solo show

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. So that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it for 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 social media at tdsntdesseyn. 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. All right, all right. What's going on? Everybody good morning. Hello, hello. Happy Friday. the Friday. You made it just me today. Just me. Zach my boy Zach from Amazon music had to bail. He had twins and he messes me goes, Hey man, I'm gonna be honest with you. He goes, having twins is a lot. He goes, I'm gonna have to reschedule.

I said, dude, I totally get it. So it's just me today excited to hang out with y'all. I'm getting a haircut, hence the hat. I never wear a hat or I do always wear a hat, but y'all never seen with a hat. But so y'all say, hey, let me know what you're tuning in from. Also, if you have any questions, start thinking about them. So this show today, I like to do very Q&A heavy. We can talk about Gun I.O. We can talk about the job search. We can talk about networking. So for those of you who tune in, welcome, Ricardo. It's good to see you buddy.

Always a Mr. Consistent Commenting. Take talk what's going on. So again, for those of you tuning in, you're wondering like what is this, right? what does this do? What is this live thing? What does this do? This is just the way to give back to the community, right? So this, what my focus is, is to give back at scale. So I started this podcast back in March of 2020, or just me, myself, and I, just like this, kind of talking into the abyss. And what I realized is that after talking with engineers for 14 hours a day, when COVID first hit, when everyone was getting laid off before the market ripped, I realized that all the conversations I was having was pretty applicable.

So what I started to do is I started to go live and just talk about those conversations and three and a half years later we're at this thing. And this is a networking platform. So that's why I told people to say, hey, because we're not in the metaverse yet, even though guidance counselor 2.0 and the metaverse will be lit, because we're not in the metaverse yet and we can't see each other, there's no way for me to know and others to know if you're watching it unless you comment. And even if you hate commenting and you just wanna alert, just tell up your favorite emoji, do something to bring visibility yourself.

So I talk about this all the time. Networking is just showing up. 95% of it's just showing up, right? Just being in the room could potentially net you your next job, could potentially find a next investor for your startup, right? So just being in the room. So that's why I say people to comment because there are people on this show. I'm not joking with you that I found new jobs because of it, that I found mentor mentees because of it, that I found internships because of it. So comment, let me know where you're tuned in from. Second thing is, is ask me questions, right? Usually when it's just me, I really like to do Q&A.

So if you have any questions around Gun I.O. the company I work for and kind of how we leverage our platform. If you have questions about the job search, I'm going to kind of chop it up a little bit about networking and conferences because I just finished one today. But so yeah, do that. I also want to give a shout out to that conference, the official coffee sponsor of Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, it's the only conference that I know of that has coffee beans, and they're great. I'm not joking. I'm a coffee snob. I love coffee. I'm one of a light roast type of guy not really a dark roast type of guy So light roast Clark's Clark and that conference Clark if you're watching now in the future I would say yours is a little bit more towards the medium-bodied.

It's not like super light But it's not super dark either. So I think it's a great blend It's really really good also want to give a shot to gun man. We're doing some cool stuff. I'm not gonna lie It's a company I work for And we're doing some cool stuff in the talent space. We're kind of, I'm starting to tell people, we're like agency recruiting 2.0, right? So we're doing some cool stuff. So go check us out as well. Let's see, I wanna get some people to you. And Ricardo's good to see you Lambert, John, Richie. Hey, Richie, shoot me a message. I'm gonna be in Atlanta next Wednesday.

We should at least like grab coffee or drink or something. Your lawn is good to see you, John. My guy, what's going on? Scott, it's good to see you as always. Hey, I wanna give a shout out to Scott real quick. You know, I talk about people being involved, right? Scott is involved. He's like at all of our virtual meetups for Gun I.O. He's on here. He's active in my Discord. Scott, listen, man, you're doing it the right way. I know the job search has been tough, but man, people be more like Scott. Scott is everywhere, so I wanna give a shout out to Scott here.

Mark, it's good to see you. Also, speak to us about shout outs, man. I wanna celebrate you as well. If you've gotten a promotion, if you've gotten a raise, If you've complete a huge project that you're really proud of, brag on yourself, I feel like one, we're all bad at bragging about ourselves. That's why we all suck at interviews for the most part. Second thing is, is I think we as human beings kind of move on too quickly to the next thing, right? So TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, if you're watching this and you have something to celebrate professionally, please throw it up. I wanna celebrate you.

