meet the nerd team w/sloane bartley

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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 tdesntdesen 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. that being said, Sloan, let's get the people what they want. Tell me about yourself. Yeah, well, first and foremost, thanks for having me on day. I'm super excited. My name is Sloan. And a little back story, Tay, and I go way back.

We're long time friends. I grew up with his wife. So this feels like a long time coming, getting to be on your podcast. I'm super excited about it. a little bit about me. I actually have a background in education and maybe that's not the typical recruiter background, at least technical recruiter background. My pathway was pursuing a master's of higher education, went into college admissions at my alma mater, was going to be on the higher ed path till retirement. That was the vision. The pandemic, like it did for many people, flip the world on its head, flip my world on its head and I learned that I wanted to work fully remote and that wasn't necessarily a possibility in the higher ed space.

So, Tae in recruiter fashion recruited me to come work at Vaco and it was kind of just the perfect storm of, you know, in a world where nobody knows what's going on, why not just take a risk and try something new. I joined Taylor's team about a year ago and have loved it. It's been one of those things where I was super terrified to make the change, but I have been so pleasantly surprised that none of my fears were accurate and it's been better than I could have imagined. I love that. Yeah, and I'm grateful you're here. I really am. And I'm not. I mean, I guess you could say I'm paying you to say what you just said.

But it's been awesome. So I want to go and dive in. I said, especially for the people watching, Kailin, Kristina, it's great to see you, Eric, Chris, Brian. It's great to see you as well. I want to dive into kind of your background and especially how it relates to recruiting. And so talk about what you've learned about recruiting over the last year and how you've been able to apply your education background or some other parts about your background into recruiting. Because again, I think a lot of people here just have a bad experience with recruiters. And so I wanted for you to kind of outline what you've learned about recruiting last year and then how it applies to your past.

It's a lot. Well, it's probably could spend the rest of the podcast diving into that answer. But I think the first thing that I noticed right off the bat for me is that as a recruiter, my main job is to help people in times of transition, arguably one of the scariest times of transition if you're out of a job, if you're dealing with a layoff, something like that, that's a very difficult time of transition. Even if you're just doing a passive job search, electively, it's still changing jobs, it can be very stressful. So I immediately saw the connection to higher ed, because I have a background in helping students transition to college, and have been working with first-year students at the University of South Carolina, been working with high school students who had been transitioning to college at Vanderbilt.

So it was always helping students make that transition into college, which is also another big transition that folks make in their lives. So I immediately saw that connection. My higher ed degree has a lot of, and so does my undergrad degree, has a lot of basis in psychology and counseling. And recruiters, we often joke that you can be a bit of a counselor to your candidates. And I like to think that that's one of the skills that I've really cultivated over the last year and have probably one of the things I enjoy the most about this job is just getting to know people, asking them questions about their lives and figuring out what's important to them and helping them remember that along the job search.

So you're kind of like a therapist in a way of like, remember what we were talking about this issue? That still needs to be important even once you've got three different offers on the table and they're all different amounts. Let's remember why you're really looking for a new role and what's really important to you. So I think that that part of my background comes into play in recruiting and that's probably the biggest part I've cultivated in the last year. What do you think, what do you think you're the best at? Right? So obviously Sloan's been at this for your, I could answer that, but I want to see what Sloan says, what do you think you're the best at it?

Or what do you think like you really excel at as a recruiter? Yeah. The last thing I just mentioned, I wish I was the best at it, but I think Matt Driggers on our team is the best at that. He has undergrad degree, I think is actually in psychology and he's just really good at, you know, I call him and do that. I'm like, well, you'd be my therapist. So I think what I'm the best at is probably the details. I've always been a super detail oriented person. So recalling small details at the drop of the hat, which I didn't intend to quote Legley Blonde on this.

I've had a podcast, but I think that's something that I, I do really well and do better than anybody is just keeping up with what people have told me and then remembering it down the road, being able to see a job description and immediately think of any candidates in my network that are within it without having to pull up my notes. I mean, that's where the detail orientedness comes into play big time. And then just staying on top of communication with candidates, not dropping the ball on anything, keeping, you know, submitting them to jobs in a timely manner. all the organization piece is huge for making that stuff happen.

