dealing with this downturn (solo show)

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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. 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, tailor at vacovac.com is how to get and touch me old-fashioned email social media at TDS&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. I hope you enjoy the episode. Alrighty, what's going everybody? Good morning, good morning, good morning, happy Wednesday, happy hump day. So it's just me this morning, Braden unfortunately has a stomach bug. So he messes me last night. So Braden, you watch this now in the future. Hope you feel better, buddy.

So we'll get him on the show here soon. I decided to catch up with him. Braden was going to have a pretty amazing story. He and I caught up at that conference in Texas and Braden. He submitted 800 applications before he got a job. So we were going to talk about that today. But like I said, he has a stomach bug. So just me today, I've gotten an influx of questions about how to operate this job market. And so that's what I'm going to talk about today. So for those of you who tune in, say hey, we'd love to hear where you're tuning in from.

as always engage with the show. I say that all the time. The reason why you need to engage with the show is because you need to use as a networking platform. I originally did not think of this show as a networking platform and tick-tock it. What's going on? But for those of you who are tuning for your very first time, this is a morning show to really help give back to the dev community, the engineering community. And if you're tuning in right now and you're like, well, I'm not in the engineering side of things piece, the stuff I'm going to talk about today is actually really, really, really applicable to everybody.

So again, I'm going to be talking about how to deal with the downturn that is happening right now. If you have any questions, please throw it up on the screen. We're definitely going to talk about today. Again, my guest, Braden, has a stomach bug. So again, I hope you feel better, buddy. Tick-tock is great to see everybody joining in this morning. Excited to be with you. I really, really like solo shows. I love having guest on, but also just love hanging with my community. So again, it's good to see y'all. The next thing that I want to talk about is if you have had a win, if you've had successes, if you have had successes in your job, if you have gotten a title change, a promotional, or a promotion that happened or something happened, please shot yourself out.

Would love to give you props. I think we as, really, we as human beings always move on to the next thing, right? I've even had, you know, to, again, to, to say this, I got accepted to keynote a tech conference, which is that conference, that's the, that's the conference, that conference in Wisconsin. And I got rejected from KCDC and I was immediately bumped, right? So many times I feel like as human beings, we're always on to the next thing and we don't appreciate what we've done. So if you've gotten a raise, if you've gotten a title change, if you've gotten a promotion or you deployed on a Friday afternoon, last Friday and didn't burn the house down, please let me know.

I'd love to celebrate you or celebrate somebody else. Also speaking of that conference, hey, listen, that conference is the official coffee sponsor of this show. And so I am, I'm very, very excited for that. The coffee is really, really good. So I'm key noting, but if you go to that dot us, they do have a store and you can buy coffee beans. So shout out Clark Sell for being the official coffee sponsor of the show. It's really, really good, I promise. I'm drinking, I'm drinking their light rose. I think it's syntax, sassy syntax. I think it's what it's called. So go check it out. It's awesome.

I want to give the shout out to people who tune in again. TikTok, it's great to see everybody got a big crew and TikTok this morning, but Narando Alex, Acc shot, Christina, Crystal, Sam from Brooklyn. Hello, Brooklyn man. I need to do a Brooklyn meetup. If, hey, Sam, you think we can get like 20 people out in Brooklyn. I'll fly up and do a guidance counselor 2.0 meetup in Brooklyn. John, it's great to see you. Christina, I love it, Florida. Devin Chicago, I love it. Devin, it's great to see you. 800 applicants. Yeah, thoughts on quality of equality. Vincent, I'll get to that thing for the question.

Big dog. Also, go fall of Vincent. He's, he's amazing. Jason again from St. Louis two days in a row. I'm always blessed when people tune in two days in a row. Emmett morning from work. I want to give a shout out to Emmett. I don't know if Emmett's going to give himself a shout out. I just again want to applaud Emmett. He just found a job after six to nine months, I think. Right, Emmett. Emmett was at the point of leaving tech and going back into the health care system. And he got a job. So Emmett, we need to have you on here soon. Please, please shoot me an email or DM and let's get you book and talk about your most recent job search.

