a tough conversation w/ashten fizer

full transcript

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

all righty good morning everybody good morning um happy Tuesday it's great to see y'all this morning uh when I say it's great to see y'all no one's here yet but that's fine um so uh yeah excited to have Ashton back on the show today uh we're gonna have a good conversation um again there's no scripts there's no scr there's no scripts there's no questions and and and um if you didn't catch Ashton and I's um episode I think two weeks ago through Clio um I would highly recommend checking out it's really good we're gonna touch on again today a little bit um but uh we

you know we were chatting off air just now and like what are you know what do you want to talk about what do you want to talk about and and uh and we're gonna we're gonna have a real conversation today and and the conversation we're gonna have without without diving into it too much on on the intro is is is uh We're not gonna tell you what you want to hear we're just gonna say that and so um uh we're just gonna have have a truthful conversation on state of the market and the Outlook of it um but it's not gonna be all negative um

because we're gonna try to provide some options um to help pivot um and and to get a job um so that being said um I see people tuning in good morning again please say hey we'd love to hear from you right and the reason why I tell people say hey we'd love to hear from you is a networking platform first off Ashton would love to see you second off uh I have a lot of people on the show that's got jobs it's got mentor mentees and it's all because people like DM people that comment right we're not in the metaverse yet which we're going to

briefly talk about we're not in the metaverse yet uh we don't have avatars so if you don't comment no one knows you're watching and then you miss out on the opportunity to network with somebody so that's what that's the first part that's what I tell people to comment to engage the second thing is I do this live so you can ask Ashton questions so and and a nd she doesn't bill you for it right she's taking her time to hang out uh so ask questions um she's a wealth of knowledge and I'm thankful to have Ashton back on the show so uh final final shout

out shout out to that conference um the official coffee sponsor of guidance counselor 2.0 I'm drinking it right now um you're like Taylor you just said you're drinking it but it's a conference yes Clark actually sells his own coffee beans we became fast friends because of that you can buy it on the website I actually highly recommend it they're really good I promise um so shout out that conference I want to give some people some shout outs for tuning in today we got a full house Christina it's always a pleasure seeing you girl Michelle Chris Ricardo Mark James what's going on y'all Matt Greg uh

it's so good got a full house Lawrence Brett Brian Ken it's wonderful to see y'all cool all right Ashton let's get the people what they want real quick who are you what do you do and then uh we'll obviously have a conversation sure so I'm Ashton um I am currently working at Dropbox and I am the talent brand go to market lead and people usually hear that name and they're like what do you even do a little bit everything that's that's the thing so um you know that that go to market part you know it's it's definitely uh your hands in a lot of pots

for everything just going out to the market so yeah um yeah so doing that on at a tech company uh where I used to be more of a web designer um did like hosting support So now on the corporate side doing some technical creative and experimental things so very fun and very happy to be here I love it I love it so uh it's like I said um there's there's no scripts no questions um and so Ashton Ashton I got all I got on on St on Backstage whatever you want to call it and we're like what do you want to talk about I think

Ashton said like man the market sucks and and uh I was like I was like it does it does so uh actually let's talk about it um what's g oing on with the market it's it's not good um and uh it's not the greatest well not for Tech right now um yeah so what we're finding um is that a lot of tech companies are still going with the the magic 18 I believe it was or was it eight percent whichever one that was I had an eight in it um they're still going with that magic percentage number um and we're still seeing a lot of

um layoffs happening we are seeing them being planned and announced in advance um so as you can imagine a lot of companies that are doing layoffs are probably not immediately hiring correct so um that leaves us with a drier Talent Market especially actually in the tech sphere where this is happening to a lot of the bigger non-startup companies the medium to large to Fang or Manga whatever we're calling it um I'm gonna go with manga because I'm a nerd um yeah we're just seeing a drier Market but that does not mean that you should curl up in a ball and panic right there are things

