the mastermind of networking & community w/ christiaan heijmen

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All right, Chris Jones, good to people with a while, man. Who are you? What do you do? So, so, so again, for people that didn't join when we started, I met Taylor over a decade ago. I was part of the interview team to bring him on board. I interviewed for a living. So it's in the tens of thousands at this point. But I remember Taylor being someone that I knew would channel his passion to something positive. So it's just like an honor to see you in this area. So thank you for, for me. So also the most important thing I got four kiddos, which run me ragged.

So I've got 12, 11, 7, and 3. All crazy, different. I mean, I just, you know, my first kid got bought, I got bit at preschool and I was at a rage parent. My second kid was a biting kid. Like every kid is humbled me in a different way. And so that's kind of what I do with my life. And then for business, I have a business with my dear friend Farad. I'll leave. We started about seven months ago. And it was really to bring to the forefront ideas of kind of diversity, equity and inclusion. But not in your face. Like we don't want to be known as a diversity company.

We just want to be known as community builders. And we think that the best communities are built with a cross section of people, which is on races, ages, genders, et cetera. So we've launched a business to really engage with our community here in the Raleigh-Dura area and hopefully it'll spread past. But helping people really be more deliberate. To help people if you're not intentional about diversifying your life, you're unintentional about not. Like if you get coffee, I am normally not. I start a box person, but this might be... I thought that you're a german. You have Starbucks. This never happens. But I was driving by a Starbucks.

Someone called me. I pulled over normally. I'm always trying new coffees and new things. I'm intentional about my food choices. All four of my kids go to four different Durham public schools. So we are big proponents of diversity is okay. But if you're not intentional about it, you're unintentional about not. So we decided to be intentional about being more inclusive of our networks together and just kind of see what happens. I love that. I love that. So there's so many places to start. I do want to kind of just dive into your career interviewing. So can you tell people really kind of what you do specifically or what you have done?

Because I think a lot of people here are executive. Like they think I do executive search, which I don't do executive search. So can you talk about your background in the executive side of things? Yeah. So I graduated from the business school at Duke and I joined. There's kind of big five search firms. They're called the Shrek firms. If you've got kids, Spencer, Hydraic, Rushl, Egon and Corn Ferry. And they're kind of like the big four if you know public accounting or if you're in the tech world, they're kind of like the Apple Google. Like they're just the big ones. And so I learned how to do executive recruiting and Hydracon struggles.

But then yeah, I joined the same company that Taylor was at for a while. And so I've, when I say executive search, companies retain me. So I'm going to be paid basically regardless of the outcome of the search. So when they find me, they're saying, you're going to help me find a chief executive officer or board member or some chief level person. And then I go out into my network. And I find that person that we have weekly calls. So really the client. So Taylor was the CEO of his business or his co-founder said to me, hey, we want to retain you, we would be connected in that way.

And so they basically hire me to find them in executive. And then we kind of run it up. It generally takes 90 to 150 days depending on the person. And then I get paid a percentage of what that person is going to be paid in their first year. So yeah. So from a pretty perspective, so I deal with a lot of individual contributors. The highest ideal with what we're especially now is really maybe only manager level. Christian and his CTO, CIO, maybe some very senior level VP of engineering. But it's very not. I mean, do you start up? Or is it more like enterprise accounts?

Yeah. I mean, it depends. And then I'll sort of work with a company that's as small as they would have money. I mean, listen, we're going to start up. We're not going to pay somebody $100,000 or $5 as a CFO. We're going to grind and build the team. But like for example, so I had breakfast last week with a CTO of Fidelity Charitable, Catherine Lagano, you may actually know who's here. And Tina Pitchione, who runs a Google Cloud business here. And then afterwards, I had a call with Joe Bastante, who's a CTO Blue Cross and who's Shield. So these are people I just kind of hang out with and talk to and get to know.

