all things open 2026 - the current state of the tech market

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So it's really funny. I talked a lot and I walk a lot. So I'm going to walk all along the stage. A few things. Todd, I thought this was seven minutes and then in your last email you said ten and then you just said fifteen to twenty. So that's good. Also, I was speaking in October. So that's cool too. I'm just kidding. I didn't know that. I'm just messing with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so really excited to be here. You know, I'm gonna make, I'm gonna say this, this is okay, our partnership together. And it is, it's, yeah, all right, cool. So, just gotta make sure the boss is happy.

I don't wanna work for him, but he needs to be a friend of mine. So basically, you know, one of the things that we do at Ronset Digital Power by Torque is we are really reinventing what the staffing industry is doing. The reality of the situation is most staffing companies talk to you and they go, bye. And you never hear from them again. Right? The reality of the situation is we were trying to solve that at Rassette Digital Power by Torque. And so I want to, you know, again, clarify, when you signed up back there, what I'm going to do is me personally, I'm going to pass the list of everybody who signed up to our recruiters in Raleigh and they are going to get connected with you.

I want to let you know that Rassette Digital also receives hundreds of jobs across the US every single week and we want to help you get matched to those jobs so that's another part of the platform. So we hire all things under the technology umbrella design, creative, marketing, project management, engineering, you name it if you can spell tech go sign up. One thing I'm really excited about this part in Utah is you know I approached Todd a while back one of our directives that Ross said digital is to be like hey we have a lot of opportunities in the in North Carolina area, specifically obviously Charlotte Raleigh, and we want to build community.

I was like, great, sounds good. The first guy I thought of was this guy right here. So I called Todd, I said, top, this is bad. I have been summoned to spend money. Would you like money? And he goes, I would love it on me. I said, great. So basically, we're really excited to partner as the official husband. Partner with Todd and all things open for the next three meetups, Ron Seth to work is going maybe the primary sponsor. I will not be at all three because my wife will kill me if I travel that much. So our ambassadors back there, Pat, Chris, Robert Cameron, Danny Castro, if you have not met them, then walk around with the shirts on, please say, hey to them.

We're gonna be at the next three meetups. I'm super excited to obviously do that partnership with you and then we will be there in October. Cool, that's my sales pitch. Now let's get to why you guys are here. Stay in the tech market. If you wanna scan that code down there, That's how you get connected with me. I'm on all social media platforms. If you want to email me, email me, but feel free to scan that. I'd love to connect with you. I'm on Instagram. I talk about my show, my family. I live on a farm. We'll get to that in a second. It's a lot of fun.

All right. Let's get into it. Oh, not that. Give me a second. Oh, not that either. Yeah, yeah, we're getting out of it. All right, so if you have not yet scanned, scan that please so I can come back. This is how I get paid. sign up please. I feel like I'm the person in front of the Walmart with the bell. Please sign up. Okay. Alright. Everybody sign up please. If you make my boss happy. Mark Bosma will be happy. Alright. Who am I? It's born February 2nd, 1989. My mom and dad love each other so much anyways. Alright so I'm by hockey. I am a hockey player.

Our team wins a lot in Nashville so I love that. I have a beautiful family shout to my wife, my supportive wife for letting me travel and supporting me from the home front. I have three beautiful kids, Ari, Aussie and Shiloh. Six, two and seven months. I could not be more excited to I'm just sleeping on a hotel bed tonight because my kids have been sleeping. So after this, I'm going to bed. And then I also live on a 15 acre farm, 25 minutes north of Nashville. I have three horses, a venture donkey named Dudley, a corny, a cat. It gets a little out of hand.

And then I am VP of global community at torqued.dev within Ron set digital, which basically I have the best team in the world. Shut up, we're on out. Roxy, if you do not know Roxy, she's amazing. She's our death manager. This is for our operations coordinator. She's fantastic. All right, let's get into it. So this talk, you know, it was interesting. I was presenting to all things AI in March, and I was working on my slides. I was like sitting in an alco, and I was like working on my slides. Actually, in full transparency, I was trying to get away from people. And I was, because there was a lot of people there.

And so I was working on my slides, and these three college kids sat next to me. And they were talking about what talks they wanted to go to next. And they were just dogging my talk. Dogging it. this talk goes so this talk is going to be doom and gloom well folks this is not doom and gloom here to tell you that the market does not stink as bad as people make it out to be I am a nadder dabbitus online raise your hand nobody cool alright nadder I'm giving you props here I would highly recommend following him he is super high up at cognition Devin that technology so he posted this in his newsletter and I just added this yesterday the landscape of the market in In terms of the software job market, large portion of it is booming.

Many companies are being born exploding value, revenue, and hiring. People who became AI path-pilled in their approach to software engineering have done extremely well. Those who haven't have not. People who have pivoted into new and fast-growing verticals, companies, products, enabled by AI have done well. People who stuck with larger teams, companies that either move in slowly or being disruptive have had a hard time or are being laid off. who still distinctly identify as a front end, back end, et cetera, have had a hard time than people who have said effin, he didn't say effin, he said the eff word, and 10x themselves are lead harder to AI and objectively broader in their skillset.

It's crazy that I can talk to someone with the form of mindset and it's doom and gloom while people in the latter literally are making more than they ever have, along with more opportunities than they have ever had. This literally is the thesis of my talk, and then it doesn't know I'm showing this here, But literally this is it. The market is changing as we speak. And if you are resistant and being difficult, you are going to get left behind. All right? I'm not a few any men's up here. All right. So the paradox. These two numbers are real. AI told me they're real. A hundred and a hundred and a hundred and a hundred and a half tech layoffs, but also $510 billion to start a funding.

