that conference keynote - you are not alone

full transcript

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

foreign [Music] so the email I got says my experiences with loneliness on the job search one bullet point reads is going to be an amount of anxiety and loneliness about interviewing that can't really be helped gotta go cold shower Style with it and jump in but outside of those interviews my network has helped fill the void and made that shock more manageable not hearing back from recruiters hiring managers and people on LinkedIn is very isolating especially after an interview it sucks I feel like I was in a vacuum until I started regularly attending meetups live streams and conferences I just added the conferences because we're

at one having this network has minimized what type of anxiety I have to manageable levels another email I got about being alone Hey Taylor hope this email finds you well I find myself feeling alone more these days even though I have so many people around to be honest there are times I feel better that way it gives me time to see and feel me however at the end of 22 I was let go for my very first developer job and that was a culture shot for me let me say imposter syndrome on crack kicked in it took me a month to get over it and

at that point I made a decision to take a break I have someone to it says it is great to know I have someone to lean on who knows what you are going through so pray for me as I seek to find a better fitting job another message I got on LinkedIn actually this message came from the live show I did with JD who's sitting next to me I'm at work so I'm wearing white painter clothes at the moment but my new John Wayne Gacy t-shirt is getting delivered today I don't know who that is if anyone would like to talk metal and code I'm

here for it I'm always afraid to flex my metal knowledge while venturing into Tech but I'm happy to see I am not alone another gentleman says it's one of the reasons I got into the Tech Community the willingness to collaborate is so vast it truly lets you know that you are not alone another guy for those of you who know Garth Henson in Raleigh so appreciate he goes I appreciate these days in the Life post Taylor I just posted yesterday about feeling a bit down in the job search there's some Solas in realizing we're not alone I need to do a better job of just

going for a walk and stepping away throughout the day also definitely happy to see I'm not the only one consuming far too many cups of coffee so here's the deal first off my name is Taylor dessen I'm a recruiter I will always be a recruiter except I've kind of Switched recently I went from agency recruiter to now working at gun dot IO as anybody familiar with gun dot IO in here raise your hand with a freelance part-time platform cool we got a lot of work to do so my goal in this talk is to let people know you're not alone one of the things that

I've realized throughout my career of 12 Years of helping people guiding people through the job search and even hiring managers figure out how to hire and scale their teams the best they possibly can one thing they realize that one thing I've realized for them is that they're alone some of the people that you idolize and look up to on Twitter that are here speaking I have had multiple conversations with them that they are alone so this is something we deal with I'm going to do a a raise of hands real quick I'm really big on audience participation we're gonna we're gonna get a little bit

lighter hearted here soon I promise but for those of you in here who feel comfortable raising your hand how many of y'all felt alone this past year raise your hand look around look around you're not alone you put your hands down so I want to thank Clark I want to thank that conference for having me here this is a dream come true and I may cry a little bit and get emotional I feel it already so I'm going to try not to maybe nerves or the lack of not having breakfast but for me back in 2018 I attended Scenic City Summit Chattanooga anybody been to

Scenic City Scenic City in Chattanooga a few people I watched Reed Evans Reed Evans is out of Knoxville he's a developer and I saw him keynote and I said man that's really cool it is a dream of mine to always Keynote well fast forward a few years and here I am and this is a dream come true I don't take this lightly I'm not a developer you can ask my wife my problem-solving skills are really really bad I'm terrible at math I took pre-algebra in college so I feel like I don't belong here I feel alone in a way but one thing that I want

to give props to every single individual in here and every single individual that has talked to me over the last few years in the Tech Community is I feel accepted by you all I've never met a group of people that are that are more kinds that are more accepting than you all in this room and coming from somebody who's a recruiter that means a lot I know I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing I know I am so I don't take this lightly I don't take this lightly standing up on stage because at the end of the day I'm the type of person that you hate

at the end of the day right the cold DMS the cold emails not knowing the difference between Java and JavaScript I get it actually I still don't I just lie really well now right don't ask me so again I'm thankful to be here so real quick before we kind of dive in I got I got a lot of other things to talk about today but one of the things I like to do if you've attended some of my talks is I'm really big on networking I'm really big on networking I think a lot of people here talk to the same three people I know I

