all things open conference talk (exposing the job search process)

full transcript

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

my name is Taylor deson uh I am uh I actually just got a really fancy job title called the VP of global Community which what all that means is I'm a professional friend maker um and so uh basically what my goal is is I want you all to join the torque dodev platform and basically be a part of our community so Jason's passing out cards to join our to join our platform we are a jobs platform we hire uh across the world for both uh part-time and full-time type job opportunities and anybody in Tech is welcome so I'm really excited about joining torque because uh

the last company I was at was like solely focused on just engineers and while I've been recruiting Engineers now for 13 years I I'm really happy to help other people in Tech aside from Engineers because believe it or not there are other people in Tech aside from just Engineers so uh again if you did not sign up for the Meetup tonight it's going to be great uh we did overspend so I would like for you to show up please um and then also join our platform as well basically my job what we want to do and and again bana and Jason here if you see

us please uh come say hey to us and and we we we want everyone to be a part of this right what our goal is is if you're on the job search we do not want you to be alone right how many people in here have gone through the job search in their last year two years of their career raise their hand three years yeah so pretty much like the most room in three years hey come on in we everybody scoot in come on let's just get close like we're just yeah we got a seat up here we got Su up here yeah whatever we'll

be fine we'll be fine there's two seats up front maybe we got maybe maybe maybe BR maybe see we go find some more chairs you maybe we should tell the director to uh put me in the ball room a next year I'm just kidding um all right so this is exposing the interview process so I had a question uh before we started I said is this conversation more towards the hiring manager or the job Seeker we're going to talk about both but at the end of the day this is going to be more geared towards the job Seeker but what my goal is is this

is a class involvement type of type of talk like I am not the type of talk where you're going to go to you're just to sit on your computer not talk to anybody you're going to take notes and you're going to leave you be like oh that was born as hell that's not going to happen here right my goal for everybody in here is I want you to raise your hand I want had questions because here's the deal if you have a question somebody else is going to have a question as well and so this whole thing my whole ethos is to allow people to

not go through the job search alone and so everything in this talk want you to ask any questions we're going to talk about some topics I have some things that I made up like last night around midnight that we're going to talk about otherwise I want to hear from you all okay so again exposing interview process if you want to join uh the Meetup tonight scan that Jason just passed out all of our cards to join our platform we love to have you if you like me rambling as much as I like to hear myself ramble go join uh all my social media at teson

across the board um but again a little bit of background about me Taylor deson I have been in the software engineering Talent space for 13 years now so basically I've placed I did the math I've placed over 600 developers in their in in their next job their next stage of their career I've probably met at this point 20,000 engineers in my Rolodex quote unquote um and uh I I I basically put my entire life online um and so if you want to follow me we love to have you and and what I've realized is over the course of recruiting is that I can only help

10% of the people that I meet that's it 10% right real quick who who are the recruiters in here I saw some I saw some head on are there any Recruiters in here there you go sweet so uh my my favorite thing is having Recruiters in here because we can all like kind of agree on things together um so we so we can only place uh 10 people 10% of people right so if I meet 100 people I'm only placing 10 people in a job so what I've realized is later in my career I was like what am I doing to help nurture the other

90% of the people I meet and so again that's where Community comes in that's where I'm so passionate about this new opportunity to help guide you through the job search but what I've realized this talk is a culmination of 13 years this talk is a culmination of me helping hiring managers scale their engineering teams by tens and hundreds of Engineers this has come from 13 years of experience of seeing Engineers go into interviews and saying man I crushed it and then then that as a recruiter that means you you bombed it right let's just call what it is so I've seen that and so this

conversation I just want to help you I want to help everybody in here my goal is my goal is is is is I want you to have one thing that you learned that you can apply tomorrow in your career and you feel like you level up that's my goal for today okay we ready to go oh we got yeah go ahead okay uh cutting right to resume okay wait we getting right into it today let's go man I I got to give you Applause you're the first guy that's ever asked a question before I even started talking this man's ready this man's been writing down

last night he's like I got all these questions go ahead go ahead you're going to feel here at the White House but okay there we go um resumes I've been told drop everything after 10 years keep it all on one page but I have a slight problem by the time I get through the two sentence for your profile and listing my certifications in fact I don't even list them all sure I'm down to 11 Point I've been told to not go down to 10 point M to get through the ATP you know use a generic language I'm not getting any hits sure do I need

to or should I Branch it back out the tube but I've been told by several people managers are managers are like okay that's about as much time as I got right yeah yeah so here's the deal with resume questions uh first off you have a lot of friends it sounds like um uh I I don't know who makes the rules and I don't either but also I curse so if you don't like cursing I'm sorry you can leave it's okay I don't know who the [ __ ] is telling people this like it is it is absolutely absurd like why the hell are we writing

