recap of last few weeks

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 for 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 vacovac.com is how to get and touch me old fashioned email social media at tdsintdesse. And then 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. So last week's been crazy. I've been off of guidance counselor 2.0 going live because I've been doing a lot of traveling. So two weeks ago, I went to go speak at Magnolia. JS, that was incredible events down in Jackson, Mississippi. And what was crazy?

And the thing that I got at Magnolia. JS and talking individuals is a lot of people don't know what is out there. They don't know what is out there from a job search perspective. And the way to fix that. For those of you are tuning on cross all platforms, the best way to fix how you to learn what else is out there from a job perspective is to talk to recruiters. Right. So when I went down to Magnolia. JS, I was asked by the conference organizer to basically go over salary ranges because people in Jackson, Mississippi, they don't know what's out there. And so I was told to kind of say, hey, listen, here is kind of what the market is and a lot of mouse dropped to be totally frank with you after I said the ranges.

And I just want to encourage everybody to sync up with some recruiters. Right. And I know, right. You're probably listening to like Taylor, I'm so sick and tired of spam recruiters. You all spam us all the time. There's just a lot of garbage out there. Listen, there's a lot of garbage on the internet wherever you go. A lot of people are like the internet so negative. I think the internet's positive because I go seek out positivity. It's the same thing working with recruiters. If you go seek out recruiters and try to nurture the relationships, it is beneficial. But you get to know what the market is.

Right. Like I tell people all the time for me, I really, really would start my entire job just from the recruiting side. And so that's what I learned from Magnolia. JS is like people didn't know what's out there. People didn't know how to get started. And the biggest way to get started is just by sending DMs. And I know I talk about this all the time. But the thing is though is I didn't know this. If I moved to Nashville when I was in musician, I would have gone where the people are. And so I would have gone to the bars. I would have network.

It's the exact same thing you have to do in tech. You have to go where the people are. Are you a part of Discord channels? Are you a part of Slack channels? Are you a part of conferences? Are you a part of meetups? Do you network with recruiters? Like what are the steps that you are taking to know what else is out there? Because I think a lot of times in a tech community, we can be so narrow focused. And I get it, right? I'm going to code. I'm going to do my job. I'm going to code. And I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave shut down my computer for the day.

I'm going to go be with family. And I get it. And we can become so narrow on what we do day and day out that we don't know what's going on elsewhere. And what you need to do is you need to know what's happening across the country from a tech perspective. Who's hiring? Who's not? We are in a fully remote world now. And so you need to have the recruiters on your side to really network. Another thing that I learned too, so I just got back from Vaco's global conference. So I was very, very fortunate. And I want to get to a few comments real quick.

Danny, I'm glad you can see me, Brett. It's great to see you, buddy. Mark from DC. I love it. Matt. All right. Good. I'm glad you can see me. Brandon, my webcam is a Logitech 4K webcam. Like 200 bucks on Amazon. And Randall, thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. So I want to go to the next. So Magnolia, J.S. was incredible. Highly recommended. Kayla and Kayla did an amazing job putting it together. It was at an art museum in Jackson, Mississippi. It was fantastic. It was a single track. What that meant from a single track perspective is, is there were no multiple rooms. Every speaker had the whole audience.

And it was just one room. And everybody spoke. And it was amazing. Erica is great to see you. I'll recommend Magnolia, J.S. Take a look at it next year. Magnolia, J.S. also has a Discord channel. So if you want that, hit me up in the DM to get connected. I also want to say too, I've been out of practice. If you haven't already, I am an ambassador for render. Quick, quick little pause, quick little commercial right here. I am a part of render ATL. And I think you should go. I really think so. And I talk about being involved in Discord channels a lot. There is a Discord channel for render.

Go to their website. Get involved in it. If you use the code GC2.0, you get a few bucks off your tickets. So how I recommend it. I'll be there next year. And I hope to see you there. Also, another thing that I want to highlight as well is Brandon 78. So again, if you want to get into content creation, definitely check a look at my buddy Brandon with Brandon 78. Also, two conferences that are coming up for me, I'm speaking at that I want to bring attention to. First is Little Rock Tech Fest. So Little Rock Tech Fest is done. Little Rock Arkansas. If you are in driving distance of Little Rock Arkansas, I would highly recommend going.

It is what I call a, it's like a mid-major conference. So it's like six to 700 people. So it's not super small, but it's not super big. It's a really, really great place to meet a ton of people, but still have a pretty intimate feel. So I take a look at Little Rock Tech Fest. That's happening next month. Also, momentum developer conference and Cincinnati. If you are in driving distance of Cincinnati, I would go to momentum developer conference. My dear friend and former guest has shown Michael Richardson puts it on. It is a one day conference at the hard rock hotel in Cincinnati. Highly recommend going there.

They have a great list of speakers. I will be there speaking. So hope to see you there as well. And then a few more people tune in. Trey, I want to shoot me DM. Trey, so I don't forget also Allison. It's great to see you. Chris, I attended Magnolia Virtual. It was great. Yeah, honestly, they offered a online session. And it was fantastic. I had a lot of great reviews from it. Next thing I want to go over is the conference I just finished. So I landed in Nashville last night from Vegas where me, Jake and Dan, and the unicorn finders, at which you can check us out.

