q&a episode (solo show)

full transcript

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So first off, Randall comes in here. Let's hear about some trending tech. Yeah, so I posted a tweet about this in LinkedIn, post LinkedIn post has gone pretty viral. And it's the same thing around Paul. What is your context? You're about front end devs tell me more. Also, I'm a big fan of the dev's having a preference for still things dev should know. Yeah, all right, so here's the deal. My, it's been fascinating. So I've been recruiting for 12 years, right? So I've seen tech shift tremendously. I've been recruiting engineers for really nine of those years. And, but I started recruiting tech right out of the bat.

So really I've been in the tech ecosystem and recruiting tech for 12 years. I've been through like when I was recruiting tech, we were still on dot net web forms, right? NBC was just now coming out. There was no mention of reactor, angular and thing like that. I went through the angular phase where everybody wanted an angular that I went through the react phase. One phase that I'm, one, one trend I'm seeing right now is that is that there's not enough back end devs. Like, and I put this tweet out and a lot of my recruiter friends chimed in that they can never find a Python dev, a Java dev, the Ruby dev, like any back end language is you just can't find them.

Everybody wants to be a front end work, front end dev. And I get it, right? There was a gold rush, because I remember it. I remember recruiting reactive developers when it just came out and companies were throwing money at. So I get it, you got to chase the bag, I get that. But right now, I will tell you, if you want to make yourself attractive in this market, start, like if you're a heavy in front end right now where you're at, start to tinker with the back end. Because, you know, and again, I know there's full stack devs out there, right? I'm not dumb. But you typically favor one or the other, right?

Very rarely are you a 50, 50 split evenly. And so I will tell you this, if you are a front, if you're a full stack dev out there, but you are a little bit more focused on the front end, I would try, I would try somehow to start working on the back end, because I think, especially where tech is going, it just seems like, you know, faster computing power, you know, data is just a thing. Everybody needs Java. I'm seeing a lot of Java when it comes to data processing, which I think is a really interesting thing. I'm not that knowledgeable on why Java is being so hot with data processing, but obviously Python.

A lot of messaging stuff is being hot right now. So Kafka, everybody wants Kafka, you know, Rabbit MQ, just any sort of messaging stuff is extremely hot. And again, I think that just goes with the trend of where everything's going with, you know, scalability and high processing power and all that jazz. So again, that's my two cents. And I only want to recruit it, right? I'm only a small, small sliver of this pie, of this tech pie, as you can say. And so again, I would just, if you could work on your back end shops, if you're a boot camp and your readness and your hot and you're doing all react, I would try to shift it back end work.

Now, now, now, now, here's the deal. If you're passionate about front end work, do what you're passionate about. Do what, don't let me deter you. But also, I just want you to be aware that there is not a lot of front end work. Or there's too many front end devs out there. Also, nothing too. The few times I've placed junior developers, like a handful of times throughout my 12 years, it's all been back end work. It's all been back end work. SQL, SQL, Python, QA work, it's all been back end work. So yeah, that is my two cents there. Let's get to a few more questions here.

Yeah, so Jordan right here, listen, I was talking with my wife this week and our babysitter hadn't texted us back for our daughter. And I was like, well, I'm gonna ping her and my wife giggled because she always laughs when I talk and work talking. She's like, she's like, I just, she goes, you're a recruiter job. And I told my wife, I said, honestly, I'm just a glorified admin assistant now at this point in my career. My entire job is just to annoy people. And I agree with Jordan, like, if you connect with people and they don't get back to you, send them in on message.

Here's the, I'm gonna be told you, honestly, if you send me a message the first time, unless I really know you, I'm probably not gonna get back to you. And I'm not being mean, I just don't have time. You should see my LinkedIn DM's. You should see my Twitter DM's. And listen, I'm not bragging. It's just, it is what it is. And so, so if you only send me 1 DM and I don't respond, you're gonna be wedged down at the bottom of my DM's. And so again, like, honestly, 1 DM gets me to alert me what's going on. 2 DM's makes me go, okay, I probably need to respond to this person soon.

