beyond the match: how torc is redefining the talent industry

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Alrighty. Let me let me alert the troops. Good morning everybody. When I say everybody, I mean nobody because no one's here yet. Um pumped for this episode uh with uh with Mike. Um it's going to be a good one. Uh hold on. Let me do a All right, we got that. Got the text. All right, sweet. Awesome. Cool. All right. Good morning, everybody. I am not in Nashville. I am in Atlanta for Render ATL. Um, I am at my hotel room. Actually, I'm actually not even in my hotel room if I'm being honest. I'm in my colleague's hotel room because I had to check out in mine because I'm in transit.

Um, but uh excited for this episode. This is a little different episode. uh a little different live and I'm I'm really pumped uh to have the legend himself Mike Morris on the call. Um we are gonna talk about what we're doing at Torque and how we're redefining the industry and in my mind Mike uh Mike's been at it longer than I have. Um admittedly, but in the 14 years Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mine's fake. Mike's Mike's real. Um, and we're going to talk about how we are literally redefining the industry. I I I truly think that I'm incredibly bullish on what we're doing.

I'm grateful to be here. Um, but you guys hear enough for me yapping on the internet. Um, and I I I I want you to hear straight from the source. And so, uh, Mike Morris, heads up, is the CEO of Torque, um, and co-founder. And, uh, today's gonna be a great episode. Please say hey in the chat. I always tell folks, this is a networking session, right? We networking has changed. You know, Mike and I before we went live, we talked about, you know, what does community look like? Um, both digital and in person, and we're trying to do that at scale. And and one of the things I'm so bullish about is is having the community team always live, always connecting with people.

Please send Mike a DM, connect with Mike, like, yo, saw you on guidance counselor 2.0, saw you on the live today. Um and uh but again we don't know if you're watching unless you tune in um and comment. So please say hey. Uh would love to hear from you. Um and uh uh Mike you shot me that. Is is is that your Twitter? Is that your Twitter? Yeah. Nice. All right. I'm gonna throw that to connect with Mike um on Twitter. So here is this. Um we got some people tuning in again. Please continue to say hey. would love to hear from that. Mike, I actually hung out at the mothership yesterday at Ronstad, the the big office in Atlanta.

Shout out Andy Hutzel in the chat. We had lunch. Fantastic. Uh and uh I went to go visit the Ronstad office. It was fantastic. Also, shout out Andy for the swag. I appreciate you, my friend. I appreciate you. Um before we dive in again, want to get to everybody who's tuning in. Jason, it's good to see you. Jeff, uh another we have we have two Torres's um tuning in. So, I love it. Uh Tay, it's good to see you again. Andy, it's good to see you as well. Um, let's see here. David, it's good to see you. I love it. Um, awesome. Definitely want to connect with the man.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, a few housekeeping things before we get started this morning. First off, um, check out everything we have going on our community. Mike and I were having a chat backstage. We got a lot going on. We got a lot going on. And, uh, if you go to torque.com community, you can check out everything we have going on. Mike, I I don't know. I I mean, this is a little bit more on your time, more more of your speed. Remember like before streaming happened, you had like guides on the TV, you know, you had to like select what you wanted to watch. We have that.

If you go to torque.com community, we literally have a TV guide of all of the live streams that we have every week. Um, we have about 10 live streams a week for you to get connected with. Um, so please go check that out. Also, this this episode is highlighting um just a wonderful report um that that that we were a part of with um SIA. Um and you can read more about the report if if you're more of a reader. I I'm not a reader. I'm more of a picture book type of guy. Um but if you're a reader, please check this out. It's it's very indepth.

There is a lot of data um and kind of dives into more of what we're doing. Um so, please check that out. is gonna be great. Um, and we got a few more people. Ashley's good to see you. Dan, it's good to see you. We got the h we got the crew today. All right, enough of me yapping. Mike, let's give the people what they want, man. Who are you? A little bit about you, and then we'll dive into kind of what we're doing in the industry. All right. Yeah. No, great psych to be here. Um, and, uh, before we get too far, tell me about this story I heard about a tattoo session yesterday.

What is this all about? Yeah. So, so it's it's really I mean it's pretty special, right? I mean we've been at this community building thing now for about 10 months. Um I think uh you know I was telling Mike I watch all these direct to consumer vlogs like these founder le vlogs and they're like get a to get a tattoo we'll give you a product. Listen we don't necessarily have a product. We try to get you a job. We try to get back to you. Um but there the the ambassador team uh organized shout out Jordan Wallace of Ronstad in Dallas. She's the one that like organized this.