a onepage resume with 10-point font it doesn't make any sense let your resume [ __ ] breathe right now don't send me a 14 page resume I've seen multiple multiples of that right I think Hey listen here's the deal you can shop this advice right you know what's great is that I'm a recruiter that's talking up here and not many other recruiters are talking so you can listen to me and you can tell the other recruiters that but a lot of recruiters are going to have different different pieces of advice for me two to three pages two to three pages yes if you have cold

fusion on your resume from 15 years ago and you don't want to get called to do cold fusion jobs take that off your resume right you know I I get I had developers back in the day get mad at me because I was calling them for like cold fusion and I was like well take it off your damn resume I did not tell them specifically that so um does any have any questions I mean we can go all Q&A here um but yeah question back question seen Haven seen a 65 Jesus Christ that is a that is a short novel yes well this is more

specific I think to like I've joined certain job platforms and linked how do you protect your applicants from spam do you vet to people that are poos to jobs y yeah so so this is a great question so first off we do have an we're actively building and and um evaluating our assessment platforms right so one of the things I'm really big on and again I know there's everybody developers like oh I'm so sick and tired of recruiters sending me assessments right we still do that right because we have to see how how like are you actually want are you activate on the job search

right because at the end of the day if you don't take it it's like all right well you may not be actively on the job search or you're not that interested and I get it it's fine like we don't get upset about it right so we do evaluations we also have subject matter experts that help Tech out our individuals as well in the Tech Community um a lot of those are from my network but also from other people's networks within the organization and so by the time you get somebody they're going to have a zoom call by us a techout and an assessment so that's

what we do um I do want to get to some of these points cuz we can all go Q&A but I do want to talk about some things I'm seeing right now you got to do the small stuff right now you have to do the small stuff I I say this all the time people that are getting jobs right now over you aren't actually better than you they're just doing the small stuff better than you prime example had a had a buddy posted online and he was like he's like hey for the love of God please put your email and contact information when you submit

your resume for a job that's the [ __ ] we deal with right like it's the small things right like do you know uh is uh you know the the small nuances of like like uh prime example Kelly's my dear friend back there Kelly's a director of engineering at spot AI they are hiring Kelly are you H you guys hiring uh we have a I think an AI role in assistance there you go there there you go talk to her afterwards uh so so for me like we we text all the time but it's like Kelly Kelly goes hey please do X Y and Z

and the person goes ABC it's like that's not that's not what we ask right if I say hey I have a spot open please email me at Taylor tor.

deev you know how many DMs I get some of y'all just don't [ __ ] read right do you have to do the small stuff right now it's incredibly important um another thing I want to talk about when it comes to the small stuff is I'm hiring right now and um I put out a tweet that like really got misconstrued on on on X which typically happens but like uh I basically was just saying the signs I like to see from people is like is the email followup the the engaging of my content like if I put out if I put out an article or

a blog or something on LinkedIn and it resonates with you and I'm interviewing with you and I see you took the time to read that that is going to Signal towards me that you actually care of course X was like oh this guy's egotistical and the most egotistical manager probably their is I don't know Brianna and Jason can attest to that but probably not right so X is ridiculous so all that being said do the small stuff right one thing I like to see is like if I interview with you send me send me a thank you note on LinkedIn I had somebody mess me

like Taylor I am like trying to figure out like when do I send it do I send it the morning do I send it at night do I send it like at 12:00 a.m.

so they get the first time at 6:00 a.m.

the next day it relax relax be human send the person the DM just right after hey Chris it was great interviewing with you thanks again for taking time with me I love that we talked about ice hockey and uh and our Farms hopefully we'll talk soon okay Chris I'm assuming that probably go pretty far with you right yeah exactly see I don't make this [ __ ] up all right next thing turn interviews into a conversation listen if we sit there and I go hey so and so how was your day good okay uh what do you do right now for your job I code

god let's be honest here any hire managers in here any H managers how many of those have you guys had from an interview perspective those type of interviews nobody has put their hands down after that like listen like hiring managers right now we people want to work with people they like like it's just the end of the day like just that's it that's it find some sort of commonality right like Todd Lewis who puts on this event right like I messaged Todd I was like hey go Gamecocks right we both but we both went to the University of South Carolina right boom hit it off

immediately right talked about our families talked about where he lives in Columbia where I where I grew up in Columbia right how many people actually research the people you're interviewing with before you interview raise your hand the fact that not 100% is alarming to me or some of y'all just lazy as hell right like interview the people or research the people you're interviewing with one of the best things I like I I felt it made me feel like this person really cared I was back at my first company V and I was building a division from scratch and this one guy like did a bunch