3 DM's makes, okay, I gotta follow this story. So third time, I'm probably gonna follow up. Let's see here. Survive Black Friday working on e-com. So Emmett congrats to you for surviving e-com. I'm Black Friday, bless your heart. Michael, it's good to see you. Hey, I love it. Ernest, I got a job that pays 25% more earnest. Congrats, big dog. I'm very, very, very proud of you on that. Let's see here. Eugene, I love it. We got a lot of celebrations today. None of y'all do this during the week. We just all gonna celebrate on Fridays. One of my clients got a job report in the amazing first day at work.

I would like to celebrate her. I love that Eugene. I love that. Go Eugene's client. Yay, love that. Let's see here. What about mobile? Eugene, here's the DM, man. Mobile's one of those. Why don't get a ton of requests, but then when we do, we have nobody, right? So, you know, mobile, there's just not a lot. I think mobile was really hot there for a few years, native and cross platform. We don't really get it a ton. If I get any sort of mobile gigs, it's usually cross platform, but again, that's just me. That's just me. That's very Kafka-esque. I don't know what that was referring to.

Let's see here. There are reasons, Clark comes in. There are reasons. There are not a lot of back-end devs. Everybody wanted to pay less and hire a full stack. Never mind the fact that most companies never want to spend the time properly designed. Can't see right over OG back-end VPA. I love it. I love it. Yeah, 100% Jason's good to see a big dog. Been working bare-bones SQL in a little entity framework. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, back-end. Three DM's makes a very confusing gaming session. Oh, bear it, you're funny. Let's see here. Cool. All right, a few more thoughts too. Listen, I mean, listen to a podcast.

One of my favorite podcast is Group Chat. Three guys out of LA, shout out Group Chat. I'm in their Discord, bought an NFT. They're incredibly networked. I've actually been able to get some deals done because of that. And for me, one of the things they talk about is networking and being out in public. And they talked about that a lot of what networking is, is to just be out. It's just to be present. Like not even necessarily moved the needle with conversations, but just being present. So these guys, very influential kind of more in the LA scene, both in a tech startup scene, but also kind of like the fashion and pop culture.

They know a lot of artists and actresses and actors. And they talk about a lot of their success has just been because they've been in the same rooms as people. And stuff has just come to them because they've been in the same room. And so I want to give a really good example of kind of how I think about networking. And it happened last night. So for those of you who don't know Josh Long, Josh Long is a developer advocate for spring, the framework spring for Java. He works at spring framework. And I was supposed to host a panel with him in Barcelona at spring I.O.

last year before my last company grounded me from going, won't get into that. And so I saw his tweet that he was in town. And basically for me, I was just like, I sent him a DM, I was like, yo, we got a hang and he said, absolutely so come by the meetup. So I got to the meetup a little bit late because I had to get my daughter down. But I showed up, supported him. We went to grab one drink and that was it. And so for me, it's one of these things we're like in that moment. And again, I want to tell, I want to be honest here because that's just who I am.

In that moment, I didn't want to go see Josh. Josh, if you watch this, I'm sorry. I'm glad I hung out with you. But my introvert and herself just want to keep me at home. I was eight o'clock. I left my house at like seven 30, right? That's late, it was dark, very, very dark, right? It was basically midnight, it's seven 30. But I knew, so Josh won't come into town a lot. And I knew that I needed to go see Josh because I needed to shake as many hands from my Twitter friends in real life as possible. So I made the drive, it was about a 35, 40 minute drive down.

And I met him. And then now like he and I, like I've bonded myself to Josh because I made the effort to go do that. And I think, and I want to share this story with you because I struggle with this as well. I wanted to be at home last night. I did not want to leave the house. I just wanted to be in sweats and chill and just be my introvert self because I was tired. But for me, but for me, I knew that having Josh in town, because he lives in San Francisco, I would never see him. And so again, incredibly important, I'm just telling you all this, even if it's going to a meetup to see one person, one person and shake their hand and have a conversation with them, that's enough.

We talk about prepping your, we talk about the prep work that needs to go into a meetup conference, right? You know, with Clark in the chat, right? With that conference, you gotta do homework, right? That conference is a big ass conference. And he has some amazing ass speakers on there, right? And so if you go in just like, willy nailing it, like you're not gonna get, you're not gonna get the ROI. So for me, my one goal last night was to meet and shake Josh's hand and I did that, right? My camera's being a little fuzzy on me. So again, that's that, that's just what I want.

