how to hire and get hired w/ donnie skalak, vp of engineering

full transcript

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

alrighty we are live at least I think we are I gotta gotta make sure good morning everybody good morning Tik Tok good morning in uh YouTube Facebook LinkedIn I do Facebook for my mother um link Twitter what's going on y'all good morning uh checking a few things make sure we're live gotta get the email all right I got the notification that we're good on YouTube so that's positive uh let me go to LinkedIn because you don't want to start on LinkedIn uh let's see here here and all right cool we're live on LinkedIn sweet what's going on everybody good morning happy Tuesday I keep looking

at it feels like a Wednesday I don't know why but it today feels like a Wednesday not a Tuesday but excited to hang out with my boy Donnie Donnie was a a a referral connection um from from from a Mutual contact and uh really enjoyed talking to him and kind of get to know him a little bit and and uh at the end of our conversation I was like hey we' love to bring you on the Pod and so here we are um so excited to hang out with Donnie I think we're GNA talk about some pretty applicable topics this morning uh as it relates

to the job search you know I it's fun like I say I I never come up with questions behind the scenes we don't I don't send stock questions partly because one I don't have time to prep people but also two I really like to just have organic conversations because the conversations move as as as the um workplace like culture moves right so right now which I'm really excited to talk to Donnie about I've had a lot of people if you've tuned in lately I've had a lot of conversations talking about hey fractional work you know part-time Contracting what does that look like is that the

new way of working and and and and this conversation will be about that too a little bit but also high level hiring and and some other things so excited to dive in first and foremost say hey would love to hear from you the reason why I tell people that is to is to show up and to be present um and the reason I tell you that is because I found out there are two people two people now have gotten a job off this live show not through me directly if that makes sense so literally that makes me super happy honestly that probably jacks me up

more than even if I place you and I get paid for it right like at the end of the day I really love helping people at scale and this is why I started the show telling Donnie backstage like been doing this for four years now the reason why I do this is to give back at scale so um all that being said uh say hey would love to hear from you showing up being present is incredibly important to do um so even I love where people are tuning in from right um we've had people from all over the world tune in which is which is

awesome uh second thing ask questions Donnie is an engineering leader right this is the one time where you can ask a hiring manager on how you should do things and get feedback real time and Donnie doesn't bill you for it right so so ask questions um uh finally third thing before I stop yapping and Donnie can start talking want to get to my partners this morning first and foremost that conference listen um I I will not be there at that conference um but I keynoted that conference last year um and it was an amazing event if I would highly recommend going um you can use

the code testin to get a few bucks off your 25 bucks off your ticket um so check that out also want to give a shout out to render ATL uh for picking up the gold Platinum sponsor of the Pod for two years in a row um they are fantastic um so check them out I'll be there June 12th through 14th in Atlanta I think South by Southwest but in Atlanta and finally want to give a quick shout out to the gun IO team this morning we just launched a new AI product you can literally go on our platform copy and paste your job description into

our tool and it automatically matches you with candidates that are fit based off your job description now if your job description sucks you're not going to get good candidates so it's going to keep you accountable to write good job descriptions but you can literally copy and paste your job description into our platform it's called gun Ai and then it immediately spits back candidates that are fit based off your job description pretty cool so all that being said Donnie welcome welcome to the show uh let's give the people what they want who are you what do you do we'll go from there first of all great

to be here and great to chat with you um uh like said I'm a kind of a connection of a connection um I have found that uh I have not done the best job at building out my network I think I'm maybe not dissimilar from a lot of folks that don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and building your network when you're actually working and you're you know deep into a role somewhere but as soon as you don't have that role you're like oh man my Network's not where it needs to be so it needs to be a constant you know evolving your round

thing and that's something that I have failed at um and I'm sure I'm probably not the only one you get in somewhere and you feel safe and you're you're you've got your job and you're you know plugging along and sometimes it can be hard to spend the time to network um but then when you need that networking and especially in this environment this Tech job market right now networking is everything and if you don't have that in place it's an uphill battle Yeah so anyways I'm Donnie um I've been a software engineer for many many years my beginning of my career I was a software