do because I'm an introvert anybody else in here an introvert raise your hand okay seriously more some of y'all just not being truthful with yourself so real quick open up your phones if you came to my talk yesterday a Manifesto in hiring I did this open up your phones let everybody open up your phones there's a lot of y'all just staring blankly at me go get some coffee let's wake up open up your phone go to LinkedIn and talk to the person to the left or right of you and connect with them real fast I'm going to give y'all 90 seconds I'm not asking to

share Social Security numbers I'm not asking bank accounts I'm not asking you to even have a conversation because let's be honest no fruitful conversations happen before 9 A.M so go ahead connect with the people to left you right here real quick say hey well and we'll uh we'll get back to this here in a second all right we about done a lot of talking hey look there's a lot of smiles going on it's almost like y'all enjoy each other all right so there's gonna be multiple more times we're gonna do this so don't worry if I'm cutting you off mid-conversation um we're gonna do this

a few more times so I want to kind of lay a little groundwork um about myself a little bit more just so you know where I'm coming from to kind of set the stage of what we're going to talk about today but we're going to talk about three major areas about not being alone not being alone in your career or the job search not being alone once you get the job so many people think they're going to find a new job and be completely satisfied and then they find themselves even more alone than they were going to talk about that then we're going to wrap

up today we're kind of going to be talking to the leadership side of things engineering leaders people leaders we're going to talk about how to make sure that your teams do not feel alone something I'm incredibly passionate about so a little bit about me I like I moved to Nashville Tennessee in July of 2011 to pursue music I'm a drummer was a drummer still am um I went to University of South Carolina go Gamecocks and the SEC football fans in here yep all two of us we're we're in Big Ten country right now so I do realize like I'm not the target audience um so

I moved to Nashville to pursue music anybody else in here a musician guitar drums clarinet flute anything no okay few y'all so moved to Nashville so I grew up in the restaurant industry my Dad ran the Outback Steakhouse in my hometown for 25 years I I still say this Tuesday don't at me Outback Steakhouse is the best chain restaurant there is with the bread don't at me but don't eat the blue and onion I'll tear your stomach up so I I moved to Nashville to play music and serve tables and I thought I was going to make a killing because my dad what I didn't

realize is that in Nashville nobody eats chain restaurants in Nashville so I was working six nights a week I was a drummer I didn't write music so I wasn't playing music and I was losing money and I was working every single night and I felt alone like there's got to be something else out there and as somebody who grew up in the restaurant industry I knew about nine to fives like I knew they existed like I didn't know how to find them I didn't know how to find them I was like okay well I'm just going to take and guess what my idiot self I

was gonna take another nighttime job I was like again not that smart thankful for my wife that she married me so I'm serving tables and I felt alone I was losing money and this kind of goes into the first part about not being alone in the job search I started the network I felt because I just started to reach out to people like hey who do you like who do you know because I didn't know anything I didn't know this existed I didn't know developers I didn't know anything so I felt very alone so I started to ask do you know anybody do you know

anybody so then um there was there was this girl who I knew we all moved up here together we all moved to Nashville from the same town together I was like who do you know she was like why nanny for somebody I was like well that person can afford a nanny I want to do that so uh she was like they're like well they're looking for a recruiter and I was like great that sounds good I'd love to be a recruiter no idea what a recruiter was so I showed up a few days later I got the job and the rest is history but one

of the things that I see time and time again is we isolate ourselves when it comes to job search we close up right I can do this myself I don't need anybody else I'm good when actuality you're not nobody's good we as human beings are not meant to go through life alone I know covet has done a number on a lot of people a lot of relationships I know multiple relationships that have been in divorce because of covid I've had one of my uh one of our guys one of the guys that used to do our studio stuff in my hometown he passed away because

he OD'd during covid Cove has been tough and covet has taught me one thing that we're not supposed to go through this life alone so I want to encourage you today and we'll get here in a second to double down over the next 48 hours at this conference to network because I will tell you this I'm a huge introvert if you find me outside of speaking I I don't like talking this is where I do best right here I can talk and run my mouth by the end of the day if you find me out there I'm going to be a shell of myself I'm