Robert, it's good to see you my guy, Gracious. It's wonderful to see you also. That is the best name ever. Ernest, my guy, it's good to see the other night, big dog. Candice, good morning, Networking requires you to put yourself out there. I was at Girls in Tech Conference, I made some great connections. I love that Candice, we talk about networking here for a second. Eugene, it's good to see you, Elliot, my guy, Chris from Nashville, TikTok, I see a bunch of people tuning in. Yeah, we just got a question here. From SB DeGeek, I have an interview in a few hours, any advice? First off, know what the company does, please.

Make sure you research the people who you're interviewing with, and then find commonalities if there are any between you all and bring them up in the interview to have a better conversation. Also, make sure you come with questions for the interview. When somebody says, do you have any questions for me and you go know that is awkward AF, so come with questions. So that's a few tips, hopefully that helps. But great question from TikTok this morning. Robert, I've actually been doing local networking on LinkedIn, and within 30 minutes, I met someone I grew up with and lived. All right, that's crazy, but again, it's how it works, man.

It's how it works. The point of this show, to be honest with you, is to get you more comfortable networking. And that's why I want to do this. More than my second cup of coffee, I needed my second cup of coffee, I heard that Elliot, I heard that. Tomas, good to see you. Thomas, good to see you. Richie, good deal. Kethyl, it's great to see you as well. I'm seeing people tuning in on TikTok. Joel, Brian, it's good to see you all, Cliffdom. It's good to see you as well. Hey, starting my YouTube channel. It's been motivated me to coach on a lead coach. Listen, people will watch you.

If you stay consistent enough, people will watch you 100%. Let's see here. Also know your resume for that interview and know the job description. I love that. So SB Geek, if you're still watching on TikTok, know your resume for that interview and know the job description. So I think Richie brings up just a really good point here. I think a lot of times we interview for a job and we don't really think about like the job we're interviewing for. We think we can just kind of wing it. But like if you're interviewing for a certain job that needs certain things, I would like look at your resume and remind yourself of the things that you've done that relates to the job.

All right, I know it makes sense, but people don't do it. Good morning, Marie, it's good to see you as always. Elliot, please celebrate with me for releasing this app. Let's do it. I love it. Pour my heart and soul into this retirement calculator, bro. I love this. Hey, y'all, y'all, y'all give some love for Elliot. Go check this out. Elliot, please let me know how else I can help. Please let me know how else I can help you, man. Yes, celebrate the win, wins, recorded in a brag book. I just did a post like that review. So I love this so much from Chris.

So I forgot who I interviewed on the show and maybe y'all can remind me. I interviewed somebody a while back that said, every week they write down, so they have a Google Doc. Every week on a Friday, they spend five minutes writing down one or two things that they did that week that they're proud of. then once a month they go back and write their wins and then a yearly they kind of write out their accomplishments. So again, I think we need to celebrate, you need to get in the habit of knowing what you've done. For example, for me, what I've done, wrote out the public discord for Gun I.O., we've developed a virtual meetup that happens now.

We just do our first meetup with about 30, 35 people. So those are just some things off the top of my head that we've done that's been, you know, it's been pretty impactful. Let's see here. Yeah, Marie comes in here, keep weekly track of what you got done or in a sprint, probably me. Jerome, what you talking about? Also, Jerome, looking forward to hanging next week. I need to holler at you with that. Let's see here, I love it. Cool, let me know if you have any more questions. I do want to talk about networking for a second. And you're like, great, here we go again about networking, but I'm going to be honest with y'all.

Most y'all suck at it. I think I suck at networking, which is really funny because that's what I talk about all the time. So first off, bring a buddy. So there was a conference in Nashville this week called 3686 and 3686 was like a founder, investor conference like there was no co-talk. I felt very out of place. I missed my people. I missed you all. I missed talking about BUN and node and all the latest things that have come out. And so it was kind of out of my comfort zone a little bit, right? So Friday night, first networking event, I made sure that I had somebody with me, right?

Somebody on my team and it helped a ton. I really, I followed that person around. I can't, for as much as you think, I can go in and like talk to strangers, I can't. Like at meetups, I am in a corner and I'm terrified. So all that being said, bring a buddy. If you're like, well, Taylor, I don't have one, find one. Ask a non-technical friend to just buy them dinner and go hang out at a meetup or something because at the end of the day, having a friend changes it, right? And then what I did is I went to a second networking event after the first one with my friend, and I didn't have my friend, and I bailed out for 30 minutes.

Like again, I'm not great at it. I'm just gonna admit it. Also another thing too, when it comes to networking, you just lost a puppy? No, I did not lose a puppy. I'm talking about networking, Emmett. No one's lost a puppy. Has anybody lost a puppy and I missed that? So also nothing too, and I haven't talked about this a lot, but networking after the conference is almost more important than networking in the conference. And let me explain what I mean by that. The follow up that needs to happen after a conference is something, is the topic that no one talks about. And so I'm gonna start talking about that a lot more because at the end of the day, Like if you meet all of these people at a conference or meet up and, and you go, Hey, it was great meeting you and you go home.