And the thought is when something comes up, right? They'll be thinking of me either for their own career. It's interesting. People are, my friends are clients and candidates if that makes sense. They're kind of both and neither. So somebody could pretty quickly flip on me and say, hey, I might be looking or hey, I need to hire somebody for my team. And so I'm kind of, my ears are always kind of working in both directions with my friends. So that being said, let's talk about interviewing man. What are some of the biggest mishaps mistakes you consistently see with folks in the week? So I think right now, obviously, tech markets still get hit with layoffs.

Some of the biggest companies announced the layoffs a bunch of layoffs this month. Obviously, a lot of people watch this show. either comment or not commenting or trying to learn something from this show. Yeah. You're saying a lot of folks, even in the exact level are really lacking sometimes. I'll keep it a little bit tech focused for this particular call in those audience. But I'm surprised by both sides of this. And it happens all the time where a CEO doesn't understand the person they're talking to is kind of a creative type. That's a little bit different. And their communication style might be different. At a tech person that doesn't have the right zoom link, for example.

And you're like, how can you not? Like I can't say how many tech people are texting me like the link didn't work. I'm thinking to myself, I put you forward for a CTO or a CIO job. And there's an issue with the tech link, right? And then the CEO is like, how could they not make work? And I'm trying to explain to both sides who the other person is. So I would tell you from a tech perspective, like just make sure you're on time. And like you've done some homework on the CEO and the company. Like your experiences won't, they won't even hear you if you don't kind of just play that sort of nice game.

I mean, heads of sales are like, hey Taylor, I saw you online. You're girls beautiful. I love your wife. Like they just am it up so quick. And then they get hurt. But I think I see people come in and they're so focused on, I want to share what I can do and what I've done as opposed to just like, just make it easy, right? Like show up on time, get the link, right? Do your homework, understand. And then the CEO or the board can really get to know you because you don't want to put any other barriers in the way of just the conversation you want to have.

So I would say just be thoughtful about check the link, make sure five minutes early, make sure your camera's working, make sure everything's all set. Say hey, I'm so thankful to meet you. Thank you for having me on. I saw your staff look great. Let's go. And then you can have the interview you want to have. I love that. Something that's really servicing right now, I don't know if you've seen it to an executive level, folks are really having a hard time of digging into what they've actually done compared to what's on the resume. And it's becoming a trend I'm seeing a lot quicker right now than I would like to see.

What are your thoughts on that? So ask me that in a different way. I think I know what you're trying to get in. So do you have you dealt with people not being able to explain what they've done in detail? I have. I think what you want to, I'm going to use the word use. Your recruiter person for the person who's kind of your initial screen is to ask the question back. Am I doing a good job of explaining my background? Because I asked, but I've been doing this for 15 years. So I would consider my say say 10,000 hours makes you an expert. I'm up to probably close to 30,000.

So I'll just stop and interview and say tailor. I don't understand. This transitions don't make sense to me. And so I'll stop. But some recruiters just sit in there, type it away, bang it away, writing. This doesn't make sense. So stop and say, is the way I'm explaining my transitions or what I've done makes sense to you? And that's OK to do it. Again, I'm going to stop it. But if not, just stop yourself and say, is what I'm saying making sense? And use the person who's the person screening you to help you get to the next stage. So you bring up a great point here.

And I don't want to move on. Because I think it's so good. You're really saying use the recruiter to practice and to really get real-time feedback. I mean, the recruiter has a record of trying to fill. So they want the best candidate to move forward. And they're just incentivized as you are to move you forward. They don't want to look stupid. They want to present somebody good. You want to be presented well. So you're sort of on the same team. And a weird way, I'm always shocked when I talk to somebody who won't tell me their compensation information. What happens? Tell them it's like, same.

I'm like, here's the thing. Like, I'm going to get you the best offer I can possibly get you. And the client doesn't win if you're not excited about the compensation package. So all that does to me is say, you really want to work with me as a friend and as a peer. And so I never stress. And again, I'm going to know ask state. So I can't ask for someone's compensation. When someone says, hey, here's where I'm at. And I'd really love to get here. How do we get there together? That's them really trusting me as a partner. So I think just if you have a couple of trusts that I mean, Taylor was always such a trusted business partner slash recruiter, not recruiter slash business bar.