going to be quiet but I will tell you this every single person I've met here I'm like man I'm so happy I found another person to be friends with and so I encourage you after this talk and throughout the rest of your time at that conference please Network please talk to the person to the left or right of you please say hey to somebody you know and one of the things I talk about a lot is is I had somebody come up to me the other day and go Hey Taylor like I'm planning a 30-minute elevator pitch to meet somebody I said what he goes

yeah 30 minutes I go I go I don't want to talk to anybody for 30 minutes let's shorten that back a little bit I think what we do is we get this like this we we are one thing and I'm going to talk about this I'm going to talk about this here in a few minutes about counseling and my journey through counseling because I will tell you this there's not many dudes that talk about their Journey about counseling I want to talk about this to every gentleman in here that we need it there's a lot of trauma as men to work through and women but

I'm a man so I'm going to talk to men there's a lot of trauma that we have and I will tell you this the more that you can dig into counseling and we're going to get to this in a second about my journey the more you're going to heal and the more you can connect with somebody because your heart becomes soft again and that's my goal again to make your heart soft through networking what you realize is you talk to people and you share your stories and again it doesn't have to be 30 minutes right go up shake somebody's hand it's great to meet you

where you're from what do you do and move on but connect with them on LinkedIn right the next thing I want to talk about where you don't feel alone content anybody in here either like producing content like puts out a ton of content it's so funny all the people that do content are all sit with each other right a few y'all I and and the reason why and I'll tell you this the individuals who are sitting together creating content you know why they're sitting together because they've met each other online and they're not alone anymore content is one of the greatest things that's ever happened

in my entire career now I'm not going to sit here you're probably like great here comes another individual telling me to create content become a content creator I'm not but I'm telling you it'll make you not feel alone in some ways I am here because of content I am here because I invited James Q Quick on my podcast a year and a half ago didn't even know the dude just slid into his DMS hey bro I love you can we hang out right he said yes a year a year later he introduces me to Clark and six months later I'm here all through content creation

when you put out we live in a digital world right how many of y'all like just are on your phones a lot let's just be honest raise the hands who's who's on the phones a lot everybody look around everybody look around exactly so how do you reach the people in the room that are on their phones you do it through content creation it opens doors I have met some amazing individuals because of content creation Now listen you can go to one of James talks you can go to Morgan's talk well Morgan already had her talk yesterday about content creation but there's a lot of talks

around content creation I would I would go to those talks and learn a little bit because I think moving forward that you need to start putting yourself out there on the internet and as an introvert like myself the easiest way for me to do that is to put myself out there on the internet now again I'm not going to go into the nuts and bolts of it but I encourage you to start telling your story online you know I was I caught up with a Tejas um just now he goes man he goes and again like I do these logs and like it's mainly about

like my dog and like you know some of the work I do and Tay just comes up to me goes man he goes he goes I love your Vlogs again Tejas is like across the world like he's not here he's like he's like over the seas right and he's like now watch I watch your Vlogs I love him I love him he goes he goes he goes I know more about you because of your vlogs and I will tell you this I do those Vlogs I'm like no one's gonna watch this no like who is going to watch me in my pajamas get ready for

work walk my dog see my daughter kiss my wife who cares a lot of people care and a lot of people want to know more about you the problem is is that we feel alone we feel we kind of retreat into ourselves and what my again my goal for you for this talk is to not retreat I think one of the biggest flexes and I think one of the biggest ways that an individual can conquer a lot of insecurities is to talk about out in the open I have a big head let's let's address it me trying to get fitted with this mic just now

was ridiculous right let's talk about it right I have trauma in my life around certain areas right not speaking up conflict resolution I'm terrible at conflict you'd be like I hate you like all right same BET right I'm terrible at it but like let's talk about it again I want to encourage you now I'm not I'm not asking probably Taylor are you really saying I gotta talk to the person who left at me about my childhood traumas no I'm not saying that at all but what I'm saying is this is such an amazing tool to start connecting with people and resonating with people also next

thing community I am a freak when it comes to community that sounds a little weird I'm really passionate about community this is community one thing I admire about Clark is his passion for people like Clark and I I've never met a man who cries more than me I think Clark cries more than me and I love that about him because I know his heart is soft and you know why it's hard to soft it's because he pours into people he hears their stories he cares about every individual in this room like Clark gives big dad vibes right I want to be like Clark when I

grow up you know what Clark is fiercely fiercely passionate about every single individual in here because Community is where it's at right like like I can't tell you enough the type of individuals I have met and become friends with because I've been to meet ups and coffee chats through discords I mean I'll tell you this there's probably 1600 Discord channels all in this room that you could join I got one James Chris got one Danny Thompson's got one Becca's got one we all got Discord Join one who in here is a part of a Discord or slack Channel raise your hand that conference has one

