episode 33 w/seth alexander & the state of candidates in a remote culture

full transcript

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

Thank you for tuning in. I got my set out of Xander this morning. Very excited. Again, always at me. Comment me. Let me know. Let me in Seth know where your tuning in from. So he's going to be a good one. This is both for candidates and hiring managers. Because Seth is an engineer and a local company here in Nashville. He puts his hands on the keyboard and gets some code done every day. So he's going to talk about his experiences right now within the market. So if you're a hiring manager and you're watching this, you're like, ah, it's a candidate to develop. Or I don't need to watch this wrong.

You need to stay. You can watch it. So again, we'll start here in another 30 seconds. Again, add us, comment. Let me know what you're tuning in from. We'd love to hear from you. Seth is going to bring the heat this morning. Very excited to have him on. And then also tomorrow is going to be a good one as well. I had this guy who's like, hat, club house. He's at play stations at the analyst. Or we're going to talk about Clubhouse tomorrow. It's just going to be pretty cool. John was going on, man. It's good to see a big dog. French tuning is always Kyle Austin.

What's going on? I love Austin, Texas. Love Austin, Texas. What are my favorite cities visited? I think two years ago, three years ago. I picked up my dog out there, but two or three years ago. So I love that city. Cat gave him morning what's going on. I love it. I love it. Brian from Birmingham, who's gotten snow? Kyle from Austin. Did you guys get snow? I think this is the same system out there. Or down there. Brian, do you get a snow Birmingham? Petina, you're a national. You got something. I'll just say, if John hasn't gotten snow yet, he's about to. He's in Long Island.

I know. Yeah. Yeah. Amy, yes, noted Memphis. I love it. Yeah. We're all tuning in from our houses with an extra cup of coffee because it's hard to get on the bed this morning. All right, sweet. Let's go ahead and get started from a student minutes of just music. People get tired. Everyone, thanks again for hanging out with us this morning. Guys, guys, guys, two, one hour. I am joined by my dear friend, Seth Alexander this morning. We're going to talk about, again, the candidate and the market from a job seeker perspective right now. And I'm a job seeker. Just internal candidates at companies and how to be prepared if you're a hiring manager.

So again, this is both for hiring majors and job seekers and candidates with organizations. Before I start interviewing Seth, few shout outs is always first off. I want to shout out to my team. That's around me. Brandon Arvey with Brandon 78 doing all my marketing initiatives. Alex Pooler is doing all my branding. Newsletter copy, help me with that. Jess, I added a new guy, Jess Boshan here in Nashville. He's a singer songwriter. But he is fantastic with design. He is overhauling my Instagram, doing a lot of my design, my vibes. The vibes, as kids say these days, he is doing my vibes. And then Drew Skeleton helped us in video work.

So we'll give a shout to them. If you're a hiring manager watching this in 2021 and you hate your recruiting firms, please switch them out with me. I would love to work with you this year. I set a ball on this live show at the end of the year to work with five new companies this year. I've had some interest. I've had some companies DM me. It's a very exciting about that. So again, if you are looking to hire and you hate your vendors, please DM me. Let's talk. Few more people tuning in. We'll get started Ken Jarvis, good morning, my friend, Francis, what's up?

Kyle, Kyle goes too much. I don't think I'll see you from here. Becky, what's going on? Morning from Clothill. John goes, oh, there's about six people left from the last. I don't even know what to do with six people. It's a lot. What's going on? I love it. No snow here. I'm sorry, Brian. All right, so let's go ahead and dive in. So Seth, tell the people who you are, what do you do, what you code, where you at, all that jazz. Right on. Yeah, so I'm stuck Alexander, a natural metro area based software engineer currently work at evidence care, career changer and in this field for about three and a half years now.