engineer uh I did some you know net and Java and C++ and all kinds of stuff mostly like Enterprise kind of things uh and then I moved into project and program management kind of by an accident uh I was also you know managing some folks at the time you know kind of team lead and engineering manager uh and then I moved into product management for a while uh and then I moved back into engineering leadership where I've been for the last I don't know eight nine years I'm uh I've been in this uh for a little over 20 years which is hard to believe and

hard to admit that to myself for anyone else that it's been that long um I've worked at super small startups and you know massive Global public companies and everything in between I've been hiring folks for probably a little over 15 years now so I've been on both sides the equation hiring folks and being hired um and I've come up with a lot of dos and don'ts along the way I'm happy to have this conversation with you I love it yeah we're gonna dive in today John it's good to see you Becky it's good to see you Ricardo Jordan we got the full house today Brandon

uh my guy from from Austin it's good to see you um Ryan it's good to see you as well and Devon it's great to see you as well from Dallas got some Texas folks in the household this morning which oh that's great to see the real time comments cool yeah absolutely absolutely so again if you have questions throw them up there we we'll get to them but so Donnie a lot to cover today um but I I want to start with kind of the whole fractional Contracting kind of side of things because it's very pressing right now what are your thoughts on a high level

you're doing some fractional stuff right now can you I guess let's first Define fractional what does fractional mean to you uh that's a good question I never thought of it that way um fractional to me is you are splitting your time between multiple companies um okay uh so I I've been doing this for a while now actually um uh this is probably my four gig of fractional work and it's usually like an agreed upon hey can I have five hours of year time a week or 10 hours a week or 20 hours a month or whatever it is some kind of you know predefined thing

that we we think we're going to need this much of your time um my fractional experience thus far has been kind of more of on a you know Consulting basis where you know I'm not necessarily you know pulling a paycheck but I'm getting Equity uh in exchange for you know my time um I'm helping to build usually like a preed company that is trying to get funding and I'm using my experience to you know kind of help them you know make some smart decisions up front um if you've been in technology for any period of time you know that um there's a lot of decisions

you'd love to have back I mean you're when you've got a very Green Team they have the best intentions but sometimes they paint themselves into a corner and don't realize it so when you've got someone that's kind of been around the block and you know built a few companies you can um potentially you know kind of um you know nip that in the bud way way ahead of time so I'm really enjoying the fractional work um I guess the downside of you know fractional work right now in exchange for Equity is that private Equity is very hard to come by right now so there are

a lot of preed companies that are you just really there are good companies that I'm working with that are just trying to find that you know get that couple bucks to to you know keep them going it is proving to be really really challenging out there yeah no I I I I tot agree I want to ask you this like how do you find fractional work right because I think a lot of people are worried about going on their own um you know are worried about finding work like how how does one go about finding fractional work and then and Brian it's good to see

BU former former guest of the show as well uh fractional work for me has um I haven't gone looking for it it's come to me uh it's all been friends of friends of mine and networking connections people that I used to work with that I you know respected and it was mutual respect and people would just reach out to me and say hey I'm I didn't know if you know this but I'm trying to spin up this thing and you know I think you might be a good fit to help me out and spin up this thing and then we'll talk for a little bit

and see if there's like you know some some like uh you know Mutual beneficial thing there if we both are passionate about the idea that I'm usually going to jump on board so I have not had to go looking for fractional work uh it has found me um just I've been doing this a long time and you know 20 plus years so I've I've a lot of folks that I've worked with and a lot of bright passionate smart people way brighter and you know um you know more intelligent than me but I'm really good at the execution side of things so um it's been really

really cool to work with multiple companies super early on um and just you know it's super exciting to try to build something from the ground up and you know turn that into a real company it's very very exciting absolutely what what would be your advice for folks that want to find part-time work fractional work um you know obviously you said you've been around the block you have a lot of connections what about people who maybe feel like they don't have a lot of connections what would be your advice to them to start finding uh I hear a lot of people throwing jobs up on upwork

