how to be a better manager w/ ashley hunsberger

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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 tdesntdesseyn.com. 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. Let's get into it. First and foremost, I know some people may know you, but give a quick refresher. Who are you? What do you do? Where do you work? I'm gonna go from there. Hi, I'm Ashley Hunsberger. I am the director of developer advocacy at Blackboard, which is now a part of anthology.

So we are in education technology, building amazing things and bringing education to people everywhere around the world. I love it. That was beautiful. I think you probably rehearsed that in the mirror. I did not. Totally overplay. Marcia, it's great to see you. Elliot, hey, Elliot, congrats on the new job, my guy. Very, very happy for you. And y'all listen, I forgot to say this. I keep forgetting to say this. If you have a success, if you got a promotion, a raise, you got a new job, whatever, throw it in the chat. I want to celebrate you. I feel like, I feel like with our careers these days, the National Michigan Test, it's always the next thing.

Right? I got a raise. OK, let's work on the next race. It takes forever good a raise. We're all on to the next thing. So I want to celebrate you. So Elliot, congrats, man. I appreciate it. Nicole looking forward to render. That's amazing. Nicole is going to be a bit. I will tell you this. If there's one conversation to go to, it's render. And I'm not just saying that because they're sponsoring me. I'm saying that because it's an amazing conference. So all right, Ashley, first question that I was going to ask you the last time you came up, but we got distracted. Well, I got distracted because that's who I am as an individual.

Talk about the importance of recruiting as a hiring major because we always talk to job seekers. You need a network. You need a network. You need a network. And then I feel like we don't talk to hiring managers and there's only one or two hiring managers that I know of that actually like do a lot of recruiting and networking. So give me your thoughts on that. So you have to remember that it's not just you as a hiring manager seeing if this person is going to be a good fit for what you're hiring for. They are also seeing if you are a good team and a good company and a good boss for them to come join.

Is it a good person job fit for them? And we're all making decisions all the time about this. And so how can we present ourselves as hiring managers as the person that this person also wants to choose? Because they're probably not just looking at your team, right? And we have to also sell ourselves and our teams and our work. And how do we do that? And I think one thing that I like to approach it with is am I clear on what my goals are? So even if I'm creating a brand new team, am I clear about what fees of that were in? It is an interesting opportunity.

I think when I was hiring last year, for example, I was first starting this idea of the velocity lab and hiring data engineers and data analysts. And I've never been a data engineer analyst, but I was like, we have to see an engineering and I think this is going to be a really cool team for us to build and create and do research and really set the tone of our own work. And so how do I kind of sell that perspective? Like what can they expect? Right. There's going to be a lot of unknown, but it's a, it's a unique opportunity to come in and craft your own role and craft your world and design the work that you want to do.

But more importantly is I want you to bring your best self in. I approach it from how can I help remove the anxiety of hiring and that whole interview process completely. So once we do a phone screen and I get an idea for who you are process, I send you my questions. I send you the themes what I'm looking for because at the end of the day, I want you to be able to be comfortable in what to expect along that journey. And even if there is a technical interview, what can you expect as part of that interview? You know, by all means, Google, we don't do our jobs without Googling anything.

Yeah. So. You know, it's crazy. I was taught, I was told early in my career as a recruiter that developers shouldn't Google. And now, I'm gonna admit it, like that was way wrong, way wrong. Way up. I don't know, one developer that doesn't Google or you start overflow or whatever it is. They're searching for something for an answer to a problem that's already been solved. Why reinvent the wheel, right? So you've already said some amazing things. So first off, so again, I want to give Ashley affirmation here. She's talking about selling the opportunity, right? I talk about this all the time. Ashley understands that person is not going to be just interviewing with Ashley.

That person is going to be interviewing with 16 other Ashley's, right? Yeah. So like, how can you separate yourself? Ashley, do you have any sort of tips and tricks for hiring managers to sell an opportunity or something that's maybe worked for you? Yeah, it's a have a clear idea of one the description like what are they going to be doing like I already said right like do you have at least an overarching goal that they want to come in and help be a part of that is not just like a project goal right like I think those are a little bit different What is your longer term goal that you're trying to achieve?

