hiring trends and the power of community w/ andy hutsell

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Yeah. Giddy up. All right. Here we go. There we go. There we go. Here we go. Allighty. Sweet. What's going I'm gonna check my mic one more time. There you go. All right. And we're good. All right. What's going everybody? Good morning. Happy Friday. Uh just found out backstage uh Andy and I have been battling the same cold virus thing. It sounds like he didn't have the fever, but um uh it's been brutal. So, are you like over it yet or are you still like in the middle of it? I'm over it. It's It's hanging on, but I'm Yeah. Oh, yeah. It hangs on, dude.

Even today, like I So, I've started to go for a walk in the mornings like to get some like sunlight. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I, you know, some health guy said it on TikTok, so I'm going to do it. But, like, I went on a walk today and like I can tell I'm still not better yet cuz I come back and I have to blow my nose and it just is like Anyways, I won't I won't gross anybody out. Hey, hey, I I want to showcase something. Yeah. Yeah. torque swag. Yeah. Yeah. Got that torque. We sent it out. I I I And I wasn't even going to text you.

Um I got it yesterday, man. Yeah. I got to wear this. Yeah. I was like I just wanted want to surprise them. So, yeah, we sent out the first round of swag. Um we're going to send out kind of this the the first round of ambassador swag. Um but uh again, pumped to be here today with Andy. Uh we are starting a few minutes early, so please say, "Hey, I just got the live. We're on YouTube." Let me go to LinkedIn. And I'm actually surprised we haven't got any LinkedIn comments yet. Hold on before before we start. Okay. All right. We are live. Sweet. We've already had two comments.

I don't even see them yet. Here we go. Wait. This is Inception. Torque stream with Ron. Yeah, we can talk about it. Yeah. Yeah, we can talk about it. Absolutely. 100%. Michael, it's good to see you. Um I I feel like Andy and I look like we So I typically have Andy's colored hair. So if I had If I had Andy's colored hair, we would look like brothers. Well, I typically have your colored hair. I'm just kidding. Oh, for real? No. I wish I wish I was that cool. Uh, and then I actually have dark room glasses, so if I went back totally brown, we would totally look like uh twins.

Anyways, now there are people here. Do you want to show the shirt off again? Oh, yeah. Yeah. There we go. There we go. There we go. Dialed in today. Dialed in. Anyways, all right. So, uh, few housekeeping as always. Say, "Hey, would love to hear from you." This is a networking kind of meetup thingamajigger that we do. I do uh three days a week. So, please say, "Hey." Um we are um if you don't say hey I don't know if you're tuning in and if and if people don't know you're tuning in they can't network with you um uh we have a very active community at disc at at Torque um and so people want to connect with people so please say hey we'd love to hear from you uh second thing is um uh what else appreite I'm a nontechn I'm a nontechnical hero on a technical heroes program I will say I will say this apprite came out with a lot of cool updates I don't know what they mean but they look great so you should check them out.

Um, so that is my plug as a app right hero. Also, we got a lot of cool things going on at Torque Community, torque.com community. Check us out. We got like a calendar. I don't know, Andy, do you remember like back in the day when we watch cable and like there there's like a guide, you know, like you would scroll. We have a guide. So, if you go to torque.com community, we actually have like a guide like like of all the things we're going each day. So, please check that out. Uh, also, uh, text me if you want to know when I go 615235-5650. Um, I want to give shouts to people again tuning in.

Uh, Jordan, it's good to see you. Yes. All caps. We are on that energy level today. Uh, it would be hilarious if Andy wore Torque and Taylor wore Ron. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I don't have any Ron Dad swag, which is kind of wild. We're fixing Tuesday. I got you. You got me? All right. Yeah. It would be Inception. Yeah. It was kind of weird. Basically, like, long story short, me and Ken Collins, our head of product at Torque, got hired together and they had to create because like we're not core like Ronstad roles. They had to create it. So, we got coded wrong. So, we didn't get anything like like nothing.

So, anyways, but I guess we'll fix that. I'm hanging out with Andy on Tuesday for lunch in in uh Atlanta uh before render activity. So, pumped about that. Oscar, it's good to see you. Chris, good to see you. Pat, good to see you. Uh let's see here. Uh Angelo, it's good to see you. Um sweet. Awesome. All right. Uh Andy, let's get the people what they want, man. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll go from there. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me and what's up everybody? I am the perm guy at Ronside Digital. So my my job is to lead sales of recruiting well within the permanent specialization and uh it's my first job out of college.