lately um I that seems to be a I've heard it in the last two months I've heard upwork mentioned casually by I don't know probably different leaders so that seems to really be gaining traction and people that are looking for some kind of little side hustle um another thing that's been coming up on my radar is hustle wi that's been coming up on on my radar quite a bit for you know kind of various you know fractional opportunities um also just building your uh which I have not been you know the best at um uh you know building your network out and just kind of

selling yourself out on the various you know social media platforms uh it's easy to get stuck in a rut and just think of like you know social media platform like LinkedIn for example is like I'm going there and I need something but I guess I I'm trying to flip that mindset that I can use LinkedIn to help people that are going there to find something so kind of flip the switch on that that here's what I can provide you uh and have people try to come to you that way I love that I love that and also check out gun iio for ievel well um

uh so I you know you so you like I said you've been around the block when it comes to hiring I think a lot of people right now are like so tired of submitting their resumes into the to the abyss of of job postings their they're interviewing and they're getting ghosted by managers I know you and I kind of talked about getting ghosted a little bit can you talk about as an engineering leader who has interviewed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people at this point in your career I've seen a lot of resumes all that stuff what are some common pitfalls that job Seekers

are experiencing right now or that you've seen recently at least um it's a weird time right now um I I think the pitfalls that we're experiencing you know in the last uh 12 to 24 months are very different than any of the pitfalls that I've seen in my previous career um this is the tightest you know Tech job market I've seen in my career not saying something um I think the biggest pitfalls are right now um I see a lot of advice on um social media platforms especially LinkedIn that oh if you're not applying for you know a thousand jobs you know you're not putting

in the work like to me it's not about the volume and maybe on an IC level it might be a little bit more about the volume but I think it's more about quality um I would rather Target roles that I'm really really interested in and that excite me and then my resume and cover letter to that specific role and then spend the time trying to dig into you know that company and you know send some direct messages to folks try to find the recruiter try to find the CTO try to find whoever you think is the hiring manager and reach out to them directly and

tap into your network and see if maybe you've got a second or third connection at that company that can introduce you to someone I feel like with as much competition as there there is for jobs right now you're probably going to get a job through a network connection rather than just cold applying un unfortunately I think I think there's so many resumes going through that companies right now just can't keep up it's disheartening when you see a job that's been posted for three hours and it's like oh 100 plus applicants like how's that possible let me ask you this man I mean trying to get

to the decision maker right so let's say you know you're hiring a position um at a company you're at do you I mean can c can a candidate do anything to stand out like can they DM you and engage with you and maybe ask you some questions the DMS and I mean does does that help separate them when it when it comes to them submitting their resume like how how should people maybe approach an engineering leader like yourself and try to stand out when they submit their application does that make sense yeah that makes total sense um I have found it beneficial for me personally

excuse me um that I really appreciate like the you know um somebody's you know intuitiveness to kind of do a little bit of digging on you know a social media platform LinkedIn whatever it is or kind of guess what somebody's email is and and you know Reach Out directly um and then I if they send a resume I'll take a quick peek and if I'm like oh this interests me then I'll you know for it on to the recruiter and say hey did you look at this you know take a look at this and you know give this person a screen so um that can

sometimes be an easy way to you know kind of jump start you know through the process uh and kind of go around the recruiter who may be you know kind of overwhelmed on the flip side of that though sometimes you know if you can find the hiring manager they can be overwhelmed uh and they're like no like this is the recruiter function like I just don't have the time for this so it depends on the hiring manager but I would never discourage someone from trying to go directly to the source and introduce yourself I think that comes off very professionally and um I think that's

a great way to um try to get yourself in the front door a little bit that's awesome I love that Brandon comes in here and goes on board with us Don applying to things you're actually interested in versus taking the time to make adjust do research connect versus just cold applying yeah I mean again I think I I mean and listen there there are definitely two types of there there are definitely two types of thinking here right it's the slow down let's craft everything let's be intentional and then there's like the volume play where you where you're trying to just spray and pray and pros