I'm sorry Clark that literally that conference has one sorry Clark all that being said I will tell you this what I've seen as a as somebody in the market who has been has been very observant of like Trends especially when it comes to community meetups have gone away and I'll tell you this there's a lot of conferences that have gone away and I and and I'm going to say this please keep supporting Clark please keep supporting that conference because I tell you what it can go away like that that was a terrible snap that I know so many conferences that have folded that have not

done stuff this year this isn't this is not normal this is not normal I want you to know that like if you've only been to that conference like this is one of the top conferences I've ever been to so this is not normal and I think a lot of times human beings we become so used to things right how many of y'all are married in here raise your hand a lot of us right we can talk about that later right we can go through this life together being married all of us I don't know about you but the thing that you fell in love with

about your significant other is now the thing that annoys the living hell out of you let's be honest right right we become so used to the thing we fall in love with and we'd start taking it for granted and I will tell you this communities meetups conferences slacks discords they could go away tomorrow I've seen conferences fold I've seen communities fold I've seen meetups I mean I don't know about y'all but like the Nashville area like there was like I was talking to somebody I was talking to Kevin Griffin the other day he used to run rev conference that folded enrichment and he and I

were talking at lunch last Monday and and I told him I said Nashville used to have like I'm I'm not kidding probably 25 meetups in town There's maybe two or three now gone like that and there's a lot of people sitting on the sidelines that are craving Community but they don't want to get started come find me afterwards let's talk about how to get you in the community I think the first thing is join that conference slack and be involved and then take those conversations offline right Clark is so big on this and so am I I think I think networking online is amazing and

I think you can do it at scale you can spend 15 minutes on the toilet every single morning liking and commenting people's statuses and not feeling alone but if you are not meeting with them and trying to cultivate in-person relationships you are going to miss out because again we're human beings we're not made to go through this life alone we need to be in community with the persons who left a ride to you right don't take for granted the person to the left or right of you because again all this could go away tomorrow and then we're going to be like oh no but at

the end of the day you didn't put the work in and support the communities you're a part of so real quick I want you everyone stand up I want you to pull out your phone again I want you to ask the person to the left or right of you if you could be an animal what animal and why go all right real quick does anybody want to share let's just say this anyone want to share like like a really weird animal you want to be which kind though dude come on say what I don't know what that is what is that okay Eastern Australian animal

probably meant to kill you isn't it oh just miles hell yeah I want to be that animal all right so the next thing we're going to talk to about about not being alone in your job how many people have taken a job and they think it's going to solve all life's problems and then you're six to six to nine months into it and you're like what have I done raise your hand look around everybody look around you're not alone you're not alone so I'm gonna talk about this so how do you not be alone in your job how many of y'all have a mentor mentee

program at your job raise your hand right that is not a lot of hands that is terrifying all right so if you're an engineering leader in here get this done get this implemented one of the ways that you cannot be alone in your job is Mentor mentees I will tell you this I could not be where I'm at in my career without the mentors that have poured into my life early on in my career one of the ones Scott Gordon I want to give him a shout out he poured into me like crazy and I would not be the type of person who cared Scott