I spent a decade in hospitality before that and managing restaurants, free standing and hotel attached as well. And yeah, that's the TLDR on me. Follow me. Father of five, so if you hear some screen. Father on the bathroom. It's a bit of scratch. I have one. And it's anxiety reduced all the time. I can't imagine five and said you're still just smiling off of it. So for those of you who have tuned into some previous live episodes, probably, hi, evidence care. That sounds familiar. Yes, we have the BP of Engineering Jack Langston on my show. And then Seth and DME, where DME, I was like, man, I love to have you on.

So Seth, so let's talk about what you and I were DMing about because I did a live show kind of ranting to hiring me. And you take care of the people because people are getting called. Give me a scale. Give me a scale of, by the way, Brandon, Brancier, what's up, big dog. So give me a scale of the amount of DMs you're getting right now. And really for the salary and the price points, like all of that, give me kind of the lay of the land within the DMs of Seth Alexander. I probably get five to 10 a week. And that's just like LinkedIn.

And I remember I think I even tweeted at you, Taylor. Like how are people getting my email that isn't even published anywhere? Because I'm getting emails to an email address that isn't attached to my LinkedIn. Isn't on my public profiles. Isn't on my website. I have a small presence on the web that I'm personal brand to an extent. And I was like, our recruiters even getting this other email. That's not even public. And I'm getting emails. And I'm getting some people who are just straight up phone call and me and texting me, skipping even the soft message, the cold outreach and just going that route.

So probably five to 10 a week. That's right, Randy. Now, here's the kicker. Let's talk about salaries. So hiring managers that are listening to this, Seth, talk to me about what you're seeing from a salary perspective. So I have a personal filter that I used to do a risk assessment. And even if I want to discuss a potential opportunity. And also for you mentioned Jack was on the show. Just knowing market work, I think it's very important for candidates. And even if you're not job-seeking, just to know what is the market offering right now. What is my value to go into those when you get promotions, when you get raises, when you get pay-offs?

You go into those discussions with data points and really understanding your worth in the market. So right now, I'm seeing that it's competitive. And I think echoing where we started DMing was what Jeff Syfer said on your show about a week ago. The remote work is broadening. And companies are looking to do very strict location-based pay. They're saying we pay 200 grand in San Francisco. And if an engineer in Nashville can provide us the same level of code and value, we're going to pay them that too. It doesn't matter that they're living in Nashville where it's cheaper, or there's no state income tax and such.

That the value in engineer provides doesn't change based on where they're physically located. We provide, we decide what that value is based on our business. So my personal filter will be like, hey, should we even talk? Because I asked, does this position pay? And my number is 20k more than I'm currently making. Sure. Because I think in my head, there's risk. I like where I'm at. I'm not actively job seeking trying to leave. I'm not here as like, hey, call me. I'm here just working. We got a bunch of people at DM you after this call. But I asked that question to see what the market's offering, to see the value prop out there.

And it's really to mitigate the risk of one, leaving a company and two, make it worthwhile to an extent. Because I think that's internally, as engineers, we typically get pay bumps and things every so often. So like 10k bump, I'm probably going to get that where I'm at. Happy with a certain amount of time. So there's no point in taking the risk of jumping companies for 10k. But yet another multiple on there, and maybe it's worth talking about. So I've seen that, that diff on my pay, at least five times in the last month. And I haven't responded to every DM. I think seven or eight DM's and linked them in 60mels that I haven't responded to.

And there's some that I worked in an agency and didn't really like that workflow. So there's some agencies that have reached out. And I've just, you know, cold said, thanks, but no thanks. Right. So there's probably more than that even. Yeah. And it's not only remote based, well, it's not only non national based companies. There's at least one national based company that's offered or had that. I want to use term author lightly because I have a strong interview, you know, but you know, the proposal proposed. Yes. So some, you know, from across the country and some from right here at national. So it's not, I think the, the playing field is, is different these days.