that you can be doing during this cycle because all of these things are cyclical and wait and be prepared for the next cycle of hiring which we are starting to see um picking up in very specific niches in Tech um so it's going to be very it's going to be an interesting time I think come come H2 of this year yeah yeah yeah I mean I I think you know on my end it's um it's definitely dried up um it's it's very difficult um you know in full transparency when most of your business is commission based uh obviously the the the the the market is

it's it's not good it's just not and and and I think what I want to get across is probably like well Taylor this is not the message I wanted to hear um I get it but what Ashton I want to do is is give some practical advice right is is to really give some practical advice because listen it's going to be harder than ever to get it to break into Tech right now but but we want to spend the next few minutes um giving you some some practical tips and tricks that hopefully you can take tak e like like and apply today right because that's

that's kind of our main goal so Ashton um do you do you want to kind of um uh maybe just give some some practical advice that folks can do um right now to to try to get into Tech absolutely um I would say one thing um that it can be really cool to do at a time like this is thinking about upskilling um what we're seeing across the board and I don't know if anyone has been following the meta newswire um but a lot of companies um in lieu of open Ai and all the work that they've been doing are realizing that it's really time

to really focus on machine learning and AI where they may not have been before now we do have a lot of companies that already did and they're ahead of nerve but there's a lot of companies that are behind and they're realizing it and they're preparing for the second half of the year to start bringing in that head count for machine learning and uh applied intelligence or artificial intelligence depending on how you're looking at it yeah I mean that's that's one of the things my cameras drive me nuts because it's not focusing on me but um but basically it's like what Matt said I mean I

think it's incredibly important right now to kind of think outside the box you know one one of the main topics that Ash and I talked about last time she was on was how to break into Tech that's not a developer there is a push I'm seeing it too a little bit on the data side like and and and you know a data analyst role like if you don't want a hardcore code but still want to talk to people but still want to be near the code data analyst role right very it's very much something that you can get into right um business analyst right business

analyst kind of Falls between that techno functional type of role right so you may need to look at those type of roles um I mean actually do you have any thoughts because like because we tell people like you level up and like well everyone's like well how do I do it like right what do you think the best way for somebody to to learn this stuff um well first figure out what it is that you excite you sure figure out what those skills are that you don't have that excites you don't just start jumping into Ai and machine learning and by the end of it

you just want to like claw your face off like right that's not where you want to go so start thinking about different skills that you're interested in that other people have that you may have seen people talk about across LinkedIn start researching what it takes to have those skills and then start moving into a lot of these free platforms that will help you upskill I mean LinkedIn learning it's not free but a lot of people do have it through like corporate or whatever so if you do have access to things like LinkedIn learning uh udemy YouTube YouTube YouTube Academy YouTube um definitely start start start

to research what skills you may like yeah and then start to dig into those skills in this time this is kind of a time it's a down time where you have where you want to spend less time applying and more time upskilling to be able to have like um one of the comments said a more varied resume yeah so that's that that will take you a long way once people see that you're like a Jack or Jill of all trades um they they really they they really appreciate that I know that there's a phrase that's like a master of one is better than I'm terrible

at sayings I'm a master of none yes something like something like that but anyway it ends with it it ends with people still want that Master of many what are your thoughts on people seeking out mentors right now like like like like let's say let's say I have like a year or two of software experience right and I want to Pivot more towards data um what what do you think of me messaging folks on LinkedIn like hey I really would love a mentor I'll lead the conversations once a month I mean what are your thoughts on that do it do it do it do it

do it do it um I would say if you're goi ng to go that route um just put on your big kid pants and you just flat out tell them what you're looking for who you're who you are um why you chose them and be specific to the things that they do that you know that they do don't be General don't don't send out math copy paste messages okay we know we know when just copy paste it um and and really and really dig into why you really feel like they would be a good fit for your next stage in development so do it um

