how to find the "right fit' w/reid evans principal consultant and resultstack and co-founder/cto of l3i

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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 T D S and T D E S S E Y N. 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. you enjoy the episode. Let's get the people what they want, man. Who are you? What do you do? We'll go from there. Yeah, it sounds good, man. Thanks Taylor. Always a pleasure to chat with you, man.

Yeah, I think let's see. So I'm Reed Evans. I'm in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. I've been for my whole life pretty much. I spent about six months out there near, near Nashville with Taylor, trying to make this one of these things over here beside me here work. Turns out I'm one of those world's okayest guitar players kind of within you know. You know, you love to be a guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's, you know, that's, you know, that's, this, the software thing of 20 or so years ago was the thing that was just paying for the guitars and was supposed to be the part-time gig.

And here we are. They, if you can't say anything with me. Yeah, they switched. So anyway, so right now what I'm doing, I guess my official title is principal consultant at a company called a result stack here in Knoxville. Software development consultancy company, we've done a lot of different things in the retail and convenient space. If you're in the Northeast, you probably know us as the people who built Smart Play for Cumberland Farms and really all of EG America, which is 17, 1800 stores across the country. We do most of their data strategy, a new data strategy for a lot of other companies in that space.

We've got a new cool website coming out, which is gonna highlight some of the things. Then we built all the tech for like Zoey's Kitchen We're helping out tremendously with Cabo, where Cabo's bought out and such a good thing. So yeah, we're doing most of the work. That's cool. So we're kind of like, what was there was a company that was like, hey, you may not know us, but you know a lot of the stuff we've done. That's, we're kind of starting to fit into that space a little bit with some places. And so that's cool. But basically what I do now, I started as just more like a hired gun coming in and trying to help different places out.

Still do that from time to time. But really what my passion is is building up other people, building up teams, getting teams of people to work awesome together. And really the idea is like, okay, how can we make all the developers feel very, very comfortable or all the technical people that are on the team feel very comfortable, very confident in what they're doing? Give them places where they can grow, but then also make sure that we're not just like the development team running them up and not letting, and not also delivering to the client. because that doesn't work either, right? You know, someone's got to pay for the developers to have fun and have a good time.

So kind of fitting in that middle, you know, I was a developer for 20 something years. I actually put my hands to the guy. I actually wrote some code last week, but. Here we go. Most of the time I'm helping the teams, making sure we're making the right decisions. I mean, absolutely empowering and trusting my teams that they'll make the right decisions based upon, We're solving the right problems, fully trust my teams, if they're gonna make the right technical decisions. I love that. So we're back on the leadership kick this morning. You know, there have been heavy job seekers over the last few weeks. And I'm excited to bring Reid back on because of his knowledge around leadership and hiring.

And that's what we're gonna dive into today. I do wanna agree to wanna throw you for a curve ball real quick. So I wanna talk about briefly, because I think people are struggling with this, about going into leadership. When do I make the jump? You know, I had dinner with Kelly Vaughn and Atlanta last week at Connect Tech. We actually talked about this. We talked about the discrepancies of titles. She actually just posted something yesterday about the discrepancies of titles and how it's everybody's on the job search. Just because you're a manager somewhere doesn't mean you're a major somewhere else. Can you just talk about some some reads, tips and tricks of folks getting into leadership and your advice to them?

Yeah. Oh, man. It's the job. Well. forever, I have said, no, I'm not going to be a manager. I don't want to be a manager. I've seen it done so poorly, so many different times. I've had a lot of great managers too. And so I specifically use term leadership instead. And I think the number one thing about leadership the tips and tricks to get into it is if you're a leader, that doesn't mean that you tell people what to do. It's the exact opposite. It's, hey, how can I help you? What do you need? Instead of the other way, if you're, I don't want to say that if you're getting into it tell people what to do, you're doing it wrong, but I would not, that's not how I view what a leader does.