Gordon was the original OG if David Neal's in here David Neal and Scott were BFFs I would not be where I'm at today if it wasn't for Scott because Scott told me as a recruiter to shut up go to meetups and don't say anything as a recruiter and knowing my personality I peacock a lot because that's who I am again trauma we can dive into that here in a second right I try to be somebody I'm not to try to get the attention of others and Scott told me to shut my mouth and what that did is that helped me be a part of your

community the engineering community The Tech Community at a really really early stage of my career where most recruiters are the type of recruiters that show up to meetups leave halfway through and only give Pizza if you ever went to one of my meetups I never gave Pizza so mentorship please find somebody right now let's talk about the mentor mentee relationships I think it's a little nuanced and I want to get this across if you seek out a mentor you have to drive that conversation there's nothing more Awkward than when somebody reaches out for me to Mentor them and I go all right we're going to

talk about they go I don't know and I'm like oh well come on now right you need to make sure you are driving that conversation you are driving that relationship but I will tell you this who in here has benefited from having a mentor in their life raise your hand marriage personal look around look around look around look at all the hands look at all the hands that's what I'm saying you're not alone that allows you to not be alone in your job in your career in your personal life let's talk about personal therapy who in here goes to therapy raise your hand it's not

a lot of hands y'all here's the deal I'm gonna tell a little story about me about hitting depression for the first time my entire life in 2018.

like I said I'm an introvert and one of the things that I um I I and everyone's counseling um you know I you know counseling for me was always something that really messed up people into I wasn't messed up I was good I'm good floral shirts Bob we're good right 2018.

I I took a trip with my wife overseas we came back and the trip was amazing it was awesome love my wife just it's great exploring two and a half weeks in New Zealand by the way that entire country is about to blow up just any minute it's kind of crazy got back into town and something snapped inside of me I hated everything I hated my wife it was resentful towards her I cried every single day I didn't want to work I didn't care about what I did anymore just didn't and I didn't know what was going on I didn't I didn't know what was

going I mean I I felt broken I felt alone if anybody has gone through depression in here it is awful I don't know how to describe it other than like you feel like you're never going to be happy again and so we were in marriage counseling I'm a big fan of counseling and therapy and and just talking about your feelings because like I said there's there there's a lot the human heart takes on that we're not aware of it chips away chip right three years later you have a chipped away heart that is cold and hard and then you act that way towards others right

so that happened to me so I went to counseling in 2018 I worked on myself a ton found a lot about myself that I never even knew and it sucked cried a lot I never forget going to Christmas I I went to my parents house in South Carolina I went to Christmas and I remember I remember just crying in the kitchen and even talking about it now gets me emotional and my mom was like what's wrong and I was like I feel broken feel alone and uh I was like man I I never want to feel this way again and so I'm encouraging y'all today

if you are going through some stuff please seek help and when I say help just go talk to somebody you know what if you're like you know what counselors are dumb listen I've heard the argument right counselors are dumb it's a waste of money they don't do anything we just talk about the same thing over and over and over again you know what that may not be a bad thing because I've talked about sometimes the same topic six weeks in a row and all of a sudden the seventh week I figured it out so again I encourage you if you feel alone in your current

state right now please seek out Mentor please seek out counseling it works it has helped my heart it's helped my marriage it's helped me be a better dad it's helped me be a better friend but you know what I'm nowhere near done I actually have my counseling session this Friday at 10 30 a.m for those of you wondering one-on-ones with your manager this kind of goes with mentorship in a little bit who in here has a one-on-one like they meet consistently one-on-one either weekly monthly whatever like in your organization all right that's good I like that love that right men this is this is a

wonderful way I actually have my one-on-one with my my new boss this afternoon that I'm gonna do right it's so key I think there's such there's such a wonderful opportunity for you to feel connected with the individual who you're reporting to or you're working with right also too let's be honest people want to know how they're doing right people want to know where they stand within your organization am I doing a God good job am I doing a poor job how can I get better people want it if you're an engineering leader in this room or even an individual who in your organization there's no

one-on-one reach out to your manager managers if there's no set parameters around one-on-ones set something for yourself with with your employees because I will tell you this when somebody can go through a one-on-one session they feel heard they feel seen and I will tell you this that's one of the things that most people do not feel in life and in their job and you as a manager could be that for that individual I can't tell you the amount of times during my one-on-ones people have cried about where they are in their life people have opened up to me about personal issues that never would have

thought they would have opened up to me about and you know what it's developed a tighter Bond all the people I used to work with my team we are still really really good friends and we still talk to this day and I truly believe it's because I was able to sit down with the individuals and listen and meet them where they're at I feel like in today's world especially working remote one of the things I've realized more than anything else is we we're overworked raise your hand if you feel like you're just overworked and tired right look around but keep hands up look around you're

