lunch time edition w/vetswhocode board member w/alex reyes, mba, who is an inclusive recruiting strategist @ meta

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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.com is how to get in touch with me old fashioned email social media at t 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. Hope you enjoy the episode. the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll go from there and I'll be right back. All right, cool. Well, thanks for having me, Taylor. I'm Alex Reyes.

I've been spent 17 years in recruiting so far with 10 of those years in the tech industry, currently working as a recruiter at meta. Also a 13 year Air Force Resur veteran for the background in air transportation logistics and I was a former first sergeant for those who know who that is. And I'm a board member alongside and Taylor, that's who cooked for the last three or so. Really, for the last 13 years, in my life I balance a regular career and a military career. I understand both worlds and I'm able to translate skills into relevant roles and as well as into tech, especially our military folks as well.

Sorry, I love that. Yeah, I totally forgot to now, sorry Jerome. Yes, Alex and I are vet to code. We are on the board with vet to code. So very excited to hang with him. So Alex, so I want to dive into, you know, 2023, the job search. Obviously people are like, I'm going to stay put, but you know, I definitely want to hear your thoughts on what people should be mindful of during the holiday season and ramping up for 2023. Well, the job search in general, like in a word, you know, it's competitive. just sharing from friends and family that are actively looking at everything, it's stuff out there, especially in tech.

As you see the overall climate for technology and general or for the industry in general, there are more people returning to the market for reasons out of their control. So it will get competitive, especially if you're looking to make a pivot. Yeah, just in general. In terms of just the job search in general, just really be intentional where you want to go next, understanding your overall skills and highlighting that information on your social pages, your resume and also your interview and stuff like that. I love that. And so also, just to put in perspective, so I'm an agency recruiter and Alex is a corporate recruiter.

So Alex, I want to talk real quick about the differences because I know I get this question a lot about what are you, what types of recruiters are there. So let's back up real quick before we go anymore on the job search. What is, talk about your role and again, I know we can't go super in depth, but like what's your primary responsibility when it comes to sourcing talent and just kind of, just explain I guess what you do on a day to day and really how should candidates approach you? Because I think, you know, I always talk from like an agency side like slide-in-or DM's, network with us, ask those questions, leverage recruiters for resume and LinkedIn help.

How do you like to be approached as a corporate recruiter and maybe kind of outline on what your day looks like at a super high level just so people can get an idea of probably how busy you are? Oh yeah, a lot of those, a lot of the things that you mentioned are very similar, you know, agency recruiting and in-house recruiting and everything. I've spent, I think at least, five years in agency before I made the hop in general. So I got to see a lot of those trends just blend into in house recruiting. Networking is definitely helpful. Just making sure that you're making the right connections, whether it's an hour later.

And yeah, in terms of my job itself, the job itself, it's more so I get to, I get, I have the luxury of being able to focus on the role versus. versus I know on the client on the full best especially full best side agency they're constantly looking for new requisitions constantly looking for new candidates I I got to work both a split desk as well as in full best at an agency and I definitely like to split that better but as an in-house recruiter I get to I get to focus on the role action and get to do a lot of a lot of research more so whether it be, you know, in the job market or can I just send the job market or working with working with my clients.

Let me ask you this. I'm curious too, and this is a learning lesson for me. That's why I love interviewing internal recruits and I love that you have the agency. I totally forgot you have agency too, which is even better for the interview. What like would you say you get to slow down a little bit because I think the biggest I think agency recruiters, the recruiters out there that give the industry such a bad rap, right? No one follows up with me. I don't hear from my recruiter. What would you say in your experiences because of your role, you're able to kind of walk, hand hold the can a little bit more than agency?

It really depends on the role that you're in, whether you're looking for a one for one type of opportunity or if you're looking for several people on a new team or whatever it is, generally speaking, within the industry and tech. I'd say there's never really any slowing down. You're constantly focusing on something. There's really no downtime for me. In the last couple of years, I've focused on contact recruiting. So it's busy, it's just a different kind of busy, right? I understand. I understand. Chuster or Caleb, it's great to see you, Chuster, it's obviously a great to see you, buddy. And then Chris. So Genesis, I hate to hear this.