So people open up to them and sell them. Hey, I got a kid that has a medical issue or my wife has a family member. I can't like, when you know that stuff, you can advocate better for your candidates. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I want to move on. Unless there's any questions around interviewing specifically, if you do have questions for interviewing, please don't up in the chat. We'll get to them. I'm going to move on to networking. I think Chris Sean, as a recruiter, executive recruiter, and just what we do is we are in the people business. And I think this show and everybody we talk to is not in the people business.

I mean, for those of you watching that are our engineers, you are engineers for a reason. And we are people people for a reason. And so what are just some general tips for networking? Man, you, I tell you what, like I said, you I feel like you know everybody always. I do it to you. If you and I ever join forces, I think we know the entire world, or at least the US. So what are your thoughts on that? How do you keep up with people? Like how do you network? I'm sure you probably started your career. And maybe we're not great at it. Maybe you got better.

Just kind of give me the journey of networking and how you do it. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you saying all those things. I think about it. You and Sid alone, you guys know all of that. We know a lot of people. So I think it, so this is a call of a personality trader just to carry. I've always believed that if you do more for others, you'll come back 10 fold. So I've always just kind of had the approach of like, you know, if you have a chance to do something nice for someone, you just do it and you kind of don't know what that puts in the universe.

So I was having this idea of like, so a friend of mine, Steve said this to me and I just, I love it so much. He said, you know, a lot of us in business were told, you know, replace yourself if you want to get promoted. He's the currently the EVP of talent and strategy about a $10 billion company. So he's done well in that way. And he said, but with you, it's almost like, you're trying to work yourself out of a connection, which is true. Because I think about, I've done 300 or 350 searches. So I've got 350 clients and 350 placements. That's 700 people.

There's another five to 700 people. Like the number of people I know and have to keep up with is easily in the thousands. Oh, and what I, and what I hadn't realized that I do is I actually try to no longer be the person between Jack and Jill. I try to connect Jack and Jill and say, you all should know each other. And then I just get out of the way. And so he said to me, you're like the master at like replacing yourself as a connection point. I was like, I guess that's true. Because the building blocks I want to keep. Like I was a lot of be friends with you.

I was a little friends with everybody Jake. And so there's people that like, I don't want to replace. Like you think of like a Lego, like that green base. Like I want certain pieces to stay. But other pieces I want to fly and go and be fruitful. And I'll tell you a story because it's just one of my, my all time favorite stories with like kind of a one in a building. You just don't know. Devin Johnson, who is a guy that came to me about a decade ago and said, hey, I hear that to get on board. You have to get on a small board.

And so get me on a, can you help me get on a small board? I said, sure. So I knew the guys at the United States Olympic Committee at the time long story short. I got him interview for USA Taekwondo through Scott Blackman, who was a friend of mine. So we joined the board. Things happened. This happened. This happened. Join another board, another board. He was a digital executive with NBC at the time. He spun that out because he was on the USA Taekwondo board. He went to the Olympics where he sat down with two gentlemen, named LeBron and Maverick Carter and got to know that.

They sparked up relationship. And 18 months ago, I get this feed on my thing saying, Devin Johnson, newly promoted chief operating officer, Spring Hill suites. So he and LeBron and Maverick now run his whole enterprise. And I didn't, that's right. That's there's only one LeBron. That's kidding. I got your smuffs this now. But it's like, but somebody asked me 10 years ago, hey, I heard to get on a big board. You got to get on a little board. And I said, Devin, I'm happy to help you have a conversation. And I called him and I said, how impactful was that he goes, I'm not going to say that was a reason while LeBron hired me.

but that was part of my journey. And so I think as you're making connections with people, you want to make it connection. I even kept up with Devin and hardly seven or years. I'm texting to being like, oh my gosh, bro, did you really just get a job as the, tell me that story? So we had a call a few months later and he told me the story. It was really cool. But I think you want to just kind of start in a small way. And if you can make a relationship or make a network do that, but I've kind of like you said, I've tried to make a habit of replacing myself as the person who connects people.