and cons to both they're they're absolutely pros and cons to both my gut is saying the intentionality right now and reaching out like reaching out to Donnie if Donnie was hiring be like hey I saw you on guidance counselor 2.0 I love your thought on a b and c do you got a quick second I would love to ask you maybe a Fallout question on that right or or you know submitting your made a Donnie's open role in customizing either your summary portion of your resume or whatnot I think is incredibly important Donnie do do you kind of side on volume or do you side

on intentionality right now um I am siding on intentionality but I am also looking for you know fairly senior leadership positions you know director and above so which I think that's a different audience than somebody that's you know a react developer looking for their you know second or third job or something I think that's probably a bit of a different experience but sure um I fully believe in um you know trying to tailor your approach for a situation that you think you're a really good fit for and that you're interested in um I've made the mistake in my career a few times of um you

know applying for roles that I'm like oh I kind of need my next role but I'm not super interested in this and then you go through the interview process and you kind of sell yourself and uh you get the role but then you ended up in a company that you're like not that interested in and working with a team that you may not be that interested in and you may not be passionate about what it is that they build and um that has proven to be very challenging for I'm not much of like a you know I'm not good at like punching a clock and

just putting my time in I need to be passionate about what it is that I'm working on so um for me it's there's got to be a lot of intentionality there yeah absolutely absolutely um so talk about we we we kind of talked about some some topics um back stage a little bit um uh you know you kind of mentioned about there's there's there's a lot of chitter chatter on the Old Linkedin right now right about about you know Green banners and a lot of unhealthy stuff can you talk about that high level with what you're seeing yeah um it's it was a little bit

discouraging at first and finally I'm like you know what there's so many opinions out here put your banner on don't put your banner on do this apply for 10 million jobs don't apply for 10 million jobs and then there's all these um I don't want to say that there's folks out that that are praying on the job market right now but uh there's a a 100 million you know resume writer Services out there that are like hey I can get you a job and I can do your resume and I think that there's some some people that are kind of praying on you know all

the folks that need a job right now which is very unfortunate and I'm not to Discount some that like genuinely do want to help that's great but um yeah there's there's a lot of negativity out there honestly right now that I'm seeing on you know LinkedIn and that's unfortunate there's a lot of people that are you know haven't really been hurt especially in the tech industry and just massive layoffs and companies aren't hiring right now and it's it's kind of spiraling right now and then you've got so many people applying for so few jobs the recruiters can't keep up it's really really challenging out there

right now um so whenever I see a positive post you know from someone it kind of it's like okay I'm not alone I'm there's a lot of us that are in the same boat and we're just trying to find you know uh work out there just because somebody was you know let go at a big tech company or a small tech company whatever it is doesn't mean you're not great at what you do and I think it's easy to lose sight of that um that you know there's a lot of great talent out there looking for you know the right opportunity talk about um what

is what is that how do how does that come across and then oh actually have the Jordan's questions real quick if you're going to Cod apply uh do so to local on-site jobs where there are smaller polls of applicants still got to reach out directly either way to stand out yeah I mean I I I tweeted this and it it got some heat I didn't say everybody should go on site and work I said to stand out submit your resume to onsite work what are your thoughts on this and and then we'll get to my next question around the the kind of the unhealthy band

on LinkedIn but K can you talk about kind of this thought process of submitting to onsite work to kind of stand out right now yeah um I think local talent does have a big Advantage if you're like I live in Austin so I've uh there are a fair amount of roles open in in Austin um uh leadership roles that is um I feel like there's probably a significant Advantage um to hiring you know local right now as opposed to remote um big Advantage so remote work is great I love remote work I think a lot of people do um but when you're applying for a

remote role um you're against a much much larger talent pool you're applying for I don't know a senior manager role of engineering and it's a you know a remote role you could be could be a thousand applicants for that whereas in Austin if I'm applying for that role and I'm being compared against only Austin candidates maybe there's a hundred so like your chances are much much different and I think they can be uh the hiring managers are probably going to be a little less scrutinous and a little less picky and choosy if they can get a local talent you know that can come into an