Yeah. 14 years ago. 14 and a half years ago. So very similar to me when I was at Veco. Yeah. Yeah. It so like Taylor mentioned it about like the the dark glasses, same hair, whatever. Like we have a very similar story. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. It's wild. Andy sounds like he's a better golfer than I am though. Maybe it used to be uh love golf and I don't do it much because I got three kids and they're all young and that's uh a little bit about me. Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right, so uh a lot to dive into today. I do want to start with kind of setting the lay of the land and partially I'm asking you this.

That shirt looks so good. That shirt looks so good. I try to sh I I I I I I I want to ask you this because partially selfishly because I don't know anymore as much because people are like Taylor which people hiring what does it look like like right now like what what are the tech like what's hot and high like I'm like I I see it kind of but because of where I'm at I'm just focused on building community. I don't see kind of what the sales side sees. So, can you talk about just what you're seeing in the market, what the trends have been, what's hot?

Well, I mean, of course, there's the buzzwords, right? You want to say AI, AI is everywhere and you know, projects and whatnot. So, like the truth is is that like I think I heard this on one of the prior comments on a different GC like we're still seeing cobalt developer openings, you know? Dude, I'm telling you, I I had lunch with Zack at Torque and um what was the sales guy from Ronstead in Raleigh and like like Zach was like we should do like a total like mainframe blitz and just have a mainframe practice. Yeah. I I don't I don't think it's going away. Um I did hear recently though that like there's this new AI tool that takes legacy code and turns it into core Java.

Like that's cool. I mean I heard that that's wild, right? Yeah, like you know but I think that's the point the answer to your question is like we hear of all the latest greatest huge shifts this and that but like the core skills are still the core skills and there are company hiring system engineers, network engineers, devops, data still you know I've heard stuff like you know ETL's dead but it's not because people are still hiring for it. They have business needs. So like I I would at least want to encourage everybody that it's not like there's some massive skills transformation that's going to just be like a light switch.

I think it's going to be a gradual curve. But yeah, I mean gosh we see everything from you know end user support to seuite like jobs are out there. It's just really difficult to navigate this marketplace. What so so let's talk about that then based off your experience. How would you recommend folks navigate this time right now? There's no one answer because not one answer applies to every nuance and circumstance. And I think that's that's an important that's an important thing to that's an important thing to note because you you you got to be a little bit of everything to everybody. And that doesn't mean you have to set aside your preference, who you are, your style.

If anything, you should be showcasing that. So like having your network, have being a part of a community, being present in a positive way out in the marketplace, like all of those things matter. Positive But at the same time, you know, like some companies want cover letters. Some people say like cover letter's dead. Some people want to showcase your use of AI in a cover letter or any number of things, but others don't. And like you kind of have to figure out like how how do I make sure that I'm progressing and being relevant in all of the future state, but then also all the ways that showcase who I am and my capabilities as a person.

Yeah, I love that. H have you based based off kind of kind of what you're seeing right now? Uh what's what are companies struggling with like uh you know this is kind of more on like the sales side I would say of the house but like what are companies having trouble with like what are you seeing? Um I want to talk about the companies and the candidates, right? So from a company side like where are companies falling short? And I'm kind of getting this information out of you because I because I wanna I want to give this information to the people who watch now or in the future to kind of maybe kind of address some some of this stuff in the interviews, right?

Because I think it's kind of working backwards from the problem. But like where where are companies really falling short right now when it comes to hiring? What I just heard you say, the word empathy came to mind and being an empathetic candidate or talent or employee or employer is so important. And what I mean by that is like you got to put yourself in other people's shoes and see the the same problem from the different perspective. Yeah. Um without being you know too theoretical in that answer. It it comes down to like constraints and imperatives and I heard this term like the great hesitation is happening right now.

I like that. Talk about there's a ton of need there's a ton of project there's a lot of uh pressure to perform given macroeconomics uh the state of the market etc. And there's a lot of companies and there's a lot of divisions within companies that are really trying to make a lot happen with a lot of constraint. So those imperatives have existed. If anything, they're increasing in terms of pressure of getting things done. But the constraint aspect and so whenever you have constraints and imperative, it's a friction point. It's a flash point. And I think as a talent or as a salesperson in the marketplace, we live in that friction zone which can be taxing.