And there's a there was eight of us that got Torque tattoos. So, the gear is on my body. The gear is on my body. Inspired. All right. We got eight others. I'm going to post a picture. Um Jason in chat got his too. It's right on his arm. So, listen. You know what? Some people we So, we we've already gotten the vibe of like, hey, you guys got you guys got some cult vibes. Just like listen, there's a very fine line between cult and community and we're going to tow that line, dude. Very close. For sure. If there if that is that is community that's the definition of community juice right there.

Like that is unbelievable. Yeah. Eight people with torque torque So, um I've been at this community building thing for 23 years. So, it's been a long freaking time and uh stumbled upon it sort of. So, um background software developer myself. So, I relate more with the the community and the talent than I do with anything else. Um came out of uh grew up in Boston, came out of uh Boston College High School, went to Boston College, computer science and physics and got into programming. Um loved it. did did consulting and then I got I got lucky and I got on this early on on this train um for this company Top Coder which I think in in many ways kind of defined this idea of a social network of um like-minded talent of of informed into a community and I will tell you like I never turned back not a single point in my career did I ever think will I ever be in a business that is not founded on the basis of a of a talent community.

Um, and so that's what I've done. You know, I've done I've done Top Coder. We uh wi with obviously my uh my co-founder Dave Messenger, the CTO. Um, he's also, you know, we've been in this together for that long, like kind of going down this path. And uh and it really has always been about how do we build a um a federated you know marketplace to send opportunity to the best talent around the globe. We never thought of it in terms of any sort of geographic boundaries. We never thought of it in terms of any sort of biases. We tried to break the the idea of like a pedigree exists like hey if you go to an IV league you're better right and like really make it merit-based and that was the rewarding part of this business model is when you see that work and you see that you're able to give opportunities to talent that just wouldn't have had that chance if they if if a platform like you know back in the day Top Coder and today Torque didn't exist.

Um, so that's really been my, you know, I mean, it's kind of corny saying it, but it's kind of been my life's work in many ways is like building these community models. And, uh, I do I think that the unique part of what what we've done here and Taylor, I think you're the prime example of this and your tattoo is is the exclamation point on top of it, is we have a talent first, community first mindset, right? If we don't build everything, every experience and every interaction and every every part of our business model um founded in like creating a great talent and community experience, we will eventually be non-existent.

Like that's how we look at it. Like we have to have that as our core of our of everything we think about. I always say like you know for me that's what I need to be thinking about when I wake up in the morning and when I go to bed at night, right? like making sure that that part of the business is flowing. Um, and it's hard, you know, as you, you know, do as you, you know, you're running a company and you got to worry about uh spreadsheets and all that other crap that comes with running a business, but it's uh when you see the effect that it can have on people, and I mean, I'll tell you, in all of my years, there was a tattoo here or there, but Yeah, I know.

I know. And it's pretty special, right? And that's why, you know, again, I mean, this a little bit of a love fest for sure, if you want to call it. Um, uh, but I mean I mean, that's why I'm grateful to be here because that's been my mantra, right? Is like, listen, I think staffing is broken. I think the staffing talent industry is broken. Um, and I think like traditional staffing talent space is, hey, we're going to look at just the person right in front of us and we're going to place them for that job and then that's it. Right there. There there there's no there's nothing else for that person who may not have been a fit.

And and and I think which is it's so I'm so grateful to be here is that we have somebody like you who founded the company. you and mess uh Dave um both understand that which is which is very unheard of and I think it's I think too I want to ask you this because I think it's a very different mindset. I think a lot of people listen the clients pay the bills. We get that right. But like but having this community first mindset like h how would you how do you tell to your other leadership peers in the talent space where it's like listen it's going to come back to you if you invest in your community not just the people who are paying the bills.

I mean, ask any one of your clients, did, hey, do you want us to spend more time cultivating a great talent community or do you want us spending time good, you know, building better decks for you to look at? And and you know, I mean, that that that's a very brash example, but sure, every one of our clients would be aligned with the mission of focus on the talent first because that's what they that's that is what they're looking that's what they're looking for. So it it is um it's not a misalignment a a misalignment a misalignment is a lot of what we started the basis of of of the you know this journey started on like we we didn't like the fact that there wasn't any sort of um you know you leave college and you have no no concept of a class rank.