And also, that you can be a leader on any team. You can be the brand new hire and still be a leader on a team. It happens all the time. It's more, in my mind, having a mindset of what can we do as a team to try to help out. I was like the world's worst leader on teams for most of my career and then realized I don't know what happened part of it is having kids and but mostly removing a whole bunch of hubris that I used to have and just kind of like I mean like who cares whether I'm right or you're right or whatever like let's let's do something that the whole team's gonna you know yeah gonna be happy with so I think getting into leadership I would say it's that a lot of awesome people you've mentioned Paul's joining Paul's a great person to check chat with listen to about obviously you are with the stuff that you're doing and yeah just time people talk to people figure out what you can do.

Scott Drake up in Louisville's. Oh gosh, his jumpstart material on it is great. And it's okay. I'll check that out. Who created this? Simple. Do the simple things. Yeah, I love it. What and right now too, I mean, this kind of goes into what we're going to talk about. But folks that were laid off that that may be a director at one place or senior director or manager. What's your biggest advice for those folks going to the market right now? Whew. Man, I got nothing. I honestly like, no. And this is one of my number one things about leadership too, right? If you don't know the answer to something, it's OK.

You're like, look, I don't know. I have been, it's been six years since I was looking for a job. Yeah. The job that I got this will go along with all the stuff that you preach, I know, right? I was like, I was working at my prior gig and I was like, I think it's about time for me to make a move. Call up my mic, I linked in one of my buddies. I'm like, hey, I'm thinking about looking up for a move. Do you know anyone that's hiring? Cause he's a guy who's in the area and knew a lot of people. He's like, what are you doing for dinner tonight?

Any hiring? I haven't actually submitted a resume anywhere in 12 years. Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah. Well, I appreciate all the time, and especially right now with all the layoffs that are happening, your job is most likely, not always, but most likely going to come from inside your phone book or your contacts in your phone. And I would tell folks, especially on the leadership side of things, because it is a little bit more difficult to find a gig in leadership. And I've had some DMs over the last few weeks, hey, I'm not seeing leadership roles, what's going on. It just, it is what it is.

I mean, I think at the end of the day, the first roles that get cut in my experience are leadership roles because everybody needs hands on the keys. And so I think there's got to be a level of empathy and awareness right now. You know, I think, you know, one, one of our friends, Kyle Welch, you know, he, he ended up leaving a ventrite recently and took a, he was an engineer major five years at a ventrite, went back to an IC at Atlassian. And I think, I think a lot of people would look at the resume and be like, Oh, it's a step backwards.

And it's like, what's it's not it's Kyle being aware that he actually missed the IC world and wanted to get back in it. So I didn't know if you had any thoughts on that just awareness side of things when it comes to the job search. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, well, you know, again, I just kind of try to remove all hubris from from any other like, there's not anyone path that everyone's got to take we all take all sorts of different paths, right? And being in a leadership role and not having my hands to keys and building, you know, doing any of my crazy abstract algebra math, coding stuff, whatever.

Like, I never thought there was a time when I wouldn't be doing that kind of stuff, all the programming language theory and like the stuff that I've nerded out about for decades, you know, right. And I don't know, I kind of like the leadership thing right now is there going to be a time where I get sick of that and decide I want to go back to something else? I mean, it's so funny. Like, let's do that. Yeah. You know, I would say, I would say what it comes down to is where can I provide value to a team? Does that mean that I need to be the person writing software?

Well, in some of my teams, I've got more of got, I don't know, I'm the teams that I'm working with now, multiple teams, right? We have a lot of really, really small teams, it's just part of our ethos. And so I'm working with lots of different teams. On some teams, I need to be much more hands to keys kind of a thing. Well, sometimes I need to be very far off and it all, yeah, everything in between. So I would say if you are looking for a position, like, what are the things that you really need? Because my guess is, is that your title is not actually feeding your family, right?