Chris is great to see you. Erica Kim, Sean from North Carolina. I love it. Telecomm, technical recruiter. Man, that's awesome. I recruited telecomm when I started it in and, and Beiko Brett is great to see you. Mark. Chris, we got two people from Minnesota. I feel like guidance counts for 2.0 needs to happen in Minnesota. Um, Anthony is great to see you. Bridget. Um, man, another Chicago. We need to go Chicago meet up together. See how this all works. I want to come hang out with y'all in Y'all city. Ricardo, Chris works great to see you as well. Greens from North Aurora and Illinois. I love it.

Garrett. Yeah, Sam, let's do it, man. Brooklyn. Let's get a meet up together. Josh is great to see you. Good to see you. You don't know Josh's always great to see you. Please do a Brooklyn meet up. I'll drive out. Hey, hey, let's make it happen. Let's send send me a DM and let's get, uh, let's, let's get a big Brooklyn meet up going on. I love it. Morgan is great to see you. Um, I see your congrats. Uh, and yeah, absolutely. Michelle, it's great to see you as well. God, we got the crew today. It's so good to see y'all morning from St. Louis.

Um, at Narando again, I absolutely adore y'all and, and, and really love the community here. All right. So enough of you right about now. So let's, let's talk about this market. So, so, yeah, city tour. Listen, uh, if, if, if, if I can get some help from you. all in different cities, if, if you can, I hate to say be my ambassador because that just sounds terrible. But, but if you can be an advocate and get some people together, um, I, I will come to your city and, and, and, and we could throw up a big party. So, um, and then Anthony and Houston. I love it.

All right. So, uh, first off, I want to talk about this market. Listen to the market sucks. Right. I mean, I'm just, again, I'm just not going to sugarcoat it. You know, I had somebody call me out and they're just like, oh, here, here's another, here's another person being negative about the job. search. And it just, it is. I'm not trying to be negative. It just, it is what it is. I don't want to paint rainbows. I just, I know I have a responsibility to you all into the community to speak truth. And so that's where we're at. So, I, I, I, I really want to get to, um, I want to get to, like, Vincent's questions, right.

So, Braden, we're going to talk about this when Braden comes back on again. Um, he had the stomach bug. But, um, right now, you know, listen, there, there's two sides to it. I'm really big on not mass applying, but also too. I think in this market, if you don't have a job, I think you got to do both, right. And again, you're probably like, well, Taylor, you never preached that. Well, I'm changing my tune because the market's hard. So what I would say is, yeah, you probably need to do the 800 applications, but then you also probably need to have at least one or two intentional phone calls, video calls a day, uh, to be able to, to, to connect with people.

Um, and so, yeah, that, that's my thoughts, right? 800 applications. I don't know. Listen, I, the job search is a very unique. It's like a, it's a song and dance. It's like marriage, just like anything. Like it's a very unique experience. So I'm always very cautious to make sure I don't speak like in blanket statements. But I would say whatever works. You know, I would say try to have one or two intentional conversations a day with people on in your network and then also maybe mass apply right now. Cause, cause, cause it is, it is not great at the moment. Um, let's see here. I want to get to some more comments coming in as well.

Um, yeah, this market's crazy right now. Been trying to lane a job since the December 21 in Anthony. I feel for you. I feel for you and again, that's, that's the reason why I'm trying to do. Um, that, that's the reason why I'm trying to do this. Um, let's see here. And we got another guy from Chicago. I love it. Um, you see here, Kim comes in and just posted my job search dash compared today as compared to fall big differences. Yeah. Kim, if you want to expound on that in the chat and I'll bring it up. That sounds great. Yeah. No one size fits all again.

I always talk about I am, I am only one recruiter. Right. And so, so I always tell people like, this is just my two cents. You can take it or leave it. Um, so, so that's the one question about the mass. I did get another question today. It says, or, or yesterday, it says, you know, I have a one and a half years of professional experience. Um, and then, um, I wondered, based off your extended experience recruiting, I wanted to ask you what you've seen front end developers early in their career do that makes them stand out to recruit in hiring managers. So, so here's here's the question.