There's no way to tell like hey who's the best talent out there. In a community model, the best talent floats to the top and the best talent goes to the top and the best talent gets the majority of the opportunities and it's our job to build that into our community. Um, and our clients love that. That is very much aligned to them. And I'm just gonna give you a very a very uh you know the the old old old way was you you you grabbed a person and you put them in a seat in a keyboard and they build hourly and honestly the longer they took them to do something the more money they generated.

It was that's a misalignment, you know, and ours is like, hey, our mission is to find the best, the most productive, the most energized, the like that we're trying to build a community of like-minded people that all want to rise to the top together. And that's that's a um that's a viral uh network effect, right? If you do that, that's that's what you guys are doing every day. And it's very very different from the old model. So uh and and I have to say you're right like the old staffing industry and and how different we we are from it. But I have to say kudos to Ronstad like and their their head CEO S um he he's seen this he sees this digital transformation.

He's doing it across the organization, a $25 billion um company globally and uh and and hats off to Greg Pragleer, the chief executive of uh Ronto Digital because they see this and that's why they acquired Torque a year ago and like so it gave us the chance of now applying everything we're doing on the biggest stage there is on the planet, right? Robots's the number one employer globally. Over 700,000 people put to work a year. Like they're the largest employer of talent on the planet. And um and we're part of Ronto Digital obviously. And and it's it's the right stage for us to be on for us as a team, for us as a technology platform, and most importantly for our community.

Absolutely. Uh Romero from our matching team. Real real tattoos. Romero. Yeah. Yeah. They're not they're not like fadeaway tattoos. I have the torque and care of my body for the rest of my life. So, there you go. Um, also I want to give a shout out to my buddy Dan. He's tuning in. It's the best Florida Gator podcast in the land. I'm not a Gator fan, but Dan, it's good to see you. I'm glad you're here. Um, you know, I I want to highlight Mray. Uh, Michael, uh, he's he's a part of our group. Um, again, I I appreciate the kind words, my friend. Um, that means a lot.

Uh, for sure. So I I I do want to ask you this, Mike, because I want to I want to differentiate. I want to kind of dive into who Torque is and what Torque is. So you've mentioned Ronstad, we've mentioned the community, but we do have a really cool platform as well. So So can you just kind of like tell the folks who may be still a little confused, how does it all work between Ronstad, Torque as a community, and Torque as a platform? Can you break that down? Yeah, let let's start with um let's start with the old world. What what it used to be, right?

Um and so what it used to be is in the staffing industry was made up of recruiters and recruiters would reactively they would get job orders and they would go out and find the resources to fill those job orders. Um and the industry, you know, it was a vibrant growing industry for decades and it's still, you know, it's still it's still a very viable industry. It's big, a lot of money. Um, but it's very reactionary and it's very um, you know, uh, it's it's dependent on whatever is whatever happens that day. It's not a lot of, you know, you don't you don't have a lot of, uh, there's not a it it's reacting to the job orders that you're getting is the strategy to run the business and how efficiently you can do that.

Now, when we flip this over, we say, "Okay, we want to have a community of talent that is ready to go, prevetted, we have a relationship with, and we're confident that we can immediately put them to work when the right opportunity comes into place." So, that's what we needed a technology platform for, right? We needed that platform to make it a seamless connection for talent to to clients. Um, and and what it really is, it's it's a social network. So, we all have our social networks that we participate in, right? You know, I'm I'm older, so I spend my time on Facebook most, Instagram second, and I attempt to do Snapchat just to stay in touch with my my teenage kids.

Um, but we're all in our social networks and and and everybody probably also has a LinkedIn uh profile, but what's missing is is a social network for your job, right? a social network for your income, for your for, you know, where you're going to find your next career opportunity. And I liken it to, you know, um I think companies used to fill this gap and and frankly it became too expensive and I think, you know, the pressures of Wall Street and stock prices and that stuff in my opinion probably led to a lot of companies not investing as much in their people. So if you think like back in the day, GE is a great example.

It's a fantastic company today, but they they were the example of you you you go into GE and you go on a career path, right? You go on a six-month rotation, you learn all these different skills and you kind of set on a career path and they heavily invest in that career path because they want you there for the rest of your life. They want you there to spend your career with them and learn as much as you can and be valuable to you and be valuable to them. and they did a great job of it. Many companies did the same thing. There's not a lot of that that happens anymore because people don't join a company for a 20-year career anymore.