So, so, and the reason why I asked that is to tee up this question. So obviously, for those of you who are watching, know that I love the integrand, I wouldn't say like an am an any-gram free. I mean, there's people who've like read books and I enjoy it to start conversations is where I'm at. And so Sloan based off what you said, what is your number? Because because I'm sure the people be interested in that. Yeah, I feel like people could guess it based on what I've been saying, but I am a one on the Enneagram very driven by rules right versus wrong and If you have met or know an Enneagram one, you know We play by our own set of rules and what we think is right versus wrong and we try to make we try to apply that to other people which is tough but that in this I mean in this job it it just boils down to being super process focused and being super focused on getting done what you need to get done.

Yeah, I think that's kind of. What about, so I'm curious, in your words, what makes a good recruiter? So the people who are watching now, Kail and Christina, Eric, Chris, Brian, JC, and others, you probably have not commented because they're too scared on this Friday. If somebody sat down with you, like, all right, slow down. Give me a good idea of what I should look for in a recruiter. What would you tell them? Yeah, I think right off the bat, you have to be somewhat of a people person, you have to be able to be comfortable having conversations with total strangers, you have to be comfortable cultivating and building relationships.

That's sort of the foundational skills of who would be a fit for the role to be a really good recruiter. I think consistency is the number one skill you have to build. You have to do what we do and do it well and continue to do it well over time. It's, and that's probably been the, the hardest and biggest shock factor for me coming into this job is just you get really good and you feel like, okay, I've got some momentum for about two weeks. I feel like I've been really killing it. And then you're like, that third week, you're like, God, I got to keep doing it.

Like I got to just keep, you know, crushing it a whole nother week. And then, you know, you're like, you kind of want to slack off because you had a good week the week before and if you do that, you know, the recruiting game is the long game. What you do this week, you're going to see the results of in two to three, if not four weeks. And so you have to be consistent every single week. And that is the most important thing and it's the hardest thing to do. Absolutely. What do you think is, what do you think is the biggest pet fall of recruiters, right?

And, you know, I think a lot of people, I think would look, actually two questions here. I just had another question. I'm going to interrupt my first thought. I asked my second question. There are a lot of people that go, well, you've only been recruiting for a year. And how can you be technical? And so I want you to talk through kind of the training and what you've had to learn over the last year, because I think a lot of people don't realize that you and we as recruiters have to learn a second language. And that's tech jargon. Yeah, yeah, I think I mean, we've had a lot of training on our team that's been incredibly helpful, but I also just I also rely on the the developers that I talk to and they're the expert on their own skill set.

And so I expect them to sell their skill set to me. And then from there matching them to a job is really I like to call it reading comprehension. It's like, I understand what this developer is looking for in a job and what skillset they have. And I need to be able to read a job description and decide if it's the right fit for my candidate or not. So that's a skill that we've all had since we started taking standardized tests and elementary school. Well, some of us more than others, my green comprehension sucks. Yeah, we can talk later about your ACT score. We'll deep dive into that.

But yeah, I mean, I, as far as learning the technical skills and the technical jargon, I've met some amazing developers and I was scared coming into tech that, you know, people would be mean and, you know, I want to talk to me, but I've met incredible people who are super kind and so they've been well into answering any questions I have. And then, you know, we've done that I teach recruiters training. That's been a huge help. And you're never done. And that's what I've kind of leaned into that of like, I'll never know everything and nobody will. Everybody's still learning. Even, you know, folks like you've been doing this for over a decade, tech changes.

So you're never an expert. It's not like I'm racing to some finish line and I'm behind. So that helps me a little bit as I'm picking it up. Yeah, and real quick, I'm going to, I'm going to a quick time out here, Eric asking a question about his content being amplified, you know, and I see any engaging with you, Eric and any, I appreciate that my biggest thing, Eric is develop content for recruiters and hiring managers, right? So, so what I do from a content creation perspective is I have three pillars. It's recruiters, hiring managers and job seekers, and you got to build out enough content to target those people because that's incredibly important in your content journey.

So Sloan, I want to ask you next thing too with obviously, you know, kind of going on the back of never being done, always, always grinding. Talk about, because you and I are big on mental health and the workplace. And I really think, and you can disagree with me, I don't think you will. I think our team is really open in talking about where we're at in our personal lives. I'm curious, how have you balanced working from home? You know, how have you worked on your mental health? Maybe what are some challenges that you've experienced? Because I think we always talk about the pros of working from home.

And there's a lot, don't get me wrong. But I also think there's some cons. And so I definitely want to dive into that. Yeah, there are definitely some cons. And I have not always been the best at balancing my mental health when working from home and when working in an industry where you do always have to be grinding, which just doesn't equate to good mental health. Like that's just not a good, that's just not gonna be a long term. Real quick, real quick. Before you answer this question, you talk about grinding, right? And I'm sure that people are watching this, you're like, well, you keep saying grinding, that's exhausting, like what do you do?

