recruiter extravaganza w/adam walters, global head of talent acquisition at polygon.io.

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it 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 N 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. that's what he's saying. So I'm going to go to the house and go to the house and go to the house and go to the house. Oh, enough me run my mouth.

Adam, let's get the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll go from there. Oh, man. The big question. You know what? I think I'll start this by saying these opinions are that of my own. That's good spicy is what he is. What is what he's saying. As I sit in the polygon HQ. So I am the resident head of talent at polygon.io not to be confused with Matic or the blockchain that happens far too often. We can get into that more. But yeah, so I pretty much handle all of our... Taylor, you know how it is. Anything from recruiting to our sourcing strategy, our entire talent strategy, I handle pretty much all of our HR services, our onboarding.

If it's to be done, it's really the role of maybe a CHRO or something. Our head count is 30 people. There's nobody here that's not wearing multiple hats. That's where we're at. That's awesome. So, Adam, I want to break down. So you've held both seats. So one of the questions I get a lot is, hey, Taylor, what type of recruiters are out there. So Adam, do you want to kind of go in kind of the two main types of recruiters and kind of break down the major differences, because I've only held one side of it. So, yeah, I mean, you have the agency side, obviously, is, yep, it's Taylor.

And I've been there, that's where, you know, I came into recruiting that way. I got by the name of Eric Baumgartner, took a chance on me at Focus IT, hired me there, I got into recruiting, and really just learned the agency chops. You know, it started out where I was kind of just managing accounts and then got into recruiting and then it was just doing full cycle. So from there, I kind of went to the RPO world, actually worked for a couple of different organizations if you're real neat under the leadership of the guys at HUD recruiting at a Boston, better, fantastic guys, some former Googlers in there.

Before I came to Polygon, and it's just a different animal, your strategy's different, the way you think about things are different, your approach is different. It really is like, it's one of those things where I wish I'd sat in this role before I could have been an agency recruiter. Really? Cause I'm like, wow, like, if I would have known this, this, this, this, man, I would have. Well, we'll let's talk about that real quick. Advice for some. Yeah, what are some things that you've learned that you wished you knew. Go from, you know, if you start. When I first got into recruiting, I thought, you know, if I could just put butts in seats, you know, that's what I'm doing.

Yeah. Then I'm successful and I never once, you know, out of my my Rolodex clients, I never once thought about their business as a whole. what's their business going to look like in one year in 16 months? What does that team look like a year from now? Which is something that I think about all the time now. How do these hires affect this team in six months? How does our strategy affect this team a year down the road? Okay, we just got a series of funding. We know we maybe going for a B series in six months, you know, OK, how do we are we going to put a little break and you know, there's other things.

Yeah. Other other things we take into consideration too. It's like, OK, yeah, we can hire super fast. How's our onboarding? How's our training? How are we ramping these people up? Do we have the bandwidth to give them what they deserve? Or are we cutting them short because we're just slinging offers because we have the ability. So sometimes on this side of it, because you have the ability doesn't mean, it's necessarily the right decision. Sometimes you, I know a guy like me, I like to be peddled to the metal full throttle. And I've get, absolutely. And I think I posted something yesterday and I was like, recruiters, stand down.

Like, I know you're after me, you're gonna DM me from this. I've got it, but yeah, you definitely have to learn to, you're almost not looking at it as a recruiter, you're looking at it as, this is my business. How am I gonna nurture this baby and teach it and groom it as it grows? So that would be the difference in being I love that. Within the business versus the age. It's a lot less training. It's actually, I feel like the going to corporate route instead of agency, right? Because at the end of the day, like we kind of have this gear on the agency side to put seats and butts or butts and seats and in the corporate world, it's more kind of viewing the business as more of a holistic thing, which I think is incredibly important.