office whether it's hybrid or full-time or whatever it is but I feel like for those that do have the willingness to go onite I think that is going to set you up uh and set you up for Success whereas if you determined to be 100% remote and I get that because I would love to be that too um I think you're painting yourself into a corner with so many companies wanting to go you know back into an office so I think the more options you give yourself and the more options um that an employer sees that they can have with you the better off you're

going to be I feel like I feel like you gota be flexible I feel like the key word right now and for the next little bit I mean I was out here saying we'd be through this mess at the end the q1 of this year we may be looking at next q1 of 2025 at this point so pains me to say that but I think that could be reality yeah I think so too I mean I don't I don't think this is going anywhere um uh unfortunately until at least the end of the year I'm beginning next year and I just feel like the name

of the game is flex flexibility right like like I see developers out here going I'm not getting a job and then they're out here talking about how they're dead set on a certain salary right or or they're dead set on a certain role and it's like right now man I just feel like you got to be flexible are you seeing that as well absolutely and I feel like I've myself have had to kind of you know check my ego a little bit like hey um I'm I was looking for you know you know SVP roles or maybe you know a CTO role you know kind

of a certain salary and you know kind of benefits package and um it's been very humbling um you know this job market and now I'm like I've actually applied for some you know senior manager roles at larger companies and you know downplaying those roles but um at all it's to me it's it's really about the people I want to work for a company that values you know their people and I'm going to work with bright passionate people and build cool stuff um and if I need to you know step back into an IC role to get into the right company I am happy to do

that so um obviously salary does matter but for me personally it's not the most important thing and I I feel like for those that are tied to a certain dollar amount right now you're probably not setting yourself up for Success because companies know they're in the driver seat and and saler is a Big Driver of that what do you think um I so I understand why companies are doing what they're doing I get it totally get it onsite maybe lowering some salaries yada yaada do you feel like companies what are your thoughts on this I do feel like companies got to be careful though because

I feel like if if companies are too stringent and once the Market opens maybe next year who knows I feel like there's going to be a mass reshuffling again 100% okay all right that's exactly what I was going to say next I was exactly going to bring that up next Once the market does correct itself who knows when that is hopefully for you know for all the visit soon whether it's six months a year year and a half whatever it is um those folks that maybe stepped into roles they companies they're not happy with they're not happy with their compensation package once the market turns

around and you know hiring picks back up say two three years after that I do feel that there's going to be kind of a massive Exodus where we're going to get into a you know bidding war for talent like it was probably in you know I don't know 2018 where you know people were jumping all over the place for you know kind of ludicrous salaries and um and I don't blame people for doing that one bit but I I this is all cyclical and it's going to come back around to that it's just a matter of when and if and if companies you know really

lowball folks and you know play hard ball and and end up you know bringing a a whole crew of folks that you know aren't necessarily happy and they're just there because they need a paycheck those people are going to want to leave the first chance they get absolutely going back to kind of this unhealthy Banner you're seing on LinkedIn does that do you as a manager do you check out people's LinkedIn before you hire if somebody's out here spewing a bunch of negativity on LinkedIn does that affect your conversation with them in the interview process or do you just kind of let people be people

and if they're good in the interview process they're good um I hate to say it but it depends I do pay attention to LinkedIn I don't put a ton of stock into like what people post but but there have been some times where I'm like wow there's just like a lot of negative energy coming from this person and we sensed a little bit of it in the interview process process and then in digging into some of these posts it's like is that really the you know personality we want to bring into our culture is this just a kind of a negative you know pessimistic person

is that really what we want in our culture that's only happened a few times for me but okay um by and large it kind of whatever happens on LinkedIn stays on LinkedIn but there are some exceptions where I'm like wow that was some really negative energy towards like a previous employer or a previous cooworker and is that really something that I want to bring into my new culture yeah absolutely absolutely defin be aware of that I want to talk about a little bit too uh as as we're kind of in the last like 10 minutes of the show and again time flies when we're having

fun with friends like I always say yeah I feel like I could do this for another hour and a half I know dude I know seriously I've had a few people go why don't you go longer I'm like well we'll get there eventually um uh talk about being ghosted right now and then also the human element right you you said backstage you feel like the human element is being removed a little bit now you feel like companies uh need the human element more than ever can you expound on that kind of what you're seeing in in the market yeah um I feel like when if