of research on my LinkedIn he's like hey I saw you've been at V for like 10 years or nine years at the time like like tell me about where you were you know tell me about your time working there and I saw you went to South Carolina like you went from South Carolina to Nashville why' you go to Nashville from like and I was like holy cow this like this guy pays attention that's what it takes right now if you go into the interview and the the worst thing is that hey tell me what the company does yo come on now let's be honest here

quick I no judgment a lot of judgment no judgment how many here has not researched the company before they interviewed raise their hand all right hey I appreciate it I appreciate it right thank you this this is a safe space I still judging you safe face though um so like again like one of these when when it comes to stuff like like again research the company research the people that's going to elevate you what 75% 80% more than most of the people interviewing incredibly important and final thing is quick I'm going to get this out and we'll we'll do some questions real quick final thing

understand the problem that you're trying to fill or solve for the position you're interviewing for let me say that again figure out like just I mean Zone in during the interview process on the problem they are trying to solve prime example at my last position when I was at gun iio right not there anymore uh that's I I scratched that out back out there on the by the way I didn't I did that no one else did that I just want to make perfectly clear um so basically when I interview at gun is that uh they were looking for a salesperson right so like I

I interviewed I was like Hey like what you what are you guys looking for they looking for a salesperson like the initial chat I had with the head of sales was like we're looking for a sales person said great I said do you guys do community we don't know what that is okay do you guys do conferences we no okay do you guys do any sort of content social media nope not at all okay great so basically what did I do for the rest of the interviews I zoned in on they don't they were looking for a salesperson right and I was able I've been

able to drive millions of dollars of Revenue throughout my career through content creation and recruiting you know when it comes to community I myself grew my own Discord from 0 to 600 people at V just my own personal Discord right and it was it was thriving it was great talk about social media I average around 3 to 5 million impressions a month through social media right and so what I did is I witnessed that interview and I said I've done this this this this this most of y'all just get the interview and just are happy to be there and just forget like you guys just

black out right come like when you go to the interview and I interview with Pat right and I go Pat I go hey man nice to meet you how'd your hockey team go last night sounds like not that great right no not good I'm sorry so basically like like you know I want to be like uh you know what are you looking for to hire right now and why are you looking to hire it right and you as a manager should be able to tell me correct yes great are you hiring right now no damn I was I wanted you to kind of play along

with this right now but anyways all right so yeah I'm H okay well uh give me an example what was the most recent hire you just did uh junior frel okay why were you hiring that person we needed an extra set of pans to help us build a new education plan okay what specifically what technology Technologies sta looking for someone with typ script experience but not have but you want to bring in someone Junior so we can foster them alonger I love that I love that so so so if so if I was a junior I would figure out like one I'd research Pat right

I would two try to figure out what the technology is see if I've done any sort of side projects for that right if I haven't I'd probably immediately start something right to show Pat hey here are the things I'm doing right again it takes that level of intentionality also the final thing before I open up for questions for on the job Seeker side is right now y'all it's about depth not yes depth not width right can I get a amen right there you go right dep not withd the you applying your resume to like 600 places right now like is not going to cut and

of course I have one person in every crowd it's like well I got my I got a job from 600 resumes great props to you that's not normal right like again right now it is it is being meticulous with your resume it is crafting your resume which I have other tips too if you want to get into it about each job posting what I look for it's going to the LinkedIn it's connecting with all the hiring managers it's sending messages after every hiring manager that you interviewed with right it is those things right now that are going to separate you and the problem is is

we as Society we think a activity is productivity and that is not the case not all activity equals productivity right and so I beg you right now the more human you can get and again this why I'm so passion about what we're going to build at torque with Brian and Jason the rest of the team we want to be as human with you as possible because the more human you can get and the more you can get out from the bits and bites of things the more successful you're going to be in your career and your job search questions yes in the back so how

I'll say how important is the assessment versus the interview because say if you can't complete an assessment I I feel like if I can get into an interview I feel like I can talk to you sure fig yourself I think do everybody hear that assessment versus the assessment vers the interview and if you're not a good who in here is not a good assessment taker I'm going to be honest I scored like a two on my sat right literally I scored like a 900 um I think you get like 800 put putting your name on there so like I'm a horrible test taker this is

where it depends who you're working with if you're working with the agency recruiter like that's where the relationship's got to be there and you're like listen like when I was an agency recruiter I I would let you take the assessment as many times as you wanted to to take it right and like I would send the best assessment to right the the uh the hiring manager if if you're working with internal I would just set expectations like listen I'm not a great test taker is is there anything else I can do can I have an extra conversation extra I'm I'm great interviewing I'll take an

extra two interviews if I need to but set that kind of um set that expectation on the front end setting expectation on the front end for the interviews is massive for all hiring managers in here you could probably agree with that too hiring managers got to do a better job setting assessments that's kind of one of my next thing too I think all hiring managers slack off I don't think most hiring managers treat other people they want to be treated if you were a job Seeker through your interview process would you want to go through interview process how would you feel I feel like a