I do want to kind of change a little bit and kind of dive into what you said about onboarding and training. for me, one of the things that I'm really passionate about with my team is what does it look like for onboarding? What is it like for training? What do we have for documentation? What does that all look like? Where do you see companies fail? What is your advice to companies heading into 2023 about their onboarding and maybe where you see a lot of companies fall short? If we could, my personal goal, if I can make everybody feel like they have my undivided attention, even though they obviously don't, right?

But I want them to feel like, you know, when we sit them an offer letter and when we hired them, we are, we're putting just as much as stake as they are. Ever, like, we're taking a chance on them, they're taking a chance on us. And, you know, oftentimes you see companies, they don't see that other side of like, they're taking a chance on us. Like, they don't Google Polygon and see what kind of presence we have. We do have a presence, but when somebody throws our name out, it doesn't have the same clout as, you know, a Twitter or a Facebook or, you know, a HubSpot or, you know, any of these major organizations.

So I realized that, you know, in this climate where everybody's posting, you know, all these layoffs or, you know, we're, you know, no longer remote or hybrid, we're forcing you to, you know, all this stuff. Like I want them to feel like they can trust us. Yeah. I definitely, you know, I don't buy into the work as family. It is work. It is business. Yeah, but I do want them to feel like we have their back and we support them and we would not have, with the honest, the interview process is not easy. Right. I'll be the first to tell you when you start interviewing at Polygon if you make it to the end like You're good.

We did something. Yeah, like you and I and I will tell them I'll be like hey you and I we did this because this is not easy to get here So I want them to feel like hey like We want you to trust us and we trust you and you know, we're all gonna come in here and we're gonna do good work together you Where did this mind because where does this mindset come in? So was it is this your first in-house corporate recruiting gig because like that mentality kind of what you said I wish more recruiters have so like where where did this sense of ownership come in or is it literally just because Polygon small you have a sense of ownership and it kind of clicked with you No, I would I'm I'll be 35 on Saturday.

I happy birthday buddy That's why I'm going to Nashville. We're going to the Zane de Comedy thing. It's the whole thing. I'm going to take the kids. But anyways, before this whole thing, I've owned several little companies that never really did anything great. So I've always had that bug in me, done some real estate ventures on the side. I've always had a sense of ownership and things that we're very, very prideful of. But aside from those things that I've done on my own, honestly, just being a dad, being a parent, nurturing, teaching, raising something and leading something, it really changes the way that you think about something.

And I've spent, I've just fell in love with leadership and learning about leadership and coaching and what it means to truly lead somebody, you know, not, not manage somebody or boss somebody, but to truly lead somebody. I've just, I've become a student of leadership over the last four or five years. And I've just brought that into this role at Polygon where, you know, I treat this like my names on the LLC. I love that. What I do want to go back to my original question because I want to drive this home. What should companies keep in mind or what's one thing you think Cubby should improve on when it comes to onboarding in 2023?

You can't rush it. You know, you can't, um, communication, uh, and then like, you know, setting expectations. Yes. Um, and not just that, but managing those expectations along the way, because, you know, what you don't want to happen is, and it just, and sometimes it's just absent it minded, right? Because everybody's busy and they don't stop to think that, okay, maybe I should have like mentioned this. But if, you know, if they know exactly what their next few weeks are going to entail, exactly, it's gonna be so much easier. Yeah, I think expectation setting, I think, you know, again, you know, I talk about saw time on social and just posting that your interview process is actually the very first introduction of your company to that individual.

And it is a marketing play, it's a branding play. I've had so many developers message me and they go, they would recommend people to that company, even if they got rejected, that company actually just gave them feedback. Like there's just, There needs to be a lot more intentionality and care during the interview process. And I think the big thing is managing expectations. If you say, Hey, Adam, excited to interview your polygon to IO. We have five rounds here. Here they are here the rounds. And then all of a sudden you take that candidate nine rounds. Yeah, the kids going to start panicking. I'm not enough.