Yeah. Absolutely. So talk about So where where are candidates falling short right now? Like I mean obviously you and the and the team you run, how many people do you do you oversee? Uh 30. 30. Yeah. I mean that's a fair amount of people. So what like what what are some of the kind of the key the the the pain points that you're consistently having to educate your your your your team on to to prep candidates for? And what are just some of the consistent themes that are keep popping up? Oh man. Uh there's the process side which is just always a continual learning curve, right?

And like on the Discord, that's one of the things I love about Discord for Torque is that there's all these new learning sessions. And so I'm not I'm not doing a sales pitch, but like I actually really appreciate. I appreciate you like like having a place to point people towards that are that are customer unique that they can pick up on, you know, like so there's the process side, but then really it's the relational side and like staffing and staffing companies job postings seem to be at an all-time commodity level. It's just it's it's unreal. It is unreal, right? But like that that's where I think where where companies or where where sales professionals, recruiting professionals, you got to get to the human side.

And I don't think that'll ever go away no matter how fancy or great or how automated any process becomes. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Human side, investing in that, becoming a great person, being empathetic, uh showing character and resilience, showing how you've performed, how you've seen a pro a problem or a project outside of just a deliverable, but actually how you've contributed, right? Like those those types of things I think really resonate because it's it's kind of a lost art. Yeah, absolutely. It says, "Wait, can Andy see us?" Oh, Andy's in the Discord, y'all. Anniey's in the Discord. I'm all over the Discord. Yeah. Yeah, Andy's Annie's in the Discord.

Um I No, I I love that talk. Um uh do people still write terrible resumes? Um are people still messing up interviews about not researching companies? Like what are kind of some tactical practical stuff that you guys are seeing that you guys are still trying to uh correct? Yeah, résumés. Rums are hard to write. really really are. Like that's why you got to have a community and a resource that can help. And I think that's one of the the main like immediate value ads. Like I I'll go back I would go back to my first year like 2011. Yeah. There was this architect at IBM.

Uh and back then it was like you were measured on in-house interviews. I don't know if you remember that Taylor. Like getting talent to come into the the Ronto office. Oh yeah. Same same. We Yeah. Yeah. We called them Veco interviews. Yeah. So, like, you know, and again, like it was always about the relationship and FaceTime and I I think there's elements of that are still true, but uh this dude was like, "Hey, like Andy, like why am I here?" And this is like a senior architect from IBM. I go, "Oh my, it was my second week in." I go, "Oh, geez." Uh yeah. I go, "Look, man.

I I work for the world's largest staffing company, so I got a lot of access to managers and companies that you might be interested, and I'm pretty darn good at rums, and I have a couple suggestions." So like from from that like I I like something clicked in my mind around like the val like the first point of value that I can provide to somebody is help with resumes. Yes. Always get resume review. Take advice. It doesn't mean it's gospel but it definitely means it's inputs to your mind to become a better resume writer. Um I forget who it was on here but um I've even started this too where it's like every month at the end of the month I have a calendar invite of just like listing out like what did I do this month?

What's noteworthy? How does that translate so that you're not behind? But yeah, for like from a talent perspective, man, like like some resumes are terrible and we can coach on it. By and large though, I think there's been enough touch points with recruiters for for quite a few people and enough touch points with uh what's out in social that like resumes kind of follow the same format. Right. Right. Um the other big gap is just uh the like there's a mindset behind interacting with with staffing companies or recruiters or talent acquisition. Yeah, talk about that. It could take you real negative or you can see it for what it is as as a a important and validating part or an advocacy part of the job hunt, right?

So, um, there's going to be bad interactions because there are people that just skim the surface on anything in life that that are all just about like spray and prey, get it done, right? Um, I think any of us, if we're honest within the staffing world, have been there and done that. And if we're not thinking enough about how does this impact people, what is the customer experience like? You know, you really got to be able to go deeper than surface level and and find the recruiters that are like that because they're open to feedback. They're open to honesty about, you know, hey, how was this interaction or hey, you know what, like could you please do this better?