So can you talk about your week and a massive, I mean, I talk about it, but it's always gonna be nice to have someone else to talk about it too. Yeah, from a big picture, I mean, my goal is to talk to 10 new developers every single week. To make that happen, you have to message, double if not triple that many people. I get lucky, sometimes I'll get lucky on a week where maybe I message 20 and that results in getting me close to the 10. And then sometimes, you know, folks from your network end up getting on my calendar, so that'll get me to the 10.

But the outreach that you're having to do on a daily basis, so you're posting jobs, you're reviewing probably 30 to 50 applications on a job posting every day, reaching out to anybody who's a fit. Then you're going on LinkedIn and trying to message, you know, 10 to 15, 20, I think it depends on the recruiter too. I'm sure there's some folks who do even more mass outreach. I try to be a little more targeted. And so you're doing that outreach every day, you're interviewing, I'm interviewing two to three folks a day. And then I'm submitting, hopefully those folks to a job. So it could be anywhere from submitting one to three candidates.

I submitted three candidates to a job yesterday. Some days it's one. And then all of the administrative stuff that it takes to make that happen, collecting resumes, sending emails, following up with the candidates you spoke with last week. And you and I talked about this, it's snowballs very quickly. You start this job and you're like, okay, I finally met with 10 candidates. like, great, I got 10 kids. Okay, you know, you gotta go meet 10 more. And then 10 more. Well, not all those folks have gotten jobs in that three weeks. Now you've got 30 candidates. And then it's 40 and then it's 50. And you're trying to keep all those people in mind and in your network for the moment that the perfect job comes around.

And so. Huge balance. Your brain is kind of just firing neurons all day, every day. And if you're one on the integram like me, you're constantly thinking, what have I forgotten? What have I dropped the ball? Who have I let down? and you just start to kind of feel overwhelmed and just more concerned about what have I not done versus what have I got to do. So. So you do feel overwhelmed because you can't help everybody? Yes, I feel overwhelmed because I can't help everybody. And I've had to like really be intentional by telling myself, you have to prioritize where you can help and letting people know when you're not gonna be able to help because I just assume people would want honesty instead of being ghosted.

And that's something that candidates have told me. They're like, most recruiters, I meet with them once, and then I never hear from them again. It sounds like I'm the exception and that I actually stay in touch and that I actually communicate. But that's just me, you know, treating other people how I would wanna be treated. I would wanna be told, you know, I loved our meeting. I'm so glad we got to meet, but I just don't have anything for you right now. It's not that I've forgotten about you. It's not that I don't like you. I just don't have a job in your skill set.

I meet with a lot of front end developers. We don't have a lot of front end roles at the moment right now. So that's been something I've been having to do a lot. It's just a thing like that. Our developers relatively open to that feedback because I think a lot of people want feedback and then when they give feedback, they bristle against it. So I'm curious what has been your experience giving direct feedback? Because that's one thing I love about you. I mean, I'm gonna brag on Sloan here for a second live. but you know, I, I, Sloan is one, one, if not the best recruiter I've ever worked with in the 11 years I've been here.

And I'm not telling her that live because she's live. I'm not telling her that because she's, we're going out to dinner tonight. I'm paying that because it's true. And because she takes care of candidates and she's a workhorse. Um, but also two, um, it wears on you. It absolutely wears on you, you know, the amount of conversations that we have to balance is exhausting. And so answer the first question about the feedback. Our developers open to feedback. For the most part, yeah. And I think when the feedback is, I don't have anything for you right now, they're more receptive to that. And I just let them know, what I have available is just a product of the clients that we work with and what our clients needs are.

It's not a reflection on you. It's not necessarily even a reflection on the market. You may have tons of luck finding the roles that are fit for you on your own or with another recruiter who happens different clients. So I just encourage them to definitely keep looking and let me know what they see out there. And I tell them to think of me as an extra set of eyes and ears to keep them surprised of any time a new opportunity becomes available. I'm going to slip it right into their inbox. So I'm kind of just like an extra sort of bot that they can have running on the back end to look for them.