No. But what they do join is they join a tribe, right? And a tribe like in our case I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. You might be like you might be sales salesforce might be your tribe or you know AWS might be your tribe you know or or it might be um you know uh but it's it's it's a this is the path that you set yourself on and yeah you're tied to that ecosystem of let's say like you know AWS right and you're you're an AWS certified developer and you know um you know or you're a Salesforce MVP you're tied to that ecosystem But what's missing is where I think we come into play and and it's the platform to finding these job opportunities and building your career path.

Right? So like that's what I want Torque to be is like hey join us help let us help you find your first job but let let us help you find where is your second third fourth fifth tenth opportunity going to come from and how do we get you from where you are today to where you want to be right and and and show you that path now like a year ago before the acquisition we had limited amount of data to really do that powerfully right? Like but now you know we have we've got so much data that we can show career paths for people and and the AI that we built in our platform to be able to kind of unlock like hey you know and this is going to be we're releasing some of this if you're members of our community you'll see this your profile will now now start showing hey here is your opportunity to to take your job to the next level here's the new new job offers that you're not quite ready for but if you had these these things if you're ready for it.

So I think that we are going to fill that gap platforms like torque in in that career partner that career coach and we want you with us whether you're you're you're working for one of Ronstad or Torque's clients or you're working for somebody else. We still want you part of our community. You're valuable to us. Um and we think we're going to be valuable to you. Um if it's not today, it'll be tomorrow. So Torque, so Torque is the community, right? It's the overarching community and Torque is the platform, right? So talk about, you know, I one of the things I find fascinating with kind of our platform is that and this gets a little bit behind the scenes here, a little peel behind the onion, if you will.

Um, but you know what what is our platform doing from a internal recruiting perspective? I mean, I feel like it's speeding up, you know, allowing us to find more viable candidates faster, but I feel like it's also letting us letting the recruiters actually be more advisors. I mean, c I mean, c can you talk to that? Yeah. um that it's it's a great it's a great great uh comment and that actually is the the SIA report that was worked on by John Schroeder of SAI great researcher and John Windsor of open assembly that SIA report really culminates this as you know it's the transformation of Ronto digital from traditional staffing model to a platform and community-based marketplace and and that that that transition, you know, let let's think about how what we're what we're trying to accomplish.

Um, we're trying to make the friction between talent and companies to find each other go away. Yeah. Right. And and you think of like the origins of torque. We always said like, hey, we're the physics of work because physics of work, physics is all about how do you make things apply leverage to things, make things easier, reduce friction, right? That's what that's what we wanted to do. And um and so uh it it allows our recruiters who used to spend most of their time, I'm not kidding you, pushing a process, right? Now they can spend less of their time. So we're building in our platform this this concept of a digital twin, right?

Where we have a an AI based recruiter. Now that AI based recruiter is not meant to replace the recruiter. It's meant to do all of the things, the manual processes, the things that we can do via data versus um versus having to, you know, manually a single person doing it. We can do it for them and allow them to now spend their time advising their talent on the best job for them or the best fit for them and advising their t their clients on the best talent for them, right? And that that's a powerful business model. Um and that's where we're betting where the industry is heading because um you you have a you know you have uh large in large companies they still are looking for that advisory role when you go to the doctor's office do you want to just you know interact with a you know a screen no you want the guy to sit there and say to you hey you know this is what's going on if I were you I would do this this and this great thanks for explaining it that that I appreciate that this is the way this is the way you know I'm looking to go you know on the back end he's armed with all this data and all this all these insights that he's given but he's a relatable person that you can build a relationship with and build trust with and so that's what our platform is looking to free up the time for our recruiters that they spend more of their time on this hightouch high IQ high EQ relationship with our talent our clients Yeah, everything you're saying may sounds like it should be like normal knowledge, but it's not, which I think is fascinating.

Any thoughts on that? Like like I feel like like I feel like this isn't hard to do, but we're doing it and no one else is doing it. Change change is hard. And again, like kudos to Ronstad's leadership team for not being afraid to change like you know it's it is they're they're doing it across all their business lines and um and it's uh it it it only comes with two things. you have to have that top down um leadership and vision and you have to have the bottom up buy in which means that it has to actually work right the only way you get those two things is it has to actually work and um and and so when you look at like change um it's it's nothing new you know put my consulting hat on for a second every transformation is three things it's you got to solve for people process and technology Right.