Not this is a blanket statement to stand out to recruiters period. We need communication. We need follow up. And we need flexibility. So, so the thing is is that when it comes to flexibility, like we really, really need you to do what we say. Now there's a lot of bad recruiters out there and I understand that. I absolutely understand that. And a lot of them may lead you astray, which is why you really, really, really, really, need to be really why you need to find some people you can trust. But for me, the way you stand out to us is being on top of things, right?

Constantly checking in. I would say right now there's nothing wrong with texting. So, text or email your recruiter don't call. We're in meetings all day. We're in meetings all day. So, text and recruiting, texting and email is going to be the best way to get in touch with us. I have no problem with my kids checking in once a week, once a week. And listen, there are sometimes I just missed your text, right? I say this all the time. My sister-in-law texted me like three weeks ago and I had never responded to her and then she had a text me again like a week later.

But like, hey, what are your thoughts on this? I just missed text messages. I have so much coming at me. Recruiters have so much coming at them right now that you just got to keep checking in. And it's all about timing. Let's see here. Yeah, John goes up gone from multiple recruiting games daily to maybe once a week. Yeah, that's crazy. So actually, post about this. I think last week or two says, what are y'all seen in your inbox? I think the inbox is a really good temperature on what the market is. And so yeah, I mean, this is obviously things are changing for sure.

Kim posters to stats here. September 21, total applications 135. Let's see here. I'm trying to, I'm trying to read through this real quick amount of application or interview. Yeah, that's a lot. And then so totally up. There's so technically, technically her total applications had to go up three X. So looking at Kim, just kind of going through this real quick at the end of the day, she had to apply three X the amount of time, which is pretty substantial. Let's see here. Sean comes in with all these layoffs in the past month. There's been a significant increase in qualified can't. Yeah, absolutely. Is here. Sean comes in again.

If you're trying to stay now as a front end developer, you need to sell yourself very well and link to another platforms. You have your profile posters or recruit as a recruiter. We are looking for skills that are matching, but also experienced it back up. Yeah, I mean, Sean breaks up a really, really good point here. At the end of the day, like you have to be posting content as a job seeker. I truly, truly think that in your like, Taylor, I don't want to get in the content creation game. It's just going to take longer to find a job. Right. You need to be known for something.

And the biggest question is, Taylor, well, I'm a junior developer. How can I be known for anything? Listen, you could just be asking questions all the time about react. And like you can be known as the junior react developer, right? And people will know you for that. So it's so incredibly important to put yourself out there and to be public. Right. The thing I talk about all the time is social proof, right? Social proofing your profile, you can have a really good resume. But if you are not talking about yourself all the time out in public, who is going to find you how well serve managers and recruiters going to be able to find you, it's so, so important.

Um, another thing I want to talk about too, y'all is again, being intentional when it comes to the DMs, but also, but like also going back into your network, right? I preach all the time and I got to be careful with this. I preach all the time to constantly reach out to people who you don't know, constantly reach out, you know, DM, DM, DM. And while that's good and all, I want to reiterate most of the time your next job is going to come from somebody in your network. For example, I'll use M at for example, just because Emmett's been keeping me updated with his job search.

Emmett's the company and the manager that Emmett got a job with has been followed by following his story on Twitter. It just works. It just works. People are fascinated with other people. Why do you think people rub or neck on the side of the road? Right. We are nosy AF. We are so nosy. And so again, like, like, I want you to be that success story for somebody. Emmett is a success story for somebody, right? Emmett, while Emmett doesn't realize this, Emmett is going to be like the, the North Star for somebody else. And you could be the North Star from somebody else. I want to encourage you to start putting yourself out there and be an engaged.

I want to see here. So Vince, it comes back in again and see you haven't followed Vincent. He's an ambassador for recruiters and not a miss my other endeavor meeting with recruiters and so and he's a wealth of knowledge. So please go connect with Vincent. So thanks for sharing Kim. Just goes quickly how the marketing change recruiters last year. We're getting offers without even sending resumes. But yeah, exactly exactly. It's just hard. It's so hard right now and you have to keep pressing forward. Derek comes in. I hear the market for job is really hot right now. I mean, listen, I think, listen, I'm just one recruiter.