you apply for a role and you get a you know canned rejection that's fine um but when you're referred for a role and you get a canned rejection or nothing at all yes I mean if I'm especially when I'm the one referring that's not me look bad that's making the company look bad like I would not stand for that if if I referred somebody to my company and nobody reached out or they just got a canned response nothing like that that makes people not want to put themselves out there to refer folks and I feel like referrals are are worth their weight in gold that's

somebody that somebody has vouched for that they want you to work there so that that's one big no no for me but um Once Upon a Time uh and I'm guess I'm going to date myself but uh earlier in my career it was kind of an Unwritten rule that like if you bring somebody on site for an inperson inperson interview um the recruiter or the hiring manager even if it's a rejection follows up with a phone call like a personal touch that like hey we brought you on site sorry that the team loved you but you know there there's another cand that we thought was

better whatever it was just a much more human element to it much more personal element and I was on site for uh an interview recently for like four and a half hours met with multiple people and I didn't even get an email back like just nothing and that's to me is just completely unacceptable and it that sets a tone that like is that really a company that you wanted to work for anyways yeah I mean I mean for me it's it's one of these things where like and I I take this into I'm really hard on hiring managers and really it's HR let's be honest

it's HR but like HR is this is a hot take but HR is ruining your company's brand when it comes to feedback around interviews and I take this personally because as a as a traditional agency recruiter for years I had to reject a ton of people in my career i' I've rejected way more people than I've got them jobs right it's just the nature of the Beast and I always try to get back with folks every time and at least say hey I don't have much feedback but you rejected my thoughts are is because probably ab and see right and what that's allowed me to

do is build rapport and that's why I still have these candidates that are still friends with me because I've respected them enough to give them feedback and it's like feedback from a company side is such a it's negga rejection feedback is such a way for retention moving forward because I've had so many developers I've talked to that they go if I just got a personalized rejection from the company I'd be more willing to even send my friends there yeah 100 it's like it's like we're not even doing that and I know I the biggest push back I get is HR doesn't allow us and yada

yada but I'm like having a phone call first off just don't have it in writing just don't have it in writing have a phone call talk to people say hey you're rejected and then in my POS in my position you get into the HR violation world when you start talking about culture and personality keep it hard skills focused Hey listen we really wanted specific feedback or we wanted specific skills on Lambda AWS AWS lambas whatever I don't know you should have have enough experience we were looking for a little bit more that to me is a black and white statement yes and it's not hard

to give that feedback and unfortunately and I'm really glad you brought that up that's been a um something that's been really bothering me lately um is the the lack of feedback and and some companies just take a hard line that we're not going to give any feedback it's just a yes or no um and it's h it's so demoralizing that just to not get any feedback at all of like maybe it's they think I don't have a certain skill set when I actually we just didn't cover it or it's not in my resume and we didn't get a chance to talk about that that's that's

the most frustrating part but I feel like the interview process for all of us would be so much better if there was some level of feedback because it could be something that you could easily fix or tweak in the way you're approaching you know your job search that like oh I didn't realize I was doing that or I didn't realize I was representing myself this way when I actually that's not the case so I feel like we'd be the for hiring managers and people that are you know they searching I think the whole process would be better if there was some feedback there has to

be feedback like imagine once you're in a company imagine if um every year um there was no performance review oh sorry we can't give you any feedback but we expect you to be better but we're not going to tell you how we expect you to be better it it it doesn't work exactly got a question on Tik Tok from khed hey I graduate in August in computer science I have two internships how should I get ready for the job search well if you got two internships you're doing much better than most folks coming out of college but I think I think networking when it comes

to like people who've graduated your University find them on Linked In and network with them and see how they got their first jobs thoughts on that Donnie um so I actually um did uh two internships when I was in college and I can tell you that that set me apart from the rest of the talent pool uh unbelievably I was open to so many more interviews as a result of that uh and I can say that I learned a ton in my internships it was just basic professional things like you know email etiquette and like you know just walking around the office and interacting in