You know, like the work that you're doing them, you know, everyone's got to make money, get that not saying anything against that. Sure. But do you want that extra direct or title because you want to have that title or do you want it because you need it or because you're setting yourself up for something else? I mean, I don't know. I'm not saying that that's not a real thing, but really ask yourself maybe what is it that you're really looking for? 100%. 100%. I love that. So, so let's go on to kind of the topic of I want to go down that route. So thank you for humoring me.

But I want to obviously talk about finding the right fit or how to try to find the right fit as best you can. I mean, I think I think this is this plagued hiring. You can never get it right. I've made multiple bad hires in my career, and I'm gonna continue to make multiple bad hires in my career. But Reed, I'm curious just where you're at in your career. What are some things that you try to do during interview or maybe some tips and tricks to find as best of the fit as you feasibly can? Sure. I think, so my way of hiring is very not unlike what we're doing right here is to sit and have a chat with someone.

And to see is the someone that I can hang out with for eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, you know, you can get to know whether or not I think whether or not someone's actually interested in just taking a job or if they want to prove it, they want to grow in some way. And it's the way that they're looking to grow something that we, that I can help with. And it's so, And it tends to be a pretty good fit regardless of where their current level is because I don't really care when I'm hiring someone with their current level is Because hopefully they stay with us for a year or two years, whatever And if that's the case where they're gonna be in two years is completely different from where they are now So I need to get much more of that and then I also look at it from a standpoint of of, I think, just like, you know, with physics, right?

If you jump, technically the Earth comes up to you, like not all the way, but like the Earth comes up to you too. Sure, I've done physics, but yeah, that sounds great. Something like that. I'm pretty sure it's close for that being right. But like, you know, it's physics in my whole body seems that way. That's, that's got another thing that I thought I wanted to be that I've quit in my life. I love a lot of things in my life. But now I would say like, you don't have to be some rigid thing, right? Like if we bring it. Why do you think though it's rigid?

I couldn't tell you. That's not at all the way that I think about it. If I have a team that's hiring someone and someone else is gonna come on the team, if we've got two other people on that team, let's say, you bring the third person in, those two people are gonna have to like, one be okay with you adding someone else, which that's the first part. Make sure your team wants someone and needs someone else to join them, right? And then once they come on, figure out that all teams gotta work together, right? So personally, I include the team in the hiring. I make sure that they want someone else to hop on.

And you gotta make sure that you're not bringing in someone else. I see companies do it all the time, where it's like. They've got people who are working without a manager for six months. No issues. Why do we think they need a manager and we need to promote internally, right? There's memes all over the internet about stuff like this. Make sure that when you bring someone in that you are bringing them into where they can grow but that by bringing them in, you don't stump the growth of the other people that are already on that team. Are you a big promote from within or look outside?

What are your thoughts? I've actually never asked that to anybody. That's a good question. I would say if you have someone from, I'm always looking for, and I can go through my playbook as far as to get one on one to the people that work for us. One of the things that I ask, two of the things that I ask them that I think are sort of my derivatives of like way other things that other people are doing, but is what makes you feel validated, right? Because you gotta know what is it that they're gonna know that you appreciate what they're doing. Some people, you know, there's a whole five love languages and all the other books and stuff like that, right?

That you can do with just general relationships though. But it's funny when you ask someone specifically they'll give you a different answer. So that's number one. And then the second thing that I ask is where do you wanna grow? And so if someone comes to me and they say, I wanna get into leadership, right? Great. Let's look for opportunities to get you in positions to where you can start moving that. But does that scare you? Because I feel like a lot of times, and I have my thoughts on this, I want to ask you this first, that people, hiring managers in HR get so weirded out when people come in and start talking about their future when they don't even have the job yet.

I've multiple HR people and hiring majors turned down a candidate because quote unquote they don't seem interested in the job available when all they were doing and again I have so I've obviously makes me mad but I just felt that's so shortsighted like you should be hiring for the person of what they could become not not always just who they are in the present. I would say that seems to me a very presumptuous stance. It's presumptuous that they're the ones looking for help because they're hiring, right? And if they're hiring, trying to put it's voting season. I'm trying to put my politicians out here, not alienating to many people.