There's a lot of really good people out in the industry that will respond to that. You know, I have been uh Barrett, good to see you, brother. Uh yeah, and then um yeah, I'm I'm I'm down. We'll we'll bring Andy on to to roast some resumes uh in the Torque Discord. That'll be that'll be sick. Uh I've always been very bullish on agency recruiters as one of the cornerstones of your job search. Yep. I'm obviously very biased because I've been one, but I've seen the impact of what good recruiters look like. Now, the argument is, well, I can't find good recruiters. Why do you think I have the show?

Why do you think I bring on folks like Andy and Jordan and you know some some of the folks at Veco? There are there are great people still at Veco, right? Like uh like and there they're they're great people. I literally have a email chain of if I get a candidate locally in Nashville, I send them out to all the recruiters I used to go up against. Like like like we are the cornerstone. They we should be a cornerstone of your job search because it's like Andy said, we can tell you résumés. I would argue that agency recruiters are the best resume writers hands down.

I would tell you, we could tell you how to edit your LinkedIn. I we could tell you uh uh where you're at from a skill set perspective and like how you should improve to like get more money. We can tell you if you're out of price point, right? A lot of y'all ask for too much money and then wonder why you can't find a job, right? And we can kind of correct that. Thoughts? Yeah. All that all that's very true. The the thing is is that like when you're working with agency recruiters, we are talking and seeing macro trends like that I don't think you can compare to many other resources, right?

And so like the reach and the and I mean like Ron's a massive massive organization. We do business with thousands and thousands of companies and we have a history of placing tens of thousands of people per year. Yeah. Right. like there's there's a significant amount of knowledge that exists within an organization from an agency perspective that is just again like it's another take on the the job job seeker dilemma right so like you want to have a multi-pronged or a multiaceted approach towards understanding where I stand what the opportunity is and the resource of an agency recruiter is is vast like especially at a large company yeah uh what let's talk salaries This just popped in my brain.

Are they going down? I feel like they've leveled out a little bit. Um I I think they've leveled out. I mean, there was a there was a hiring frenzy, right? So, like everybody like talks about 21 22 like the glory days and and that was the norm, but it wasn't. Um and I think this parlays into remote too, right? Where like that's a it was it was a very unique time in the market. But I I don't see salaries going down. I I I see companies that are again constraints and imperatives. Yeah. Market's tough, performance is tough, especially a publicly traded or a PE backed company like you got to deliver quarterly results.

Like those results have always been important in terms of hiring decision, budgeting, etc. But it feels like that intensity has ratcheted up quite a bit. Yeah. So again, like an not it's not a sales pitch, but like this is where a great recruiter or a great agency can come in and advise like we're we don't get paid unless you get paid and stayed and are happy, right? So at the end of the day, very we have a highly mutual interest that works out in alignment. It is in alignment completely. So you know like you get paid more, great. That's awesome. But at the same time, like it's always going to come back to constraints and imperatives.

Uh let's go. Uh Sebastian's comment, we call him Sebass, or at least I call him Sebass in the Discord. Do uh do you think having a close connection with recruiters is huge in in in the job market? I feel like they are so busy and have so many candidates. We are so busy and there are We do have so many. You are not wrong. But the the candidates that are easy to to keep up with are the ones that are positive and open and ask questions and want to seek counsel from the people that have the advice to give. Yeah. Um you know because like I see these posts and like gosh like LinkedIn by the way this is probably a whole different conversation like LinkedIn feeds are crazy.

It's brutal right now. Well I say the algorithm is awful. Like I'm seeing something like four week. But you're probably not talking about that. Well, I mean, maybe it is LinkedIn's fault. Who knows? Because, you know, hype and and and negative speech always drives out positive speech, right? But like, sure, I think that's Gresham's law or something like that. But, um, yeah, I mean, Sebass, to your to your question, man, like there are a lot of people there everybody's busy. At the same time though, like there are talent that we know and have walked with and have advocated for and we know their story. we know their family, they know my family.

Like there are real relationships that exist and it it is a bit of a trial and error, but I I think taking the right perspective into every recruiter conversation uh and and having a framework for yourself to to evaluate or to judge or to talk about your expectations or is this something we can agree to? So slowly like leading the conversation, you'll find that recruiters latch on to that type of talent because that's somebody that in an interview would operate in that same way or in a difficult conversation would operate that same way once hired. So yeah, I mean I would I mean Cbass if you want to talk offline, I'm happy to do that too, man.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um yeah, Barrett comes in. Connecting with the with the right recruits is paramount. There's a lot of bad recruiters out there, but the good ones are gold. I 100% killed uh LinkedIn killed my guinea pig. Shut up, Emory. Uh let's see here. Um it's always LinkedIn's fault. Um yeah, when I when when uh Danny comes in here, another ambassador of Torque, uh when I talk to folks who get laid off, they always ask me if I can connect them with recruiters. I love making intros, but I wonder what advice you would give to those who are making the first contact with a recruiter.