What is your mission as a team? Because I think that mission can really speak to your values as a team, as a manager. And let them know where you stand as a person. My philosophy is people first. And so in my job descriptions, I put, we are a people first team. We focus on the people. This is what we value. I believe all the rest of that software development and delivery stuff will come as part of that. Yes. And so am I clear about who I am, what I value, what is my mission in life and the team, what do I want us to achieve over the next several years, without being super prescriptive about the work ahead, because that's for us to define.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And also too, I want to talk about, I want to go back to you giving the answers, right? Because I'm sure there's a lot of managers that may list this now in the future. like that's ridiculous. You know, how do you, you know, how do you accurately screen an individual if you give them the answers to the test? I think, you know, so for example, I look at the core themes. I lift the themes that I'm gonna be talking about in the interview process or that you're gonna encounter with my team as part of a panel. So communication, learning, collaboration, adaptability.

We're gonna see a whole bunch of change. In this case, when we were hiring for the data team, passion for data, like just tell me about your stories here. I don't want you reading from a blog post. And I think as a manager and as an interviewer, it's pretty easy to see who's reading from a list of things that maybe they straight together from, even if I gave them the answers and the questions, versus the people that know how to tell a story about their experiences, because that's what I want. I wanna know about what you've experienced. You know, what was the situation? What did you do about that situation?

What actions did you take? What were your results? And to me, that's harder to just like scrape from a blog post somewhere that you found and easier to think about in terms of your own personal live stories. Yeah, I love that. And that's, and I love, again, this is why I like you so much, is that you want individuals to feel comfortable. I think there's such this, and I talk about this all the time. It's like, you know, my guy Danny Thompson posted, and this meme's going on the internet, I just saw Danny Thompson posted, but it's like Godzilla and like fire, and it's like then a teddy bear, the next thing.

It's like tech interview is like the only interview process where the interview's not like the job. Yeah, so much so. It's so ridiculous, but I feel like there's so much gatekeeping happening, right? There's, and you said something amazing before we went live. You go, I'm not trained to interview, And I was like, girl, me neither. Yeah. No, this is all just like, what would I appreciate? I were going through the interview process. That's it. That's it. What would I like? So that's how I modeled it. We can close it down right now with that statement. How would I like to be treated in the interview process?

Exactly. I think that's so good. So good. All right, we got two more topics. Of course, we're already a third of the way through. I knew this would happen. I told Ash I'm trying to get out to Raleigh to see the Raleigh office crew. And I'm definitely hanging out with Ashleigh. But so the next thing that really resonated with me when we were off air talking, taking care of yourself as a leader, like I get goosebumps, right? Cause I'm convicted, like I feel very convicted on this. How do you take care of yourself as a leader and model that to your team when as a leader you're supposed to be the driver?

Well, I'll talk about my current situation, right? Why not? I got COVID in the February, like the very last day. My family, none of them had symptoms. They had it too. I, however, got all the symptoms other than losing taste and smell. And then by Thursday that week, so five days later, I developed pneumonia from it. And I had been out of work all that week. I couldn't even get out of bed. And I was like, I still couldn't lift my arms. It was just hard. And I was like, how can I ever tell my team, please take all the time you need, take care of yourself and then not do the same thing for me.

And so I actually started looking at what benefits do I have? In the US, it's a little different, right? So for me personally, I worked with our US benefits office and looked at short-term disability and realized this is, as we progress, it was like a touch base, let's see how I feel after two weeks, let's see how I feel after three weeks. I'm still on week five of it right now. I still have another week out because it wiped me out. I could not imagine the having to work right now or especially the early, the first three weeks were just like, I don't think I could get off the couch.

And so, but I had to think, I was like, I felt this immense sense of guilt leaving my team. I'm like, but wait a minute. I tell my team all the time, take care of yourself. And how do I model that and show them that? Yeah, I value that in myself too, so that I can be healthy and present, fully functioning when it's time. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah, it's super hard. I mean, and I think for me, you know, I'm back and counseling. Like I'm a big mental health advocate, you know, after not really seeking any help for a long time and then got really, you know, hit really depression for the first time.