meetings and just basic things that you kind of really don't think about like my actual coding skills were not too bad actually like I I was pretty solid on that but interacting with you know senior Engineers which you don't do in college like uh I learned a lot my internships but that really does set you apart um one huge piece of advice that I would give someone coming out of college looking for that first role and I wish I could give myself this advice when I came out of college and not take the highest offer take the take the opportunity where you feel like you

have the biggest opportunity to learn and that's hard to tell but it'll pay off in tenfold later down the road if you take an opportunity where you think you're going to be working with some people that are really going to help coach you up and you know you can learn the proper skills as opposed to just taking the highest paycheck yep I love that I love that Kelly thank you for that question I appreciate it best of luck on your job search but yeah leverage leverage your community like I went to University of South Carolina if you went to Texas like go on LinkedIn find

like search your alumni and just start messaging them because I will tell you this if somebody messages me from the University of South Carolina I will always message them back like that's just like a given right so really like like Leverage your college network from that perspective especially if you um are still living in uh the town where you went to school there's going to be a huge Alumni network that you can tap into like here in Austin UT is a you know obviously a massive school when there's a huge alumni night Network and you know um folks are going to like help their own

yeah and even if you don't live in that City like Nashville's got a huge South Carolina um uh kind of get together right so like even if you're not in the city where you went to college seek out and see if your alumni if it's in a big city seek out and see see if your alumni has a group to go hang out with um that's a that's a huge hack one last Point um and I've seen this work pretty effectively at at super small startups if you can find really small companies that you're interested in as someone coming out of college don't be afraid

to reach out to the directly you just put yourself out there you'd be amazed at how many Founders appreciate that and like see an eagerness from someone like hey this person may be green but I see a passion and an eagerness here that goes a long way um yeah and again like I didn't know much and the reason why I do this live show is is just to um again educate because I never had something like this like like I would absolutely coming out of school hit up smaller companies like go on product hunt go on Tech crunch um and uh and and definitely um

take advantage of smaller companies for sure um all right Donnie before I have a I have a lightning round so four questions lightning before we get there um any any last things that we didn't cover pieces of advice tips and tricks anything so you opened the conversation talking about um you know job descriptions and I have found that to be a real issue right now I think big issue job descriptions are way too vague so you apply for a role and you're like well I meet all of these things and then it's like oh no sorry you don't have blah blah blah or blah blah

blah or like well you didn't have that in the job description it can be too specific for sure but just putting something vague out there of course you're going to get this wide pool of candidates you got to narrow it down I mean you you don't want to be searching for a unicorn um but if there's something that's a must have then it needs to be in that job description again I hate to beat up on HR typically HR is the one writing job descriptions not the engineering manager I think engineering managers need to take a few minutes and write a job description because it's

g i always write my own job descriptions good the HR is going to put in there kind of like legal ease in the top and bottom the comp and some stuff around it but when it comes to the job description itself I write all of those and I pass it on to my fellow peers uh and that's that that's my role that that that's my team's role and I want to put our best foot out there I don't want some you know kind of you know generic speak that you know some recruiter got from another company's website I want something that represents what we actually

want 100% I love it I love it all right man uh lightning round real quick first off if you couldn't do a job in Tech and money was the same so like tomorrow you woke up I said you can't touch the tech industry at all but but you can get paid the exact same or better money's not the issue what what would you do outside of tech for your job uh I think I'd be a travel tour guide that sounds like a lot of fun I'm not going to lie we had a great travel tour guide my wife and I went to Paris at the