Technology is the easiest part. Like to be honest with you, technology is the easiest. Um the processes are also pretty easy, right? Like you know, like you can figure that stuff. It's the people part that's hard. And you you've got to be able to drive that. So for us, you know, we've we've trained 235 uh recruiters to change the way they work, what they knew every day when they woke up and what they did to change it. And it's a journey. It doesn't happen overnight, right? In fact, our first attempt was to switch the big switch and have everybody change and that that didn't work.

So then we did it in smaller cohorts and that worked amazing. And we got, you know, more smaller cohorts and listened to people and made sure that we were taking into account their experiences and feeding that back. And now it's like, okay, you you've taken step one in the change. Now there's step two. Now there's step three. So, and as we do that, that transformation um is going to be really powerful. Now, I'm looking at other companies out there. Some of them are trying to do it. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. It's really hard. Some of them are trying to they're saying, "No, you know, we're not going to we're going to leave our company running the way it is.

We're going to go build this other thing and we're going to disrupt ourselves." That that's a fun like dinner topic to talk about. And it's fun. Like you're with your buddies and you're like, "Hey, we're gonna blow up our own company. It's gonna be great." You know, we're gonna it's not gonna work. Just telling you like it's not it's just not it it is not feasible. You're going to piss off a lot of customers and talent in doing that. Um, so I think the strategy that we're taking is very difficult and very hard, but at the end of the day, when you look back after you've done something very difficult and very hard, you almost never regret doing it.

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I have a few engineering leaders in the chat. Seth is one of them. He's a dear friend of mine. Dad, uh, fellow dads in tech uh, guy in Nashville. We have my buddy Colin Lord who's a senior engineering manager. Um, let me ask you this. Let's switch the conversation a little bit to let's say Colin hits me up or Seth hits me up uh once Seth finds a job. If anybody wants a incredible engineer, Seth is looking. Seth's a part of our community as well. Um, what's the cell and not even the cell, let's just call it matter of fact, what's what's the benefit of like using torque to help service your engineering team both from a geographical perspective, but a speed perspective, an accuracy perspective?

because I think the way we do things internally and submit profiles instead of resumes and all that jazz is is awesome. Can you speak to uh how we can help service our clients faster uh and more efficiently? Yeah. So, um I'll steal one I'll steal one from Pat Griffin, uh our CRO. Um he he has this thing where he likes to say, you know, one of the values of our model is we're kind of like TSA pre. like, hey, we're we're we're pre-checking you, right? And um and so so uh when a client comes with a need, we can give that we have immediate talent availability like it is is we're very quickly can sign you up at the right part.

But there there's there here's here's how it so you think when we don't like I said at the beginning, we don't we don't look at geography. I mean, remember when I when we when you were being hired? Like, great. I don't care where you live. Like, airport and you have access to an Ethernet cable. Like, that's all that I care about. Like, um, and and I truly feel that that's that's where the world is heading. Um, I love the concept of digital nomads. If I didn't have a bunch of kids, I would be a digital nomad myself. and and um and so um you know maybe I will be at some point but I think that you know when when you look at the this community model we're our it's very advanced um it's very advanced right so like you know we have to bring our customers along and and so let me just give you the example okay I'm a technology executive I'm based out of Boston and I've really like to have an engineer that's within 30 minutes of of my office just in case I need to whiteboard with them.

And so like, you know, that's um that's what I'm thinking. I'm think it's important. Okay, great. You know, and a good recruiting firm will go find you that engineer. They will uncover rocks and they'll go look in different places and they'll go find that person or they'll have their network and they'll they'll go find it. But I can say to you, I'm like, "Well, hey, you know, just for a second, right? How about I just get you the the best engineer in the like the top 100 in the world in your time zone with great communication skills? What do you think about that? You know, do you just want somebody that has the skill or do you want the best you can find, you know, within your time zone?

Which is more important to you? And so, um, so you start to bring people on these journeys and they start to think a little bit differently. I've never cared where my teammates are located. In fact, sure, the more spread out they are, the better. Um, and and you know, it's we live in a world where we don't work, you know, 9 to5. Um, we're constantly connected. Uh, we don't need to be speaking every 5 seconds. Uh, you know, I I believe thoroughly that with our profiles, right? So in our integrations with with platforms like GitHub with our codalike product with you know all the innovation we're doing in our profiles we're going to know more about each other talent in our platform than than you you traditionally knew about the you know 50 people that worked in cubes outside your desk.

