navigating this job market w/ dan thompson, managing dir at vaco

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Those good people want Dan, I guess just what do you do just give a quick background, man? Yeah, no thanks. So I work at VACO, I've been here for about 10 and a half years. Got into this business about 11 and a half, 12 years ago now, and I focus on helping companies in Tampa find talent as well as we do some services work, I'm on the application development, digital transformation side with our built team that's up in Raleigh. But a lot of what I focus on is senior to executive level roles in the IT space, as well as, you know, some staff log and project based work as well.

But that's, that's kind of our bread and butter. Yeah, we're going to dive in a little bit more. But that's me. Yeah, that is you also Florida Gators fan. For you understand, you have to bring that up. Yeah, Tampa 10 and a half years originally from Fort Lauderdale area, which is called the University of Florida. I did live in Orlando for a little bit Maryland before I moved to Tampa. Valerie, I've been to Erie, Pennsylvania, I've been to Minnesota. I'd have been Austin, Texas. So John, I don't know where you're from, if you wanna let us know, but those are all great places. Where in the world is Dan Thompson?

I love it. I love it. All right, job market, kind of what's going on right now, Spotify, 15% laughs. And for the record, Dan, me and Dan called it. Also, two years ago. Now go Bucks. That's fine. I'm a dolphins fan and go Knowles. Sorry to see you guys will be sitting on your couch not competing for National Championship. Just like the Florida Gators and the South Carolina Game Coaches. Yeah, exactly. West by God. Virginia, Ben to West Virginia too. Go for Dan and then and then and then and then Credaney, Ben and Nashville. So so far and Houston. Yeah. Like four or five. So far.

All right. So this is the game now. So if you're watching, just comment, let's see if Dan's been there. I used to have a job. My first job at a college was traveling, working in the higher education space. I've been all over the United States. I just hit my 50th state last year. So I've been all of them. So yeah, I want to hear from you guys where you're from. Enough about me, though. So job search Spotify, 15% layout. Yeah. So we call this me, Dan and Jake, with unicorn finders, we said it's unrealistic. I think I do want to give Spotify. I don't condone anybody laying people off or I do condone.

I don't know the exact same. But anyways, but if you're going to do it, they're giving five week, five months severance, which is good. Yeah, talk about, I mean, what do you see on your end or people hire? I think that, I think the question I get a lot is Taylor, are people hiring because it just seems like there's no jobs and everyone's getting laid off. I mean, the answer is the pace in which I mean, if we're specifically talking about tech, right? Yeah, the tech, yeah, the pace in which tech grew from like even before COVID, right? Like 2019 was strong 2020, like outside of a short window was strong.

It hit never got yeah. And then 2021 2022, like it was bonkers, like we are seeing like 20% growth year over year, right? And tech hiring and everything else salaries were going up, everybody was hiring for the sake of hiring. And we talked about it a few years ago, we just said it's not sustainable unless you have an actual strategy for what you're doing for all these people. And I get right, like a lot of people are keeping up with the Jones is money was cheap. They said, hey, if my competitors are hiring, that I have to hire and we'll figure it out. And it is, it's really unfortunate.

I am sad to see people lose jobs, especially on the holidays. With that being said 2023 has not been great for tech, right? There's been a lot of layoffs, not a lot of growth, a lot of consolidation inside of IT departments. And like, for the first time in a while, you're seeing like a middle manager and like senior level recession, right? Like a lot of time, yeah, yeah, not hiring juniors and, you know, stuff like that. Now we're seeing a lot of managers, a lot of leads, a lot of maybe directors getting let go and they're starting to consolidate. So I say all that to say like the last probably three months have been a lot stronger.

Yeah. We've seen in the job market and the job search show it is going to be slow. Salaries are not going to grow as much as they have in the past. But like when you consider where they are now compared to the worth three years ago, like you knew that that was going to happen at some point. Like unfortunately it can't be a rocket ship forever. It's not sustainable. So I don't see a lot of wage growth over the next year, probably the next two years. I'm seeing a lot of companies withhold bonuses this year or especially if it's performance bonus based on the company as performance.