Now, it's really presumptuous that youth, that they think that they know the specific position that they need in the specific skills that they require and to completely take off the table, all of the other skills that that person might potentially have that could improve the business in ways they had never even considered. I know. So I think that's a very presumptuous thing. How much do you love for? So let me see this. There's a split. And by the way, there are people who have tuned in, Chris, it's Gracie, Yolanda, Jeff, Kevin, Sal, it's great to see you, Melina, it's great to see you as well.

What, like, when you're interviewing somebody, right, what percentage split would you say is between hiring for the immediate and hiring for the future? Is it a 50-50? Is it a 60-40? Like, and again, this is just Reid's answer. This is just my answer. I would say that we've grown so we've grown a lot recently so a lot of it has been higher for the immediate me, and we are transiting and we have done, I think, a good enough job of doing that, plus focusing on retention and all of those other things, right? So we're now very much in the hiring more long term. But I would also say that I make it a point on any interview to let the people know, like, I'm hiring you, I'm not hiring software developer or whatever the title might be, front of developer, or whatever, whatever the title I want to hire awesome people to work with.

I'm not trying to hire someone to fit on in this one specific slot necessarily or to do this one specific title where I can interchange this box with some other box right where people were not Docker containers, you know, like, let's make sure that these things are working. working. Yeah. So, so, so would you say it's 50 50? Like I want to go back. I want, I want to hold you that question. What is just in your mind in general, maybe not right now because you're growing a ton, but in general, is it 50% for the future, 50% for the now, or is it slide in one way or the other?

Um, as far as now as in the immediate need or as in future as in hiring the person for where I think you're going to go. Yeah, both. Yeah. If we're doing that thing in my mind it's almost I would say 80 for the future 20 for now really oh yeah man I'm all about that's why I don't get to make all the soul hiring decisions yeah I just want to hire everybody I'm like hi in the sky everybody everybody you and I are the same we just want to hire everybody and be friends with everybody I promise that's it that's it okay okay here's a little bit of a hard question.

Do you feel, do you feel like that high mentality, like do you feel like you can say I can lead and help everybody and do you feel like that's maybe got in your way a little bit? Because I think I have some of that, right? I think I have some of the, oh well I'm gonna be the best leader that this person has ever had and I sometimes like try to save that person. For sure, for sure. And I mean I think those things can happen, but I think those things can happen. But I also think if you look long-term with averages, personally, someone who is hungry and wanting to grow.

I don't, you know, if they're wanting to grow and they kind of have an idea of what they want to do, I feel like I've got a really good system and we've got a good sort of a thing in place to work, you know, I've got people working for me with, they've been in the industry maybe three years, I promise you Taylor, they're a senior guy of any party you want to put them, right? And they've been doing this for three years, yeah, because the amount of stuff they've seen in three years with the way that we work and the way that we're in and out of different places, the way that we do all of the different stuff, these people are building some incredible things, and they've been doing it for three years and they are absent, and not only are they building it, but they're completely owning all the stuff with it too.

So it's a whole other level where they're probably done a ridiculously technical operating too. So I've had far more wins there than I've ever had on the losses. If you've looked long term, I think you're probably right. There are a few that don't even think of it. It's so funny because I don't really even remember those because the ones that have been some of the developers we've got, some of the people I've been working with who who are just amazing people and they just also happen to be incredible developers. If I miss on a few, that's okay. Yeah, 100% 100% Alex is great to see you.

Yeah, Barrett, I mean, a lot of companies, there's no budget for hiring for the future. I mean, listen, and then I get it in a way because you can't always bring people on, you know, with hopefully they'll contribute in a year. But I do think there's got to be a level of balance. And again, that's why I try to bring people on like Reed who get it. Alex comes in people first, 100% always. Kind of bear it, hire me for the immediate future. Yes, I'm right. So, well, I think, I think, so let me, let me, if I can't talk about that real quick and then I don't want to interrupt, but what I would say is that this idea that you're going to hire someone and they're going to be productive in a year, like surely there's a task that they could do that they could work on and you could trust them to do now.