And the next day you don't do anything. You are missing out so, so much. Right. So for example, today after this live, I'm going to go in. I'm going to DM everybody I met. Right. So the way I do it, just let you all know, my networking strategy is I meet you. I connect with you on LinkedIn. I go on LinkedIn the next day. IDME would say, hey, it was so nice to meet you. And I have two podcasts, right? So this, this, this networking event, a conference I was at, I'm going to get them on one of my podcast unicorn finders, which I'll know about.

And then, and then so I bring them through the funnel, right? If you don't have a podcast, get them on a call or something, right? Because because at the end of the day, if you are going to a meetup, if you're going to a conference and you are spending the time to do that and you are not spending the time to follow up afterwards, you are. You're almost wasting your time, almost, almost. I know there's a lot of relationships can be made like off the cuff and like you don't need to follow up. But at the end of the day, you really, really, really need to follow up.

Candice comes in here, he goes, I've never thought about to buy a buddy. Yeah, I mean, listen, you know, it's kind of the joke. I grew up Southern Baptist, right? It's kind of going to go in a church with a friend and inviting a friend in church, right? But like, it's the same thing. Like, I texted all my friends to make sure they were at that first networking event. And then even at the conference to ease into it with me, I made sure one of my buddies was around and we hung out and we had a great conversation because again, I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm great at this.

Like I need help networking and I will tell you this and I don't mean to be mean. If I need help networking and my entire job is to network and get out there, you're definitely gonna need help networking, right? So again, bring the buddy, that's huge. I think some other thoughts, and again, if you have questions, please fill them up. TikTok, if you have questions about the job search, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, throw them up there. But another thing I want to talk about too, around the job search that I'm seeing, and I keep hearing this from so many people right now, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants per job posting right now.

So I was having dinner with one of my buddies, Pat McAllister. He and I worked together at Vaco for a little bit, and Pat runs his own recruiting company now. And basically, he and I were chit chatted over dinner before I headed to my second networking event that I didn't stay at for a long time. He said that he was recruiting for a VP, was it a VP of marketing or director of supply chain or something? And basically the internal, he, his, his job posting got over a thousand applicants. And, and he was like, I can't sift through all of them. And so I, the one thing I want to tell you all if you're, if you're watching this right now in the future, I under again, I talk about some time, cold applying, mass applying is a tool in your tool belt, right?

You don't build a house with just a screwdriver. Applying to a job is a, is using a screwdriver, cold, right? And so I want to encourage you to really try to spend less time cold applying and more time networking, right? And the reason why I'm so passionate about this is I see it time and time again on the internet. I had one guy on Twitter or LinkedIn, yes, I don't know who he was, he posted, he goes, I've submitted 500 applications and I've only heard one company get back to me. I don't mean to be insensitive. This is gonna come across a little insensitive and I do apologize.

Why the fuck are you still applying to jobs after like a hundred if you're not hearing back? Why? Why? And again, I know that's harsh and I understand and it could, could come across as like insensitive. I understand again, it's one tool of the toolkit. But at the end of the day, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the different results. Right. So again, you have to try to do something different, try to DM them, et cetera, et cetera. When I say et cetera, et cetera, I just mean all the things I've talked about, DMing people on the side, trying to have a conversation, trying to have a coffee with their local, right?

Now, a lot of people have posted recently that so many people are hitting them up for coffee, but maybe just send them a $15 Amazon gift card or something to get their time, right? Right now, you've got to be different and you've got to try to get to the person that isn't posting, that is the one hiring, not the one posting. Does that make sense? person hiring, not the one that's posting. All right, if you have any questions, please throw them up there. Elliot comes in here and take a sip of my, that conference coffee real quick. If your company is paying for your conference meals per dam, then know what that is because often you have more per dam than you can spend on yourself.

Buy someone lunch with that extra money. Oh, love this so much. Love this so, so much. Again, I think Southern Baptist got this, I think Southern Baptist got this right. Yo, TPG, what's up, big dog? It's good to see you, man. Let's go see. I'm in Atlanta next week. Not that we need to hang, I'm just letting you know. So this is great, right? At the end of the day, if your company is paying you a perdee, and you have a little extra money, then go out and buy somebody like that you don't know at lunch, or lunch at a conference. I love that so much.