You're gonna see some of that. So I do think you're gonna start to see an uptick in 2024. A lot of companies did okay this year. Now it's a matter of what continues to happen with the market. I don't think that we're going to get a recession soon. So some of those fears have been quelled. I think some of the rate hikes and stuff like that from the Federal Reserve, they're slowing down. They might even drop. So those are all your macroeconomic factors that go into hiring. But more importantly, I hope a lot of these companies have spent this year strategizing what they want to do for hiring in the future.

100%. I want to get to a few comments here. Ever been to Montreal, Dave, you've been to Montreal. Yeah, look at this. We're still not. It's like seven for seven now at this point. Yeah, you sure Kentucky, Ben there love Kentucky. I love it. John, where are you from John? Comment. I'd love to know where you're from. Taya, it's good to see you girl. Marie comes in. Do you think salaries will grow slower or actually be reduced? I'm kind of curious with this too. Cause I've seen, hate to say it, seen companies kind of pull back. I think not huge, like maybe 10%. But yeah, I think there's a little bit of a race to the bottom.

I don't know if they're going to drastically fall. But I do think that companies might choose a cheaper candidate right now, which inherently usually drives people's salaries down. If they notice it, their competition constantly is beating them because of their salary. But no, I don't see it drastic if any real decrease in salaries coming up. What we've seen is just a flat line, right? from 2021 to 2022, you saw a large jump 2022 to 2023. You saw a decent size jump. And then in 2023, we've seen some flatlining. Zambia, have you been to Zambia? Never been there. Never been to Zambia. All right, all right.

That would have been a lot of food in the Zambia. John, thank you for hanging out with us from Zambia. I love it. So that was a little macro. Let's get to some blocking and tackling here. What are you seeing with candidates in your neck of the woods struggling with? You know, some, you know, yeah, just anything you're kind of seeing a consistent being with candidates right now on the job search. I think, and this is something that I said a few years ago, and I don't like to say, like, no, it's phenomenal. Here I am, right? So, like, I do think that you're going to continue to see return to work.

I think some companies have adopted to remote work really well and they will stay that way. I think that we've seen a lot of hubbing of employees as well. I know that I've got a number of clients that are based maybe here in Tampa, then they'll build teams around people that are maybe in other areas. Like maybe they have a few people in Charlotte. So maybe they want to have like six or seven people and it's not that they would go into an office but that they can get together, have some camaraderie, do whatever. Right. So but I do think that you're going to see more return to work and more hybrid situations.

Like I don't think that a lot of companies that went remote, went to hybrid and then are going back five days a week. Like I think that we've jumped that. But I do think that over the next couple of years, you're going to see a very large return back to the office space. And I know that that pains a lot of people. But I think the days of like this vast number of remote opportunities is going to dwindle. I think that there are some companies that have done it really well. And those companies might have a leg up on talent, but I do think that you're going to see a lot more return to office.

I do. I do. So a few comments here. Abraham comes in, costs are too high for lower salaries. What are your thoughts on this? I mean, yeah, I hear you, but also too. I don't think companies. Well, I would agree. I would also say that salaries have jumped by double digits. Collectively across the board. So pre pandemic, we were paying senior engineers in Nashville 125. 125. You could argue that's $50,000 lower than now the market average. So yeah, it's tough, right? Abraham, I don't disagree, right? There's a lot, inflationary costs and everything else have really gone through the roof. And I know that in Tampa specifically, we have had the highest rate of inflation in the United States.

I'm really. So like, I get it, right? Like these are all things that we deal with every day here in the Tampa Bay area, right? So, but I don't, while I agree, it's also important note that salaries have increased by the largest percentage over the last three years than they ever have, right? So there has to be some context with that. You know, the thing is, is that everybody's raising salaries, then all of the prices of services and goods are also rise, right? Because they get passed out of the consumer, right? Like a company, a PE firm is not going to say, hey, you know what, we're not going to raise our prices because we'd rather give $5 million back, right?