Maybe this isn't the right fit. And it's that lack of that's that that missing of expectations. I think in the managing expectations is what's really missing in the interview process. The and the candor that you take with the candidate at the end, I've had this happen to where we get to the end and they're like, Hey, I have three other offers. Yep. You're one of those offers, similar money, similar equity, benefit stack up. But man, like I just, I had such a cooler experience with you. I'm telling you, like there needs to be much more emphasis in 2023 around your internal hiring teams, I think.

For sure. I mean, you, you, especially in a remote world, you know, that's where we are. They're not, they can't, this office that I'm in right now, bad ass. Right. So cool. point to them. The last four people I've hired have not stepped foot in here. Exactly. Yep. They've never seen it. They've never seen it. They don't, they're not, they're not wearing the swag. They're not. I need one of those hoodies. Next time I'm at land, I'm kind of at the office. Yeah, I'll send you one. But no, like you, you are the brand, you are, you're carrying the flag. And the experience that they have with you is what they're going to take into consideration when they accept their role or not.

100%. I want to ask you a question and kind of go on what Barrett just said. Again, Barrett's former guest of the show. I think only once in recent memory did I actually get feedback from an interview needs to change. Do you guys get feedback? I may have put it on the spot here. Yeah, I do. Because the biggest thing I'm getting is like it's an HR thing. thing is like, yeah, if you tell somebody like their person, like if you get into like very, if you get into the gray, it can be an HR issue. But if you say, Hey, we need these three things for react, you did not have these three things for react.

That is a very black and white thing. If there's anybody from polygon who's engineers from polygon who's watching this are not gonna like my answer, because a few of them have told me specifically like, because I will go to them, especially if it's like after maybe a technical assessment. And I'm like, hey, break it down to me. I need to know exactly where we've actually got into where we're recording some of these things. So we can give like really good proper feedback. Engineers don't like to give direct feedback. You know, they don't like in my experience. They don't necessarily like to tell them exactly where you went wrong.

I think it is so important because in my opinion, when you have that candidate as a recruiter, I have always thought that it is your job to steward that candidate, not just within your company, but their career, because now they're your candidate. So if I can tell them something that's like, hey, Taylor, you you did really good on X, Y, Z, you were a little lacking when it comes to Kubernetes. we would really love to see a little more focus there. Work on it, work on X, Y, Z. Hit me back in six months. Let's do a reassessment and let's see where we're at. But also, I think through this process, I've learned that maybe you're not good at this role but you would be excellent at this role and these type of companies are focused on that.

That companies don't do that. It's like, nope, you're not a fit for this role. And I'm like, bro, you probably have. Unless you're a small, small company, you probably have other openings where this can't it could be a fit for. Yeah, yeah. For sure. And maybe it's not within your company. And if not, my goal is to never just say no, is to say no, but here's how. I love that. I love that. Because, I mean, otherwise you're not helping anybody and there's no art in that. Yeah, that's totally true, totally true. I got a few questions here. I got a few birthdays, Hillary, Yolanda, James, it's great to see you.

Deb, I just in my mic volume, hopefully that worked a little bit, but mine is usually kind of quiet. All right, LinkedIn user came in, I came in late to this live. How, as a junior engineer, can I grab your attention as a recruiter through a pliner, through networking? How do I set myself apart? I'll answer after you, Adam. For sure. And I get inundated. And it's actually some focus I want to put next year because I feel like, to be quite honest, at Polygon, we're at a 30-person headcount. Our back-end engineering team is led by our VP of engineering. We have nine engineers on that back-end team.

We do not have the bandwidth to take two or three juniors on and train them. Yeah. We're just not there. we're gonna fill some gaps and we're gonna get there. We're just not there yet. So like for us, if you were fresh out of a bootcamp and maybe you have one internship and you come to me, like I'm happy to look over your resume and tell you like what I think you should do. Yeah. But it's probably not gonna be within polygon. Not to say it wouldn't forever be. We are currently working on some internship situations. That's cool. Good. Good. That's something that we would love to do.