Dave comes in here, say it louder for the people in the back. If you applied to 500 jobs, you haven't started your job search yet. Ooh, that's bars right there. And I agree with that. 100% if you have applied for 500 jobs, you haven't started your job search yet. Hey, Berto, that sounds good, man. All right, I'll hit you up. We'll see if we can make something happen. Let's see here. As a junior developer, I don't even looking at openings. I mean, Melacom is yes, Robert. Hey, man, listen, I applaud you and I'm gonna tell you this. I'm gonna tell you this. I know it feels like you're not going anywhere or getting anywhere.

I promise you you are. I promise you you are. Yeah, Elliot comes in here. I learned this lesson from 600 rejections during the pandemic, 100%. If you go to my podcast on Spotify or Apple, guidance counselor 2.0, one of my recent episodes with Brandon Koyer, he's an engineer out of Texas, he had 800 applications. I don't think he heard from any of them from what I remember in the conversation. Let's see here, what else? Shradda comes in, I would love to hear your thought on starting to create content. I wanna do that for the longest time, but thought of just starting what to write I'm trying to keep pulling me down.

Shradda, I love this. All right, let's flip the script a little bit when it comes to content. All right, people get weird about content, the C word, content. Don't get weird out by it. Content just means things you put on the internet for people to view. Here's my thing, right? Shradda, I don't know you, but I will tell you this. I would just document your day. I know I have a blog or y'all know I have a blog, a lot of y'all do. I just document my day, right? So if you're working on a React project you're having a problem post about it. If you've deployed a project and you're proud of it, like Elliot just gave a shout to his project, post about it, right?

I think people get so weird about it because they're afraid people are either gonna judge them or they think it's stupid. And usually both go hand in hand. At the end of the day, people just wanna consume stuff. And like, I don't know about y'all, I'm on my phone a lot, I'm on my phone a lot. And I'm on my phone a lot, I'm sifting through content for educational purposes, like I say, but also at the end of the day for just general, like just just just to zone out. So people just want to to to have something to watch to read to engage with.

And so strata, and this is for everybody who wants to get started for content, just document. What are you doing today? Biggest successes, biggest failures. What is the one thing you've learned? That's all you have to do, right? Because and then what happens is just you have to stay consistent. Consistency is named again. Content creation is a lot like going to the gym. You're not going to go to the gym one time and be able to run a marathon the next day or go to the CrossFit Games the next day, right? You have to be in the gym every day, day in, day out and listen, Shradda, you're going to have days where you post up and it's not good.

Just like you go to the gym and it's not good. But afterwards, after three years like me, you're going to look back and you're like, holy cow. And it really has open doors up for me. So Shradda, I encourage you get started just posting, you know, and if you want to message me, we can talk about getting tactical real fast, but document, don't create. That's a Gary V. thing. That's not my quote. Document your day to day. Don't worry about if it's good or bad. Just start putting stuff out there. Let's see here. Brian, also the perfect fit for you, may not be posted. Yeah, so talk about this real quick.

This is why you need to have, again, different tools in your tool belt. Yeah, that's why you need to have recruiters in your back pocket, right? Brian's an amazing recruiter at Knoxville. If anybody is in Knoxville, please connect with Brian and connect with him. I just had an opportunity to hang out with him for my very first time. Again, classic case, Brian brought Brian a test of this for me. Brian, I've never met in person, but he and I have engaged a ton online. We met for the first time at the Gudai O'Meetup, and it was amazing. And it felt like I've known Brian for a long time.

So, Brian, thank you Thank you for showing up. But again, I totally agree with this. A lot of times recruiters, especially agency recruiters, are able to carve out jobs that never hit the job board, especially on the contracting side. Let's see here. It is nice to give a compliment specifically about you something, it is nice just to give a comment specifically about something you notice on the profile. Yeah, so Marie's talking about networking. Listen, if you message me about any of my interest on my LinkedIn, South Carolina football, right? I went to an or just SEC football in general, I'll get back to you. If you messaged me about Gary Vee, I will get back to you.

If you messaged me about, I don't know what else is on my LinkedIn profile, but if you messaged anything, I told my LinkedIn profile, I'm probably more times than not gonna send you a message back. So I'll totally agree with that. Yeah, again, Shradda, right above, you just sawed right about what you wanted to know when you started. Yeah, there's just so much. Let's see here. Richie, I don't even post hardly any of my jobs on LinkedIn and waste of time. I do post on the feed, people share it. Yeah. I love it, absolutely. Also, get connected with Jiricci. He's the goat, love him to death.