lot of times we get into the interview process of hiring managers and we're like haha we're in control right so again set expectation okay yes just answer that please go ahead yeah yeah absolutely looked that forens manager and usually what I look at is that if the candidates are on the right track and if they haven't completed the assessment a total success that's fine so we look at you know if they're on the right track love it looks like have they been like do they following logical process and flow that's some of the things that we look at so it's it's key like it's not

always like you know black and white answer like yes or no now there is one caveat if you have too many candidates too many people in the pipeline then you get ranked you get a rank and then people who have made further obviously get ranked higher and that's how the filtering happens right for the cand yeah yeah absolutely Kelly yeah one more thing it's also right place right time time when we're hiring we need somebody in quickly and so we need somebody who can just hit the ground running and so we're going to need a better assessment out of them but if we have more

time to get you on board and take time with like ramping you up and educating you we're much more lenient on an assessment like that so don't be discouraged if one place Deni like rejects you because you didn't do well on that assessment it's not going to be the same across every company and even within this same company yeah AB Pat go ahead buddy yeah one thing uh I did when I actually interviewed for my last job uh that I currently have now it wasn't a I didn't have to produce anything I did a code review it toally just a PR process or you know

I was commenting on something that some else created so it wasn't it was a way to demonstrate some technical skill but also some conversational skills and I found that that actually softened the blow for a lot of people that came through the interview process after I joined and then was interviewing them yep I love that I love that real quick I want to take a quick pause I forgot this at the beginning and I really this is the biggest thing I'm I'm most passionate about everybody pull out their phones real quick this is going to be a 30 second break pull out your phones real

quick everybody pull out your phones pull out your phones pull out your phones you guys don't pull out your phones pull out your phones open up LinkedIn open up LinkedIn where uhhuh uh-huh yeah go and I want you to connect with the person to the left or right of you real quick 30 seconds go please go connect with them I [Applause] all right all right all righty yo shut up just kidding all right cool hey did everybody connect with people you got it good here here here's the deal I I want to say this too I listen this conference is massive like I am terrified

right like like I I an extrovert when I speak I'm an introvert when I'm not speaking um and so please find me over the next two days and just be my friend because I'm terrified and and and big big space like that but what just happened just now is is is the is the point of my talk I just don't want you to be alone like I don't want you to go through this conference alone I don't want you to go through the job search alone I don't want you to go through life alone and so literally connected with the person left or right of

you this could be your potential hiring manager down the road this could be you know your potential best friend down the road I'm pretty sure I did some sort of thing like this at render ATL uh that I'm actually one of the hosts with um that ban actually helps organized too um and so basically literally we we connected that some people connected found that they lived like near each other in their Hometown then they started a meet up together right so again make sure you follow up with the people you just connected with cuz it's incredibly important all right I wanted uh yes Chris go

ahead buddy to carry on where we were before yes we talked a lot about the job Seeker side as a hiring manager or as a recruiter how do you sift through 300 resumés on single job Rec yeah yeah I mean you can't right I mean just you just can't it's awful and it's like Kelly said it's right place right time like I truly think most of the job search is followup and like being so fast to move right so like for example um the main thing when it comes to this is why I don't like submitting your resume is because depending on how they're sorted

in either an ATS or the job posting it's through time stamps right um now I haven't been internal there could be some other things now I I am Consulting with a startup that's using AI to kind of help with that sorting of it but like right now like there's not and I think a lot of people are trying to do that but I it's a very difficult process and that's why I tell people if you can now if like you know Pat has a post and he's probably going to tell you to submit your resume cuz it's got to be there but I think it's

the followup that needs to occur that's incredibly important right I talk to Kelly this all the time because l Kelly and I just screenshot each other like you know what what what we see and it's like you know I used to preach if you've been following me long enough I used to preach hey tell ask somebody for five minute conversation seven minute conversation 9 minute conversation yeah that NOP [ __ ] that right like people ain't got time for that [ __ ] right now right like people are getting laid off upper management is like condensed they're like managing like multiple people engineering managers just

got the AXS the last year year and a half right and so when it comes right now nobody has time to have a conversation so the so the realness that you can get through the DMS is huge um and again Kelly and I talked about this today because she was getting these DMS and like I moved into this VP role and now everyone's trying to sell me something the the amount of inauthentic DMS that I get on a daily basis is insane right I'm telling you the more conversational speak that you can blend in with professional speak the better right because that means you're approachable

if you message me you go hi Mr deson what stop no right and like people want to be approached and and just and just have authentic relationships right now and listen if you have a spelling in your like if you get a DM for me it's like misspellings and like I run on sentences right like I I just want to get my my point across as fast as possible um and I know there's some nuances here with everything I'm saying I'm not saying you know message people in the DMS and just be absolutely ridiculous but I'm also saying that the more real you can get

in the DMS and the more to the point you can get the better but in terms of answering your question specifically there's not a short thing unless somebody's doing something that I don't know about Kelly yeah I recently hired a mid-level fullstack engineer I receed 2500 applications in about 3 days yep that is a really difficult thing to actually say through uh one recommendation make sure your resume is searchable because what I ended up having to do is look for keywords within our ATS we don't automatically reject unless you're saying like you're outside of the country and we are only hiring in us but if