Be curious, ask questions. I don't see enough of that where it's like, "Hey, here's my resume. Do you have anything for me?" And it's like, "Oh, like I'll put you in the rolodex, man." Like like yes, I I will. I may not right now, but I think be curious and ask questions where uh and this might be something to to showcase on the Discord of like how do you how do you build a network of quality recruiters and how do you distinguish? We should talk about that. We should talk about Yeah. I feel like I mean that that could be a whole series honestly because like it's nuanced.

It's so nuanced. But like it comes down to your ownership of your predicament or your your anticipated outcome. Yeah. And and that's not to to just blame shift or like victim blame because a lot of times when people need a recruiter, they're in a it's a really tough spot. But all that said, first contact with recruiter is say, "Hey, like h how do how do you prefer to interact with talent?" Like what can I do as a as a talent to stand out in your mind and be at the top of your list? Love that. Right. We we should come up with questions to equip people.

We'll do that. I I will put that on my ever growing to-do list. Um Yeah. No, that sounds great. I think yeah, I I would I would look at recruiters less of find me a job, which is which is kind of what we're building at Torque, right? Which is kind of like the underlying theme where it's like we're trying to give back even if we can't find you a job. Well, like like staffing is so much about timing, right? Like all timing. No recruiter can control timing or budgets of a client. Like we're all in that friction zone, right? Like I mentioned constraints and imperatives.

So, like we all operate in that gray space. That said, like a like a two-way platform like think Uber or think Airbnb or any of the other things that you know have have you know rent houses for rent and people looking for houses to rent like you can like Torque is a place to to more closely not only like build your community, upskill yourself, find people that can advocate for you, but but also be like way more accessible, right? So like that's that's frankly that's I mean you see that everywhere all the big companies are doing that in the staffing industry that platform thing but like the secret sauce is the community because I said this very early in the conversation all the technology in the world might speed up a process or make things more efficient but it will never replace a human helping a human or the need to be like I I'm really discouraged today I got to talk to somebody or does anybody else see this like that that cannot be replaced.

No, cannot be replaced. Uh, let me let let me kind of pivot the conversation a little bit. You know, obviously you've been at Ronstad for a very long time. Um, you know, I folks like Andy are a unicorn. Um, being being able to grind it out from an agency recruiting side as long as Andy has to to kind of rise up the ranks is is incredibly impressive. Like I know the people that watch this who aren't in the staffing industry do not know, but to to be at one place for 14 years out of college is a unicorn. To be honest with you, still been at Veco, things didn't get weird.

But all that being said, I'm I'm here for a reason though, which I'm pumped about. Um, talk about what are some things that you think have been your secret sauce and how you've gotten to where you're at that potentially other people could pick up? when I was fresh out of school and I was looking across industries like you I was one of those people it's like you know you go to school because that's what you're supposed to do and then you don't you exit school not knowing what you want to do. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Um which is like I I think everybody's like villain origin story in terms of like getting into staffing is like I didn't know what I want to do and staffing found me and like that's true.

In that space before starting at Ron's I really discovered like I I wanted I wanted a shot where like my effort could be rewarded where I could be myself and have fun in the workplace and I could genuinely help people. So like I wanted like the return on help cycle to be pretty immediate because I was looking at like financial planning or something. It's like well great like you know you you're going to retire in 40 years. I I'll feel like I help you in 40 years but like I really wanted that return on help to be there. Yeah. Um and like those career anchors like have have remained true.

And so like for me, you know, it kind of sounds silly. Maybe have you haven't heard the like term career anchor in a while, but I would say like I define those and I've been able to latch on and like feel like I'm being, you know, invested in and thriving and I get to exercise those things. And I've added to them over the years, too, where it's like I I I want to lead leaders. I want to build character through the rigor of staffing. Sure. And through the interaction of people and like there's, you know, I want to grow in my business acumen. I want to, you know, obviously lead well.