I just want to encourage you all be intentional, go shake a hand, even if it's driving to a meetup to meet the speaker and shake their hand and leave, it works, I promise you. I want to get to a few more comments. Thomas, another celebration of Friday celebration, not a raise, but as a stand up, you're just like clean up a ton of work from our organization. Hey, I love it, buddy. Congratulations and Thomas again. I just want to encourage you this morning. I see you on LinkedIn. I see you crushing the YouTube game. Keep going. Do not give up. You're doing a fantastic job, man.

Let's see here. Chris, you're ridiculous. Man, hey, Chris, shout out Detroit signing Patty Kane. You boys are on fire right now. You boys are on fire. So shout out to the Detroit Red Wings on that. Yeah, I know I was up past eight o'clock. Kind of crazy. Let's see here. Emmett had a buddy drive four hours to come get coffee with me. We met on Twitter. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. But that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. A random comes in my intro, there's actually a kill line that we're going to hold. I'm trying to be willing to say again, again, random, I see you, I hear you.

I think the biggest reason why people freak out is because they try to meet everybody. I try to meet everybody. And so for me, it's like just just go more intentional, go smaller. If you show up to a meetup and your goal is to literally just shake the hands of the speaker and that is it, that is okay. That is totally okay. So I want to give you that encouragement. Yeah, frate. Guys, I've been saying frate for a little bit. Where y'all been? Frate is a thing. You got to get past Wednesday, it's Thursday, and then Friday, and we need a shirt. We need a shirt.

We need a shirt. Hey, Jason, we need a shirt. Let's see, I need to make that conference. Yeah, Paul, listen, Clark Clarkson, the chat, DM with Clark, you need to be there. I'm telling you, the Austin one is great. It's a lot outside Austin. You get the tacos, you get the barbecue, the Mac and cheese with the Kalahari resort was pretty incredible. So definitely reach out to Clark for sure. LinkedIn, I didn't want to do our podcast up a bit, but we did it, my guy. Who is this? Who is this? And then yeah, Chris again, yeah, absolutely. Chris, a lot of the guys in my hockey team are big Detroit Red Wings fans.

So I'm hearing all about it in our group chat. See, or pick three to high five, I love this. I love this strategy for Memit. To be honest with you, I love this. Pick, pick three, right? Emmit, Emmit, Emmit, and Emmit, Randall, like this is great. Pick three people to meet. That's it, right? Again, we walk into these meetups, we gotta meet everybody. You don't have to meet everybody. You literally do not have to meet everybody. Do not have to meet. I'm giving you permission on that working. You do not have to meet everybody. For me, one person. That's it. Oh, the lobster guy, Todd, what's up buddy?

It's good to see you. Nicole, missing your lies because I've been so busy. I love that. I love that. I love that. Intentional, it's okay. There's so many people, yeah, yeah, I love that. Nicole, it's really good. It's really, really good to see you. Favorite holiday drink. Ooh, all right, listen, I'm gonna say this. So I'm not a big dairy guy. I love eggnog, but here's the deal. I had the best spiked eggnog ever in my life at the continental, which is Sean Brock's restaurant in Nashville downtown. It recently, they renovated the restaurant. It's not the continental anymore. It's like an Asian infusion-inspired thing. The continental had their, not their bartenders make it.

They had their pastry chef make their eggnog, because of the way they did it. It was decadent, one of the best things, one of the best things I've ever had. Let's see here. High fives are free. I love that. How am I showing up as LinkedIn user? I have no idea. I think it's a settings thing, Todd. Let's see here, eggnog for the one. My big win this week was getting switched on team. So I'm like, hey, let's go bear it. This one, I'm talking about. I've missed you man. I've missed you. It's good to see you again. This is a former guest of the show.