Like they've got another yacht to pay for, right? So they're all, they're tied in together. I do think the pace of inflation is slowing a bit, which hopefully will help everybody. Yeah, I mean I would agree but yeah, you know absolutely also have you ever seen George Island? I know I've been to Panama City been to Destin San Destin, but no never seen George Lots of on site and hub locations for companies what would be your advice Dan for people? And you said something I want to get to maybe we can tie it in here about you know being aware of lower salaries I feel like there's still a lot of people that I know they're like I demand this I'm worth this and like that's something I've been preaching for a while right know your worth be confident in that But now I think there needs to be a lot of awareness Because if you're without a job in six months Mm-hmm, and you're not lowering any of your requirements.

I think I think that needs to change in this time So can you talk about maybe lowering and be more where your requirements and then obviously you know again on site versus hub locations? You know kind of what we're just yeah Yeah, I think that the most important thing is if you're going to be at the upper end of a salary range, if you know that salary range, hopefully the company's disclosed that you have to be able to explain why. It's not just like that's what I got paid before, as much as like it's great that a company maybe paid you and gave you a huge bump.

We've seen it a lot, right? Especially in tech over the last five years, a lot of junior folks moved up to mid level, up to senior roles very, very quickly because companies were so desperate to hire and they may have gone from making $75,000 to $80,000 a year up to $130,000 a year in a few years. So the important thing that I tell people all the time is know that when you get those big jumps and those big changes, the expectations also change for you as an employee, right? Because now you're being judged as $130,000 developer not as a five-year developer, right? Or as a $70,000 developer.

But I think it's important to know why you're worth that, what you bring to the table to make that worth it for the company, right? And like as much as like we don't like to base previous, and we really try to not base your salary based on what you got paid before, because the job is different, right? And like if you spent a career at Lockheed Martin as a software engineer, and then I'm a consumer products company, maybe there's gonna still be some ramp up, maybe that same salary that you were valued at, you know, X company is not worth it for me at Y company.

And then you have to be able to explain where you're able to bridge that gap, right? Because it's an investment in you and there's gonna be a lot of time in training and a lot of other people and a lot of other costs that are associated with it, right? And I tell people all the time like, when you hire an employee and if you're getting paid, let's just say $100,000, your cost to the company is probably about $130,000, right after benefits and everything else. And then there's the time of everybody to train you and ramp you up, right? And whatever their like hourly rate is and all starts to compound, right?

So hiring a new employee is very expensive. So for a lot of companies, they are gonna be looking for somebody, especially in some tougher economic conditions that is able to fit into the organization and seamlessly as possible. And I know that that stinks to here, But that's where it comes on you when you're interviewing for a company, really know what that company does, understand their products, understand their services, and then try to parlay that back into your experience and how you can start to help immediately. Because that's what companies are looking for, is like, if we're gonna make this large investment in you, what can you do to help the company?

Now, three years ago, it was like very different, right? I mean, you could like, as an offer. Yeah. Abraham, Abraham goes in your perfect timing for this chat. Abraham, let us know if you have any specific questions you want to ask. Dan, I want to get to another one about, you know, coming in, hitting the ground running. You know, I feel like a lot of people right now, I've had a lot of conversation with people about should I take a job right now that I don't really love, but I just need to take to get by, right? I've had a lot of these type of chats.