I gave this talk this time last year. It's crazy starting to be in a year talk. I have less hair now. And basically, the reality of the situation, and I've had a few people come up to me from my last talk last year. What I want to reiterate here is I think the market is changing both on the tech, on the tech heart tech skills, but also how people are finding jobs. The big tech, job stability, nobody in your eyes jobs stability. Let me ask you a question real quick. How many people in here have been laid off in the last year, raise your hand.

50%. Is that about right? Exactly. Nobody's safe. I'm not safe. I can get a call tomorrow and all goes away. So the reality of the situation is I think we need to be looking more at the startup ecosystem. And I think that's one thing that from a holistic perspective, people are like, I just got to work in Netflix, I got to work in Apple, I got to work in big tech. It's like, no, the reality of the situation is there's a whole other world out there. And I'm going to get to it here in a second. A lot of the data supports, there's a lot of companies He's out there not intent that are still hiring like agriculture or healthcare or non-tech specific companies.

So again, holistic view here. What's slowing things down? Listen, I'm not going to sit here and say everything's rosy because it's not. The great hesitation. That's what I'm calling it. Long interview cycles. How many people in your rich man have you gone through a long interview cycle and it's just been ghosted like your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend raised your hand? Yeah, exactly. 50% of the room, right? Next day near shore, at the end of the day, specifically Latin America, South America, Mexico, I've realized that's all the same, that talent is being discovered at the end of the day, that is chipping away at the US hiring.

Listen, we're still unwinding for the overhiring bit. I called it back in the day, I have receipts, I was on a podcast saying this is unsustainable and something that's gonna happen when we were living in the bad now, right? We are still unwinding ourselves. finally the great smush. I did not coin this term. My dear friend Lawrence Lockhart coined this term. But the end of the day with AI, all of these roles are kind of combined with it. And listen, the juniors, it sucks out there. I'm just gonna say that. Startups are hiring. Here's some stats. Agree to share VC capital going to AI startups.

I'm not really good at math but that looks like a lot. Alright, wake up. If you're not involved in your startup ecosystem, if you're not going out to networks, if you're not talking to these high-growth startups, if you don't even know where to start, talk to me afterwards. I only have 20 minutes by the end of this talk, Thomas I have 30 minutes. So alright, the job market's not dead, right? I want to give you some stats here. 20% year of year higher growth at the top companies. Higher than it's been climbing ever since March 2023 and still 15% projected growth through the Bureau of Labor Statistics through 2034.

Again, higher than it's happening, it's just looking different, right? Read the wind. So everybody in here, sail. Hey, there's a few of us in here. So six of y'all will get this analogy. I see you sir back there. All right, so seven of us will get this analogy. Whenever you sail, I grew up racing competitively. I grew up in South Carolina, you know, Genkop, so what's the University of South Carolina started to thawing. You gotta read the wind. Good sails read the wind, right? We're in a race, and we're racing in our tactician, which the guy who like reads the wind was like, hey, we should go that way.

I was like, why? And he was like, because the wind is changing and it's going that way. And I said, okay, sounds good. So my dad was the steer of the captain. He moved that way. And guess what? He like finished the top 10 out of 35 boats in the race. You gotta read the way in the market. I feel like a lot of us are just sitting at our desk and listen, I understand social media, social media. There's a lot of bad things out there and I understand. But you have to know what is happening in the only way. In my opinion, let's your pick up the newspaper.

You gotta get on so sort of, I suggest X. I don't, I don't want to hear the lyrics, but you want to blog. I want to hear it. From a knowledge and market intel perspective, I have learned so much from being on X and following where the trends are heading. I don't think I would be out in my career where I'm at if I was not reading the headlines, right? I did this, so I did this presentation last year. That 49,000 number was 36,000 last year. Right? 63%, I don't remember where it was in last year. The first never really stood out to me. 63% of AI-related job times now here are the most outside of traditional tech companies.

Talking with the guy last week, the guy I was college with at the University of South Carolina, go gettin' cocks. He's an insurance. And he's out here like, I'm puttin' in AI workflows, an insurance. We're talking about hitting it in 10. How do you position yourself? Finally, some LinkedIn's desk, everyone loves LinkedIn. hundred sixty percent year-of-year growth in a job postings and said so job-in-demand list of the ticket into like that not some votes this the end of the day this is what i've seen i think most of us can agree to this i think this is a dumb slide of the included i i i i i i i i do like this i saw this post somewhere on social media i got included and credit them as my fault in the nation's as a matter for for the fact that The further your work sets from routine code, a tool can generate the safer and better page you are.

You can have different things in thoughts, but I'm speaking and you're not. All right, so the skill sets and demands. Apply that, like y'all know this, but I want to reiterate the fact that I think if you are sitting here and you're like, I'm just gonna start re-reacting, I'm just gonna be re-acting, it's all of them, just gonna be re-acting, I'll bring. That's what the jQuery developers said 10 years ago. You need to look up, talk to people, what's happening. I'm in the growth marketing space now, community growth marketing. I'm reading blogs and I'm reading articles where basically to be where I want to be, I need to automate my entire team by myself.

And I'm trying to do that. I'm not trying to lay my team off. I love my team. I'm trying to get that good. And that's what you need to look in terms of your North Star. Finally, why you're here, network your butt off. Everybody, watch your phones real quick. Watch phones. Watch phones. Watch your phones. Watch phones. 30 second break. Network to the person to left or right of you. Tell them they smell great and connect with them a little bit go. Like I'm preaching right now. Hey, y'all, I'm going to shoot them. I want you to bring them back always. So this is one of my last lives.