And it's, you know, we would love people who could intern with us and then stay with us. Yeah. Let me ask you this because I preach this, right? And this goes into my answer. So, and then Hilary, thanks. So, Kenneth is the LinkedIn user. So, Kenneth. So, if I was Kenneth and I'd message Adam, so this is what I would do. If I was Kenneth, I'd message out like hey Adam I did some research on polygon.io. I see where you guys do this this this this and this it's really really cool I did my undergrad actually in finance I'm fascinated with that world. I would love to pick your brain for seven minutes Just about polygon and y'all's history.

Do you have that time? Let me ask you this if somebody if if a junior dev slinger DM's like that Would you be more likely to answer them or more not likely answer them? No for sure they would get an answer And that's what I'm trying to get at, right? Now here's the deal, Kenneth. Have the conversation with Adam. And don't say anything else. Don't ask about a job. And just say, hey Adam, I appreciate your time. Let's stay in touch, click. Then follow Adam on LinkedIn. You know, set it to where you can kind of keep up with him and check in with him.

Hey Adam, just check it in. You know, wanna see if you guys have any internships. And then the, and you, cause you never know the day that you check in with Adam, he could have opened up an internship and here's a deal. He already had a chill conversation with you 30 days ago. He's going to be more likely to probably give you that nod. So Adam, I want to see your thoughts on that. No, for sure. Absolutely. Um, that's something that I would absolutely welcome. I would take a, you know, 15, 20 minute call with this person just because like I, I take value in helping younger people who just need a little direction.

And even if that's not within Polygon, like I said, it may not, it may be a no today. But what happens a year down the road, we're connected. He's a lot more skilled and he knew, you know, I took time within 12 months ago. And when I reach out to him, is he going to take my call? Yeah. It's a long game. It's a long game. And that's why, you know, Adam, you can test this. You don't network until when you need something. You got to network before you need something. Because that's where most of the time you're in the heart. That's exactly right. You know, and for that young person, I would say, you know what, also, if you're, there are a few things that we do.

So we do a monthly go-ling meetup here at our polygon office in the Atlanta area. Not always, there are polygon engineers here, but there's 25 or 30 other engineers from around Atlanta who are hyper-focused on Go, which is pretty much what we code in. So just anything like that to get networking. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's it. I think she comes in question for Adam. Do you hire offshore recruiters slash recruiting coordinators? Negative. I think he's trying to slide into the DMs. I Like your game though because she's I appreciate I admire the hustle here. I'm shooting your shot. Always So I want to kind of go in obviously as we kind of enter into the last little bit of the show time flies when you're having fun with friends Talk, let's let's talk just kind of about the market You know what you see on your end obviously I see a sliver of the pie, you see a sliver of the pie.

So let's kind of talk about what our thoughts are for 2023. I think right now I'm seeing the people that we're really interested in are kind of taking it easy through the holidays. I think in January, mid January, we're going to see a big spike. this direction. For sure. You know, end of the year, you have a lot of candidates that are waiting on some best. Everybody's on hold. Everybody's on hold now. Like, and Adam can test this in our industry, basically from like Thanksgiving, so like the second week of January, like we're not off by any means. We just have a chance to do all the things that we've neglected throughout the year.

No, for sure. I, and I can, I'm sure other people do as well. I have candidates right now that we are, we're hyper interested in. They're very interested in us. But it's mutually agreed upon that, hey, like, nothing's probably gonna happen until the 1st of January. So if we've got a four-step process, let's stretch that out the month of December so that when January 1 hits, We're off already. Yeah That's where we're all that you know, I think for me I mean I obviously listen to podcasts and you know they've they've business podcasts have speculated kind of you know hiring and whatnot, you know, I There the people are still hiring.

I mean I want to say that you know, I think the headlines of Twitter and meta and Amazon and Stripe are obviously the ones that are a little bit doom and gloom right now I think it's scaring a lot of people and I get it, but you have to understand something Don't at me on this Twitter had seven thousand employees There's a app in the app store right now called gas That is built to basically give affirmations to people. It's basically like the it's like the opposite of every social media app out there It is built with like four engineers so Big tech is bloated big tech was bloated I think Big Tech still is bloated.