Lou and uh uh it was great it was a lot of fun here was really funny I have a passion for travel and if I could do something to make Tech money in travel I would already be doing it yeah exactly exactly um do you have a favorite place you travel lately um I have a million favorite places I've traveled um it hasn't been lately unfortunately um Barcelona is one of my favorite places on Earth and I haven't been there in a hot minute and I'm I'm my uh uh girlfriend and I are planning on retiring to Spain somay so um that's definitely a place

for me that's awesome man um second thing um uh what what do you like to do just outside of work for fun just Hobbies pastimes oh man I got a lot of those um I love to cook I have a passion for cooking I love you know making up new things I love firing up The Griddle upstairs I just love to make new things um I love to make cocktails I consider myself a bit of a b bit of a mixologist always experimenting making new VAR new variations of cocktails and things um I love to try new restaurants love live music um love movies so

just being outside anything outside I'm in live music and friends and a you know cold beverage that's my spot I love it any movies you've seen recently you want to give a shout out to that that you really um H uh I won't say a movie uh but I did just watch um the show called uh sugar okay it's actually really good I I I highly recommend it nice I'm a big fan of Colin ferals and I actually really enjoyed it awesome I love it uh third question any um uh and this I mean we kind of just talked about it pieces of content any

technical things you're kind of watching observing right now tinkering with could be AI could be not um just kind of curious anything you're kind of keeping an eye on in the tech World from a very high level side of um yeah so I've run several um you know AI machine learning dat science teams that is all kind of I don't want to say it's interchangeable it's technically not but a lot of people use those terms I would say they're in the umbrella for sure yeah yeah um so there's obviously that's there's a lot of you know hot you know topic stuff there um I think

it's become too buzzwordy and companies are um Without Really knowing what they're talking about honestly trying to double down in some technology that they don't really know anything about and how it can help them there's obviously a huge opportunity for you know Ai and things like that um but it's not some magic Silver Bullet that's suddenly going to take away you know tens of thousands of jobs overnight and like replace people so like people still need to tell AI what to do and how to build the models and things like that so um that's obviously a super hot you know um you know Tech thing

right now is AI this AI that and that's great and I'm I'm excited for what the future brings there but it still boils down to you know fundamentally solid people that you know know how to have coding skills and know how to build things and have kind of been around the block releasing things and working with people it's still boiled on to people no matter how you want to put it yep absolutely last question as we wrap up here again thank you all again for commenting the chat was great this morning um uh what would be your so we had the shows called guidance counselor

2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school high school and college but now as adults who don't really necessarily have a guidance counselor to turn to and ask for like career advice questions what what would be your best piece of career advice to Young Donnie like if you can go back in time and say hey Donnie do this for your career and you'll be okay what what would you tell them that's funny you mentioned that I think about that all the time and I want to find out how I can get into like career coaching and just help people that come out of college

and just become like a bit of a mentor and just friend and you know things like that um I chased and I think a lot of people do I chased you know the big company name or the salary or the title or whatever it is rather than like what I'd actually be doing and who I'd be doing the things with and that's really hard to tell when you're young and green you just you don't know um but putting yourself out there to get the right opportunities earlier in your career can can pay off tenfold down the road if you get yourself in the right situation

at the right company um so thinking about what you'll be working on and who you'll be working on it with as opposed to you know kind of just the salary that that's attached with that and the title that's attached with that like that that means the world it can make the a huge difference later on in your career yep absolutely absolutely well y'all thank you again for hanging out with us today we appreciate it Donnie thank you my friend um uh where's if people want to reach out to you and uh want to chat um where's the best place for people to reach out to

you uh linkedin's probably the best um Donnie scalac um I think it's scac on on my LinkedIn profile um I'm very active on LinkedIn and you hit me up in a DM and we can exchange contact information and you know kind of kind of jump in as needed um so once I get uh I'm I got the itch to get back into back into the game here and start building something with some folks so let's do it I love it awesome man well again y thank you again Donnie stay on so I guess say bye to you backstage but y'all thank you again for tuning

in we appreciate it tomorrow morning I have my dear friend Aaron Harmon um Aaron uh just recently got laid off at Tesla he was a recruiter at Tesla and he's already found a job after like three weeks of job searching and his job was not posted um he kind of created it and I also kind of created my rooll at gun as well so we're going to talk about kind of creating these roles out of thin air that don't actually exist at a company so tomorrow is gonna be a great conversation so we'll see you tomorrow morning 9:30 a.m.

Central Donnie thank you my friend I appreciate you um and uh we'll see youall tomorrow