I don't care if you even Choose The Buckshot approach but personalize that message know who you're talking to um one thing I've done I'll offer to to doordash you coffee you know I brought this up did I talk to you about it I think it was somebody else like you got to be creative right now like like doordash Postmates like it it it it can go anywhere if you go Hey Taylor what do you want for lunch if you're like what are you talking about like I I will doordash you whatever you want for lunch if I can sit with you for 30 minutes I

will probably take that almost 10 out of 10 times now I'm not saying that you have to buy my time for sure but but it's a great perk that I've noticed will really light up the other person and let them know that you are genuinely interested in the knowledge that they have and that goes a long way a hundred percent um there's a lot of comments that have come in so I want to get to these real quick um first off Garrett comes in here Gary it's great to see you buddy tons of opportunities in Tech analysts so so Garrett's a little bit more on

the security kind of side of things so and that's big right now too right and Ash and I were talking about this my cameras drive me absolutely insane um so Ash and I were talking about this kind of different ways security is one of them right so analysts thought Consulting sysadmin definitely something to look into um let's see here upscale your leadership to um 100 I think right now I tweeted this the other day I think the number one thing that y ou can do right now to make sure you don't get fired is upward communicate one of my mentors is teaching me how to

do it we have in our Mentor now that he's taught me like the fundamentals of what it should be okay all of our sessions are me actually practicing I love that okay so let's talk about this let's talk let's unpack this for a second because I because I think this is such a valuable valuable skill that no one talks about talk about what you've learned so far and how to Upward communicate what is it and then how do you execute on it okay yeah first of all Everyone likes communication everybody no one wants to be left in the dark okay um but when communicating up

there are things that you have to think about like the amount of time that this person even has to digest what you're having to tell them um so when you're communicating up you want to know who your audience is you want to you want to already have an idea of what information do they want is it and it needs to be succinct it needs to be early and often they should not have to ask you you what's going on you should even set yourself up with a your own Cadence of letting people know what's going on so that they're not having to wonder or go

ask your boss because I don't know how that looks to the boss but for me I feel horrible if anybody has to go ask my boss what I'm doing um so um early and often make it succinct um depending who you're talking to like if you're already in a company that has Tech leaders and you're having to direct this communication at them make sure it's data driven make sure the data is telling the story for you um these are very numbers driven leaders and that's how you have to communicate them communicate to them so they understand the impact what's going on what it truly means

those metrics um and I would say also try to build rapport you know and that's you can be communicating numbers all day um but build rapport on the side you know when you're not making those um very stru ctured Communications um oh and I I would say if you're communicating up stay away from paragraphs oh stay away from paragraphs nobody likes a paragraph bullet points all day this is this is when your bullet point action should come into play Heavy okay so um definitely with that um make it succinct yeah use bullets know your audience tailor how you give them messaging based on your audience

like I said if it needs to be data driven let the data tell the story if you need to weave a more creative story do that it all depends on who needs to know what because everyone doesn't need to know everything based on what their focus area is correct 100 so good I love that um I want to get to a few more comments let's see here um let's see here LinkedIn learning um maybe free with a local library card check with your library it sure is no okay okay and now that you brought that up ever since the pandemic started your local library card

physical or digital gets you access to so many resources I think out here in Phoenix we get LinkedIn learning we get udemy um we get a couple other platforms for learning so absolutely go on a lot a lot of times right now you can go online get your digital card and that will open up access to a lot of these platforms so absolutely go check out your local library thank you for bringing that up yeah thank you bring it up I don't even know about that everyone's commenting on your saying jack of all trades master of none thank you yeah better than a master of

one that's the phrase I want to highlight what Michelle said and I think I think this is such an underrated part of building community and finding a job right now yes I'd be down for a board game night and we talk about tech this is it that's it you want to know like how to build community you want to know how to network that that that's it you're like Taylor are you serious yes yeah yeah that's it I grew up Southern Baptist so like I mean I'm all about food so I'll my networking events always have food but if you love board games do board