I can search for specific keywords like I'm hiring for react type script I'm looking for API experience whatever it happens to be I can start to pull those out of your resume the other thing when it comes to reaching out the a DM uh as Taylor said when you ask me for 5 minutes of my time I don't have 5 minutes what I do how it it's time to quickly answer a question VI DMS about the role and I'm much more likely to remember and like put a face to the name when I see your resume if I've answered a question for you or for

you Bri also on my end um because I do have the honor of Sting do thousands of things on a daily basis uh via render since they decided to be International don't know why um but what I tell people all the time is for example I'm sing to ambassador program applications right now everything is technically optional for you to fill out but anyone who filled out every single thing will automatically go to the top of my list I don't care if it's optional do it if it's optional that means do it because at the end of the day when we have thousands of things that

we're looking through Whoever has 100% completeness they are instantly going to go to the top and I'm going to try to contact them first um because at the end of the day if you only did the bare minimum I'm not looking at it because that means you're going to do the bare minimum in the office or at your home and working alongside Bon you don't do the bare minimum you get yelled at so anyways yes go ahead what each of you all describe um it's really almost um demonstrating something that I've been reading about recently where people are getting jobs more through the back door

instead of the front door there you go so we might just be applying but really it's the people who do that thing where hey I know somebody who knows you and that extra connection and so is that actually like a pth I I've been reading about it like sure thing but as recruiters like y'all want that as an extra like um because like when you describing 2500 jobs I mean applications yeah so it's daunting yeah I mean I Pat's like yeah uh yeah I mean literally like referrals I mean I I I speak I right now this Market it's hard to get business because it's

like every engineering leader has like you know literally I messaged one of my engineering director friends cuz he posted uh two roles two senior staff level roles I said hey can I help you fill these roles he has I have 15 referrals 15 for two roles for staff level it's typically harder to find and he hasn't even looked at the 200 rums that he had in his job posting but the referrals are always going to be that I'm telling you like when I when I went through the job search after I left gun so when I left Veo after 11 years I essentially went through

my job search for the very first time as like an adult and all I did is I just hit up everybody I met at conferences and meetups and literally I got the job because my biggest competitor oh take every call too my uh my biggest competitor in Nashville as a recruiter got me the job at gun and he was like hey bro I'd love to take you to coffee and my I'm like what the [ __ ] this guy going to help me with all right he recruits he recruits devs like me like what's he going to help me with and he literally got me

the referral into gun to get the job and then what's crazy about it and again you don't know the reason why I'm so passionate about people connecting with people the reason why I got the job at torque and I found this out at our all hands in Boston a few weeks ago is that my very first presentation to Junior boot camps um six years ago some guy reached out to me that guy then started to work for my now boss and he he was like he introduced me through back door three or four years ago I've been on on my boss's radar for 3 to

four years now because of some Junior Dev boot camp speaking gig that I took for free six seven years ago that's how that's how this stuff works that's why you try to meet and be nice to as many people as possible at this conference because you don't know where it's going to go yep just going what Kelly said these tools that managers are using they use like AI now so if you don't put relevant buz like the the skills that are required for the skills for the job in your resume and those the AI kind of ranks resume I have a neighbor who works like

indeed she told me they I started doing that going to rank those resumes based on like how rant they are yeah and I have resume tips too that we're going to get on the torque platform so we're basically taking my four years of of content from the job search and we're going to put it on the torque.

platform so sign up it's going to come probably next 30 to 45 days how to write a resume how to write a LinkedIn question ask H managers we're all going to put on the Tor platform uh yes ma'am somebody over here talking about somebody behind you yeah yeah it's hot so it's so hot I have died we're all just like God um talking about searchable resumes as a recruiter I will find sometimes that it's not searchable and some people don't know what that means so open up your uh PDF Love This Love This open it up and look at it and take your your um

thing your curs there it is there it is yeah we we'll get through this together take your cursor and try to highlight text if you can not highlight text it's a photograph and nothing is going to come through huh so so is that how you people save their document or it's how you save it right you need to unless you have acrobat in some capacity and you can do um you know find text or certain PDFs don't properly right and so make sure it's a document it's not s it to somebody and say hey help me out yeah control s me whatever right um because