And I think they're probably going to be some round of layoffs. But I will tell you all this is words of encouragement. There's a lot more companies out there than just Big Tech. And there's a lot of companies out there that are hiring. My team right now has got a handful of needs right now we're staffing for with small growth companies across the country. There's still people getting serious A's. There's still people getting serious B's. It's still growth. I think the thing is, though, is that you have to make sure you don't. Listen, I'm a big proponent of you. you will find what you want on the internet.

You will find what you search for. If you wanna find doom and gloom, you can find it. If you wanna find positivity in good parts of the economy, it's also out there. Unfortunately, it's just a negativity that gets the headlines. So I will tell you this. Will we ever probably go through a frenzied hiring phase like we did in 2020 through 2021 to 2020? I don't know, I don't think so. If we do, it's gonna be well off years from now. But I do think we've just leveled back to what it should be. And that's okay. 1,000%. And a lot of these companies, I know us included, we're hiring for roles that we don't even have posted right now.

Which is another reason why you network with recruiters, by the way. Yeah, for sure. I mean, so many companies have needs, but they take more of a surgical approach Hey, we're focused on these four or five, but while we're searching for those, if we come across X, Y, Z, that could be great as we add to this team. Like we have that, I'm sure others do as well. And we're coming to the end. I would tell people that I wouldn't just apply. You've got to get part of the conversation. Well, and this is what this person said, LinkedIn user, I see the ads for jobs are not gaining much traction.

I think you got to be, you got to be in the DMs. you gotta be liking and commenting and engaging and LOLing and stuff. You're not gonna take a day home from the party if you don't attend, all right? You gotta... It's true. I mean, listen, like you shooting your shot, it's like if there was a singles event in your city and you're like trying to get like, you're trying to holler at somebody or text somebody from your house. that we're trying to apply, easy apply to us. You're trying to holler at a girl or a guy or somebody at a party that you're not at from your couch.

Yeah. It doesn't work. At least it doesn't have to work for me. It's kind of like that joke where like the introverts trying to find their plus one and I have a call in four minutes. We can, I need to ask you if you can. Yeah, yeah. But it's kind of that old age joke of like, you know, all the introverts out there trying to find their dream guy girl and they're just hoping that person breaks into their house because they're at all the time. Like it's kind of the same thing. You got to be out. You got to be doing work. All right. Three questions.

Ratify. First one, what tech trends are you seeing in the market that other people should be aware of or look into? Tech trends. Yeah. Tech related. Anything tech related. It could be whatever. Anything. Yeah. It's look, it's imperative. It's not enough to go to the boot camp and then apply for your first year developer job. There you go. You got to do more. Okay. Love that. Second question. Favorite holiday movie with the family. What's going on when you get the family together and what's going on immediately? Yeah, home alone too and it's not a question. Lost in New York is the best movie ever made.

Best soundtrack. I'll die on that hill. I love it. Final question. I was a show is called guidance counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school high school and college But now as adults we don't have them as much so called therapists I'm a big fan of but What would be your advice to your younger self career wise? Don't rush it take your time take a bite of everything eventually you'll find something you like There you go. I love it Adam. I wish I could chop it up with you afterwards, but I gotta go So it's great to see you. It's great to see you stay in touch.

Everybody, thanks again for hanging out with us today. That's it. That's the last show of guidance counselor 2.0 for the year. Hopefully you all had a great one. Please go connect with Adam. He's one of the good ones. And so I will, I love this. I can't trust him. He didn't say die hard. I'm glad he did it because the last few guests this week have said die hard last week. So I'm glad it was a different answer. But you all have a great one, Adam. Let's stay in touch, buddy. I'll see you soon. All right, guys. See you. All right. Bye. Hey, you did it.

You listened to an entire episode, and I am very grateful, because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes, and I myself rarely finished an entire episode, so I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others, and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, tayloratvaco.com or at T.S.

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