You got to have like literally like all these stats. Okay fine, I'll just be a reactor level of earth tail or an AI. Okay, I got it. How, how, how, how. This, this, this. These stats, I should have probably excluded like where the stats came from, but I haven't cheated if you want to question me. 7% of applications are referrals. I have 7% right? So for those of you that have me, And if 100 applications do a job, 7% of referrals, that's 7, right back check my map on that. Good. 30 to 50% of all hires come from referrals. So your town means that if I have 100 applications, applicants, by the way, companies are getting way more than just 100 applicants per job, just be honest.

So let's say 100 applicants and work hard happens. Seven of them came from referrals. You're telling me that 50% of those hires came from those seven people. You realize, I mean, that's crazy. The reality of the situation is that a hundred is more like a thousand right now. I will tell you this in this room right here is somebody's next opportunity. And you're like, oh, I'm too interested in it. You're speaking, no, I truly believe that. If you want to start something, your next investor could literally be sitting to the left of writing you, but you're too scared to say, hey, there we go. There we go.

Amen, right? Right, like you literally could be hired if the person runs next to you, but I'm just too tired. Why are you even here? Your job should be to open up your LinkedIn and try to connect with every person here before you leave. That sounds exhausting. You want a job or not, because that's where we're at. That's where we're at. All right, to recap. And then we'll start this panel, which I'm super pumped about. Starts are hiring. The market is alive. The skills are vulnerable. The rooms are open. But you've got to get up on your seat and move. So thank you again for coming out to hear me.

Please scan this if you have not ready again. This is to make sure I don't get fired. That'd be great. and then Todd, I'm done. How did everyone time dead do good? I feel like I did good, it's seven o'clock. We good? All right, there you go. Come on, go ahead and do it. We're gonna have a good kitchen. Can we take a selfie? We take out a group selfie? Hey, group selfie? Every smile? Hey, up bro, okay, smile, you're in the photo. All right, it's great, thanks y'all. Hello everybody, my name is Anandar Pukova. It's great to meet you all. I am based here in the Triwongodurum.

I am a solutions architect at AWS. It's a fancy way to say that I do many, many different things, especially after what we heard today. I do everything from technical strategy consultant from my customers to writing code in all kinds of different ways, using all kinds of fancy AI tools that we're about to talk about today. I primarily work with regulated industry clients, healthcare, have life sciences, or energy, and utilities at this point, that's my primary focus. And I've spent many, many years working startups as a startup founder and CTO as well and I look forward to speaking with you on today. Hi everyone I am day care sweat but you all can call me day from always in your week, Sunday, Monday.

I am an HR business advisor for Dell Technologies. All that means is I support our business which is our factories here in apex in both the Massachusetts with all things HR you I've been at Dell for about three and a half years, and my experience stems from campus recruiting, talent strategy, employer relations, global mobility and immigration. And yeah, I think one of the most important things that I enjoy just about Dell and what I do is I'm in the business of joy, people, policy and procedures. So if I can help people understand the policy, get through the procedure, I've done my job. So I'm excited to be here and talk with you all.

Hello everyone, my name is Bobby McDill. Bobby? Yeah, so man. Yeah, so many of you have been by myself. I've been in town acquisition and recruiting for about 17 years. So I've seen a lot of, I always like to say I've recruited almost in the area of, right? Like, you know, 2008, you know, the kind of job market crash there. I've recruited during the pandemic, during like COVID and now in the AI era. So I've recruited cloud engineering, product engineering, operations, finance, executive leadership. I'm also a published author of a crack in the cold to impossible reason to do the job. It's available everywhere online as well.

And I'm excited to be here. I think what I love about talent acquisition and recruiting is just being that connector between careers and opportunity. So, you know, very excited to be a part of this. I'm also a shrimp certified in AI, day-time recruiting as well. So just looking forward to this panel and giving people some insights. A lot of awesome pumped for this, cool. Thanks to Todd, hey, cool. Yeah, I'm coming, Todd. I'm pumped, I came up to be on things that I had, what's up, man? And I brought a panel together. It's funny how that works, isn't it? Networking, that they imagine that. Todd, real quick, are we having a question to the end?

We don't we don't question at the end right? I'm trying to get on the flow here All right 30 minutes gap in and then questions all right y'all all right so y'all think questions Also, I probably speak for all behalf of all of us We'll stay after and answer the questions you have as well. So All right, so first first question I really want to get to and really you know to me I said to you all questions and of course I'm probably not gonna ask him is how can people stand out right now? So I kinda wanna go, let's just go down the road.

I was just gonna say road, that doesn't make sense. Let's go down the road. How can people stand out right now in their job search? How can people get access to companies, to hiring managers, to HR? Because I feel like we're all gonna have a little bit of the same answer, but also a little different as well. And I didn't touch on that in the talk, so if you wanna go first by. Yeah, I think you talked about it a little bit earlier, like networking, right? I think it's more important now to network more than ever. And the reason that is is because, you know, people are looking for that kind of human connection.

You know, even though, you know, AI is all the way in right now, people looking for that human connection. So even going beyond LinkedIn, I mean, there's like, you know, little practical tips that you can do on LinkedIn, right? Obviously sending a connection, you know, obviously sending a direct message. I would encourage people to, you know, definitely don't write a novel in the inbox, especially when you're dealing with very busy recruiters and things like that. But definitely make our aspect as short as sweet. Definitely engage with people only who are continuously posting content that you like. Recruiters that you see always have opportunities. Always like, always comment.