Obviously, Genesis was one of the ones I've been laid off for meta. I'm curious, Alex, with you, how would you say people recently have approached interviews in the next role? Should we bring it up? Is there a way to look to hear this spin in a positive? I know my two cents, Genesis. Also too, I'd love to help you. So if you shoot me, can you shoot me a resume? I'd love to help you for sure. But and Genesis is a former guest of the show as well. I would just say, I mean, everybody knows about it. I mean, it just happens as part of it.

So I'd just be truthful. I mean, Alex, I didn't know if you had any more thoughts on this. Yeah, it's something that's unfortunate and out of our control when it comes to a layoff. So definitely be forthcoming or just being honest about it and talk about, focus on your performance at the company, how you did your contributions. really frame it frame it as this is what I've done for the company. Um, unfortunately out of this is out of my control, this happened. And now I'm looking for a new next opportunity. You know, I'm really sorry that that happened to you, Dennis. Yeah. And again, I mean, I, I tell people this, you know, people always ask me, Taylor, should I include and then Alex and curious to your thoughts as well, you know, should I include a three month stint where we just didn't see eye to eye and I had to leave.

But like for me, I would say include it on your resume, but you need to be able to talk to it. Like I don't know about Alex, but when I talk with a candidate and that can't, it's like, hey, what about this three month stint? You're like, oh, and you're like, you don't really say anything? That's a red flag. But if you're like, hey Taylor, listen, this three month stint, I was promised I was gonna do.net Azure, and I came in and I was doing Excel and Access in VBA. I had to get out. To me, that's like, that's fine. That's totally fine. So Alex, I didn't know if you had any more thoughts on that, just for just overarching job seekers right now.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Just, yeah, before coming with the situation has happened, you know, I took a risk that it didn't pan out. So I went to go on looking for my next opportunity. That's a way of showing that, you know, you're able to take calculated risk. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, you know, I have peers from my MBA cohort that have done that. you know, took a chance on something and you know, didn't work out. So they're pivoting. So it's, it's totally, it's something that, you know, happens and you just have to recover from it. Yeah, absolutely. So, so Alex, I mean, obviously, you know, met up with layoffs, Twitter with the, I mean, everybody, it's not just everybody, right?

I'm always curious. So I've, I've been blessed. I've never been laid off before, but I've obviously helped my dad do a sudden job search, my brother and my mom and obviously countless other people my career, but close family, I think it kind of sinks in a little bit more than just like another random person. You know, I always tell, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts. What would be your like Alex's five top things to do once you're laid off? Like do you have kind of like a mental checklist of what you would want to share with folks? Um, let's see, uh, mental checklists in terms of just preparing for the job.

Yeah, just just how do you get back out there? I would say, you know, really, it's really a, I guess, an interpersonal career journey. Like, you really, like, for me, when it takes me back to, like, 2010, when I finished my undergrad, I had a risk management internship that didn't really, I didn't really like, you know, I was, it was in construction, something totally, like, not for me. I was part of one of my majors, so I did it. And I also had a recruiting career at UPS for a couple of years. So really looked at the skills that I've gained in the last couple of years.

And I wanted to focus on a couple of those. So it was interviewing, helping others, and giving advice. So I chose a agency recruiting route. I got hired at Volt, which is, you can see how my LinkedIn is nothing to hide there. Work at Volt, Workforce Solutions for a couple of years, and got to become a recruiter, full-fledged recruiter, you will. And then, yeah, you really want to highlight those skills that you want to showcase on your resume interviews on your LinkedIn and find jobs that align to that. It's no longer just applying to, I think, or just like applying to, I think when I worked in agency, I remember EDD saying something like, you have to keep applying for jobs and all this other stuff, just to stay active, like don't do that, especially if you're mid career, you wanna be intentional where you wanna go next.

You want to work for a company that resonates with you, something that gives you energy. And if you just hop onto the next job, and it might not be as fulfilled. Yeah. You know, you've said intentionality a few times now in this interview, we're 13 minutes, and I think you've said intentionality like five or six times. Can you expound on the importance of intentionality? I know I preach about it, but obviously we'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah. You really want to mean what you say, you fool. If on a resume, if you say something like you've helped, you've helped build this thing. Like how did you help build it?