Um, so and there's just one one other thing I want I want to state is like the model that we're trying to build is is one where the talent we want to reward talent for things like productivity, right? Like we want to reward talent and that that's another thing that like it's part of the the mindset of the company since the beginning. But hey, if if you're able to do your job and get it done efficiently and and get everything created, you know, you earn your ability to have more time, right? You know, you can like that's the mindset. That's a growth mindset in this industry.

Like, you know, building an environment. Um I remember working for a company and uh and they spent like two weeks trying to solve this problem and and they couldn't solve it, right? and they had probably had, let's say, 10 consultants. So they, you know, I'd say they spent over $100,000 trying to solve this problem. And we went out to our community in the way that we do. And we're like, "Hey, anybody know how to solve this problem." And within two hours, we solved it. And we paid the person, I don't know, two 250 bucks, something like that. And a comment back from the the the person at the company was, "Hold on a second.

You paid him $125 an hour? Like that's way above what we would normally pay." And I'm like, "You just burned $100,000 trying to solve something and didn't do it." And and it's like that's the kind of mindset that we need to to change. um you know and it'll it'll take time and you but you'll you'll start to see it happen and enterprises you know are they know it they're they're slow to change you know they're slow to look at things like this freelancer and you know the freelancer economy and um and you know we believe heavily like hey whether you're a W2 contingent temp worker a freelancer whatever is the right work format for you as a talent and whatever is the right work format for the client is what we want to make happen.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think one of the things too I because I want to bring this I want to drive this home. We talk about our profiles that we send, right? Like we're not out here just slinging resumes. Oh yeah. No, I mean a profile is a is a a profile is a living and breathing thing. If if we could, you know, I we should get a big logo here, like, you know, an X through resumes like Salesforce did. No software, right? No resumes. And the reason why our profiles are powerful, like we don't want you to have to spend a ton of time maintaining them on our system.

We want to integrate with the systems that you already use today to maintain your information. Like, hey, if you use LinkedIn to to track your work history, great. We'll pull we'll pull your work history from LinkedIn. If you if you code and you're uh on GitHub, like you don't have to tell us everything you're doing and how you're doing it. We'll just give us access to your metadata. We'll pull in your GitHub stats and be able to make you look like as good as you are, right? We'll be able to take all those stats and say, "Hey, here's what you've actually done." Um is another product and we'll continue to do these integrations where the profile is a living and breathing thing.

Like what like your other social networks, right? You don't show up to your Facebook feed and look at the same thing every day. You know, it's constantly evolving and changing and and that's how that's how the torque system should work also. So, you you guys will be seeing a lot of uh I'll give a quick shout out to our our R&D team, Dave and Lane and Ken and their their entire organization. The releases that you're going to see over the next, you know, weeks and months. um updated UX on the profile. I mean it it's awesome. Awesome. I mean I mean like we're like we're like we're trying to go I mean we are trying to redefine and that's that's why how to redefine talent is like we're trying to get away from resumes like we're trying to we're trying to turn this whole thing upside down which is crazy.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's a it is a I mean, I think I think a big, you know, um, so the the f the five pillars of Ronto, two of them are amazingly fit with, uh, with torque. So, one is this concept of special specialization, right? It's actually three of them. So specialization is one where where we we believe heavily in that like we we should be able to you know there was a a a time and a day where a generalist was the best way to get a job. Know a bunch of things be able to go in and do do a lot of things pretty good.

Um if you want to specialize in something platforms are the way to go like we can find you. you want to do data science in Python in financial services, we should be able to find you that job, right? Because we're a big global platform and we have, you know, tens of thousands of job orders per month coming through us. We should be able to find you those opportunities. The second one is uh curated communities, right? So like curated communities, that does not mean a list of resumes. That does not mean a database of names. That does not mean uh access to LinkedIn Navigator and I can go ping people.

A curated community is what you're building. A curated community is people that you know that are going out and you don't have to all get tattoos, but it's pretty freaking Yeah, tattoos not required. Yeah, I want to make that bundle. You don't have to go. And then and then the third one is um is immediate talent availability. And that's what our clients get because of all the stuff that we're doing, right? That's the leverage that they get. That's the efficiency that they get. Immediate talent availability. And and so if you can't if you don't see it now, you know, then, you know, take your sunglasses off, right?