I've been very vocal about in 2018. I'm a three on the AniGram, which for us is like, we just do then we feel. And so I felt I've really have just done my entire life and I've never had a chance to feel and so in 2018 I've really allowed myself to feel things and and and and I and I will tell you this I picked back up to a new counselor last week and it was our first session and I was already just unloading right the first sessions are always the worst because you have to just like catch up word vomit on everything and And it's so funny It hit in the middle of the session I don't think I've in the two years from COVID.

I don't think I've ever taken a day off. If it's not, like if it's not because I'm out of town. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like I have not taken a self care day. Oh, no, I take them all the time. Ever. Ever. And I realized that and I got out of that, I got out of my counseling session. counseling session, I was like, what type of person am I sending for my team? Yeah. So I didn't know if you have any more thoughts on that. I mean, I'm sure we can probably, no, I mean, even in healthier times, right? I always did that even my Friday afternoon.

So I switched to a four day work week. Yeah. We talked about that the last time you were here. But even before that, so that Friday becomes like my self care day. I go to the spa or I go to facial or I go to massage or I go get my plan to translate something to take care of me. Or even if it's just I just want to read a book that's not schoolwork. Yeah, seriously, because you're in school on top of all this. I am. Yeah, I'm getting my master's wonder woman over here. Or not with all my marbles. Yeah, no, it's just something that I want to do for me, whether it's just sit and just sit on my porch and relax.

I take that time. And even before I switch to the four day work week, I frequently did. I mean, my schedule was, you know, it's never a straight 40-hour work week. I'm always like giving and taking time. So like my Friday afternoons are still, all right, what can I do for myself? Or with my kids and hang out with them, and you have to set that time. Because if nothing I've learned in over 20 years is you're going to burn out if you're not careful and I've I've burned out. And you don't want to get to the point where, where you're just so burnt out.

You can't even think about how to recover because our brains on stress are just not well-functioning things, right? So how do we do that? And how do we try to prevent these things from happening too? Absolutely. No, and again, I mean, I know, as a leader, I feel guilt too, you know, with me taking time off. I had an individual, he and his family just have their second baby. And he and I were chatting, you know, this is a whole another conversation, but I feel like there's a lot of framework for women and being mothers. There's not a lot of framework for being fathers. And I feel like I struggled with it as well.

We're just being very open on this morning session. No, good. You know, I struggle as a first time dad for connection and being there. And I remember when my daughter was born, I mean, I was back to work like a week and a half later. Right? I'm just gonna be totally honest. Yeah. And so I was talking to my business partner and he was already like talking a week, week and a half. I said, his name's Matt. I said, Matt, I said, listen, I said, you take at least two, man. At least two. At least like shut off and just go. And I think we as leaders, I think, you know, We talk about how to build culture remotely.

That's how you do it. You let people live their lives. I was on one of my board calls this yesterday and one of my teammates said, he said it so well. He was like, he goes, people always say, how to build culture remotely. He goes, the fact that you're doing remote culture already brings you to the majority of how to build culture because you're allowing people to operate that they want to operate. Yeah. That is good remote culture. Yep. So I didn't know if you had any more thoughts on that color at all. I just, you know, your story about returning at a week and a half, like we have to as leaders, you know, not just model it, but empower our employees to take that time and say it's okay, right?

And I'll never forget my own personal experience when I had my first child who was in the NICU. Yeah. I don't think my husband's listening, but his boss expected him to be back that same day she gave birth. And that was like one of the hardest moments for me as a new mom, a child in the NICU, for those who don't know, that's the Neonative Intensive Care Unit. And then all of a sudden I'm like, what do you mean you're leaving? Oh, no, I can't. And it was just like, okay, how do we ever prevent that from happening ever again? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but. And then again, right?

It's literally and again, for y'all commenting, I'm seeing all the comments like all y'all are having like full blown conversations in the comments. I love this so so much. Randall Randall comment where he goes. He goes time for self care day to take me shirt shopping boy. I let's do it. I love it. But again, right? And again, I love all the comments. I see them. There's so much we can't get to them. But for me, I think, again, we always talk about how to build culture remotely. It's allowed to live their lives outside of work. Yeah. I think we have another topic that we'll have to talk about in the future on why the US is so broken in our benefits.