Say something because that stays ingrained in people's minds. And they always know like, oh, this is somebody who's always engaging with my content. They get to know you kind of a little bit, like, you know, your home file and things like that. So those are things that kind of stay on top of mind as well. But also, you know, just even with networking, you know, what I always say is networking is a value exchange. And I think a lot of times, you know, people approach networking. It's all about just getting business cards. And that's great. But what you're really trying to do is build a connection.

What you're really trying to do is build a relationship. And oftentimes, you know, those are the most memorable connections and conversations you'll have in a bit networking room, right? Somebody you were able to connect with, somebody you were able to build a, you know of relationships with and always say you know focus on you know how you can give to other people how you can serve other people how you can be of assistance right instead of always being somebody who's always like maybe looking to receive something always like you know try to think about ways you can connect the dots with people and then try to you know definitely the last impression on that and you'll those people stand out on top of mind you know versus you know just kind of just hey let's exchange cards and then you never hear from him again so I Hello, it's good.

I love this question. I first say your resume. Your resume is your first impression before you can say hi nice to meet you. My name is does anyone know on average how long it takes a recruiter to put you in the yes or no pal before you can move on to the next round? So the second? Beautiful, yes. And now with AI, you never know if it's an AI recruiter or if it's someone like maybe myself who wanted them actually look near your resume. So your resume truly is the first impression to get your foot in the door and to make sure that you have that competitive advantage.

And then secondly exactly what Bobby said, network. Your network can get you into places that your degree can or your certification can. Sometimes it's not about what you know but who you know. But it first starts with your resume because our resumes tell a story about who we are what we bring to the table and it should I really be one page unless you have all this experience in the world but yeah seven seconds and the competition is real so your resume and making sure it aligns with the job description to an extent don't be fraudulent and put all the things out there that don't really describe what you've done but really truly tie it back to the job description the skills your experience but resumes are the first impression there.

Hello, Anya. I'm going to kind of press you a little bit here. How can people stand up technically in the interview process right now? Because you're the technical me on the panel. What I would say is to stand out. I will dovetail from Bobby a little bit. It's not only to just get yourself out there to network, but also to get out there to be noticed. And one way to do that that is due speaking engagements. Those are things like conferences, different kinds of panels or networking events. For example, all things open, wonderful conference that happens here in the triangle every year. All things AI, other conferences that happen in the triangle or locally that you can travel to, your employers will likely sponsor a conference that you apply to and get accepted to, employers love that.

Typically it gets you noticed with your manager, manager, new team members, it counts as some kind of thought leadership, it gets noticed as you're contributing some kind of slides to your technical community within your company, so it really counts for a lot. So I would say that that's one thing that I would add. Another way to do it if you don't have access maybe to a conference or didn't get accepted this year, another way to do it is social media platforms. Everybody has access to that. You could post your latest thoughts about new technologies on LinkedIn. That's a great way to get engagements. People always post on YouTube, X and other ways.

That is a way to essentially get people to notice you. So that would be one way I would answer the networking question. Was there something? No, they nailed it. That was good. And that way is how you sort of drive the networking engagement with the people at the end of the day. I love it. So we're going to start with you again. and then we'll work our way back here. How can people, so one of the biggest things that I continually hear is like, man, I'm interviewing, I'm not gonna call back. It's kind of this, just I don't know where it's gonna go, all this stuff.

I know I just ask you from an interview perspective, but where are people missing the mark when it comes to interviews? Like, when you have interviewed people, Are people, can they not describe themselves? Can they not tell you what they've done? Like where have they missed the mark when it comes to actually speaking in the interviews? I have a number of things I'll say to this. One thing I'll note is that you probably do a lot of interviews yourself. And one thing I will say is with the advent of a lot of AI tools, what I have started noticing during interviews is a very experienced interviewer for Amazon, as many people rely on those tools during interviews.

Don't do that. Don't do it. Experience interviewers will know immediately that you're doing it. It's very easy to tell no matter how hard you try. I will tell it every time. So if you don't know the name of an obscure protocol or whatever it is you want to tell me, describe to me what you know, tell me what you know, be honest about what you don't know. That tends to earn much more trust with me and the other experience that a viewer's. It tends to earn much more credibility and it doesn't make me feel like you're wasting my time because that's how I feel when people read off of CHADGIPT.

So that would be the first thing I would say. You won't miss the mark with me if you are interviewing and I can tell that you're reading. Don't do it. Other things, I think back to your point about roles of blending, that's a real thing, especially in the technical space right now as a solutions architect. I do many different things now, not just architecture, talking about strategy or doing some kind of demos or something like that. You're expected to be a leader. You're expected to drive technology forward. You're expected to have great communication skills. Those things are all part of the expectations. You're expected to be a thought leader and produce content.

So there's a lot of things in the mix. So when you come to an interview, prepare. Not just your resume, but in general, be prepared to talk about the story that you're delivering and the value that you're adding. When you're speaking to somebody, And clearly they haven't prepared for questions and they just, they can't even pull things together. As they're speaking, you can tell people are not prepared. So that will probably be the things that I see even during technical interviews because a lot of questions, I'm from Amazon, Bob is a former Amazonian, so he can speak to that. A lot of the times we don't just screen for technical things.

We've screened for different kinds of leadership principles guiding principles that every company has. Those leadership principles don't necessarily look for specific tools. They look for how you drive impact, how you add value, how you behave in certain situations. So you should be able to coherently deliver a story. If you can't do that, that really sticks out and misses the mark. I love that. I thank you to said everything and more. I would say it goes back to the basics, right? The reality is, is can you give me an elevator pitch and tell me about yourself without giving me your full-large story, plus your kids, and what you...