then they're not seeing anything okay that's good yes ma'am I think might we maybe like we can all after but there might be some cats with that because now like a lot of built-in image text identifiers are showing up so you can scan it but maybe it's not showing on the recruiter end you know what I mean like apple has a buil makes it look like it's searchable but then I don't know man this a whole another conversation of itself not perfect yeah yeah so everybody just send the resume to their friends and see if they can you know search uh yes sir in in

in the red what do you have uh for advice for people who are wanting to network but feel like they are either nervous or first time Network a little n diverent yeah yeah it's hard Bri Bri Bri Bri you got you need to network and you want a network the number one thing I'm going to tell you to do is SC that QR code and go to our me tonight aside from that I'm so serious about it I'm so serious because today guys what Taylor and I have in common is the power of community Taylor got me my job he did because I have been

on his radar for 3 to 4 years and I was on my boss's radar for 3 to four our boss's radar for 3 to four years as well the first thing he said to me is I have been in love with what you're doing at RL what how do you even know who I am what I do I'm not public facing he's been reading all my emails he been seeing all my social media posts do the work but the number one thing if you're trying to network my favorite thing to tell people is just to just to start to go up to someone and say

hey I'm Brianna like where are you coming from it's as simple as that where how do you get here do you live here that's my to cuz people like oh no I'm from blah blah blah blah blah and I start telling you and then from there you lean in you actually just remember to be a nice person and make that followup connection after the fact take a photo with that person right in and there be like hey let's take a picture yeah selfies a great way to break the ice man not only are they good for social media contag that person and create continuation of

their relationship number two they're going to remember who you are cuz you're going like okay great I'm going to send this to you so you can remember who I am and then from you're going to follow them what I person want do especially if I meet someone I really really really want to be intentional with I put it in my calendar to follow with them a week later or 2 days later however depends on on what confer I'm going to I set a reminder to myself you can everyone has an iPhone or Android or a Google phone thing um and you can put a reminder

on your phone for 48 hours 36 hours however many hours you need but be intentional with that follow up connect with that person remember at the end of the date we are all humans we want to tailor point we were made to do things together we were not made to do things separately you're not going to go anywhere in your job process if you're trying to do it Al lean into it go to like dead where you're going to get free resources to apply jobs to get networking ideas and tips to see what events are going on in your area even if it's not in

your area been virtual EV you might not have to be on camera for you can still participate in that conversation but at the end of the day you have to take the time to do the work and make that engagement with someone and I challenge everybody when you leave here today try to take three selfies with people three different selfies it doesn't have to be you don't need to you don't need to meet 25 30 people 90 people 100 people if you have like five people you met and you're vibing with and you stay in touch with them that's five more friends and I got

right so that's great Chris yeah go ahead so I'll I add a plug for your Discord so I was in your original Discord and now I'm in your T disc that is filled with developers it's a great place to network LinkedIn is hard right you you don't know this person you DM them you make a post oh maybe it gets a like or two you have Discord Taylor's Discord there's tons of developers tons of people who are ready to talk that's an awesome place to start yeah absolutely Jason Jason where's Jason he is he got locked out did he really people back in anymore because

it's is over capacity are you serious oh my gosh um I was going to tell Jason's Story Jason's got a crazy awesome story I want to get some more questions here uh yes uh I know at the beginning of this talk you were mentioning of contacting the hiring manager directly um and unfortunately recently I had the experience of applying to a position and there was no information as the hiring manager was so I was wondering kind of a uh Cas basis of like what what would you potentially do in that situation of trying to make contact like you're saying of making that connection when there

is not that information to directly split connect yeah so one of the things that so I I was talking with an engineering leader recently on his job search and he said he was having major problems just like getting like getting people to respond back to him um and so what so he and I'm going to tie this into your question here in a second but basically he was like I what he goes I was sending vague messages like hey uh you know I'm an engineering leader just got laid off didn't know if you were looking to hire right that was kind of his message but

then what happens is he would take the job that was posted he would then search the company on LinkedIn he would then start dming engineering leaders or whatever group it is and basically go hey I saw the job posting I don't know if you're hiring for this but here are three reasons reasons why I'm a really good fit based off the role posted let me know if you want to talk and he said his response rate shot up so yep go ahead that's a huge so I'm an agency owner here stand up stand up cuz you're in the front is Big so I'm an agency

owner and that's actually one of the things that we do is we ask people like hey Reach Out directly um we were fully distributed to you for remote written communication OB see can communicate or human like can can we have a conversation uh I don't care about spelling it's like the computer will fix that I'm horrible it's like math I don't do that right right right yeah um I I want people to want to be there so are you you know the what do you say the white Net versus yeah the uh depth not width yeah so it I don't want somebody that's just casting

out a white M I want somebody that you want and so they're going to find uh I'm out there and I don't we don't put emails that they we want them to respond to in our res or in our job posings but we do put a question in the process for submitting that tell us why you're going to fit and if somebody doesn't answer that they're on bottom us yeah because we get you know 800 900 responses in maybe two weeks to a job I don't have time to go through that yeah it's going to take time right and I think that's the biggest mind