I can't even go down that rabbit hole today with you. So Christina comes in and says, I used to schedule 10 days of burnout of work. If y'all have any burnout tricks for it. them in here because I want to hear them on kind of what your cadence is. My wife said the other day she goes, I feel like you do better when you have like a long weekend basically a month. And so again, if you all have tips or tricks on how to handle burnout, please sew them up like Christina did. So I want to move on to the last topic here as we wrap up the last 10 minutes.

Again, I would highly recommend to connect with Ashland Linked in. If you have any questions on how to be just a better person, yes it's Ashley, because she is a wealth of knowledge. So it's March, it's April, it's quarterly review time. I tweeted, you know, I have one of ones with my team. I have not done a quarterly review yet. We are in major growth mode, startup mode. I know that's not an excuse, but that's just where we're at. I'm gonna just admit it. But so talk, actually let's talk about quarterly reviews. If you just let me ask you this because I want to know right if you constantly do one on ones with your team every week Do you need quarterly reviews and I'm asking for my So there's two schools that in my mind like as As I'm learning in school you know Performance reviews are just a piece.

So my company we do them annually And we have, which is hard in itself, because now you have this year of information you need to share. Right. As a manager, though, I feel like if I am doing my job, that annual review is just a summary of what I already told you throughout the year. Correct. Nothing should be a surprise, right? And I agree. So sometimes it depends on what your company does with those reviews. If they are tied to merit pay, if they are tied to bonus, you do need them. there's a rating sort somewhere. You, it's just the fact of life, you have to have them.

Sure. There is a new school of thought that is saying that job performance should maybe not be tied to pay, which I'm like, ooh, this is interesting. I want to learn way more about this. Which should not be tied to pay interesting. Yeah. So really pay people well anyways, right? We'd love leave. We don't know why we have to say that, but we do. So here we are. I know. And, and you know, it's, I get when things are not funded because of company performance, but how do we decouple it from from this this idea? And so back to your question, do we need them quarterly if we have, you know, always in our one on ones?

I don't know that we do, but we had sometimes you just have to have a mechanism with which to rate somebody. And so you kind of to think about that. However, if you're doing your feedback, if you're talking to the goals and goal progression, you know, I think that's a great opportunity to have that information as a manager. And if we start seeing things, maybe not driving towards the goal, let's take a step back and make sure that we're still, we have a plan in place to either get back to it, or did we have the wrong goal in place? And that's okay too. It's okay to pivot.

And it's okay to shift your goals and think maybe that wasn't the right one that we established early. Now, I think there's a different story. If you don't have goals, establish, or you don't have well designed goals in place. And I think that is our job as managers to help. You know, you're probably going to be more involved in goal setting with more junior staff as they learn about goal crafting. But, you know, science sells this if you look at goal setting theory and how am I setting my goals around my values and the work that I wanted to do and doing job crafting exercises and aligning all of that to the bigger picture.

That's when you're going to see that productivity and that's when you're going to see that in terms of motivation pick up that makes my job so much easier as a manager. So you're just constantly having this conversation. Yeah. So what do you think is a good cadence? Weekly check-ins with an annual review? Like, I mean, what do you think? And again, it doesn't work for everybody. I understand that. It does that, right? It's going to be different for everybody. I like the quarterly idea. It is very hard to do and implement. Annual one as well. Back when I had 15 reports and I'd have to write up 15 annual reviews, it's not gonna happen on a quarterly cadence, but I should still be in the know and know what your goals are and still be able to talk to you about your goals.

So it depends on how formal your company is. Do they want the long formal write up? And, you know, having all of the, you know, especially for the people that you are aligning for promotion, I have to have, I really have to have evidence to prove this is why they should be promoted, especially the higher level they get, right? It's harder and harder to get that promotion sometimes. Sure. So just depends what you need and what your company wants and what they are using that performance review for. Mm-hmm. But I like them informal. I just I like my staff to know that I've, I want them to know that I have been not micro-managing, but keeping an eye on things and how am I connected to the work that you are doing with the goals that I have helped set for this department and the mission and how are we driving towards that.