I don't know if you've had on your end, but I'm curious what you would tell those folks who maybe, I don't know, maybe taking a dive on a role that they really don't want to take, but they're just keep trying to hold out. That's a personal choice that you have to make yourself. I think when you're evaluating that question specifically, if you're looking to make ends meet, then you have to do what you have to do to get by. Right? So I don't know, like I don't have a great answer for that other than like that's a very personal choice. What I would say to you then, you know, if that's the position that that you're in, where you're where you're choosing to be a little more choosy is really understand what your job search is and what you're doing to put yourself out there to get the type of job that you want.

and not just like taking any job, right? Like are you only taking this job because you're not getting feedback from randomly applying to jobs and doing like the LinkedIn easy apply and you're like frustrated with that process? Like I would say to you, like we have like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? So like food and shelter is number one, right? And all that comes with money. So if you have to do it, then do it. And also don't feel bad about doing that, right? like we have this like weird like stigma in the world right now about jobs. And it's like, well, if I'm not like a hundred percent in, then like I'm a hundred percent out.

It's like, you know, like the 100% of people in the world, if they did not have to work, would not work, right? Or like work a specific job for somebody else, probably, right? It's okay to take a job. It's okay to not be a hundred percent satisfying. And like at the end of the day, like you have one life to live and, you know, if that's going to help you get six months from now, where you can look to apply, then maybe burn the bridge. But like at the end of the day, if you do it amicably and I just, I think that we have a weird stigma about switching jobs.

I agree. I agree. I think. Yeah, 100% agree. 100% agree. I want to get to see your values comes as a junior developer and career pivator. I'm trying to show my value through soft skills I've accumulated my previous career. Dan, I get this question a lot. I'm sure you do too about junior dads breaking in. It's hard right now. It's always been hard. Yeah, what's your biggest advice for Valerie here and obviously kind of just the general collective of junior dads or just folks kind of more in their career. So I'll say this as just a blanket to do it Valerie said I think soft skills are so underrated in tech.

Go under it. And almost everybody that I know that has climbed the ladder hasn't done it because they're the most technically savvy person, right? Like there's a few roles where that's integral, right? But to be in the upper echelon of an organization, even as a developer, to be a manager or a lead or whatever, that might be soft skills, the ability to communicate, explain what you know, what you're trying to build, especially to the business, which like very much chooses to be ignorant about like IT and what the capabilities are. Your ability to do that is so important. So written communication, verbal communication, conciseness, those are all vital skills.

So Shadow Valley for doing that. Advice for junior developers. If you have a startup incubator, If you have hackathons, if you have whatever, do whatever you can to try to get some experience under your belt. Startups specifically are always looking for help. And a lot of them can't afford to pay a ton of money. And a lot of them aren't looking to do super technically in-depth things. Or at least there's a lot that aren't. So you being able to go in and offer your services and and trying to figure out, hey, how can I help you? And even if it's a small project for them or getting involved in a local meetup group or talking to people around you or committing on GitHub, do whatever you can to showcase that you're developing like outside of the classroom or outside of a bootcamp that you've done to be able to then deliver that when you're going through your interview process.

But even more importantly is go connect with other individuals in your market, try to learn a little bit about them. And it doesn't necessarily have to be like the director of application development at a large company, right? Go and find other developers that are in the mark, say, hey, how did you get your foot in the door? What are things that I can do to improve, right? So those are all things, and I know a lot of people are like, I'm just gonna email this app dev manager. It's like, well, unfortunately, like not all app dev managers like have the time to sit down with every junior dev for 30 minutes.

You know who doesn't get a hit up all the time for advice is like other juniors that are working, other mids, other seniors, they can't buy anything. So all the sales people don't talk to them, right? They're not a recruiting firm. So like unless they're getting recruited for a job, like other than that, like go reach out to those people. There's a much lower barrier of entry there. I love that so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just start building things. I love that too. I want to give a shout out to Jordan Ryerson. So Jordan built the unicornfinders.com. And Jordan got a job recently because he was able to showcase his work he did on our sites.

And so I would encourage you, there's a lot of people out there. Basically, I think here's a hack, Dan, I mean, again, correct me if I'm wrong. I think if you're a junior dev, I would go on the podcast app and I would find kind of like more smaller business podcast and reach out to them and see if they need something built. Yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways. There's so many, you know, on social media in general, there's a lot of people that are building brands that don't know what to do, right? Like, I built my podcast website on wix.com, like, it's okay.