But that's scary for people that that want to hold on to their network because they're afraid of what they might like. Maybe struggling to get a job search. So it's like you're telling me that I need to give up my connection to be successful. I'm telling you if you're interviewing for a head of engineering job and you're like, I would be good at this job. But Kim would crush this job. You stop the interview and say, hey, thank you, but Kim is dope and the way you explain this, she would be better suited for this job. I mean, if you do that, this is the practice in your life.

I mean, your life is going to be fruitful and you will multiply. I will tell you that. And it sounds counterintuitive. But I'd rather have two slices of an extra large gargantuan pizza than six slices of a personal dominoes. I'd rather have fewer slices of a big pie than all the slices of a smaller pie. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Let's see here. Taeya comes in here. What's your favorite form of content sharing with the attention of networking? What's my favorite form of content sharing? Google alerts isn't really a thing. It used to be a thing. I used to have Google alerts all of my favorite people in my clients that here's something.

And I would like text that are hit or out. But I use LinkedIn for the purposes of like, what are you doing? I'm not going to see you. So if you got a job or you joined a board or if you share a personal story about somebody in your life, I'll just hit. That's cool. Like I'm proud of you or it's been a long time. And I don't want to talk about why I'm proud of you, go team. Those three or four words tell me why that's important. Because I think they don't get it. Yeah, I mean, when someone's putting something out on their feed, right, they want people to see it.

They want people to comment on it. They want people to notice. We're all walking around a life being like, notice me, notice me, right? Pick me, pick me, pick me. Even if you're an introvert, you want people to know. And so I think when you see something like that, you just want to acknowledge. And again, listen from the capitalist perspective. What it does, it just increases the number of eyeballs that are looking. I cannot tell you the number of times. I mean, I've generated this. I mean, tell you, you know I'm not kidding. I've generated $10 million in search business because I see something online.

I'm like, hey, this is so cool, man. It's been a couple of years, but you've clearly just been developing and I'm really proud of you. My phone rings and it's whoever it was. They're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you keep up with me in this new role and have to rebuild my entire senior team. Can you help me? And I'm like, sure, man, I'd love to. But that wasn't why I commented. But that's great. You genuinely just want to show up. Just genuinely, I was telling him before this came up. A buddy of mine who's on a bunch of boards are a really prominent private equity firm just hired another friend of mine to be the CEO.

And so I'm texting them being like, you guys have got to be kidding me. Like this is so dope. Congratulations. Well, I work with them. I probably will because when you know the operating partner at the private equity firm, the CEO, that's pretty good. But I genuinely love these guys. Like I'm so proud of what they're doing. And so I do that to you because that's my means of staying relevant in the minds of the people that I care about. And so find like the content that you want to comments on and you want to be a part of that'll be relevant for the people that you want to stay on their radar screen.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, so we're winding down. I do have a hard stop here in about five minutes. So at time flies, we'll have to do another one of these because we're just scratching the surface, obviously. What are your thoughts about bringing energy into an interview? Right? I think you're high energy. I'm high energy. I think it's put me in a lot of rooms. I never even thought to be in just because it's people genuinely want to work with other people that make them feel good. What are your thoughts on all that? Yes. So yes, I think energy can be contagious. And I certainly want to be on.

When I have to be on, I want to be awful. And I can be off. So I want to be able to play the things. I think you want to be your authentic self every where you go. So you want to, if you're more of a, and I've had to, so this, I'm going to be totally honest. I, for a long time, realized I was hiring people that were a lot like me because that's just who I like. And I had to really step back in myself. I'm not doing my clients a favor. I'm putting them through the Christian, Heyman, do I like them? I have to be like, would my clients like them and would my clients get along?