Just make sure that whatever like, and this is the whole thing, I have a whole like motivational poster presentation that I did or whatever to, because we do these internal presentations. But it's like a lot of your team to fail, a lot of your people to fail. If they mess up on something, that's fine. Don't give them a task where they, where like the likelihood of them messing up, there needs to be some of that fear that they're gonna mess up or fail. And some people don't like to work fail, not deliver 100%, not get a plus. Just make a mistake on it, exactly. But make sure that whatever the downside of that is is commensurate with whatever their, whatever their level is.

and whether that's technical or like, that's just like being a good leader. And setting your team up to where they might possibly make a mistake, but if they do, it's not gonna be into the world, you know? And that's gonna allow them to grow and it's gonna make them feel validated and all those other things. Surely there's something that you could find on your team that's gonna allow them to be productive in before a year. Goodness, I got people who, I mean brand new software developers, We don't hire completely junior, but people with a year of experience and they're pushing code first week here. Yeah, yeah, I know.

So, Kevin comes in. This is a great question. I'm glad you asked this. Kevin, because I was going to ask to read this too. How would you show the recruiters on how to hire me and you're all hungry and passionate for the role? I'm going to get started on the recruiting side real quick. Follow up, intentionality, ask them good questions. That's when I know you're locked in. When a job seeker approaches us and they're just like, what about this? What about that? about that. Is there anything I can do? Do you need references? Do you need any Val done? I can do that. The willingness to be able to go above and beyond really stands out to me as a recruiter.

Reid? Same. Like, I mean, all of those things, you know, personally we've got our like, our core list of features that we look for, our core tenants as a company. I don't have people come into like, this is how I fit each one of these five. Like, you're hired. Like, how could I'm not hired. You've already solved the thing. Like we gave you know, we gave you the answers in the bag of the book. Here's what we're looking for. And they've been great hires people, you know, people hopping on and, you know, I don't think there's any secret to it. I'd say don't be fake with it, but it's usually pretty obvious that someone's doing that.

100%. So as we wrap up here, read, Tom Flaz, you're having fun with friends like I always say. Any more thoughts just like on the climate of the market, things you're seeing, things you want to share, both hire manager, job seekers, just kind of last little bit of time, just kind of to rant on whatever you want to rain on. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I would say, it seems, all of us things very cyclical, as I think most things probably are. We did a whole lot of hiring in the beginning of the year, and it's funny because once you hire the people, you get to make sure that people are happy or else you're just professionally on the treadmill because you hired two and lose three.

And that like, my father, focus on making people happy because, you know, the person that you get in is later is probably gonna cost more and be less valuable to your company because you're gonna have to train them on all the stuff that the person that just left didn't know about. All right, so quick question. Have you, this is why I always get people on open platform because you say things and I just go down a rabbit hole. Would you say that retention has been the top of y'all's mind a little bit more over the last year or two? Well, we've so we've grown considerably.

I would say like three years ago, we had eight, maybe full time people were somewhere around 40 now. Holy smokes. Oh, yeah. I realize that. Yeah. Yeah. So we've had a lot of growth that was the retention is always a thing. Retention is always a thing. And with that amount of growth, you fundamentally have to change, right? Anytime you do a factor of two or a factor of however much, right? you've got to change some things. And so with where we are now, retention has to be the emphasis because when you only have eight people, you'd be like, yeah, everyone's good. Okay, with 40 people, you can't make that.

There's only so many touch points you can make in a day while you're also doing all the other stuff. So that's really one of the main things that, I would say my role is shifted a little bit more to that than the straight up hiring. What's one thing that you can share that y'all have done maybe a little differently to help with retention that maybe another business could take? I think it's simple. We do one-on-ones and they've been amazing. And I'll say everyone's probably been at that company where someone five levels up says, we need to do one-on-ones. And by the time it gets down to the thing, it's your name is Taylor.