Again, I think I've seen a lot more job of right now. And I think I'm seeing that because enterprise companies, it's harder to find Java. Does that make sense? You know, but I, so I tweeted this the other day during the boom for the last two years, it's been all open source. Now that we're in a recession, all that's being hired right now is dot net and Java. So in my experience, what that means to me is all the growth tech companies were open source and all the enterprise companies are job and dot net, which checks out. And what's the one, what's the companies that are really hiring right now?

It's the enterprise shops, hence more, David and dot net. That's just my two cents to take your leave it. Devonta comes in content is how I connect with the right person that let me look at this. Devonta, I didn't realize that. I loved that so so much. So again, it works. The people who do the things I say find a job. The problem is, is it's really hard to do the things I say because it's it makes you have discipline and intentionality, which people I struggle with. I struggle with it. It's my life, right? So again, it's difficult, but it works. Um, let's see here.

John comes in and goes, what could non job seekers do to prepare for all of a sudden? Yes. You have to. So first off, being on a show like this, commenting, engaging. So if I were you, I would connect with every single person that responds on guidance counselor to a tick talk. If you're watching, I see a bunch of people still joining. I would head on over to my LinkedIn, Taylor Dessen and just connect with me and then the join in on this fun on LinkedIn because tick talk doesn't integrate really well. And so you kind of connect, you can't connect with anybody. But so what I would do is I would if you are not on the job search right now, I would literally be getting on.

If you especially if you're in tech specifically because this is primarily obviously an engineering tech ecosystem, I would get on my show. I would connect with every single person that comments. I would hop on over to unicorn finders, my other podcasts and engage with people and connect with all the founders and CTOs on unicorn finders. If you set aside two weeks to go back to all my episodes to connect with every, I've been doing it for three years, so it's going to take a bit. And you connect with every single person and founder that I have brought on to this show, you are going to be okay.

You are going to be okay. So that's what I would do. I would also if you're on the job search right now, try to block out from two to two, 30 every day to maybe send a few texts to people, right? Hey, hey, Sally, you know, having chatting with you since last company, hope you're doing well, listen, the market's crazy right now. Can we talk? You know, I'm just trying to see what else is out there right now. That's how you do it. Let's see here. Devonta comes in again. Content was how I connect with the right person. I love that so much. I love hearing that Michelle comes in.

People hiring, people hiring love seeing what you want to learn and have the drive to do. So show them that you are dev and then they can help grow exactly again, the putting yourself out on the internet. Trisha comes in such a good point. Stay active and engaged in LinkedIn. Don't be afraid to comment on someone else's post comments or comments. Or content. Yeah, I love that comments or content. I love that so much. Again, I can't tell everybody who comments on the show. If we meet in person, I will be your BFFs. Why? Because I feel like I know Trisha, Trisha comments all the time, right?

Michelle, I've met Michelle, but like, you know, John, Devonta, like, you know, like just because you're here, like I feel like I'm BFFs with you and that's just how it works. Let's see here. We got some more comments. I love this comment section. It's lit today as a kid today. So Scott comes in. Some of the common reasons I've run into recently for not getting farther in an interview process are your background is a quiet line for when you're the moment. And we have decided to move ahead with another candidate's further along on the interview process to speak by by by. How can I set my own expertise be better prepared for these reasons for decline?

What questions can I ask? Yeah, this is a great question. This is a great question. Scott, for me, what I would do is I would start asking these questions on the front end, right? Being a recruiter. This is the thing. I'm so glad Scott brought this up. You got to look for consistent themes in your interview process, right? Had another gentleman messaging me on Twitter. He goes, I keep getting rejected. I was like, do you have reasons? Well, no. Well, try to get a reason. Well, they won't give it to me. Well, keep asking. All right, give the ask them to give you something. And then what you start doing is you start working that into your interview style.