But I would have loved for somebody to reach out and I would have wanted to paint somebody and that would have been a great experience for somebody, right? So those kind of things matter, right? Because that's where you get, like, the true life experience of this didn't go well. I have to troubleshoot and then I have to solve the problem. And I think that that's like the most important thing that like doesn't, unfortunately, it's hard, right? Like to get taught in a classroom or a bootcamp, but you're gonna overcome issues and you're gonna, are you gonna run into issues and then you're gonna have to overcome them?

How did you do that document what you, what you did? Hey, we were having this issue with a data flow into this website or whatever, this is what we did to fix it, right? So those are all tangible things that you can say that you solved and that you delivered. Absolutely. I want to get to Emmett. I love what Emmett said. So Emmett said building stuff was hard for me because as a dad working for because dad, then he goes, I went networking. So again, again, I want to applaud Emmett. Emmett's all over Twitter. And I got connected to Twitter. He got a job with Kelly Vaughn.

Yeah, because of Twitter. So again, like I love that. I love that. I want to ask you this, Dan. This got brought up on yesterday's podcast with Joe Prevett. He actually, we talked about job shadowing and how like that's a very underrated skill to just maybe call up a company But hey like I don't know if you have a shadow program Could I stop by bring you coffee and shadow somebody on your team for two or three hours? I I've actually haven't thought of that in a while I think that could be it will work all the time No, but like when when I got a job at Bayco I shadowed Matt Kobe I remember Matt Kobe I shadow Matt Kobe for like three hours before lunch Yeah.

So I mean, I think that that's possible. I don't hear of it a lot, but I'm sure there's some that would be open. I know that in any highly regulated industry, insurance, finance, banking, whatever, their health care, they're probably not going to be able to do it. But I'm sure that there's opportunities. It's definitely worth asking, I guess, right? 100%. 100%. As we were talking about it. I think networking is huge. I think purposeful networking is important. I think actually trying to get to know the person and not just asking is probably the motion for it. Can I see what you do? Emmon asks. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's definitely opportunities for job shadowing.

It just might be a lot of asks. Which all you need is one person to say, yes, right? Yeah, absolutely. Dan, we wrap up here again. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. Any last bits of words, the wisdom advice, trends, things you're seeing on your end to kind of lead with the people. Yeah. It's a holiday season. People are going to be taking a lot of vacations. Things are going to probably move slow between probably the 15th through the end of the year. Definitely that week between Christmas and New Year's probably not much is going to happen. What I would say is there may not be a lot of movement, but there may be the ability to communicate with people more because there's probably less people in the office if they're managing folks.

There's an opportunity to hopefully connect, so utilize that. Number two is, I know it's hard right now. I know that it's very hard to sympathize with a lot of people. The most important thing that you can do is be purposeful with your job search. Know what kind of companies you want to reach out to, understanding that if you get an interview with a company, what they do, not just look at their website. There's so many different tools out there and websites that will help you dive into things, really trying to understand what they do and where your experience can help them. And then three is keep listening to those podcasts.

I appreciate it, man. I appreciate it. I do want to ask you the four questions, Dan. I ask every guest this and I haven't asked you this because you've never been a guest. All right. So first question. If money was the same across everything, and you could pick what you wanna do outside of recruiting, what would you do? NHL goalie. For real? No, I mean, I would sling wine. Sling wine, yeah. We've been talking about wine. Yeah, I'd have like a wine shot. What? I had a good land Bruce go the other day. Have you had a good glass of wine that you wanted to quickly talk about?

Um, I drink a lot of wine. Um, I've been really on grooves recently. A lot of grooves, but I'm still, you know, still staying back a lot of that, that stainless steel aged Chardonnay from France. I love it. I love it. Yeah. If you ever want to talk wine, Dan's a Dan's a great one to talk to you. You are. Um, Abraham, did you just get a call as we were talking for an interview? Damn. Shout out. Abraham is all the good. See, watch this show, get interview requests. All right. Next thing is, all right, so good, Sling and Wanda, I love that. Second thing is, what do you do that brings you joy outside of work?