games right I I just think this is so big actually I didn't know if he had any more follow-up thoughts on this oh I would say any communal activity it could be board games um I know one thing that we've started switching to at recruiting events because I'm always about not doing the traditional recruiting event because they get stale they get boring people stop coming they stop listening even if they do come render is not that okay um but even um games where they're in a group um I know at a couple of events we've played Ox God and that went off incredibly well and

some people built some of the tightest relationships from that um so even Beyond board games any game that gets people together gets people in teams things like that yes switch it up make it different it doesn't always have to be a coffee chat I love that um let's see here I want to get to um so back to Upward communication is such an important topic um uh another thing I would add is never bring a problem to your upper boss manager without due diligence on your side for possible solutions constantly asking your leaders how you can help them and what tasks you learn and take

off their play I'd say this is one thing absolutely Garrett because in all of your upward Communications you should always be solution oriented I'm like I'm gonna say this I'm like I know it's going to be terrible it's going to sound terrible it sound terrible to me when my mom was telling me this but there are a lot of people that don't really like a party pooper so you kind of have to bring something to the party if you're going to say if you have to explain or report on something's negative be solution oriented in that report yes this is happening but these are ways

that we can see we can pivot you know these are these are things that we're trying in order to see which direction a pivot should go in so have something in the work some sort of whip okay that that is solution oriented th at you can report back on later and let them know if it worked if it didn't my my dad always said um don't come to me with the problem come to me with the solution um just in a sense of like you know if you come to me like hey boss something's burning I'm I mean if somebody on my team tells them

like well have you tried to put that put it out yet right I mean like like what do you want me to do with it so again I think it's just so big I love what Garrett said here always make sure you bring something to the table when it comes to community upward communication um somebody says I'm a big fan of running docks a bullet point for upper communication keeps context that's a very quick sense of loss momentum I love that just anything to kind of keep things down or kind of keep thinking uh like a tally running tally um is there an upward communication

101 article one of you might recommend for beginners this show actually I think we um as as Ashton's looking I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of keep going through here um Pro tip write an executive summary of your week even if you never send it so I'm gonna I love this what James said and again we're kind of getting off the track a little bit I want to bring it back to the job search here but but I do want to I love this um I know I interviewed one guy or gal on the show I forgot who they said they do five minutes a week

30 minutes a month and they all they do is talk about their accomplishments so like this week all they do is they block out 30 minutes or like 15 minutes on a Friday and write down two or three things that they accomplished this week and then what that does is it helps you write your resume a year from now but then it also allows you to Upward communicate to your bosses if they come to you like hey what have you been doing you can say Here app absolutely and I think I'm going to start doing that because that's the thing that I have a hard

time with I do not like to talk about the things that I've done now I will rep ort on them all day Retros you know but when it comes to these are my wins of the week I'm not good at that so that's definitely something I'm going to incorporate because not only does it help you with writing your resume but even in your current position it's going to help momentously at review time when they're asking you what you did throughout that half year or entire entire year depending on which review cycle you're on and getting that information in there about the things that you've completed

accomplished having that rolling tally so I'm about to start a Google doc for that there you go I'll do the show we all learn from it uh Lawrence I don't know if you're still watching man I'm sorry for the lateness to get to your comment looking to break into Tech but not sure what direction to take I have a Consulting background I wish we could like phone people in and we could like talk to people real time that would be really really cool um Lawrence if you're still watching man here's here's what I would say right what do you what do you like to do

right do do you are you like a hardcore like Problem Solver engineering type focused do you like people do you like kind of you know hobnobbing and just kind of like shooting the with people do you like entrepreneurship do you like entrepreneurship like really yeah you got to figure yourself out and and I think I think this goes back to kind of the root of this conversation like you all all who like want to break into Tech like you need to really know who you are because there's a lot of y'all trying to be there who like you don't need to be an engineer to