So Scott, what I would do is if you have an initial call with a higher manager recruiter, what I would do is say, hey, listen, y'all, I'm just going to be completely transparent. I'm getting these same themes right now. So first off, how many people are in interview process right now? And maybe Scott that you can't really ask like my background is it aligned on the first call, but maybe as you're kind of going through and here's the little Scott, I'm going to be honest with you. If you say, how does my background align with this job, they may not even tell you the truth, right?

So I would really just dig into how many people in the interview process because that helps a ton. Christopher comes in here goes, I'm excited to share my success story. I received two credible offers. And though one didn't work out. The other came through offering me the high side we were had. I love this so much. And again, I want to applaud Christopher. He's always on LinkedIn. He does a fantastic job of engaging. Again, it's not a flute. The people who are engaged, the people who are engaged do well. Christina's great, see you. David's great, see you as well. Greg comes in and I just graduated from a job of focused tech boot camp.

I absolutely love Java. Yeah, again, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of enterprise shops that are hiring right now. So definitely now is your chance. Do you think companies are more in favor of self-talk career changers? I think. This is a hot take here. I think in my opinion, companies are more willing to look at boot camp grads than CS grads and self-talk grads. Because in my experiences boot camps, depending on the boot camp you go to, actually teaches practical things to get going on the dev side of thing. In my experience, if you're self-taught, you probably don't have near the depth that you need to have.

And then if you went to CS, you just know a bunch of theories and algorithms and not, you know, you can't really code your way out of the classic bag. So that's just my thoughts. But there it is. For career changers, Christina comes in for career changers. What are ways that we can still be encouraged given everything going on? For career changers, what are ways we still encourage? I mean, Christina, so if you tuned in yesterday to Naz's conversation to have with her, she's an engineering manager at LinkedIn, she said this and I think it's great. There's a job out there for everybody. There is.

And I fully believe that. So my encouragement is there is a job for you, Christina. There is a job for individuals who are, you know, going from career changing, from different careers. But I'll tell you this, but it's a grind. It's hard. You're going to have to talk a lot. You're going to have to be rejected a lot. It is what it is. But there is a job out there for everybody. If you have that mindset, if you have the mindset of there's a job out there for everybody and one conversation completely changed my career. If you can hold on to those two things, you're going to have a lot of encouragement.

Three tips for fresher recruiters just enter the industry. Yes, Oxhot, try to be a friend and give back. My biggest tip for recruiters is to give back all of our knowledge as much as we feasibly can and just help people and listen and don't push and say, yes, ma'am, no sir, right? Be kind, be courteous, listen, read and care about others and treat others as the way you want to be treated. I think that's how you succeed. As a recruiter, Morgan comes in, Morgan, it's always great to see you, girl. As a recruiter, provide so much feedback because that possibly can. It's a growth opportunity.

Agreed, great. Companies, if you watch this, please give feedback right now. It's the least you can do. It really is the least you can do right now. I completely agree that bootcamp, yeah, absolutely. Bootcamp is 99.99% of the networking potential. Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, most boot camps are great because of the networking built into it. Awesome. Cool. All right, y'all. Well, that's it for today. That was great. I don't want to go any longer. I want to get y'all back to work. I hope y'all have just a fantastic come day. If you need me, slide in my DMs. And if this episode resonated with you, please share it with somebody.

Again, obviously, like selfishly, I want you to share it. But also, I feel like today was really good nuggets. Y'all ask a bunch of really good questions. And I feel like other people need to see it. So if this register with you, please share it. And I love y'all. For real. I really love this community. I appreciate y'all. And tomorrow unicorn finders, tomorrow talking with an AI company. All right, it's going to be fun. They're like solving cancer with it or trying to. So it's going to be pretty cool. Sorry, anyways, y'all have a great one. I appreciate y'all time. We'll see y'all tomorrow for unicorn finders at 9.30.

And then we're cruising on them. It's back here on my page on Friday. Y'all take it easy. Peace. 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, Taylor at vaco.com or at t-test and on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.