That's too much. Tell me about yourself. It's usually the first question. So I'd practice my elevator pitch and be ready to present that out. Secondly, what she said, AI is great when you can use it to your advantage, but don't make it your whole persona. That's where a lot of people miss the mark is they prepared so much on Chat NPT, Co-Pilot and all these other tools that they take out the personality and who is actually coming to the interview. And it sounds so robotic and so we're not looking for that. And thirdly, essentially doing your research, being prepared, not having the interview in the car or just the Wi-Fi messing up, just being prepared.

It goes back to the basics of one-on-one interviewing, essentially there. And then following up, after your interview, even if you feel like you did bad, with a thank you, great to meet you, looking forward to hearing from you, because the follow up truly matters, and a lot of people just don't do that, essentially. So I would say those are the things, and then essentially the star method. Has anyone heard of the star method? Yes. Situation, task, action, result. It will save you more than it will ever hurt you, And that's how I see a lot of candidates. They stay on track with answering the question because they're utilizing the star method.

And it helps the interviewer from our side of things stay on topic with what year you can explain. Because people get lost in their words and now you've lost me on what question are we on again? We're confused. So utilizing the star method sticking to the basics but allowing AI to help prepare you just to let it take over your hope is around that. That's my advice. So I love this question. That's why I asked him. Yeah, I love this question. I look at it resumes every day for the last 17 years and much of my day now and what's always been going to interview us.

The recruiter interview, that first interview, that's going to be the easiest interview you're going to have in the process. After that, it's going to get harder. Okay, and there's three main things you want to do in an interview. You want to build trust. You want to establish credibility and you want to make connection. And no AI tool is going to help you do that. Only you can do that, right? And AI and these gen AI tools, yes, they should be a supplement, but they should be a substitute. You have to be able to tell your own story. And I think a lot of times if I've seen people where they're clearly reading scripts, right?

Their eyes are shifting with their voice and cadence changes. And that's not, you're not gonna be from connection that way. So those are the three things I mentioned that you wanna do. And also if you just did a little bit of prep work, I mean, you know, look at the job description, how like what are the main responsibilities, did I do these before? can I be able to talk to those, right? Even looking at requirements, okay, these are the three main technical skills. I want to be able to give some examples and that's what they talk about the start method is all about. And I think a lot of times when I'm posting people, they impose the start method like it's a script.

What it really is is a framework for you to be able to think through what my potential responses could be, right? Something even as simple as going to these website and looking at the core values, you can do that and you can shape all of your answers to core values. Like if an iron-on company, one of our core values is excellence, what I still can is to do is look at the core value excellence, the definition for it, and come up with these two, three examples in your career with you examples like excellence based on that definition. These are things, I didn't even bring up chat GPT, a code file or anything, these are things that you can do with your own human intelligence.

So a lot of times, just 30 minutes of preparation before interview could go a long way. And sometimes I'm like talking to Candace, like I wish you wouldn't use the AI tool. I wish you would have just, if you would have been better off just preparing for 30 minutes before we talk to me, you wouldn't have been way better off. That was great. Can we hear a round pause? That was, that was, that was, you got to be lucky to get down. That's right, so that's what I'm saying. I was both signed to the platform, give them hugs, whatever. All right, so also too, I want to answer this because I am walking through an eight week job search series on how to use AI for your job search.

And I did this as we can check it out on my YouTube Torx YouTube whatever. And I used the voice model, the voice mode for clawing and said, hey, I'm interviewing. I uploaded my resume, I'm like, Hey, I'm interviewing for Head of Community Role at a startup who just got through Series A. I need you to interview me as a startup founder and just go ahead and grill me. And then after each interview, after each question, can you critique me? It was the coolest thing, my computer just had, hopefully, y'all signed up. But like literally it just asking questions and then it told me, and it was good.

So like literally, open up chat JBT, Open up whatever you use, go to voice, give in context, and ask you to interview you, and it's unbelievable. So, pay me a raise, credit interest, that was great, I just had that in my two cents. All right, next thing. I want to talk about AI in a sense of, are we at the point, and I don't think there's any right or wrong interest here, because at the end of the day, each one of you all is a sliver of the market, right? We don't speak for the market broadly, speak for what we're seeing. If you're not using AI, are you late?

Like as somebody, as people who are doing hiring, is it a, if you're not using it, is it a no-go now, is there still some leeway? Because I feel like when I presented this a year ago, I feel like the door was slowly closing. And I'm curious where you all see if a developer shows up and they don't have any AI on their a resume or not using any sort of cloth, coat or copod, whatever, is that a red flag now? Yeah, start with you. No wrong answer, Peter. No wrong answer. Yeah, so I think so. What I'm seeing, if you look at a lot of the job descriptions of that's my job, which right now, there's some list, there's some listing in the requirements section of some sort of AI literacy, whether you're a technologist or a financial analyst or project manager or mechanical engineer.

So it's transcending functional areas and it's transcending industries. So to answer your question, yes, I do. I think some AI literacy is important, whether you're an engineer or not, whether you're building it or you're examining it, right? I think that's important. I do think what I'm seeing, when I talk to my talent acquisition friends and recruiter friends, is that they are telling me that a lot of the hiring managers and hiring leaders and people who influence hiring decisions, they're gonna wanna know in an interview, hey, how are you using AI? I don't think they're necessarily looking for somebody who's an expert, but they're looking for somebody who's intellectually curious.

Now, if you're not using it now, I don't think you're behind. And the reason I say I don't think you're behind, because a lot of companies are still trying to figure it out themselves. What do I mean by that? A lot of companies right now, no matter what industry you're in, finance, engineering tech, wherever, they're still trying to keep up with the pace of AI. And they're having difficulty rolling out AI training. And the reason they're having difficulty rolling out AI training, because it changes all the time. It's changing every month, like something new. So then we gotta go back and we gotta revamp our learning modules and things like that.