And so hopefully I'm doing my job and having that conversation with you as well. 100%. Elliot has a good question. Beyond reducing the spillover role over percentages of sprint tickets, what are some metrics that you like to see developers hit? Time to value. So not just, did you do this laundry list of work, but how long does it take us to go from idea to providing value to our clients? I think that's a really good one. And I think, you know, we have to remember, well, what is it? value is perceived, right? And so we have to think about that. Are we getting feedback loops?

You know, I think that's one of the biggest ones that it's hard to start measuring once you've already started. So, but it's worth pursuing. I like to think about Lean Metrics. I'm reading this book in quite limited spare time called Sooner Safe or Happier. I highly recommend that book so far. Talked about all different industries, but really focus on lean development. And what are those lean metrics that we can hit? It's not about just, you know, how many story points that I complete. What is my velocity? It is also about how fast are we providing value and how fast are we making people happy? At the end of the day.

I love that, I love that. So, time flew. So I wanna go and wrap it up. Actually, any last thoughts, words of wisdom for, we talked a little bit more hiring managers. Do you have any thoughts for the job seeker or anybody who's looking to move? Yeah. And that could be around, I don't know, just anything. Any final questions? Ask questions. This is your opportunity to not just prove yourself, but to understand what you're getting into. I've had interviews where people ask nothing. And that to me is a big red flag when they ask nothing. Ask about the culture, ask about times where they didn't show their values.

You know, I think that's a, people will be pretty honest, I think. You know, ask if there's an opportunity to speak with somebody that's not on your interview panel about what it's really like to work there to get those types started job previews. Some companies will offer it to you. Take them up on it. I always try, I think that's a great idea. In the past, when we have had opportunities, when I've gotten an offer for a candidate and that candidate isn't super, like there's some reservation, I always get them to speak with somebody that I have placed there that wasn't on the interview panel.

So like they can just have a chat. So big fan of that. Yeah. Yeah. The job preview is such an important thing. And we only get so much information as an outsider. And when you get this opportunity to see what it's like to work there, whether it's to ask questions of somebody that's not interviewing and trying to sell the team, whether it's, you know, they might actually offer you an opportunity to shadow somebody, which would be incredible if you don't have like NDAs to sign all over the place or non-disclosure agreement. But like, take those opportunities because you only hold the power until you sign that contract.

So that's like the best advice I ever got from somebody. I think, so I tweeted this and it didn't come across, right? I had a bunch of people like tweet at me, like I don't agree with it, but I think, no, no, no, hear me out. I think you should try to ask so many questions to try to talk yourself out of an offer. Ooh, yeah. Like that is how intentional you should be with asking questions is that you're actually trying you find all the bet. Now, I understand it's a glass like half whole mentality and like kind of negative, but like, I'm just trying to get across like how intentionally you should be there in the interview process with questions and you can find those on my site, vaco.com backslash Taylor, you can check those out, tailedusson.com.

Like I have questions ask hiring managers during the interview to help people prompt to ask. But that's how intentionally you need to be is like trying to talk yourself out of the opportunity. Yeah, I think the, and even if you have no intention of leaving your company, I know it can be a time suck and I know some people are going to like totally disagree with me saying this interview anyways. It's a good practice. It helps you realize what you want. Or what you have what you have. Yes. Grass is not always greener, right? And it's just a good practice because then you get to see how other companies are interviewing and what do you like about that that you might want to bring back to yours.

And I think the last time I did this last year, I asked so many questions. I felt like I was the interviewer for that other question. That means you did it right then. That means you did it right then. Everyone's like, I got them. I actually got another question. But no, I mean, it's so important. All enough people are going to be like, I'm never going to interview Ashley. I guess you might not ever leave. Because she interviews us harder than we interview her. Any last thoughts? I think we had it in self care. We have to my, sorry, somebody is about to muck on my door, of course.

But yeah, it is, it's so important. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. All right, we came from that note. We all have a great one. Ashley, thank you again. And y'all have a great rest of your Tuesday. And I'll see you tomorrow, Wednesday. I'm interviewing Shonda Pearson. She's a Netflix engineer. She and I have tweeted at each other a handful of times. She's fantastic and also a render ATL speaker. So y'all have a great one. Ashley. Hi. My dog's say bye, too. Yes, I'll take my piece. Bye. Bye. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode, and I am very grateful, because you know why?

There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes, and I myself rarely 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. Destin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.