to head into 2022? I would say again, it re-emphasized the point I made before about if you are looking to go somewhere else, if you're not happy with where you at, you know, I call it a philophilosophy, but I also think it's just radically true is that we only have one life.

And I don't see that in a depressing way. I say, you know, keep that in mind because you want to make the most of it, you want to make the best of it. And you want to have that being as enjoyable of the life as possible. You don't want to be stuck somewhere where you absolutely hate it. So if you're in that place, try to start looking around, do the networking thing, find opportunities if at all possible. And when you are looking, when I said that equation thing, that is also very true. Make sure you are going to be looking for the things that are important for you.

I can't define what's important for anybody. So a huge salary is far more important than good health insurance or more time off. For me, it's different. So that's what I say to people is know what you're looking for and to the best of your abilities, look for that and seek for that. I love that, I love that. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us this morning. Jason, thank you. This was a blast, 30 minutes flies by, there were topics you didn't get to. So again, thank you so much. Anybody, yeah, we have a full house in the Descent household. Y'all listen, it's been an amazing year.

Have a wonderful Save Holiday season. And I'll see y'all next year again. I wouldn't have been able to have the success this year if it wasn't for you, folks like Jason, Krista Mars, Alicia, everybody who tuned in. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and y'all have a great rest of December and I'll see y'all next year. Thanks, Jason. See you later. Bye. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening.

Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like, right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T.S. and on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.