Okay, Taylor, what can you tell, that's not what I mean but like have a conversation like I'm having with you. You know? Yeah. I was a Spook at Nax and ACS, which is a convenience store thing around data strategy, which added about that a little bit before the call here at the table. But I went there to speak on data strategy, but one of the keynotes that they had was a guy. He had an idea of saying, stop, start, continue. So what should we start doing? What should we start doing? What should we continue doing? And ask your people that. Really kind of cool. I love that.

When we start, continue? Start, stop, continue. and I'll get the guy's name, it's fixed. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So I'll start with that, and that works really, really good in the first one. I find that that one doesn't, hopefully that one, those are sort of longer term things, but then the other two, how do you feel valued? What can we do to make sure that you feel valued? What are you looking for there? And then pass that where you wanna grow. It's simple as that. Those are the questions I ask. That's my direct playbook, right? We start off with an overview, just chatting about stuff, go through those, that's what I do on the long ones.

And then the thing is, and then it's up to me, because now the person has explicitly told me how they feel valued, what makes them feel valued, and how they wanna grow. If I, if now it's real simple, now a job simple, you just do that, you know? Something comes up, hey, you know, I really wanna be seen as a senior developer, someone who can take on stuff. Great, I get this job over here, this other task over here that's coming up that I was gonna do, but you want to just go ahead and take it. Now that's how I'm your resume. Now you've gotten that ability to be able to say, to say, hey, I've been able to do this or, what do you mean?

I mean, I think where it is, you know? I think one of ones, you know, when I was managing the local recruiting team in Nashville, we didn't really do as many one of ones because we were in the office. And then now, like, I'm a big fan of one of ones and I went away from one of ones because I thought I could free up some of my time. And I started to go every other week with people. And almost four weeks or a month time, my team was like, we don't feel the same. Yeah. So yeah, I would highly recommend one-on-ones especially if it's a remote-fulls culture.

You have to get that in. You have to. And we are, I mean, yeah, this is my house. So yeah, I have been here for six years. So yeah. Yeah. You're just as much better put together. You send your guys over. They sell my life. Yeah, it's not really a problem. You're a power beast. Yeah, Drew, it's great to see you. Paul comes in, it's about progress, not perfection. How are you progressing? How do I support your progress? Love that. Drew comes in and then we'll end with this question. Any advice for one on ones where your manager is less technical and it's tougher to have those tech specific conversations.

Yeah. Well, so I think, I don't know, maybe this is a little bit hubris. The thing about it is, there's calls that I get on where I kind of forget that I'm technical. So we know what I mean. Like you and we could have a conversation about any specific tech and you'd be able to know a little bit about it. You could say the words, or the end and you're like, I don't even know where those words came from, but it's just what I've been doing for a while. But I would say if someone's telling you, hey, this is where I wanna grow or whatever.

The one on ones, it's not a time for me to mentor them on how to use monoidal contrabarian factors for building a sorting hierarchy. Right, exactly. That's not the time for that. It's the time and place to say, what we wanna do is I wanna hear from you and how you're feeling and where you wanna grow. And then it's my job, assuming you're the one on one and I'm the leader in this role, right, Taylor? I would say, Taylor, where's it that you wanna grow? And you tell me where you're looking to grow and how you're doing, great. And now it's my job to then look for places where I can insert you jobs.

Right. Parks. I mean, really, one on one shouldn't be a highly technical discussion. None of them are unless someone asks me something specific because they just happen to know. Oh, yeah. It's not technical. It's 100% just getting to know the other person. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I don't think there's a secret to it. And I think everyone's going to do it differently. I'm going to come at it from a certain way because of my personality or whatever, right? Other people will come at it differently. Yeah, I love it. All right, so two, three more questions. Three more quick questions. I'm gonna start asking this. Lighten your eyes.