I'm like, I'm just like an extra resource. So they're really receptive to that. not. As far as like interview feedback, I think I, and you know, feedback from feedback on their resume, feedback on their skillset, anything like that. I think most candidates are really receptive to resume feedback. I don't, I don't pretend to be a resume expert, but I just let them know this is, in my opinion, as a recruiter who reads, you know, 10, 20, some days it's 30 or 50 resumes a day. Here's what, here's what my, and it's not necessarily on their their skill set. It's more so about how the information reads and how quickly and easily I can get a gist of what they do and what impact they've made.

And if I can't get that quickly, I try to let them know that that I, you know, it sounds like you're doing a lot of cool things. I'm not seeing that come across in your resume. So I love that. Now, I think one of, I think, so so I want to give a shout to a few people, Lavonda, Kevin Trinity. It's great to see y'all. Philip comes in and he goes, if you have an engineer who Brussels with direct feedback and keeping their place in the street. Philip, it happens way more than you think. Yeah. Kevin goes, I love feedback. I've updated my portfolio. I love that.

But Philip comes in against, but I very much appreciate your mindset of staying in touch with candidates, building relationships for long term. And that's what we preach. I mean, my goal for me and my team is to wrap our arms around the entire engineering community. For those of you who are watching, we have a Discord where we post all of our jobs. We also have another channel where we can just get to know us. If you want to be a part of that, please, please let me know in the comments and I'll follow up with the Discord link. Trinity comes in and goes, feedback is truly important, communication is key and feedback is always appreciated.

So obviously we found something, so I want to stay on this for a second and then we'll go back to the grind of mental health, I promise. Yes. But this is the way I interview. We go down rabbit holes and then we have to come back. Don't forget. How do you, how do you, like, I think the big thing is, it's like, all right, so Sloan's here talking about meeting 10 to 15 people a week, project managing everybody through the interview process. how can she keep up with everybody? So like, can you talk about maybe some workflows that you've put in place, or maybe the R team has to help wrap our arms around the entire engineering community?

Oh my gosh, it's so much. It's so much. Cool. Callen Blee is huge for me. That allows me to, you know, not only just from a scheduling point of view and making it very easy for folks to get on my calendar, I just send them the link and it's, you know, working with my calendar to show them what availability I have. but I've set up automated emails, which everybody hates. Nobody loves spam. I mean, I promise, you know, these emails aren't super spammy. They're more so just sharing resources like the Discord that Taylor just mentioned, like my LinkedIn. And I think I'm pretty transparent on those emails that, you know, hey, this is just a, you know, check in for me to make sure that I haven't missed anything for my own piece of mind, honestly, to make sure that as like you said, I'm project managing everybody.

If you're waiting on something for me, I want you to tell me, because if you remind me, I'm gonna take care of it right then. So it's more of a fail safe than anything. And it's a checkpoint to check in with candidates. Hey, I know I'm working on stuff for you or maybe I have anything yet, but maybe you found a job on your own, are you off the market? I mean, if you think about the snowball that I'm talking about, it's impossible to have a way to check in with 30 to 40 candidates at a given time to see are you even on the job market anymore?

If you're not, I'll stop. So I'm looking for things for you. So the Calendly workflows helped me do all of that. I've tried to create kind of my own personal workflow with Trello, we're all big Trello users on this team. So to talk about what we've done from a, because people are like Trello, for those of you who don't know what Trello it is, it's like a, it's actually technically supposed to be a Kanban agile like scrum like process board, but we do it a different way. So Sloan, talk to the team about what we do. Hey, look, Josh. Here's Josh. I love it. Josh, you have an interview today.

You better be prepping. Prefer the interview, Josh. No, you're going to crush it, I'm sure. So. Trello board. Trello board. I use it in a lot of different ways. I think initially the first way we used it was as a candidate matrix. So we keep an active Trello of who are the active candidates that are looking for jobs. We that are in our network that we're still working with and we organize them by skill set. So you'd have a column for .NET developer, JavaScript, Ruby, so on and so forth. And that's a fantastic way for as I'm, when a new job comes across my desk, if it says React developer, I go straight to the Trello and say, who are the React developers we're working for?

Who's a fit for this salary range? Who's a fit for this years of experience? Who has the nice to have that they want as well? And then you email those people the job. And it just makes it streamlines things so much for us. We use Trello to do the same thing with our current jobs so that you can kind of search and match jobs in candidates using Trello. I use it as a process flow management tool. So when I meet a can't, well, actually, when I reach out to a candidate, all of those outreaches that I do to folks who I haven't even spoken with yet, I put them in a column.