It's the old world where I go ask for something and you go out and you find it, right? in the new world where I go ask for something and it's on the shelf because we've already curated, we already have the relationship, right? We already know how great you are. We have all the tests, not just how great you tell us you are. We have all these other data sources to show how great you are. And um and that is a complete change in the industry. And it's way more efficient for the talent because you're only going to get access to the jobs that we we think are a perfect fit for you, right?

Versus having to interview for a bunch of jobs. Like, no, you're just going to get matched to the ones that you're a perfect fit for. So, don't waste your time with the ones that you're not. And uh it's a it's better for our for our clients because we're going to be able to give them the best talent faster. Um and it's better for us because now it's this it's this um automated you know digital world that we live in. It's much more efficient and we can look at it. You know I'm amazed by the stuff that our our team is building like we we have governance like things you know we feel really strongly about to have um you know equity in our AI and our matching and we've built that into it.

We built the governance tools into it and you can only do that if you have a platform technology approach. Yep. Absolutely. And I do want to highlight too as we kind of wrap up here. I think I think there is this I I know you know we're actively talking boots on the ground talking to developers talking about our product what's going on and and I think there has been a little concern of like hey I don't want your AI to do all the matching right like I still want a person you know still making sure that I'm a fit. Can you speak to that and just just give the give the assurance to the community and to folks watching now in the future that like we're not just like throwing your resume in some AI thing like we're always going to have people involved in the process.

Yeah. Like I said that that digital twin recruiter model that I speak about it like I will say it again and again is not to replace the recruiter. It's to give them a sidekick. Yes. Okay. It's to have that assistant with them because we feel so strongly that our our experience and expertise in the human in the loop element that we bring is what is going to make you know the the the you know the global corporations that we work for trust us and that's what's going to make them want to work with us and that's going to want to make their talent want to work with us.

Um, you know, we're we're not we're not a matching. It's this is not a uh dating site where we're just providing matches. Okay. Where I did meet my wife, by the way. I met her on Tinder for the record, but Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we're not Yeah. Yeah. We're we're not swiping left or right and that's it. Yeah. No. So there they're as much the human element in our business is is very important and is here to stay and and it was always designed that way. So as for as far as we thought about what we would build inside of torque, it always was centered around the um the human in the loop element, that expertise, that relationship, that trust um that we will have.

Now we'll we'll make it as efficient as we can to help you know both our internal associates and our clients and our talent, but uh but it will always have that element. Yeah, absolutely. any anything you anything else that popped in your brain, Mike, as we wrap up here that you want to highlight or did I do a good job moderating? We're good to go. You're you're unbelievable. Yeah, you're uh we could we could go another, you know. Oh, dude. Yeah, dude. The juice is flowing like the the interaction. Um we need to hear from you guys more. Like our entire direction of you know what we're doing.

Um, you guys should be driving it. Like the community uh the community needs to be needs to be speaking and and telling us, you know, what they like, what they don't like. Um, we're not going to do everything right. We're gonna we're going to make mistakes. We're going to make them pretty fast, though, right? So, we'll roll out new things and new features. We need to hear from you guys. Um, and and be brutally honest. That that's the that's the way to go. I always say like, "Hey, you know, I don't want to hear all the stuff we're doing great." Like, we we know that, but I want to hear all the stuff we're not doing great.

Like, that's the stuff that is valuable for us to hear and we appreciate it. Um, so yeah, I love this. We're high-tech, we tight touch. That's on Mars this morning. Whoever LinkedIn user that is, I love that. Love that. Also, Mike, so the tattoo guy yesterday, he told Jason Torres on the community team this. He goes the torque gear while it is physics. He goes there's an intersection of the gear. He goes that's where people come to meet and that's where people connect. He goes like the the the the middle. He goes there's like one, two, three, four, five, six panels and they all come and converge at one place and that is what torque is.

I was like we need to pay him for that and work that into marketing because that's fantastic. I want to show you something. Well, two seconds. Here we go. I love it. The the origin of the torque torque logo. Oh, really? You got the sketches and the gear um sketched out on uh there there's your concept of meeting in the middle. Amazing. Amazing. Pretty cool. Um yeah, pretty neat. That's awesome. All right, so Mike, enough enough uh professional talk. I have some heavyhitting fun questions I always ask every guest at the end of every show. First question, coffee or tea? Coffee. Hot or cold? Hot.