Did you lead a team to build XYZ or did you create a process to enable a team to build that product? You know, you wanna really pinpoint what you did at a company. And yeah, if someone sees like you helped, you just helped then like, oh, how? or you really want to have those resume and LinkedIn is a keyword game, unfortunately. And you really have to have the people, recruiters will seek out those keywords, whether it be you're on a certain coding language or a project management tool or a methodology or whatever it is. Do you see people, there's no other better term, half asked their way through the interview.

Cause I mean, you're saying intentionality a lot. Do you deal with a lot of people that just kind of like whatever? In the, in the last six years, um, in my current role, I, I've, I've had candidates that have been that. I guess our transitioning out of the military, um, in my first three years in, at meta, I, I got to work with a lot of transition military. So I ended up coaching. I got to do a lot of coaching and also a lot of team matching, if you will. And then on the engineering side, you know, it's, it's more, it has been more pinpointed, more like, they know to bring their a game.

But I think for my, my previous company, I, I got, I dealt with a lot of a lot of the, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm hot stuff. and like, you know, this is, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna elaborate because, you know, whatever it is, but I haven't encountered that in a while. Okay, okay, well that's good. Yeah, and again, for me, I see it on my end. I think there's just a lot of people just slinging the resumes around, hoping stuff that falls in your lap, and it just takes a lot more intentionality than that, for sure. You gotta ask the questions, you gotta know what you're walking into, you gotta do the research, please thank you, yes ma'am, no ma'am, I mean, like all of it, like you gotta be intentional.

Um, you know, Caleb comes in here. It says, I was laid off back in August. I've been honest about being laid off higher major seem to understand. Yeah, again, as long as you can tell the story, right? Now here's the deal, right? Also going back to Genesis, J.S., I don't know if you're watching, we're going back to what Genesis asks, like everyone's getting laid off. Like you're not alone, right? Like, like everyone, the market right now is, is heavily readjusting. So you're not alone. Just, just be able to talk about it. Um, and, and heck if you work for big companies like a stripe, like a meta, like Twitter, you don't really have to really explain anything.

People already know, like, you know, you don't really have to go into deep detail. So I want to talk about resumes real fast out. What do you like to see in a resume? Like when you open up a resume, what do you love to see first? I like to see, I guess, impact bullets. Really, impact bullets, okay? Yeah, just really, just how you contributed to a company, whether, you know, whether it be an MSA like made, saved, or achieved, or like star method, you know, wait, wait, the MSA, what does that, I've never heard that before, what does that? So I guess that's a military term from, I made, saved or achieved on, on our, on our, on our EPRs, OPRs or performance reports in the military, you, you would have only so many characters and you'd have to do it in a certain format.

And you'd have to get really good at grammar to do that, especially if you want to fit it It's like one line on Microsoft Word. Wow. So you really want to just be concise as well as tell your story at the same time. And a resume is typically anywhere between one to three pages. So you can fit maybe. I've seen good resumes. It will show like probably five or six key bullets that they've contributed to the company. First position for each position? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it just entails like what they've done and how they've impacted an organization. Love that. You heard that here first people.

What is your big turn off? Like what is your like, you see it and you're just like, nope. Ah, I'm pretty open when it comes to resumes. I know there's several different styles of resumes. I definitely have a preference for like the chronological and also like the skills. Okay, a question. Two columns or one column. For a resume. One column, I guess. Okay, good. You know what I'm talking about though, right? The resumes that have like with like folded in half like like hot dog. I mean, basically, yeah, they have like two, they had, they basically have data in two columns on one page. I've seen that.

I've seen it like as a footer or like, you know, on the side. I mean, that's okay. Like when it comes to like your, your, your contact information, your links and stuff like that. But I mean, that can be put on the bottom or the top or whatever. But, you know, I'm pretty open, but I haven't really seen a messy resume in a long while. Well, that's great. Good. I'm happy for you because I see many resumes all the time. So I'm going to start sending you for me. Listen, I think it's bull. I think it's formatting. I don't need to see 16 different types of fonts.

I don't need to see italicized, bolded, underlined. Like keep it simple. super simple. It's not hard. It's just your resume. It's not your portfolio. There's, there's be hand or behants and dribble and all those platforms to do that. I don't need your resume looking like, you know, Joseph's many coat of colors here. So, all right. So I want to kind of get into, I mean, obviously as we, you know, kind of go through this getting prepped for for 2023, how, how, how, how should people work with recruiters? Right. I mean, I think a lot of people, Especially out of code school, they're like, do you work with juniors?