Then if I interview them and meet them, I put them in the next column. buy, send them a job, put them in the next column, submit them, put them in the next job, interview. So Josh is in the interview column right now. So that way I know these are the folks that are interviewing with my clients. I need to be checking in with them and the client on a regular basis to get updates, to get feedback, to see what else that candidate's working on, what other interviews they have in the process, where's their head at. So that helps me manage my own process and my own candidates.

Trello is fantastic. I love that. So let's go back to the mental health side of things. So obviously, again, Sloan was, you were in the office working for Vanderbilt, right? And then- Before the pandemic. And then we were at home for a little bit and then went back to the office in a hybrid setting. Yeah, so talk about your journey through kind of what you've experienced and then really just trying to balance everything. Yeah, I think, so when I first started working remotely because of lockdown, because of the pandemic, a lot of those days felt like a snow day, right? It was very novel to all of us.

And it was something that we never envisioned. And it kind of felt like a little break. And I think we were all eager and excited to get back into the office to see people and to get back to normal. And I know that phrase was thrown around a ton during that time. But when I went back into the office, I was like, you know what? I'm getting on teams meetings, and I'm having to be sit in my office do teams meetings, this doesn't make sense. I would rather just work from home and not have to commute, not have to pack a lunch, not have to coordinate my personal life around the eight to five of a job.

I wanted to be fully remote and have loved it, but I have learned from doing it for a full year, being 100% remote, I've learned some of the cons. I think the biggest one for me is because I'm an extrovert. When you're at home all day, And though I do talk to people a lot, it's not the same as interacting with people in person in terms of getting my energy levels up. And you're meeting new people and that's different than like hanging out with coworkers who you've known for years and years. And you know, you're just shooting the shit at lunch. That's different. We said at the same time.

Totally different vibes. So now I'm at home while my husband works in home too, but you know, we're both in our own respective offices doing our thing. So I'm just talking to strangers all day and just isolated in my little office. So getting my energy levels up has been tough. Finding motivation is tough at home. When you're not seeing other people do the same job as you, you're not seeing other people have wins and losses the same way that you are, you can start to feel like you're on an island. So we've leaned into that and big on our team in terms of like how to fight against that, how to have community virtually, because our team's all over the place.

So we build that through our team's calls. Our Monday morning check-ins, I think are really like, this sounds cheesy, but like life giving for me. Like I'm like, okay, now I'm like, can start my week because we got to shoot the shit. And I got to like talk about things that aren't work related, which you just don't build in a lot of time to do that when you're working remotely. Especially when you're me. I'm like all business and I joke with my candidates. I'm like, I'm so sorry I'm all business because I know that's like one of my biggest flaws is people are like this doesn't chill Like she's needs a calm Next here's like, you know, I had a candidate except an offer yesterday I was like oh my gosh, I've been told you congratulations because I've just been so like have you gotten the offer just So heads down all the time was like, okay, I need to act like a normal person for a second and congratulate you.

So yeah, just trying to remember how to be just how to relax and how to just also have fun at work when you're home is huge. I think our team, we do the best we can at that. I'm probably the one that struggles the most to lean into it. And that's totally fine. So as we wrap up here again, time flies when you're having fun with friends. A few people chimed in going back to Annie. I think people bristlekins feedback for several reasons. There's someone who doesn't know how to receive feedback. Their mental space is not great. That's huge. Their previous experience, terrible crews, and they're just rude to me people.

Yep. I mean, I think that's great. Philip, are you good at Zapier? I'd love to pick your brain, because I would love to integrate it kind of with our team. So, Philip, if you know Zapier or you know somebody who knows Zapier well, we'd love to chat with you. Jordan, it's great to see you. Jordan has done a lot of great stuff for unicorn finders and actually my team at Nerd as well. So thank you everything Jordan. Christina, let's definitely chat. We'd love to have you come in and speak to the team. I think, Christina is wonderful. She's a guest of the show and I think it'd be great.

Yeah, and Phillip down here, totally relate to being all business, especially feels like we didn't remember it means. Yeah. I mean, literally like, I think Sloane and I are very the same with this is just like the Mulan song, let's get down to business pops into my head. But basically like, yeah, like it's very much like no chit chat. And we implemented that Monday morning meeting. Just to chit chat. We literally just chit chat. like our guy in Colorado got snow this weekend. And we just talked about snow for five minutes, right? So again, I think that's really helped me and Sloan, I'm really glad it actually has helped you as well.