[ __ ] that like you may go you may you may do enough research to only send five DMS in a day day but that's okay cuz those are going to be five meaningful DMS yes personally yeah yeah absolutely yeah go ahead I've got a question on interview prep so I've been trying to I've been a same company maners since College looking to upgrade so I've been doing like 120 Le code problems over the last 3 months feel like that's a lot Mo behavioral last night okay and how how do you no because I feel like some of the the big Tech or scale ups

are less personal and that your coding interv binary high no higher and then your um system design and behavioral are for leveling so like you you want to connect with the the people that are interviewing you but it feels like it's it's a little less personal because they're keep consistency yeah I mean listen I let's just call what it is there's a different interview Vibe going through Amazon then there is like a series a startup who just got you know their funding right I mean it's a very different vibe um it sounds like you're doing all the things you need to be doing and it

depends what you where you want to go right if if you want to go Fang if you want to do all that that's out of my realm to be totally honest with you I've never recruited on have a lot of friends at Fang but that's a very interesting interview process I know there's a lot of algorithms and data structures and all these other Buzz terms I have no idea what they're talking about it sounds like you're doing the things that that's where you want to go right I again I will say if you can combine that with the researching the person right building that uh

report in the interview I think you're going to be pretty dangerous in the best way possible so I mean it sounds like you're doing what you need to be doing for sure yeah any other questions this is good stuff yes um how do you feel about cover letters Jesus Christ I gu this question all the [ __ ] time let me ask you this I'm I'm going to turn the question back on hiring managers who who in here wants cover letters there you go next question no I mean here's the deal like based off my experience as a recruiter typically agency recruiters are the cover

letter right so like we like call the manager like hey Mr manager you should interview so and so because they're great right listen to us right now if you apply to a job and there's a cover letter option does anybody feel like they have a good cover letter every cover letter is hey I'm great at what I do right but like Pat why why why do you think you have a good cover letter I kind of have a template in so I can kind of treat little things but what's the general gist of it this is who I am okay this is what I like

to do okay this is where I see where you could use something like okay I I hit those three points in three four PA so my thing is yeah my thing is if I got you in an elevator for like 90 seconds like and I say what are your big like four biggest career what are your big like four biggest career like achievements that you've gotten and you tell this to me those go those go on go on your cover letter I I would have one ready to go Kelly thoughts uh the only time I really care about cover letters is if you're career changing

or there's been a gap in your resume and you want to that because it's a really good opportunity where your resume is not going to show that story my sister is moving from being an analytical chemist to data analytics that's a pretty big career move and so her cover letter is so incredibly important to say like no I'm actually prepared for this role even if my job description doesn't look like it love that yeah cool yes I had follow related to your things there sure how do you view I was kind of torn on the cover thing because I almost viewed it like um like

you were saying if you if you don't fill out all the optional things then it shows less effort like I know the manager to busy to read all of them but do you still do it just to show I mean if there's an option to put in in a cover letter I would do it yeah and then if you don't then you just YOLO and see what happens so yeah I would say even if there's an option and you fill it out there a good chance a hiring manager who not even going to look at it but it's there if they want to look at

correct so then if Banna is hiring then if Brianna see what I'm saying see how new want this whole conversation is everyone's like yeah but you just said this but then you just said that I'm like yeah welcome to hiring right yeah go ahead I think kind of the difference between like the hire like the hiring manager side hey I don't I I don't have five minutes right right you know hey if there's a cover letter and it's optional but I don't read it put it in anyway do I have five minutes yeah maybe yeah but I'm trying to put my eggs in the right

basket right I mean I would say right now now from what it seems like no one has time to talk everybody's async so the cover letter could be the thing that is like the do you have five minutes to talk the cover letter is like kind of covers that so uh yes ma'am on the cover letter yes I do a you me we as a um as a as a framework but then also if I ask somebody to help me I actually write out the introduction email or the introduction okay like hey I want you to meet my friend Chantel she used to work with

me at d da that's great I mean if you I mean for them so that they I love that I love that I love that uh yeah go ahead so uh definitely if it's optional fill it out otherwise what I would say is instead of sending the cover letter send a separate personal email that would have been what your cover letter is so now you're in the Hing system in your and then the other thing that we say is please look at your file names and what company you're referencing if you're using the cover I can tell you how many times it's named another company

small stuff right there small stuff small stuff right yeah it's like it's like Grandma's Christmas list it's like ah [ __ ] somebody submit their resume one time with their dental X-rays and like like it's nuts like okay we that's weird but now that stood out yeah Bri I will say what that means said to the point what I said earlier if it's optional it need to do it I will stand by that one thing I have done previously in my past life when I was applying to jobs frequently I if I could find the hiring manager I would name my file hey Sierra look