So I see all that to say is that I don't think you're too late, but you could be very soon. I was great. I don't think that you have to be an AI expert, but to Bobbi's plate, you have to have AI literacy. I think a lot of companies are, well, I think AI is like Excel, right? It was a differentiator, but now it's going to become a workplace like skill that you need. And I think when we say become, I think that's kind of now. So it's like if you're not utilizing AI, you can't explain the how. You actually are behind just a bit because it's embedded in everything we're doing now.

And that's the reality. If you're at home, people use AI for things. If you're at school or work, it's just a reality of it. And so you have to stay up to date with the latest trends and AI is where it's at now. And honestly, from a recruiter or down at position a standpoint, I wouldn't reject a candidate because they aren't using AI. I'd be more curious as to why are they not using AI, and I've looked for them to tell me, is it because I've tried it, and it's not valuable to the work that I'm doing, or is it because I don't want to use it, and that's the concern there if you don't want to use it, the resistance, right?

I think AI, what comes with it is adaptability. Can you continue to adapt with a change of technology? And if you can, you're ahead of the game. If you can't, you're getting left behind. So that's my thoughts on that. I'm gonna ask you to clarify your question a little bit. Please go ahead. When you say using AI, would it be obvious on their resume or how would it be obvious? Would it be coming through their resume? How do you know whether or not they are somehow using AI tools? Are they putting directly on there? I have completed Project X with tools. why to accomplish the E, like how would you know, during a conversation with a recruiter?

I don't know. The reason I'm asking this is I'm coming from a, I know more narrow. Yeah, I know I love it. Right? We have more, we have, Bob, did you have, did you have, I mean, you know, it's a digital skill now. So you can check CBT, or use a cloth, you know, or you using something, right? And did you use it for a project and streamline something, right? Did you come up with something to definitely improve efficiency? There's like little signals and indicators on a resume just by surely listening and on the skill sets or if you did a project where you used it.

That's there had to be one building here but if you used it also, I'm going to tell you what the key is too that a lot of people sleep on. How are you using it responsibly? That's what a lot of people want to know. How are you using it ethically? right? Do you know a little bit about governance? You don't need to be a governance expert, but you know, are you sitting guardrails? Are you having conversations? Are you in an AI governance committee? You know, something like that. There'll be these little things you can tip them on the resume if somebody was using AI. Now we're going to get to the technical assessment part, and they get further along.

The process didn't, you know, the lights are on, you've got to perform. But that's the, you know, kind of perspective I have on it. Yeah, the reason I'm asking this is you might see an individual's resume or screen them much further, much earlier in the cycle than I would. I received somebody in the cycle who has already been past your screens. So to me, I'm speaking from a perspective of somebody who's part of the interview process. I'm not a hiring manager, but I give feedback directly to a hiring manager who would then make a hiring decision. So Amazon's interview process is very structured and specific.

So when we do interviews, we do focus a lot on what I mentioned previously, which are leadership principles, which may not directly ask you whether or not you used a specific AI tool. What they're focusing more on is delivering impact or delivering results that are in the star format. So if you can clearly articulate a measurable impact that was significant without necessarily relying on an AI tool, that would not make your answer necessarily bad. However, what I will say is that once you get more into actually working in the role, pretty much everybody is currently relying on those tools. So if you're going to be barred or measured against everybody else, you won't be able to keep up.

So in a way, it's sort of a prerequisite to being able to perform in the role. And it's kind of assumed that you're using something to be able to perform at the same levels everybody else because otherwise you're just not going to make it. Everybody else is using the tools to perform faster and deliver results faster. What would stick out to me because I do see a resume? I don't filter out necessarily somebody on their resume but we do see things like certifications for AI. That I would see like a generative AI developer of some kind or some kind of flavor related to that. If you choose to present your answer related to those projects, that's great.

But again, I wouldn't say it's a requirement for me necessarily to be like a successful answer. You could have a strong star answer without mentioning a specific tool. But again, just to caveat that if that goes further in the interview process, other people may be more successful because they are using the tools to their impact maybe greater. That was great. Yeah, I mean, I built out finance dashboard and clawed to track all of because we do a ton of travel and ton of swag, right? So I pretty much forecast it out our entire spending for the rest of the year. And it's that I can really turn on a computer.

So nobody has excuse if I can do it. So that's just my thought. All right, last question here. Before we go into open questions. So if you have questions, let me, I'm gonna do a quick judge before this. Who has questions raise your hand? Yep, that is what I thought. Okay, all right, so last question for the panel, we're gonna run it down, Bonnie will start with you, then we'll run it back. Real quick, talked about it by talk just now. In your opinion, there's no right or wrong answers. Is the market bad? No, I agree with your opinion of people in my team are hiring, you're hiring two positions right now.

Any solutions architects are over here? Let me know. We have hiring across our department. We have hiring within the company. I will say that I see different teams shifting their priorities to hiring. That is 100% true. If you leave the news, you know that teams have laid off. Other teams have a startup recruiting. So there's constant layoffs in the big tech world. But many of my colleagues have moved into different teams. A lot of my colleagues have shifted into startups because they're hiring a massive way. I see colleagues leaving almost every week. The flux is huge. So people are definitely finding roles that may be more interesting, more lucrative, more focused than AI.