That's awesome. So two questions left. Actually, first off, is there anything else you want to say? Just encouraging words to job seekers, encouraging words to hiring managers, anything that you're seeing, last words of wisdom from Sloan. I just for job seekers out there, I do think recruiters get a bad rap and I think that's one of the questions you asked me that we skipped over because your brain starts going really, really fast and we jump to the next question. But recruiters can get a bad rap for ghosting and for not being consistent and for being metric-driven or, you know, transactional. for job seekers, like there are recruiters out there who truly care about about helping.

There are I've met so many just outstanding recruiters who are just good people. So definitely don't don't be burned by some of the bad recruiters out there. Definitely continue to reach out to recruiters. I think they can be a great resource in your corner, even if they aren't the ones that place you in a job just getting feedback from them and just to talk to another human being who wants to support you in the job search. So definitely keep reaching out to us. I love that. So slow because of spooky season. I've started asking all my guests this. What is your favorite Halloween movie? Or or just scary movie in general or not scary just what you always try to put on during hollot during spooky season.

I have a few movies that I try to watch every every spooky season. Okay. Hocus pocus is probably at the top of the list. If you've seen the second one, it's fucking done. People love it. I want I I didn't love it, but I also we watched it at a bonfire. Oh, it's a little chilly. And so I was just like thinking about how cold I was. So I wasn't paying a lot of attention. So I need to sit down and rewatch it at home. I also always try to watch Coco. I love Coco. You're talking about like the Disney like that's probably my favorite.

Yeah, out of town. That's awesome. It's it's so incredibly good. And then last night we watched Monster's Ink. I try to always watch Monster Zink during spooky season. That's amazing. That's a whole list of movies I would have never expected. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't watch a ton of scary horror films. So once we bring Morgan on to the show, that is Morgan's thing is scary movies. Mine is Sleepy Hollow, Legend of Ichabod Crane with Johnny Depp, like a few years back. So it's kind of like an eerie version of it, but it's not scary. It's got Fall Vibes, so big fan. All right, last question and we'll wrap it up.

And again, thanks for everybody who tuned in. Dr. T, it's great to see you. And again, Philip, I'll definitely hit you up about Zapier for sure. So, you know, the podcast is called Guidance Councilor 2.0. It's like you said, right, counselors, right? We had them in high school, middle school, college, but we don't really have them now. What would be your best career advice for your younger self? Sometimes I feel like I am my younger self. Like I feel like I'm starting out, which is a product of switching career paths. You feel like you're 21 again and you're starting over, but you're not 21. Unfortunately, I think my biggest piece of advice for careers is to, I've got two.

One is to ask as many questions as you can. I think curiosity is key, it's a skill. It's one that I did not have when I came out of undergrad. I had it a little bit, definitely more than I had it in high school, but I think my master's program is where I really learned that skill. I thought it, you know, I was so afraid of looking stupid. That was mine as a one. That makes sense. It was my number one fear. Didn't want anybody to think I didn't have all the answers. Wanted everybody to think I had it all together. And I realized in my master's program, my best friend from that program, she was fantastic at asking questions.

And I realized she was learning more than I was because I wasn't asking, asking questions. I was pretending that I knew everything and that was not serving you very well. So, um, had to get more curious then, um, and when you're starting a new job, you just have to ask, keep asking and keep asking, um, Jordan on our team does a great job of that. Um, I remember when he started, he has some fantastic questions. Um, I think my second piece of advice is, uh, that I would give to myself specifically, not sure if it applies to anybody else. Um, but I have focused so much on like, am I in the right job?

in my career path, you know, we get that message drilled into us from the time we're a little kid, you take all those little, you know, those little assessments, and it's like, you'd be a good doctor, you'd be a good teacher. And so you feel like there's only like one path for you. And I'm someone who's kind of bounced into a couple of different things. So I often get freaked out of like, I haven't found my passion, my calling in life. So I've been reminding myself focus less on that and focus on what is it about this job that does feel like a calling. What is it about this job that does align with my goals, my values, my talents?

Where do I find the most joy in this job and applying that to whatever job you're in? And if that list isn't long enough, then let's talking and search for a new job. There you go, I love it, I love it. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out Sloam. Thank you, obviously we'll talk later today. But for those of you who are watching, please go connect with Sloam. She's amazing. I really try to get my team to post on LinkedIn. So go connect with Sloan, join our Discord. I hope you all have a great Friday and have a great weekend. We'll see you all back next week.

Y'all have a good one. Peace. 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.