Let's see here, Sean brought change by like your Sean Brock's incredible. All right, a few more things. What else? Interviewing, listen, I don't know if you caught the episode me and Vidtor. Vidtor is a talent success manager at Gun I.O. We did an episode, what was it Wednesday, about how to ace the phone interview. There's a little bit, it was kind of heavy information. It was a little bit less of a conversation, more of a webinar, but I think it was really good. So if you want to check that out, go scroll on my feet to Wednesdays. It's really really important. We go check that out.

Let's see here, let's see here, Clark comes in. You also don't have to meet people alone. There are always others out there. Yeah, so here's a prime example, right? So Josh, met Josh last night. We went to a bar. Josh brought three of his friends with him. And then I met Josh's three friends. One of the things I think is great at conferences. People call it the Pac-Man method. I just have a buddy, right? Honestly, Chris Damaris, shot at Chris Damaris and Todd. Chris, Chris and Todd, they do a great job with me. Chris is an extrovert and Chris has helped me tremendous that conference is again.

I get, I get weird talking to people that I don't know. So find a buddy. I think it's huge. Thomas comes in here. Oh, should I almost forgot. It's crazy someone ranting to me. Oh, they have Barnes and Noble. They can't let me know my name. Why? Because I post so much on LinkedIn. Listen, listen. There's no no more else to say. No, no, no, I have to say. The content, I honestly, I don't get that reference, Paul. Yeah, Chris is still looking for a gig. So if you're looking for a dev advocate or accessibility individual, please go, holler at Chris. He's on the market.

We got to get him back to work. Cool. All right. What else? Is there anything else anymore questions? As you wrap up this Friday episode, again, just want to, I just want to say thank you all. Got a lot of things coming for 2024. Also, my DM's are always open for suggestions, comments, concerns. We have unghosted live, my unghosted with Alicia Noven. We have it in, I think, two weeks. Let's see here. The winds, winds are unghosted. The 14th of December, unghosted with me and Alicia, go to unghosted.live to submit your profile. If you want to do some mock interviews with us, please do that.

All right. Here you go. Nicole comes in. What do you think of candidates putting an elevator pitch? I only got to have been suggested to just a lot of people. Where? Nicole, where are people putting elevator pitches? I know you can do the video. Listen, Nicole, I've always been a big fan of doing literally a selfie style video of yourself. Literally just plot your phone. Go, hey, my name's Haudes and I'm a senior recruiter or town advocate at Gun Ayo, blah, blah, blah. Like an impostor on your LinkedIn on the feature section. I watch, if anybody does a video about themselves and they post it to their featured section and it's just kind of a little summary video about them, I watch it every single time.

So I would go check that out for sure. But yes, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, elevator pitch, I think as many times you could elevator pitches anywhere. I think it's great. I think it's great. LinkedIn, say we go settings. Yeah, absolutely, Chris. Again, watch out. Chris is really one of the first talks that I really model a lot of my talks after Chris with his energies. So yeah, we definitely need to hire him. Just a comment, even. People need to learn. Yeah, I mean, again, yeah, I totally get that. That's why Alicia and I do those mock interviews on unghosted.live.

So we can help people do that. Can we start at amount of times for an elevator pitch? No, I've had a ride of seven and so on. Yeah, and again, Jason brings up a great comment here for me. Yeah, how many times you've been on elevators? And this is what I talked about with my guy, Vidtor on Wednesday. Literally, elevators last 30 seconds. 30, 45 minutes, 30, 30, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40 seconds. So again, keep it quick, keep it concise. Cool. All right, Bryce, what's going on? Hello, Phil and Nashville in. It's good to see you, Bryce. Thanks for hanging out on TikTok.

Cool. All right, well, I think that's it. Is anybody any questions? Otherwise, I appreciate y'all ton. Next week, want to give a shout out to next week's episodes coming in hot. I have a VP of, I have a VP of engineering coming on Monday. I don't know if you guys know Joe Pervett, Pervett. I'm probably butchering his last name. Joe on Twitter, Joe actually landed a job recently. He documented live. He's entire job search. So we're going to talk about that. I have another VP of engineering coming on Wednesday. I have another amazing startup coming on next Thursday. So yeah, we have a busy, busy, busy week next week.

Leading up to the holidays again. I appreciate y'all love y'all to death. And y'all have a great weekend. Y'all have a good one. 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 at T-Dasting on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.