not alone you're not alone but if you don't make the time for your people within your organization they're going to feel more distant more alone also another thing reach out to other individuals within your organization not even like in a one-on-one setup just more just hanging out so I have a podcast called The Unicorn finders a little Shameless self plug there and me Dan Thompson and Jake Shepard were all dear friends outside of work and we want excuse to hang out so we create a podcast and it's been wonderful I'm able to see those guys consistently now I'm not saying you have to do a

podcast but reach out to people set up a time to have coffee with them set up a time to go to lunch with them in your organization it's such a wonderful way for it to be in a more of a relaxed setting and to make you feel heard again not feel alone all right next thing I just want to reiterate here have the humility and awareness to know where you're at in life because I think a lot of times especially as men I'm speaking to men here but women as well I'm sure we have a sense to just like hunker down like we kind of

like put on these blinders we're like you know what I got my family I got my job I got a talk at that conference next week I'm just trying to make it I'm just trying to make it right we're you know I anybody in here have kids raise your hand right a lot of us have kids right I have a three-year-old she's like a three major right she also feels like she runs the house and she tells me two more minutes I said we're not this is not how this goes right she's got my personality which is it's a good look in the mirror for

me I think I I and I don't know parents in here do we I'm sure you find yourself man I we just got to get to bedtime we just got to get to dinner we just got to get through this event so we can get home put the kids down right there's so much beautifulness with having a kid but I think a lot of times as parents we kind of are like if I can just kind of get to the next thing get to the next thing get to the next thing let's finish bedtime reading and get to the next thing and we don't have

the awareness to look off and be like you know what this isn't right this isn't right and we just kind of power through life alone and then we look up after five years and then we're going back to that hardened heart that hardened heart where we're just like you know what what happened what happened last five years are gone like we just celebrated my daughter's third birthday this past weekend like what it's crazy it goes by so fast and for those who have older kids you can obviously agree with that right so I encourage you have the humility have the awareness to seek out help

because again we're not meant to go through this alone everybody stand up go talk to somebody you haven't talked to yet ask them do you eat or drink soup go all right there's some there's some debates I see a lot of hand waving right now a lot of hand waving real quick real quick who in here [Applause] who in here says do you eat soup raise your hand holy cow Yar animals drink soup yeah that's that's the better why is why are we Lessing that I feel like you drink it you don't eat it anyways y'all sit down by the way I Googled uh yesterday

uh random questions to ask people that's where I got these from so I was sitting on my balcony I was like wait what if I ask people all right y'all this is kind of the last bullet point then we'll wrap up here probably the next you know six hours or so so all right you're not alone when it comes to hiring how many in here have gone through the job search recently ish or just how many people have gone to the job search and felt alone I feel like some of y'all aren't being truthful because that's not a lot of hands right I recently went

through the job search I was at the same company for 12 years 12 years it is terrifying to go out and find a job right now um I talked to a few individuals yesterday I've been at their jobs for 25 years y'all I get it I get it it's scary you can feel very alone and so what I want to talk to everybody right now is kind of about going through the interview process I know we talked about that a little bit but I want to talk about on the other side about the leadership side right I don't want you to zone out I mean

for the individuals in here that aren't leadership because I think it still very much applies right let's talk about culture how are you building a culture that supports inclusivity where people do not feel alone how you do it I think a lot of things have already talked about one-on-one job descriptions anyone went to my talk yesterday to talk about job descriptions pretty much for like the whole time right bringing an inclusive environment making people feel heard one of the things I hear time and time again is I don't feel heard I don't feel heard I feel like they're not listening right any uh any spouses

in here sometimes feel that way with their other spouse you don't have to raise your hand that's just it's a trick I know my wife tells me that and she's right I don't make her feel heard I don't I got to work on it I'm always on my phone anybody else on the phone always yep just me cool how are you building a culture within your organization where you don't make people feel alone make sure you feel inclusive right I think one of the things again as as engineering leaders where I've talked to time and time and time again I'm too busy I'm too busy