Golfing. That brings you a lot of pain in first- Yeah, I know. Boating. Now I love boating. I think it's one of the most fun things. I'm living here in Tampa, being out on the waters. No place I'd rather be. So yeah, I would just say being being on the water, being outside. I don't I'm not an indoors person. I love it. Somebody says that would be a football analyst. And yes, Abraham did confirm that he got a call for interview. All right. So good job, buddy. Chris Jarvis put said networking helps you get seen also putting on content. Make sure that the content you put out there.

And this is just my opinion. It's like realistic. I think that a lot of content gets very fluffed up. and I think LinkedIn has just been so overdone with like really bad content that it hides a lot of like realistic things. And I think a lot of people that put out content, not you Chris, not you Taylor, but a lot of people that put out content, I think do a lot of people disservice, you know, especially resume writer service people where you have to give everybody a shot. Like most companies just can't afford to do that. But put out good content. What did you learn?

Hey, I ran into this problem. This is how I solved it, right? I love that. I love that. Next question. This is when I asked this for like developers, like any tools, tech trends, things you're looking at, we could say, have you watched it like content, like group chat, content recommendations. Have you read anything, watched something that you're really digging right now? I watched the new Netflix or Hulu, whatever it's on about with Joseph Gordon Levitt about Ubers founding. I thought that that was pretty fascinating. Okay, I need to watch that. So I'm I'm watching the new Squid Game reality show, but they don't actually die in that one, which is cool.

And then from a content perspective, from podcasting hard fork, I think is really good. It's from the New York Times, and then playing English with Derek Thompson, who coincidentally shares a very close Twitter handle with me. I love it. I love it. Last thing, man. The show is called guidance comes for 2.0 because we had guidance comes to the middle school high school, middle school high school and college. But now as adults, we don't really have anybody to turn to. What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Dan Thompson? To enjoy the journey, I think a lot of your career and a lot of life, we always look ahead for what's next, what's the next promotion, where can I make more money?

And all of that is really important, but if you just get so laser focused on that and you lose out on relationships or you don't enjoy the journey that you had, you're gonna look back and in my opinion, probably not be as fulfilled as you would be like, it takes time, right? Like lean into things taking time and getting that experience and understanding what you can learn and it's okay to mess up and it's okay to fail, and it's okay to look back and say, you know what, that just didn't work out, and you know what, that's okay, what did I learn from it? But everybody, I think especially young folks gets so focused on how can I get to that next promotion?

How can I be in that guy's seat or that lady's seat? And how can I be in the C-suite? And in reality, a lot of them just lose out on a lot of the fun and experience that you can get from being focused on the present, because you may never get to that seat. And you know what, that's okay. Yeah, 100%. I love that. I love that. Cool. Well, Dan, thank you my friends. Stay on real quick so everybody you all fair. But y'all, thank you for hanging out with us. And that guidance cuts are 2.0. I will be live with unicorn finers tomorrow. Dan will not be able to make it, which is why we had him on the show today.

But unicorn finers tomorrow. Talking with a founder that's currently actually going through a real time pivot. So he actually was like, I don't know if I want to be on the, I don't know if you want me on the show tomorrow. I said, actually, this is even more applicable. So his name is Neil Grahamberry. He is with a company called Ventress. And we're going to talk about his active pivot. And then Friday morning, we have our head of sales at Gun I01. We're going to talk about just the art of building community and how to sell in this market. So this can be a great conversation.

So again, y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us. We appreciate it. Go connect with Dan on Twitter and on LinkedIn. He's a good one. And y'all have a good one. We'll see you all tomorrow. 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 finish 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 Tdaston on all social media handles, and I hope you have a fantastic day.