He's also been on the show as well. There are tools out there to help grease the wheels for finding those emails for hiring managers too. Ooh, Apollo.io, Hunter.io. Hey, Scott, do you mind posting those in our gun.io discord, just so we can help others in there as well. Rashab is good to see you. Taylor hit the nail on the head. People do want to consume stuff. And the give, give, give, give without getting any return can be draining, can't confirm. But make sure you take care of yourself the creative process, yeah, 100%. Let's see here, LA comes in here, 600 plus applications as an entry level developer, maybe 10 interviews.

On the other hand, from that same time span, talking with people, I got three contract projects that built my experience until I got the job. Again, listen, I'm gonna say this, there are a lot of gurus out there, right? I don't consider myself a guru because I'm just trying the best like we all are. But I will tell you this, if you take my advice more times than not, you're gonna find a job. but you've got to stick to my advice every single day. Best way to start is start blogging. Yeah, Candace, I would say some people get really, really terrified of the long form.

Listen, LinkedIn, I'm going to be honest with you, Shradda, going back to Shradda. Honestly, short form content, like Twitter, on LinkedIn, does best. Like, no, I don't have time to read six paragraphs. Like, there are these, there are these HR people on LinkedIn, man, they post like six, seven paragraphs long. Like honestly, like, I like Richie's post. Richie's posts are a lot funnier than mine, and they're short and to the point and sarcastic and dry and I love it. Right. So again, just be you, right? I don't try to be, I don't try to be richy because I'm not that funny or clever. Right. I'm just Taylor.

Right. Um, let's see here. What else go, go, game, Cox. Yes. Absolutely. Hopefully we beat Mississippi state this weekend. It's so funny. I had some people from Mississippi state message me, uh, once the season started like, oh, watch out. We're going to play you. Listen, South Carolina is not good, but neither of Mississippi state and no one's reached out to me from Mississippi State lately. So anyways, let's see here. First time I mess with Taylor was about South Carolina football. My wife, yeah, again, right? I don't know, LinkedIn user, I don't know who you are. I'm sorry, put your name. But anyways, yeah. I'll see here, Hashnode in dev dev dot two or good platforms.

Actually, yeah. So, Shradda, if we're going to talk more about what Shradda brought up, Hashnode dev, Shradda, what I would do is I would go to Hashnode dev dot to read a few articles which one resonated most with Do you give it credit in your post and write about it? So that's what I do on TikTok. I go on, I screenshot an article that I like and I green screen it and I get my thoughts on it. Just give your thoughts on things. You can take a tweet of mine that you disagree with, screenshot it and post it and disagree with me. And I'll engage with you back.

Yeah, awesome. I appreciate that Brian. That means a lot. That means a lot. Let's see here. All right, cool. So any more, yeah, at least you're not the University in Buffalo football right now. Y'all had a good run there for a hot second. All right, any other questions, comments, concerns? We can go ahead and wrap up here. Again, it was a pleasure hanging out with y'all today. Again, I just want to encourage y'all, be intentional. Be intentional when it comes to the job search, right? Like a post, comment and make it a good comment. When you interview, ask good questions, be engaged, right? If you want to put out content on LinkedIn, put out good content.

Just don't put out content for the sake of content, right? Like be intentional, and you'll be incredibly, incredibly successful. Cool. All right, y'all. Well, that's it for today. I'm going to go back to following up from with people from my conference that I met this week. Y'all have a wonderful one. Hey, next week, next week, I want to give you all kind of a sneak peek on what's going on. So Monday, Monday, we have Tasia on the show. Tasia is Gun IOs founder and CEO. We're bringing him on the show. So y'all can meet him. Our goals and expectations for 2024. All that job. So again, go check Monday.

I'll see y'all 930. Matasia. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday. I am off. So there's no guys. There's only guidance counts are 2.0 on Monday next week. And for the rest of the week, there's not. I have on Tuesday, I have a three hour marketing meeting. I got to be at first thing in the morning. Wednesday, I'm driving down to Atlanta to speak at a meetup. If you're in Atlanta, we'd love to see you at that meetup I'll post it on the comments after this Thursday, I'll be driving back from Atlanta. Oh, also Thursday if you are in the Nashville area Uh, James quick James q quick on on twitter is going to be in Nashville We're doing a pizza party meetup I joke all the time about companies doing pizza parties and I figured why not have a pizza party So we're going to be at a pizza joint in Nashville.

I'd limited it to 10 people Um, so, uh, we're having pizza go RSVP on our meetup page. If you want to be there, captain at 10 people first come first. So we already have five people RSVP to 10 people max. Um, yeah. Cool. All right. Y'all. I appreciate you all time. Y'all have a good one. We'll see you all next week. Peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening.

Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again, if you need to reach out to me at T.S. and on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.