Ah. Dang it. It's disgusting. I think hot coffee is disgusting. It's just hot liquid, Mike. It's hot liquid. You can't taste the coffee. It's just hot. Yeah. Gross. Anyways, that is that is uh that is my hot take there. No pun intended. Next question I always ask folks. Uh I want to give I always always want to give shouts to the community, right? Um who in your network either at Ronstad or just even in in in your connections in in other industries or whatever is doing really cool stuff that you want to give Wow. I know everybody's like, "Taylor, you need to prep me on this." But I was like, "No." I was like, "I I want the names that come immediately to your to your mind." Ken Collins, talk about it.

He's uh he's driving our AI strategy. Um he's he's iterating fast. He's he's the epitome of responsible technology. And it it you don't realize um that somebody's doing it right until you until until you see what they produced. Like it's like you know and and and looking at the stuff that Ken's been working on on behalf of our community. It's uh you know he it's really really impressive. So shout shout out to Kent. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Uh Mike, Mike, we may need those uh designs. I think some other people want the OG concept for a tattoo. So you we we may need to work on those and get those.

That's a potential tattoo. Everybody's just gonna get tatted up. Th This is escalating really fast. I'm not going to lie. I did not plan on this whatsoever. So I definitely want send the pictures in if there are some. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. All right. Next next question. And really final question here. And again, thank you all for um tuning in. Uh if if this episode resonated with you, please share it. Right? Like I said, I mean, this is I think what we're doing and really having the ability to hang out with Mike for a little bit um is special and and if you like what we're doing, please share this on LinkedIn.

Um but you know, Mike, I always ask folks, so my podcast is called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school and high school, but we don't really have them as adults, right? and and and you know my my guidance counselor thesis is is really the thesis of what Torque is. We want to help people in their career. So, uh if you were to go back in time, young Mike, young Mike, like hockey playing Mike, I you still play hockey, but like young Mike without the back problems and stuff and the knee problems. Um what piece of career advice would you tell young Mike?

Um it's pretty simple. It's uh mentors and it's it's on your theme of guidance counselors like you mentors are something that are um you pick up along the way and the the hard part of mentors is is identifying them. Yeah. And then two, never letting them go. And that that that's what you got to do in in my like there's people in my career I look back on that I lost touch with that I never should have because I still attribute so much of who I am to the things that they taught me and I should have kept them. And I learned I learned, you know, I I learned probably halfway through my career that hey, and I actually learned because I got somebody that was my mentor and he never let go of me and it just taught me the value of that um relationship and uh that's Chris Barbin, right?

So we started talking, you know, every every six weeks 12 years ago and we still do it. Wow. And it's like and and it's and so having seen what that's done for me and my career and you know I mean your career, your personal life, like you know it's so valuable. Um I I would say that you know you need to identify everybody has mentors. You've got them in your family, in your personal life. You've got them in your work life. You've got them in in your network of people. um find your mentors and set up a regular touch base with them and and you know it and sometimes you take more and sometimes you give more um and that's that but that's the definition of a relationship.

So that's what I would say is uh is is build your stable of mentors through your career which is a great plug because in July we are launching a mentor mentee program within the tour community. Um we have 56 mentees signed up. We have 16 mentors signed up. Um, so we that this was totally on stage by the way. Um, and uh I didn't know that by the way. This wasn't uh this wasn't stage. Yeah. Yeah. So we are launching that um we were going to launch it this month but just too much going on with Render um and just all the events. So yeah, go sign up if you want to be a part of the mentor me.

If you want a mentor, sign up for the mentor. It's on the torque.com community site. So please go sign up for that. Um, and uh, we're going to start that and and we're going to facilitate that. Throughout the course of my career, I've had a bunch of senior devs that want to give back, but just don't have the mechanism to give back and the vehicle to give back and we want to provide that vehicle. So, um, please go sign up torque.com community. Uh, otherwise, yes, Seth, fullcolor tats are in play. Like I said, this is getting out of hand quickly, but I love it. Um, but again, thanks all for tuning in.

We appreciate it. Mike, stay on so I can say bye to you backstage. But again, share this. Um, again, we're thankful for everybody who showed up. Thankful for the community. Um, and and like Mike said, please give us feedback. Drop in our Discord. We'd love to have you. You guys have a great rest of your Wednesday. And, uh, we'll see y'all when I get back from Render. Oh, we are going to go live in the Discord. Me and Jason Torres are going live in the Discord right after this uh, to talk about day one of Render. So, we'll see you all in the Discord. But, you have a good one, Mike.

Thank you, my friend.