be totally honest with dots oh no I'm only laughing because that was me okay well let's talk about that can you talk about your story again um sure sure so absolutely um so I started you know and I'll name names this time because I know in in the post I made recently I didn't I didn't name any specific names um but I kicked off my um journey into the tech sphere ecosyst em at GoDaddy um and I came in there as hosting server support um and through that they had so many internal resources that taught you so much now if you're going to use internal

resources know that a lot of it's going to be proprietary but start picking out those things that can be universally used as well and so they had so many educational resources that taught you how to level up skill wise but it of course within their company but I totally took advantage of them because with the hosting support was also sales and I am not a salesperson okay I will talk people out of things yeah you don't need to do it I promise by the way Ashton you're going the wrong way yeah right I was my boss was like we gotta find out another career path

for you because this ain't it I like you nope if there's a granny that's knitting sweaters you don't need the the robust uh dedicated server with server support you just need a little old click and drag website Grandma we gonna We Gonna Cancel all of these and set you up with something much cheaper ma'am um so yeah terrible with that um so I was pushed into upskilling and learning more um in order to keep a career at this company because sales wasn't going to be it so um I got into more dedicated technical support um through there and helping people learning the ins and outs

of websites these servers um ended up going into one of our web design teams from there um and you know with web design comes graphic design and things like that so um then floated on over to Talent brand where I have an amazing boss um who was with me at GoDaddy and is now with me again at Dropbox so I'm one of the lucky ones um but she has taught me so much about that Talent brand industry where I didn't have that but I had all of these other skills that she needed um so one thing I will say is that definitely remember that you

are the sum of the culmination of your experiences and the things that you've learned and you should tout that with everything that you do b ecause people are looking for people that can do more than one thing they they truly are they need it budgets are tight so they need to be able to do more than one thing because they can't get the head count for more people um so definitely taking an account of all of your skills all of the things that you're solid at and and putting those at the Forefront of your resume or cover letter or however you want to communicate it

on your LinkedIn profile that's also very important yeah yeah I love that and here's a deal you know I've and I I want to talk about this more um but not now but like over the next few weeks about it's okay to fail because I think don't like dwell and and wallow in the sale yeah like that's what you don't want to do yeah no no no wallowing but like listen if if if if you you know are having problems figuring out the engineering side you keep getting laid off like that's okay pivot it's fine and and and if you you could be like well

Taylor like I really want to do this I understand you really want to do it but like it may not it may not be your time right now and that's okay right and and I just think being aware I think is huge yeah um with the job search like we were saying a lot of companies are laying off um a lot of them aren't immediately hiring it's it's it's a dry market right now especially in the tech World um what we're seeing is that all these people that have been laying laid off now they're hitting up these medium and small tech companies trying to get

in where there's less head count there so it is I I don't want to say stop applying for jobs but there's probably you probably have a little bit more time on that job application bump that you put on your calendar because um there are fewer jobs but you can use utilize that time like we said to upskill to find events to go to um and yes conferences are expensive but there are meetups there are smaller localized events and even at these larger conferences you can apply for scholarships you can volunteer yep okay get that free entry and soak up that knowledge yes you may have

to work a little bit yes you may have to help people get around pound empty a trash can make sure there's water but at the same time you're still there and you still are in that space where you can be networking finding that next Mentor finding that in person or company that's going to keep you on file because they know you're a solid candidate they just don't have the head count right now but they're going to call you in a couple months like still be doing those things to get yourself your name your background out there so that when it is time people know about

you because one person did say to me recently it's not always about who you know it's about who knows you when you're not there oh put that on a motivational quote it's so true it's so true and and and and and and I will tell you this too um listen I'm a big proponent of networking virtually right I'm an introvert um you know I I love I'll I'll like and comment on your all day right and and listen I I preach that but I will tell you this if you are sitting on the sidelines not getting out and trying to get involved in something in