at this God I love that that's so brilliant I got the I did get the job that's awesome literally number one thing she said you are hilarious and I've actually looked at your cover letter and that was explaining my career Gap my my c s cuz I was a counselor before I was a marketer so I can read you all she can gang firm um but that being said if it's optional it means if it's optional it means all right real quick I want to hit two more bullet points before we wrap up I want to get a selfie with you all too because this

this has been great I hope you guys enjoyed this um uh two things with hiring managers first off uh very few hiring managers know actually what the [ __ ] they're doing right everyone's doing the best they can right literally Pats back we make it up as we go like so so that being said have Grace be kind thank use one of the things that's gotten me further in my crew than anything else is just being grateful thank you hey I I know it didn't work out it's all good let's definitely stay in touch I appreciate your time that goes a long way next thing

is too every engineering manager leader hiring manager right now is overworked and overwhelmed right this market right now has done just uh has done a lot for the mental side of things things um from the mental health side of things is what I mean like I mean everybody's overworked everybody's managing more teams than they should be managing and so like things get things really get slipped through the cracks right now and so that's why followup is so important that's why giving Grace is so important like I can't tell you the amount of people who I've given feedback to and have popped off at me because

I've given them feedback what the hiring manager said I like well no [ __ ] you didn't get [ __ ] hired cuz you're popping back off at me right so again be nice be grateful it goes a really really long Long Way um I real quick I do want to give Jason to to tell his story real quick Jason I want to I want to I I I uh before we wrap up I want you put you on the spot um and I'm going to tell this story this story then I have one more story to end it on and we'll we'll get out

of here talk about how we got connected our story and how you got to torque just just the power of networking and referrals yeah I mean I don't I honestly don't even remember how we connected it was Twitter so I just my background film industry switched to Tech uh was in hun dev's boot camp with Leon Noel sh H them uh one of the first things he says is get on LinkedIn get on Twitter get networking before you get the job make the connections before you need them um I saw Taylor's content through the algorithm was connected and uh just started engaging just started talking

to him starting to figure out who he is and uh you were looking for somebody to help you with some stuff social like social so I said you know what like I would love to do it I feel like we had good Synergy with the way we were having conversations um I had been interviewing I had multiple interviews over the last year that were sucked like that's heartbreaking I think we've all been in those positions multiple times at this point most likely um he approached me with an opportunity here and at the end of the day I think I've always been leaning more toward the

people facing side of the industry so it just makes sense like we're community Builders I have a community that I buil organically and I'm now have an opportunity to help him build one on a larger scale so yeah again yeah Jason and thank you for that Jason was on my C on my calendar on my radar for like over a year year and a half and now he's working for me right it's a long game it's a long game I want to end with this story real quick and the power of of of of LinkedIn and and the just just I want to encourage you

guys to just go all in on LinkedIn because I still think LinkedIn is a very underrated platform LinkedIn is the only platform right now where you can go and DM any man manager at your dream company you've ever wanted to work for and have a conversation potentially today I mean that's literally how powerful LinkedIn is and so like my dad uh ran the Outback Steakhouse in my hometown for 25 years right um I I still think Outback steakhous is the goat of like you know chain restaurants don't at me on that but um basically like he he called me up after he left the restaurant

for 25 years and he goes how do I find a job and I was like oh man cuz he was like he goes because the last time I was on the job search Taylor the internet didn't exist and I was like damn you're old dad and so I was like all right so I talked to my wife that night I was like how do I tell my Dad how to find a job she goes try to dumb it down with what the recruiters do where he can do I said okay and so this is the advice I give everybody who's on job search I told

my dad this I said have one intentional conversation to day coffee lunch breakfast Meetup Zoom call FaceTime even maybe just a long text or DM conversation just where you really feel like you like have a have a friend like if you R if you ran in that person at a Starbucks do you think you'd say hi that is that is an intentional conversation I literally just made that up I've been looking for that now forever for this talk that's it if if you had a conversation with somebody and you ran into them the next day at Starbucks would they remember you that means you had

an intentional conversation and so I told my dad to do that my dad did that every day one conversation a day for three months you know a lot of hey I'm so excited about this opportunity of course it didn't go anywhere and then finally he was like Taylor you won't believe this I found a job I said how did you do it he goes I messaged somebody on LinkedIn I used to work with in the restaurant Industries 7 years ago they were looking for to start a new restaurant and my dad's been there for 7 years now listen if my dad found a job on

LinkedIn in the restaurant industry none of us have an excuse none of us has excuse so again thank you'all for coming out I appreciate it I want to get a selfie real quick with y'all all right everybody uh everybody smile there you go Access transcript languages