Yeah, it is. It is. So real quick, had some people kind of trickle in. John goes, oh, John actually goes. Six inches. Six inches. Yeah. Six inches. Andrew was going on. What are the chances? Hey, Seth, I guess Seth and Andrew know each other. Kyle, this video. Yes, is why I joined the stream. I love it. Julio, good morning. It's good to see a buddy. So, so let me ask you this, Seth. So as you wrap up here, again, because again, I just want to make a quick and the show kind of people and kind of both sides of the coin, per say. Two things for me.

One, I want to affirm you and say, I love that you've thought about this. Right. So you say, hey, listen, like I'm only taking 20k because of this. Right. I think job seekers and kids need to be mindful, because I think right now, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the job market for certain skill sets and good talent is still as competitive as ever. Pre-COVID. I don't know if you've seen it did because of the remote. Have you seen any dip at all? So I think I saw a dip like April to maybe October, November. I want, I'd be interested to know if you saw dip two and just because of uncertainty.

And it was like, nobody knows what's going on. Nobody knows. Give them a hat or a beer. I'll see you. Yeah. Yeah. I would do it. Yeah. It was really like, don't know what's going on. So, you know, let's just take a pause for a minute. But coming late November and had my youngest child in the beginning of November, so I was out of pocket for a minute. But it was like once I came back from that, I turned into leave, it was like, it was craziness going into Christmas and coming out of Christmas. I know the new year with new budgets and things, people are, I think they're realizing that they needed to hire and they took a pause and now they're ready to go.

And it's been craziness ever since. Yeah, absolutely. So, so again, props to you for knowing what you want and kind of having guidelines. I think can't just need to have that more because again, right now, it can be for certain candidates overwhelming. And I think you need, you need to have your ducks in a row, right? You need to know why or you some guidelines or filters and you have that. So props to you on that. Ola goes, where do you get info about the job market? I mean, from recruiter probably, but also just probably from all the DMs. I mean, I think the South River from your naturally getting educated because of people of DMs.

Yeah, yeah. So, and that's where it can definitely be overwhelming because I'm the type of person who wants to never burn the bridge. So I want to respond to every single recruiter who reaches out to me and just, even if it's no case. Do you know your anywhere in number? Do you know your anywhere in number? No, I've never done that thing. I'm done going out the office and asked my wife what she thinks it is in Delhi. But I think that also comes from hospitality. You know, those long term relationships, like Andrew, he's a recruiter based in Arizona who reached out to me and that's how we connected.

So, you know, building those relationships, even if there's no inherent value proper right now, you know, playing the long game, which I think, you know, you do amazing as well-tailor, you know, your review and resumes for people and talking to boot caps and, you know, most as far as I know, most companies aren't employing, you know, recruitment firms for junior engineers. It's just too expensive to do it that way. And they're also not the hardest positions to fill. You put up a junior engineer post and you get 7,000 applicants these days. Yeah. So, but yeah, I think the market is, you know, educating me while I'm also, but it's also about asking the questions, so knowing what you're doing or knowing what, going back to what Jeff Cipher said, you know, what is the, what's driving your, your, your question, having your life drive your career as opposed to your career and drive your life?

Oh, it's like, okay. Oh, that's what he said. He said it. So, I'm quite happy to do it. I still love it. We'll click this clip and just let you have that if you're watching right now and you didn't see that said, go back a week, Josh Cipher, you know, promote. And yeah, that's where it's like, okay, you know, I have X, Y and Z that I want to accomplish. And as an internal, as an internal, like, not job seeker, I bring that information too to, to my biases. You know, I sat down with our CTO and CEO and was like, hey, look, I'm getting this information.

And these people are reaching out to me and it's crazy that they're reaching out to me. And I love it here. And you know, but I also want us to be competitive in our recruitment and attention. So if nobody's talking about what proposals are coming to our engineers internally, then, you know, that could be a detriment to our company where we're trying to recruit and retain people. And we might see, you know, attrition that we wouldn't see if there's just more data coming because I don't think recruiters are reaching out to the CEO and CTO being like, hey, we're trying to recruit your people away.