I'm too busy I'm too tired I have too much going on right and you're just trying to survive and you can't pour in to the people within your organization we got to change that right people leave jobs because of managers or whatever that saying is right we all know that saying at the end of the day people leave jobs because of the managers and so what are you doing to promote that so people don't feel alone you know one of the one of the things yesterday we talked about in in my talk is somebody said people are the core of an organization people are the

core of your organization so why are we not spending more time with our people why are we not spending more time and being more intentional during the interview process why are you know we talked about giving feedback I get HR I get it but again there's ways to make people feel heard through the interview process I've talked to so many developers over the last 12 years of recruiting and being in community with Engineers you know what everybody's told me if a company offered me feedback even if I got rejected I would refer my friends to that company right I see a lot of heading odds

there I struck a chord there right so again you got to meet people where they're at right somebody can have a really bad day with interviewing right how would you want to be treated if you had a bad day interviewing you would probably want to feel heard you would probably want to feel that that person knew you had a bad day and they heard you but I think what happens is we get into these jobs that we have and we don't put ourselves into other people's shoes and then we wonder why people leave our organization let me ask you this would you want to go

through your interview steps right now how would you feel going through your hiring process how would you feel going through your onboarding process all of that can make people feel very very alone yeah we'll figure it out we got documentation somewhere go read it really what if someone told you go read it how would you feel right hey you know just I tell you what go reach out to that person well okay cool but like can you make intros I don't know this person right again how do you want to be treated people feel alone especially when they start a new job so how are

you building that culture leadership again we kind of go through the same thing again ego humility right being aware I talked to so many engineering leaders day in day out on my podcast guidance counselor 2.0 just for the record right one of the things I constantly hear is is leadership in Tech is broken it's broken because at the end of the day all of us are none of us are perfect so we have imperfect people leading imperfect people with an imperfect organization right it takes a lot of intentionality it takes a lot of intentionality to change that so again I encourage you from a leadership

perspective if and and you don't even have to be like even if you're not a manager you can still be a leader right I want to get through that people's heads right now right if you're in ic I will tell you this I tweeted this a while ago I said some of the best leaders on my team in the past have been like brand new because they come with fresh ideas and because I try really hard to take on those ideas because I will tell you this sometimes the people who haven't been in the organization for a long time have a different filter on how

you do things and one of the reasons why I've been able to grow teams consistently throughout my career was because I really really tried to listen to the new people I think a lot of times we're like well I'm gonna listen to the vets great so the same people that have the same type of group think that you do again what are we doing for the people who just started at the job how are you leading them how are you shepherding them it's where they don't feel alone right we talked about onboarding for a second right this is the biggest area right i-9s W-2s Social

Security Bank account routing number all this data learning the platform learning the code base reading documentation a lot of it's like you just go just just go just go do just do it go that way come talk to me when you need me really is that how you want to be talked to because I will tell you this if you came up to me like yeah yeah we'll talk later yeah yeah you'd be like Jesus feel alone I feel by myself right again things to be mindful of last question and then I'll close it out here stand up what is your favorite deli meat ask

the person next to you all right I see a lot of hands going I see Hands about layering we're getting really serious about layering here I see some like how to build a sandwich all right y'all go ahead and have a seat you want to have a seat so I uh I grew up I grew up Southern Baptist and uh I'm gonna be honest with you some of the most awkward moments of the pastor goes hey turn to the left or right of you and tell them say hey that terrifies me so of course I made y'all do it so um all right y'all so

for the most part that's it um I just want to encourage you all today as I wrap up that everybody in here feels alone in some way shape or form and some time in their life that's one thing we all have in common so if you can leave my My Hope and prayer and and wish for you all today is that you leave this this group this setting and go out into the world and treat others the way you want to be treated but also realize that everybody has their own battles everybody is struggling everybody feels alone either right now or has felt alone and

so what are you doing to give back to community what are you doing to connect because I will tell you this going through the job search and going through your career can be very very lonely and my encouragement for you all in here today is that not that you don't feel alone ever again but that you put the people and you put the tools around you to make sure that you help with that because what my what my prayer is for you all today is that you go don't go through life with this chipped up heart right where you start to become cold and hard

and just looking for the neck just just kind of going through life the next day the next day the next day because I don't want you to look up after 10 years of your career and be like what happens why didn't I take advantage of this was because you felt alone and you closed off so again Clark that conference thank you so much for having me this is a blessing thank you so much appreciate it foreign Watch Expert Tutorials