So Brad, right here, the unicorn finders, you can check us out. We spoke on brain and in community. And the biggest thing that I want to get across to you today after presenting for two hours for two different sessions is that people are creatures of habit. And I get it. I totally, totally get it. Josh, anything in the Carolina's happened? Yes, all things open. All things open in Raleigh, North Carolina. I, I don't know if I'm going to be out there. I do realize all things open, I think, is next week. But all things open is fantastic. It's in Raleigh, North Carolina. I would also check out my buddy, Jake, who's in the unicorn finders with me.

He hasn't made up called Downtown Techies. So check that out. And he has a massive following in North Carolina. So check out Downtown Techies as well, but definitely all things open. So when I presented to people at Bayco, the one thing that I continually saw is that people were scared to do something different to make money AKA their job. And I get it, right? We are creatures of habit. We do the same thing every single day. And I get it. But I want to encourage you all that the more community that you can build for yourself, the better. That's why I created a show, where I created this show to be a community to people who need to build network.

So for example, what I would do every single person that commented on this show today on LinkedIn, go connect with them. Send them a DM that, hey, I saw you on guidance counselor 2.0 would love to connect, right? I would also connect with every single guest I have on my show from here on out. I've been doing this podcast now for two and a half years. That means I've probably had at least, I don't know, 150 guests on, 200 guests on. If you connect with every single guest I had on, which ranges from hiring managers at Fang to startup CEO's founders to anything. Like literally, if you networked with every single person I had on with guidance counselor 2.0 and unicorn finders, you would be in really, really good shape.

And so the thing I want to get across right now is do something different, right? Do something different and try to get better every day at your job, right? If you do this, if you've wanted to do something, right, let's say you want to start that side hustle, right? Or you wanted to do that Udemy course, or you wanted to do a mentor opportunity with somebody who you've been thinking about. Do it, do it. When I presented in front of VACO, which are a bunch of type A people, right? Like the biggest thing is people just were scared to get going. And I want to encourage you today, whether it's jumping to a new job, whether it's DMing a stranger you've always wanted to talk to, whether it's asking for a raise, whatever it is, the moment that you can be fearless in your career is the moment that you start leveling up really, really fast.

Because what happens is, is people are scared to ask for the raise. People are scared to ask for a conversation with a stranger. But what I've realized with in my career and people who are doing things differently, I have realized that the end of the day, the people who are trying to do things differently and who are fearless are the ones that succeed the most. And so I want to encourage you today, you know, if you've wanted to start a meetup or you want to start a community or you do whatever, do it. Another thing that I want to get across to starting community is not hard.

It's not choose the things that you are passionate about and get started, right? So for example, for me, my passions are tech engineering, right? So what did I do? I started this live show, right? I have another passion for recruiters, right? I feel like the recruiting industry is broken. So what I want to do, what did I want to do? I saw that there was no meetup in Nashville for recruiters. There's none, there's literally no meetups to build community for recruiters. So what did I do? Me and another recruiter from another company, we started a meetup. We're having our second meetup next in three weeks.

The meetup is called recruiters anonymous. So again, I started it. I've done two other ideas that I have that I want to start. I love wine, I love drinking wine, right? I want to start a wine in tech. Where basically five to 10 people come over. We bring our favorite bottle of wine. We taste test it, we talk tech. Another thing that I'm passionate about or that I love now, because of Netflix, is the drive to survive in F1. I've never been in F1 fan. I didn't even really know what F1 was until I watched the Netflix documentary. Now I'm obsessed with it. So I want to get tech people over and watch F1.

I kind of want to do like tech brunch in F1, right? Because most F1 races are overseas. And so they usually happen in the Eden overseas, which is the morning for us. And so I want to have brunch and invite some tech professionals over and watch the race together. So again, I take what I'm passionate about and then I create community around it. And you guys stay consistent and it's not hard. If you like video games, start a community around video games. If you like board games, I know there was a meetup and national for a bit of a guy who just loves playing board games and he created a meetup and it was insanely successful.

There's a ton of people in it. It's not hard, but just do it because the moment that you can link your passions with your work, that's when it really starts to get fun. So that's all I got today. That's all I got. Two big things, right? Getting started building community, being don't be afraid, figure out what else is out there from the job search. Those are just some things that I've learned over the last two weeks of my travel speaking. That I want to share with you today. And so all that being said, I hope you'll have a great hump day. That's it for me today.

Tomorrow, unicorn finders, we will be hanging out. So check this out. Again, the unicornfinders.com we're on LinkedIn that's our main platform. And then Friday, I will be back as well. And then guests will return all next week. So again, thank you all for hanging out with me today. I appreciate it. And hope you'll have a wonderful Wednesday. And if this episode did resonate with you, please share it. So somebody in your community can see it. All right, y'all, I'll take you going. 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 finish 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-Dasting on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.