Lighten your eyes. First question, is there anything tech-wise you're tinkering with right now that you want to encourage other people to look at right now? I have never asked this question. I'm gonna start asking it now. I'm getting a little techy at the end of my talks. Okay, you know, it's so funny. I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but not really. Some of the things that we're looking into, I would say, graph databases are super cool. Not graph you all, but I actually have full on graph database with great ones and depending on what you're doing, like Neo4j and there's a bunch of them now.

Like they're super cool. And I'm not. No. Graph database is Excel. I don't know. Excel is pretty awesome. Turns out, you know, like not for enterprise stuff. Well, actually Excel runs your enterprise, whether you want to admit it or not. I can promise you that because I've, because I've had these conversations with these business owners. Well, look, so look up graph databases and Excel. They got a good idea. back maybe excel is bad never left man never left I've just been going around fucking with people and saying jay queers back and just to see what people's faces do it stack according to stack overflow me second second most used uh web frame is there really still apparently yeah 2020 it's amazing yeah um all right not historically I could have told you all the do you know what I've got it's a treadmill man I'm off that treadmill like I I say that to Jim and I'm like, doing a good job running.

You know, like I'm off of it a little bit. A lot of it I just felt wasn't healthy for myself. Cause I would get so invested in, I mean, it doesn't matter what tool you use to solve the wrong problem. Very good. It's a pretty tweet game. I love that. Next question, favorite holiday movie. All right, so I started to open up the Christmas tunes and the holiday music, the movies this weekend. So I'm gonna ask everybody, like what's your favorite go to? You're sitting down, what is the most nostalgic holiday movie that you put on? I mean, immediately Christmas vacation. Yes. Yeah. Love it.

I was about to put on last night. Mine, mine is the Santa Claus with Tim Allen. Oh, no, that's a good one too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Christmas vacation, it was between dad or. I mean, there's a bunch of good ones. You know, else really good and that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I'm going to New York Wednesday. So I'm going to see elf. Um, and then last thing. Um, so we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school and college, but now as adults, more than ever, we don't really have them. Right. That's why this whole thing's called guidance counselor 2.0. What would be your biggest piece of career advice that you would tell your younger self that you would want to share with others?

Oh my goodness. it doesn't there is no such thing as right. Like there's there's there's good for a specific situation. And I would also say that like more often than not most people are just kind of trying to do the best that they can do most of the time to just kind of get by. And like I don't know You can't always adjust, I would say, it's sort of the one chooses the wizard thing. You can't always choose the technology you're gonna work with, you can't choose all of those other things which you can choose, like whether you want, whether or not you're like a decent person to those that work with you.

Yeah, enough. You know, I like, there are people that I will see at conferences that I worked with 15 years ago and I'm like, I'm surprised you still wanna speak to me because I was kind of a jerk, you know? So, but again, it goes to you hire for the future, you hire for what, you know, if you're not thinking long term, then all you're doing is firefighting. And so I would say, yeah, I think those are some, yeah, I don't know, I think I did some stuff okay. And then there's a few things around like, I mean, they really buy me anything. No, it's kind of just being a jerk, you know?

I was trying the best they came in. That's one thing with this show that I've realized last two and a half years of doing this show is people just don't know what they're doing. People are trying the best they can. And I think if you can approach the job search, if you can approach your career and you know what, so and so did me wrong, but you know what, they were just trying the best they can or the best they could. I think your mindset can change a little bit. So I love that. I love that a lot. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us today.

Go connect with Reed. Follow him on Twitter. and Evans. So check him out. Marie, thank you so much. Stay on real quick as we end it. But y'all have a great one tomorrow. I'll be back with Jacob Harrington. So Jacob and I had a great live show a few months ago. He found his job over Twitter. And he wanted to come back on and kind of do a quick catch up. So tomorrow morning I'll be with Jacob, a senior Ruby engineer, and then I will be off for the rest of the week going on my wife and I's It's six year wedding anniversary to New York.

So tomorrow is the last one for a bit and I'll see you all in a long week. So see you all tomorrow. Read. Thanks again, buddy. 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.