Have some kind of upside, especially in startups with an equity component that could potentially be very significant with the AI boom. So I don't think the market is bad, but I do think the skills are definitely shifting. So people who are hopping on top of learning those skills and staying ahead are definitely benefiting. I would say the market isn't bad right now. I would say it's more selective, right? Companies are being selective about every single opening. That they're looking for specific capability gaps that they may have in their company. So what skills can you bring to the table that we already had and that aren't useful, but you could broadcast them better, right?

I think companies are also too positioning themselves, not just for growth, but they're looking for specific skills. And can you bring that to the table? AI, automation, engineering, those are the ones that are really, really, really in need right now, and even in cybersecurity as well. I think, you know, candidates are filling the grunt of the competitiveness because the volumes and applications are high. And so that's the reality of it. Can you position yourself for the right opportunity at the right time at the right company. Because it's just as much as companies are looking for you, you're looking for them, and you have to make sure you're the right fit, and they're the right fit for you.

So I think, you know, the market is good if you position yourself for the good opportunity. I don't think the job market is bad for a second. So I play basketball back in the day, something you use a basketball reference. So I couldn't do a left hand lay out so I was out really early. So it's like the game is more competitive. And it's like almost for the NBA fans, you're drawing like 2016 LeBron on the basketball court, and the game is still the game. And you can still get buckets, but you gotta really work around this person right here, and that's LeBron. The AI is LeBron.

So everybody's adapting to that. And the job seekers are adapting to it, and trying to figure it out. The employers adapted to it, they're trying to figure it out. Canada is like, hey, is the algorithm rejected me? Is AI? Is it human even looking at my resume? There's just a lot of concerns that JobSeed was having. There's a lot of concerns that employers have. Is this a deep fake? Is this a real person? I hear horror stories from my career friends. They did a virtual interview with somebody and first day on the job somebody else showed up wasn't that person they saw on the screen, right?

Is this you know is this person reading a script? Do they really have the skills they say they have? It's just buzzwords galore on a resume. So everybody is on both sides you know it's that it's just constant thing that we're all dealing with with AI. Yes it's the innovation is there, it's sufficient but it's causing a lot more questions, right? So do I think the job market isn't here in the bad note? I think it's just more competitive and there's a beast of a thing that's here that we're all trying to work around you know job job secrets are trying to work around it's who employers are trying to work around it too.

That was great I love that I never said the basketball reference but that was great. All right so I'm just kidding all right Todd you want to run and we're hoping to do a mic so what we're doing here what we are yeah so I'm gonna say this for the sake of time for the panelists if you have a bank or responses and answer it otherwise let's try to keep it in a model just because it seems like a lot of people who's got questions so. You start with very, very like a super long, very enthusiastic hand when I'm being, it's not going on. A quick question, there are two camps out there when it comes to cover letters.

Those that say I've never read them and then those that say I'm not going to look at any first way that doesn't happen when I'm attached. So, box. Yeah, so I personally think I've been doing this for a very long time. I think the couple letters did. Okay, I've never, I've never had, in my 17 years, well I didn't even say 17 years, I say probably in the last eight years, I've never had a higher advantage of say, oh that candidate sounds great, let me see the couple letter. Never. In the history of town where that was, I've never had that. It's either let me see their resume or their LinkedIn profile.

I think the couple letter became more obsolete at the rise of LinkedIn because I could go to LinkedIn and I can verify everything I need to do. Now, there are exceptions. I think a cover letter is useful if you're right out of college and all you got is some internships, maybe there's some stuff in school and you wanna provide more context around that. I think that's useful. I think a cover letter is relevant if the applicant tracking system requires it. Most applicant tracking systems don't require it. It's optional, right? or they have it, you can upload additional documents. So the ACS is requiring it to have one handy, right?

And also, I think if you're making a complete and utter, diametrically different change, right? You're going from being a sixth grade science teacher to a Drupal developer. You might wanna, a couple of letters could be cool, but that's only like three very exceptional cases, but I think it's, I think it's gone. I work with AI somewhat remotely, and it kind of extends it. That goes really weird. I've accepted that AI is here in the state. So I remember in the first part of the talk, we need to be able to use AI very well, but also I recognize that from a technical standpoint, senior levels and above are much more competitive than juniors in this landscape.

So what is the limit that is necessary for a guy who receives versus accelerating that technical literacy? It's going to be necessary on day two of the job. I think Tech AI literacy is now important in pretty much all roles. I work with stakeholders and C-suite leaders in curamental and finance in different departments. And they're using AI tools. Everybody's now using them. So I think from that perspective, every role needs to have that kind of level of literacy, at least an understanding of it's here. These are the tools. Here's what they can do for you. They can help you automate your workloads, get your emails, you know, give you alerts, et cetera, et cetera.

That kind of thing is sort of baseline, I think. What it seems to me you're asking is, from the technical perspective, if you're like a developer, where are the tools falling? I'm gonna try to answer that. If I'm not answering your question, I'm gonna have you repeat it. What I'm seeing from the developer perspective, I completely agree with what was said in the presentation initially. It's not so much looking for target skills now, like React or Node or something like that, like specific frameworks. I've spoken to VP leaders and above at Amazon, for example, For example, they're looking specifically for skills that are more broader, like, spectrum and development.

Like, they're looking for you to be able to be a great prompt engineer, to be able to work with the tool to drive the process, to be able to own more, to have more of a UI and product manager mindset, to drive a product or feature or service to a better place on an MVP to be able to have a broader view so the customer would adopt or use better or be more delighted. So a lot of it is more about thought process and logic and how to see the future of the product, coupled with how you interact with tool. That's kind of where the prompt engineering comes in.