And I stopped using the word fit about 40 years ago. Or, oh, is he a fit, is he a fit, or she a fit a fit a fit? A fit is like a way that you're brain for me. It was training my brain to say, this person's coming out. Does they going to fit? So now I say, what will this person add to the organization? So it changed my mindset around, is this person a fit to what will this person add? And so when I say go to interviews, be yourself, be thoughtful, beep, and bring the energy you want to bring into the room. Because 90, you know, they say 93% of an interview is nonverbal.

It's how you sit there, it's how you act, it's how you lean in. I mean, that's, that's a tremendous thing to know that that 93% of what's going on isn't what's being said. It's how it's being said in the communication around. So just, you know, get a good night's sleep, get up and go for a walk, do your, your Zen thing, you know, put your hands up in the air like in, you know, Ted Lasso, like, whatever you do, get in that space so you're bringing your authentic self. But I've really had to learn. I've been humbled when people have challenged me like, not everyone has to match your energy to be an amazing fit.

Like this guy has seen out of your country. I do agree with that. Yeah. And I've had to learn that. And so my friends are very introverted and very level and really amazing at what they do. And they need a chance to be, to be presented like everybody else. Absolutely, absolutely. Krishna, I asked a few questions here at the end of every show. So kind of rapid fire. If money were the same, what would you do outside of recruiting? No board. Just snowboard. Oh my God, dude. I was living a mountain. I got my three year old down the mountain this year on a board.

So now we can officially just rock. I would live on a mountain. I would hike and drink IPA's and just snowboard all the time. I love it. I love it. Second thing. What do you do outside of work for joy? Man, my wife thinks I'm crazy, but you put me in sweatpants in a sweatshirt and you put on a dizzy movie and I'm with my family. Like I love, I love that. I play golf and I go to basketball games and stuff and things like that. But I, when I'm with good friends and good people and people that know me and I can be myself with like that's kind of my, that's my happy place.

And I've tried to make my work life that way. But outside of work, yeah, I love to go for walks. Love to read. And I love just, uh, spends out with my family and my really close, close friends. I love it. I love it. Last question. And then we'll wrap up here. Again, thanks for coming on, buddy. I appreciate it. This shows called guidance counselor 2.0 because we got guidance counselors in middle school, high school and college, but now as adults, we don't really have guidance counselors to turn towards. What would be your biggest piece of advice to young Christian? Baby Christian. Oh my gosh.

Young Christian, baby Christian. Um, fine people who for the stage of life you're in, you think of walk the path ahead of you and be like crazy intentional about talking to them about good steps, missteps, et cetera. You know, I, I think when I, when I mentor people and they're like, I want to be an executive in this field. I'm like, we'll find an executive in that field and see if he or she'll give you your time. So to the extent to what you know, what you want to do when you grow up, although a lot of people on this, on this call are probably grown up, find someone who you think is walked in the shoes that you want to walk in this closely.

And I mean, from are they married? Do they have children? Do they have pets? Do they travel? Not just what they do for work, like who they are as a person and try to see if they'll let you learn from the walk they've had. I love it. Cause when I've done that man, it is, I have missed up a lot of landmines. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely Becky comes in here. Yes. I love snow boys. They'll hold my instructor certification. Yes, Becky, I love that. Cool. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us. Krishna, I'll say on a second about you off air, but appreciate it.

Tomorrow, a different time. We're doing the lunchtime guidance counselor 2.0 special. We have Shurzi Kapoor. Shurzi is a senior staff engineer at Slack. So she's coming on. She's also a render at Yale speaker. So we're hanging out tomorrow morning or tomorrow, and I'm sorry, it's tomorrow at noon central to guidance counselor 2.0 new central tomorrow. Again, Christian, where could people find you people want to connect? Where's I am the only Christian, Hey, into the United States of America on LinkedIn. So please find me, hit me up, say your buddies or tea desk, and I will absolutely accept and happy to talk with you offline for as long as you want to talk.

He means it and I would have to take advantage of Christian for sure. So again, thank y'all for tuning in. We appreciate it. Christian, you demand and we all thank you. Awesome. Thanks for having me Taylor. 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 T-Dasting on all social media handles and I hope you have a fantastic day.