I'm like, no, like, no, companies don't pay us to go find junior devs because they can put up a posting and obviously find 200 of them. What, what, what would you, what would you, what would you encourage folks to do to work with recruiters like you and I? How do you like to be approached in the DMs? Can you give a little information on that? And yeah, no, Brian, no papyrus, no papyrus or comic sans. Thanks. So you're asking how I would like to. Yeah, so like how do you like to like when someone slides into your DMs, how would you want to be approached if somebody wants to work with you or the company you're at?

Just be upfront on what you're asking is I don't necessarily need like too much formality or anything. just what you're asking, whether the I'm in the market, what's reconnect or hey, you know, I heard your good resumes, you know, you help me with that. I mean, I'm definitely more than happy to help form out a resume. It's not a problem. It's something that I like doing. And and it's I've been able to scan scan a resume pretty quick and you know, give out give out a quick advice to help to help improve or anything like that. But Yeah, just just be upfront on what you'd like to.

And you're probably like Taylor, that answer was dumb and Alex, that answer was simple. Yeah, yeah, but here's the deal. Most of y'all don't do that shit, right? Most of it's like, hey, or it's this like long post about your entire history. Like, listen, like, if you want to work with us, say, hey, Alex, love, you know, I've always wanted to work at meta. Here's my background. Can you help me? Now, here's another thing. Most recruiters, now, they're not all the time recruiters can help. So Alex, if you can't help that person, what's the best tactic for that person to get in touch with another person?

Like, do you share information? Like, for me, I'm like, Hey, I'm not working on this role, but my business partner is let me make intros. Like, is that something you will do? Is that something that job seekers should ask people? Like, hey, Alex, do you mind making an intro? I mean, is that okay to ask? To an extent, I would say, yeah. From what I've done in the past is, you know, I've been able to make connections just to another recruiter, and I'll leave it up to them to reach out. You know, I can't guarantee anything, but I can definitely do that. You know, if I know that recruiter personally, whether it be, you know, internally my current company or, you know, just just in the industry, you know, I'd be happy to make an intro.

But for the most part, you know, if it's someone that is several connections away from me or on a totally different team I'm not familiar with, you know, I'll reach out and then see if I can make it that connection. But I can't really guarantee anything. But I do my best. I love that. No, I get that. Vince comes in here. Vince, thanks for the question as a recruiter. What is your response to a candidate whose message is, who message you asking if they can mark them as a referral from you, even if you've never worked together? I mean, that's, working on the, I've worked, I spent 10 months on the referrals team at Meda.

Yeah. Nice, that's how I started on my career. So like, really a referral is, really is putting your name on putting your name on a person like you know belching for that person. Other cultures like you know that's that's risking your career sometimes but you know referrals aren't meant to be taken lightly. I mean if you work with that person or maybe if you know you've had one-on-one cooking sessions or or something like that if it's more than just transactional if it's more of a meaningful relationship that you've had with that recruiter possibly. Definitely ask if you can. Just don't blindly do it. I would definitely ask first.

And if you believe that relationship is meaningful, then interactions have been, then ask them first and then go ahead and mark them as a result. If they say yes. Yeah, I'm glad you asked us. I was talking, who are not talking to the other day about just referrals and getting in with companies. I mean, I think that's the way to go. I would also too, before you submit your resume, make sure you do a quick LinkedIn search for the company and see if you have any mutual connections. Because if we know you, if Alex, like, let's say I would hit up Meta, I would hit up Alex.

Can you be my referral? Hopefully Alex says yes. Right? And so, You know, the same thing with me, but I see so many times that people have their BFFs working at that company and they don't ask for a referral. And I will tell you this, the referral is going to be the thing that gets you in the door faster. Now, here's another thing. If you submit your resume and you do not have that referral set up, that person, I don't know how it works at MetaAlex, but typically, once you submit your resume and you did not touch a referral next to it, you can't edit it.