your community from a networking perspective you are missing out you are missing out and you will continue to miss out I would challenge you I would encourage you to get uncomfortable a little bit go to a meet up by yourself and just start to ask and and and and introduce yourself and ask questions and because I will tell you this like you're going to be very happy no nobody's ever come to me and been like damn networking was ridiculous it's never done anything for me no one's ever told me that ever yeah I don't think that's a thing um one thing I will say about

like going to the meetups by yourself um you definitely do have to like drink whatever drink you're gonna drink or grab that slice of pizza and then like just jump in there you know because already know each other but once you walk up listen to the conversation um maybe even have Insight on something they Once you walk up usually they're going to embrace you like hey what's your name and it's always very unexpected because I expect people to be like who are you walking up to this conversation but that never happens so I'm here to tell you that it is very easy to go to

these events by yourself Oh Captain Mike and be embraced um by a lot of these communities because they're also looking to meet new people they're tired of seeing seeing the same people every single week and people I mean actually I don't know about you um I just like people are are Kinder right now like people just want to get out and to talk and uh chill we miss people yes it's been two and a half years it's been 84 years it's that is a gift that old woman it's been 84 years um awesome all right this is great I wanna I wanna start wrapping up

here we still got comments coming in um I want to be respectful everyone's time um love this experiences are the sum of who we are but not of what we can become hello yes um it's great to see you from New York quasi um but oh it's great to see you as well introverts rise up yeah seriously hello um let's see here yeah so tomorrow comes in what are some questions you can ask in an interview for a leadership position that helps you gauge the company culture oh Jesus this is an entire Tamela I'm like this is a girl this is a whole damn episode

in and of itself um man I we know one of the questions I got recently or one of the questions I heard we said I loved is um when was the last time you took time off that's a huge one especially for these companies that offer the flex time off yeah well Flex time off sounds good when you before you get in there it can it can be well I take mine but but it can be very intimidating um you know knowing that you have this unlimited time that you can take but you also want people to know that you can get your job done

at the same time so take time off it is there for you to use but don't be intimidated by it but that's a great question when's the last time you took it because that is a top-down culture leadership question and if the leader isn't taking time off that means there's a culture on that team where they are also not taking time off because it comes from the top down uh Ashton do you have like another favorite question at all um um ooh my favorite one is um what I I I like to ask what extracurricular things that people are part of in the company because

that's another thing if your company offers ergs or brgs or whatever your employee uh group is does that leader encourage participation does the culture of the company encourage participation you know do they participate if they're not ones that participate they may not see the value in it and may not allow you the bandwidth or even um recognize the work that you're doing with these organizations as part of what you're doing and bringing to the company your value ads so that's a huge one yes I love that all right last question I asked you last time we'll ask you again what would be your biggest piece

of career advice to your younger self I don't even know what you said last time so you could say the same damn thing again and it would sound great but you know this show is called guidance counselor 2.0 for many reasons and one of the reasons is obviously we didn't have guidance counselors now as adults when we had them earlier in our in our lives um so what what what would be a piece of career advice that you would tell your younger self um I don't know if it would be career advice more so than um I don't know just letting myself know that it's

gonna work out yeah you're doing things right now and it seems like there's no Rhyme or Reason but just know all of these things you are you again you are the sum of your experiences and everything that you are going through everything that you're learning working through a million different types of Industries right now are go ing to pay off in the long run once you finally get out of your 20s it's going to be worth it so that's definitely something I'm going to tell myself as I was quitting politics with no uh career choice in mind right after going into a million different types

of jobs trying to figure out what I wanted to do as a career so absolutely go through those experiences remember them take something from them every time because they will work for you in the future I love that awesome well y'all thanks for hanging out with us today hopefully it wasn't too harsh of a conversation um I think it was a very real conversation um and uh um please go connect with Ash and she's wonderful she's on Twitter she's on LinkedIn um and uh and we'll see all at render um next month a little over again but uh again Ashton thanks for hanging out with

me I appreciate it absolutely fun all right y'all we'll see y'all uh we'll see y'all tomorrow I'm live tomorrow 9 30 a.m Central peace [Music]