And this time, which money we're giving them or offering them. So I think it's also important to know your worth and also raise those conversations. Even when you're not trying to get more money specifically from your bosses or from your company, just saying, hey, look, this is what the market's talking about right now. Want to make sure you're informed so that our company is informed for the health of our department. I love that. Last question. Then we'll wrap it up here. What would you say? And again, you've had some pretty good conversations with your hiring managers and your leadership. What would you recommend right now?

So let's say a hiring manager still watching this 15 minutes through. And you want to talk to a random hiring manager at XYZ company in Minneapolis Minnesota who's struggling with this. What advice would you give them as somebody who's in the weeds to help in getting called? What would you say is some of the most important things that you like within your organization to share to other engineering leads who can implement with their organization? So within evidence care, I really love our transparency, love it and pen culture. So you know, my CTO is very transparent about where we are and where we're going. Our CEO to our entire team, honestly.

You know, the things that we can do better, the things that we are struggling with, the things, you know, and our true point in time of business who evidence care is. And this is, you know, who we are and where we're going and what we can be, you know. And really discussing things open and honestly around some things, you know, like I know if I say, hey, I'm getting calls that are, you know, 50k more than I'm getting paid right now. My CEO can't just snap his fingers and make that happen. You know, we have a board. We have an approval process. There are budgets.

You know, there are, I'm not just the only thing that's being considered. And really just being open and honest in those conversations of saying like, listen, hey, thank you so much for the information. Let's discuss more or less figure out how we can make this work. Like, what is driving this? Is it truly just salary? Is it because, you know, you have other things in your life that money will provide. Are, you know, can we do other things? So it's really figuring out what is most valuable to your people, I would say, and working with them towards that. Because it's not always money based. All right.

I always tell people recruiters and such from the reach out like, here's a number. But compensation is a package, you know, like some places offer 100% paid healthcare. Right. Has value to me, as especially having a family, like in terms of expenses. All service. Yes. So like, and you know, that might be a different line item on a budget as opposed to a salary or like there might be a strict salary band, but, you know, healthcare comes out of a different bucket, which can be accounted for differently and potentially a different compensation piece. I think having a batch as a business, I also think about, you know, the books a little bit more than other engineers and kind of how those things shake out.

But really, honesty and transparency, building that trust, that culture of almost feeling a little bit like oversharing the internals. You know, okay, here's some info. You didn't hear it from me, but I really need to tell you this right now or things like that. Really builds that value. Because unfortunately, I think, especially once anybody's been in business, you know, getting started career for a while, we see that businesses do have to take care of themselves. I know it. And we see down terms and, you know, we went through a period of a layoff with COVID where we're start up and funding was taking longer and we had to cut some people, unfortunately.

And so everyone's always, I think, thinking about it. And I think being, I don't want to say naive. I think there might be too harsh, but being naive to an extent that your engineers aren't getting outreach. It can be detrimental too. So just understand that that is going on and it is happening. Right. I love that so much. I love that. All right, man. Well, again, thank you for hanging out, man. I appreciate it. For those of you who are watching, have any last questions for Seth, throw them up at me, comment. Let me know. Otherwise, Seth, thanks again, man, for coming on. I appreciate it.

It's always good to see you. And have fun sledding or filling ice, men. I hope it's nose at some point today. They're saying it's supposed to be here, man. It's supposed to be here soon. It's supposed to be here today. I've been watching the weather report shout out Nash severe weather. Tell you what, they're great. Best Twitter. Wilson severe weather is the one that I want. Where's Wilson, I'm Terrell. Where's Wilson? Like what city you in? Just go east on 40. East on 40. Next county over. Got it. Got it. Sweet. Awesome. Well, Seth, thanks again for hanging out, man. I appreciate you. Have a great Monday.

And everyone, thanks for tuning in. If you ask any questions that we get done, I'll get you connected with Seth. Otherwise, Seth, thanks again, man. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. All right, bye. Right.