And, you know, all of those things have remained true here. So, it's it's one of those things where it's like despite uh the headwind of the difficulty of an everchanging, you know, marketplace, an everchanging and growing company, you still get to be yourself and have fun. And and that I think that's been my secret, frankly, is like I've I've always been myself. I heard you say um I heard you say this on a prior talk or show somewhere, but like like this concept of dualism where like I'm one person in work and a different person out of work. Yeah, that has always like really repulsed me.

Yeah. Um and I just want to be myself where I'm at and I've been able to do that here. I love that. I love that. What What What do you think? What are some maybe three um three not adjectives, that's not the right word, like action items, like three kind of core characteristics that people could say, "Andy did this. I want to try to do apply this in in in in my career in my life to to to to have longevity. Oh man, that's a tough one. Uh I don't know. I don't I don't want to like talk about myself too much. No, that you're I'm interviewing you, dude.

I'm giving you permission. I'm giving I know. I want to ask you the same thing, but I won't. Oh, Lord. Stop. Yeah. I don't know if I'll give you three, but the first thing the first thing that comes to mind is like you got to have a higher purpose. Yeah. And a sort of of like, you know, like resultoriented position where like you were you were responsible for producing for having KPIs. That's just about every role out in the the business world. But like you you can't let headwind or you can't let a bad season define who you are. And so I think like that higher purpose love that and and knowing what you're growing towards, who you are, what your worth is despite what you know numbers on a paper say for a week or a day.

Um I was so lucky to find that at a pretty young age. Yeah. And I was really lucky to be able to apply that and like get me through some tough seasons here. Um, but but I mean another thing is is like know your value, know your worth, know who you are, and know that like at the end of the day like if if a if if a team or an organization or even a recruiter you're working with doesn't see that like that's okay. Yeah. It's also their loss like in a humble way, right? Like like not like I'm better than everybody else, but just simply like I know what I'm good at.

I know what I've developed. I know who I am as as a person and and nothing can shake that. Yep. Um, like like I think maybe mindset's a good word to describe that. Yeah. Yeah. All that. Yeah. Like just just having a a a fortified mindset and sense of selfworth. I love that. That's awesome. Um uh it's so funny Andy is cooking. I love it. Um all right. So as we wrap up here um wanted to see if there's anything else that we haven't covered that you want to talk about. I don't know if you want to talk about community power of it. I mean, you talked about a little bit of it.

Um, but I didn't know if there's anything else that maybe popped in your brain that that we weren't able to get to. Um, well, I mean, dude, I think the first time we talked, we were talking about golf and uh I was like, gosh, like this community I was involved in during the pandemic called Random Golf Club. I was like, "This feels so much like RGC." Yeah. And uh like think of I don't know like I live up here in my head and I have like these like incredible comparisons of like what's happening in the market to my life to business world, right? I just I'm I'm a weird dude.

Same. Like I I think about like technology and AI and there's so much fear associated with it and frankly like I think of the pandemic and I think of you know everybody isolating and insulating and how much good comes from a community and I apply that towards you know the unknown in the tech space and all the benefits all the great things that that new technology has to offer for productivity efficiency you know everything. Yeah. Um it's such a balancing act where like if you're not acutely aware of like your head space and your heart space in the face of those types of things whether it's a pandemic or whether it's tech changes and then having a plan from that like very centered place of okay like I'm going to be okay but like how do I make sure that I am preventing not being okay from happening?

Like I think about that kind of stuff all the time. Right. Yeah. Like from a community perspective, like I I believe firmly that having a group of people to do life with Yes. that are related or interconnected with what you do professionally will be one of the biggest game changers for the next five years in our our business. I agree. I agree. Yeah. I mean I I I mean I've said this I said I think I think you're going to see an explosion of community- based roles and organizations over the next three to five years. Yeah. Um I I I feel like there is a burnout of a certain type of marketing.

Uh there's there's I think people are just wanting more um than I think what companies are just offering. Um you know again I pull a lot of my stuff from the DTOC kind of founder space. Yeah. Um, but like again like people, you know, I'm not running a run club because your boy can't run, but when we got I mean, prime example, I'm just going to call what it is. There are eight people getting Torque tattoos at Render. There is a brand that I follow that was not begging. He wasn't begging. And he was just like, "Hey, if anybody gets a tattoo of Cadence," he goes, "I will give them a a year subscription." He's having to give out a year subscription for people to get a tattoo.