And so like don't go around again. Don't go around submitting your resume. If you have friends at a company slow down Do a quick LinkedIn search see if you have any friends and say hey listen I want to work here Do you think you can be my referral and then submit your information with that person tied to it Alex? What would you say that's probably good good advice or bad advice? I'm I'm open to criticism it aligns to being intentional so That's good. Exactly. Going back to being intentional. Nicole, it's great to see you, girl. I hope you're doing well. How do you maintain a relationship with a recruiter over time so you can work with them later to further your career?

Alex, you first. A lot of times in my career, it's working with recruiter or revisiting, like candidacy and stuff happens after rejection. like, you know, taking a rejection with grace, just being able to be able to make that connection and ask if they can revisit, if you can revisit in, you know, a year or later down the road. If the recruiter is open the feedback, you know, ask them, you know, what skills they need to work on or, you know, I know a lot of those things are behind privacy policies and stuff. So most recruiters won't be able to tell you that. But if you focus on your core skills and stuff, especially towards the role that you applied to, I mean, you can definitely, there's a possibility of revisiting that later on.

And just make nice, be kind. Yeah. I mean, I listen, if your recruiter posts a lot on LinkedIn, a great way to keep in touch is just engaging with their content all the time. If your favorite recruiter does not I have a presence on LinkedIn. Just shoot him a text every quarter. Like set a reminder, hey, hey, Taylor, just checking in, hoping to do well. You know, recruiters, if you're watching this, come up with a way where you can keep up with all your cans as well, right? Agency side, we can only place around 10%, 10 to 15% of all the people we meet. So for meeting 50 people a year, we're placing, for meeting 500 people a year, we're only placing 50 of them.

What are you doing with other 450 candidates? Create a pipeline, create a community that's huge and then also job seekers do the same. Check in with us, Texas once a quarter. I always love hearing from my folks. I love it, I love it. And honestly, that's why I'm on social. I can scale my time more. So Alex, if you wrap up here three questions, I'll ask everybody. The first question, now I typically have IT folks on here and I've started to ask them, hey, what hot tech, what new trend are you looking at or reading up on? But we're tech recruiters, so we can still answer that question.

Are you seeing anything in the market that people need to be aware of right now from a tech perspective? From a tech perspective, I guess working for a tech company, I'm kind of biased. But, you know, this ARV airspace is super awesome. And I guess it's because, you know, I have an Oculus Quest and I'm a daily user and stuff. I'm starting to see ads for a lot of these startup companies, new chief metaverse officers and stuff like that. So, and just companies coming out just emerging and like that is one of the things that I've seen. Really, really big fan of accessibility within the metaverse or even just tools that can be used, you know, other to be on your phones and stuff like that.

Yeah. But yeah, just being, I guess integrating the virtual and real world. So yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right. Next question. Favorite holiday movie. So, so if, so if what is your go to you got the family on the couch and not even be the family. It just be the wife. Um, what, what, what are you turning on? Uh, I would say elf. Um, otherwise it would be die hard. So I love it. I love it. That's awesome. I love that. Um, and then final question, you know, obviously this show is called guidance counselor 2.0 for a We have guidance counselors in middle school, high school, kind of college, but now more than ever, we don't have them.

And we probably need them the most now. So what's your biggest piece of career advice you would tell your younger self out of college? I would say learn how to speak up. And if you have concerns, speak up front, be honest. There's a good part of my career with the notion of a lot of veterans deal with this too of you know if I work if I work hard someone's gonna notice no you have to yep that shot at the top of the mountain like this is what I've done you know this is this is my contribution and this is why I deserve you know the next role promotion or I'm looking for a new job ever day so just learn how to speak up and and understand your skills I love that I love that all right y'all well thanks again for hanging out with us today we appreciate it hopefully you got something out of it go connect with Alex.

He's a wealth of knowledge. Alex, stay on so I can say about you after we go off air. But cool. Thanks again. So tomorrow, I will be live for the last time for the rest of the week with a engineer out of Raleigh. His name is Chris Swift, his dear friend of mine. And we're going to talk about kind of interviewing tips and tricks really more for the hiring major side on kind of what he's seen and the issues of interviewing that he's experienced. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. We're gonna be kind of dunking on some interview processes tomorrow. So if you have some pent up aggression, like I know a lot of y'all do, join us.

It'll be a blast. Alex, thank you. I hope you have a great rest of the week. Y'all have a great one and we'll see you on tomorrow. 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 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, tailor at vaco.com or at Tdastin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.