There are people who just getting torque gear tattoos because of the heck of it. Yeah. And it's like we're already there and and and and I'm and we're just getting started and I'm super pumped about this. But I think I think it's what you said like I I I legitimately think like people want more than just being sold to. So Well, yeah. I mean like there's a time and place because like like you have a need or a want and you need to get something done, but but like it's kind of like like how do you def how do you put words around the things that like you can't really define like Yeah.

uh like a feeling or a sense of belonging or and like how do you how do you measure that, right? like as an organization like sometimes it just comes down to trust and to time with people and to the quality of relationship and like those things will never change you know and like I I would tell anybody too like if if you are feeling isolated or insulated because of of where you find yourself in the job market be open be vulnerable like like all leadership starts from a place of vulnerability that I think there's so much good that comes from people doing life with other That's replaced.

Love it. That was awesome. That shirt is a banger. I'm assuming you meant uh Yeah. Which one? Which one? Mine. Yeah. Which one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh all right. So, uh wrap up here. Um because now I'm off, believe it or not, not that y'all care, but I'm going to say it anyways. I'm off to have coffee um with a buddy I used to play in a band with who runs back a house for Dan and Shay, like the artist, and he like runs a recording studio. I have not seen him since we have had kids and he's got one kid with the second one on the way and we both grew up and we went to church together when we we were in the fifth grade.

So anyways, that is crazy. We're grabbing coffee. Anyways, all that being said, uh first question, um tea or coffee? Coffee. Hot or cold? Hot. God, really? I knew the question was coming. I really do not shame me for this. No, you're I think it's awful. It's just It's hot. It like blows in your face. It just is. You sweating drinking hot coffee and 90° outside in Atlanta. Don't awful. Don't change something that's not broken, Taylor. It's awful. It It is broken. It makes me sweat. I don't want to sweat when I have liquids. Anyway, all right. I I love that you came prepared. I love that.

Uh, next. At least you didn't say Pepsi like Pat did the other. Will you Did you listen to that episode, Pat Clark? I was like I was like, "Coffee or tea?" And he goes, "Pepsi." I was like, like the whole chat just like went off. I mean, you know what? Like, you do you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Um, next question. Uh, you're not in tech, but I do want to give you the opportunity to give a shout out to other co-workers who are doing really cool stuff at Ronstead. Oh man. Uh, Ronad's Ronad's changed quite a bit from like your traditional ge geographic based staffing model, which I think is smart by the way.

Oh, totally. I I agree. Um, you know, like specialization and relevancy and like being embedded and a like an actual partner with with different companies is amazing. Yeah. Um, you know, my and this kind of sound weird like my my boss I've seen how she navigates uh like all the transformation and change like it it is incredible what we're doing and it is incredible the the people that I see taking on new things that none of us thought of three years ago and like um a buddy of mine Adam put something on LinkedIn yesterday that was just like mind-blowing and and I don't actually see him on LinkedIn that often But like he put something about out about leadership, about like it's not just strategy, it's energy.

And like that that post has been blowing up internally. Like there's there's dozens of people doing great things. There's people on my team that are blowing my mind with the success they're having this year. Love that. the resolve that they're showing like you know like Mary and a bunch of other folks but I don't want to embarrass anybody by giving out names but uh I mean dude like it's inspiring to see in the face of a headwind like harsh harsh headwinds people like choosing to be happy people choosing to show up and bring their full self to work people people seeing the fruits of their lab labor pay off and on the other end like people still that haven't seen it pay off yet like bringing their best version every day like That is that is one of the most inspiring things I can think of.

I love that. I love that. Um uh final question. Show's called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults who don't really have them. What if you go back in time and tell young Andy out of college something? What would it be? Oh man. Uh, all the financial advice that you think you have in your head doesn't help you if it stays in your head. Ah, love that. Love that. Save your money. Love that. There you go. Fantastic. Fantastic. Cool. All right, y'all. Thank you for hanging out with us today. Uh, we are off now.

I'm off next week. We are I'm going to be in Atlanta literally from Monday night until Saturday morning. I'm hanging out with Andy. We'll get some selfies on Tuesday. Pumped for it. Um and uh you know, again, y'all have a great one. For those of you coming to Render, we'll see you next week. And uh Andy, appreciate you, my guy. Stay on so I can say bye to you backstage. But y'all have a good one. And uh we'll see y'all in two weeks.