So you do have to have a technical background because you're still responsible for checking and catching bugs, et cetera, et cetera. you need to have more of a forward-working and broader mindset to use the tool to be successful. Does that answer your question? Hi everyone, Mr. Rakesh here. Since it is about recruitment and law posting, from starting towards one is the intricate, the end-user is differentiated, right? So they intricate for anyone to get into the job-based group, both their agency. Now if I ask you if you are in the room and you are looking for something like a flat chair to the glass you might as a human figure out someone.

But if you are behind the door, if you are looking for someone like me or anyone, everyone can impersonate them. And that's what I feel AI is doing. Everyone becomes safe. So when you enter that cave, there's no human view. There's a resume that's being screened by previous before now. They are using AI. So what is the differentiator? How do you know? Because that's a human view is completely missing. And most of people might have seen emails coming around by end of the university. If you apply for, like, let's say, on Thursday, on Saturday or Sunday, getting fingers saying that, oh, yeah, I really like your profile part of someone else.

You know, you want to tell me that someone is sitting on weekend and looking to my resume and then sending me the email. I think the differentiator is really missing most of us. The human group is amazing. So, that's one of the things that I feel like many people are not even even being eligible like matching, not even to cross the first gate. What you would be calling it and is there any learning that recruitment team or leadership? As in you can look into that. So the ATS, let me not finish your question, but the ATS as a whole is just like a filing cabinet with some automation built in.

I do have to say that I will speak to what we're doing at Torque. So when you sign up on our platform, you are going to get matched for jobs. You are matched for jobs. You are going to get an assessment. We do assessments. They come from ropes. Ropes AIs, they start up at a New York City under the founder really well, his name is Kent. They have built a fantastic assessments platform at the Tech's Fraud. That is why when they recruit or ask you to do something like an assessment, do it, Don't complain, especially with the CAI. That's gonna help separate you. Then what we do on our end is when you are a match for a job, you're gonna speak with somebody on our team, just to gauge who you are, the personality fit, as it relates to the position, and then we're gonna submit you.

So I will speak to our end at the end of the day. That is why I'm so bullish on what we're building it toward because it's a community, it's a platform, and we have process to vet, verify, and assess talent to make sure you're a real human being the real people get to the top of the pile. Yeah, no, it was fantastic man. You killed it. So the question was about like advocate tracking systems pretty much right? Yeah so I will say, like so like I agree with everything you said like the ATS first of all not all ATSes are built the same. So that's number one.

If you hear all the fear of margarine and all the TikTok noise and all the headlines, they make these things like every ATS, every company uses every ATS to say. It's not true. I've worked at six different companies. I've worked across multiple industries. And every company uses the ATS different. Some automated configurations are turned on in one company. Another company, but these two or three companies over here don't even have those automation configurations turned on. Company that's over there, actually five companies over there may have the AI that you turned on. And then seven companies over there, they don't. So I think the, as you, I agree with you, the human and the loop aspect, I think it's definitely, if I'm kind of pulling the curtain back a little bit, it's becoming even more important, right?

Because as I said earlier, the human connection piece is still important, right? And there's so much going on behind the scenes where like I said, people are getting like fake interviews and things like that. But also at the same time a lot of people is want to make sure that they're recruiters are actually keeping that human experience and that human and the loop aspect of it, right? Because talent acquisition and recruiting is still a very personal kind of function, a personal thing. So when you keep an example of how you keep human and the loop, right? Is that a recruiter like there may be three resumes, there may be a nine out of ten.

But when I look at them and they're not a nine out of ten, right and I've had conversations with the hired manager I've had conversations with HR and AI tool hasn't had so I'm not just going to trust the ranking and first glance just because it says so because we all know here AI is not always right that's why human in loop exists right that's why things like chain of thought and tree of thought when you prompt into a gen AI tool you want to know like hey how did you come to this conclusion as to why this is this? You know, like, so those things exist as well.

I think also you can actually, you know, there's a lot of recruiters actually putting in this is what the requirements are. These are the things I need to see and these are based on conversations that they're having with our managers. So that's an example of a differentiator, how that, both of those examples, how that differentiator can be, you know, when somebody's looking at ATS and looking at resumes. First of all, thank you for your time tonight. Taylor, your chart said the entry level higher hang and top 75%? I'm sitting at a table full of the budget entry level candidates. I'm curious if you have any specific advice for them.

Me? And? Well, recently I just transitioned from a role that did Cambridge recruiting entry level recruiting. And I would say it really is the power of networking. even connecting on LinkedIn, but then following up, doing 10 minute, 15 minute coffee chats, looking up someone's job title or role on LinkedIn and saying, hey, I've seen that you did this. I'm interested in that. Because that goes a long way. And just because you've messaged them, now they have a connection out of you, but not also utilizing your experience. Don't come to the table or the room with just saying, oh, I don't have experience in this. What do you have experience in?

And how can you use that to your advantage? I see a lot of entry level team members like, oh, I don't know this. But what do you know? Brain talk to me about your strengths, not your weaknesses at this point. So I would say I'm coming prepared at that form. I would also say that networking is extremely important for entry level candidates. I've had a number of candidates who are graduating from local universities, NC State, UNC. That's what they do. They connect on LinkedIn. And you need to be smart and strategic about how you do that. If you just send out LinkedIn requests to write the people, I might be too busy.

I might not care. Like, why would I accept your request? I've had a number of people who would add some messages when they're adding a LinkedIn connection. They would say, I want your talk at all things AI. Like, I learned this. This really caught my attention. Like, say something valuable, right? Like, we talked about the fact that networking is kind of giving you yet. and have to sort of get the person's attention, then they might care. So I've had a number of candidates engage with me this way. Some of them will ask for a short chat, and I have spoken to a number of graduates from universities, just like I spoke to them, we scheduled a Zoom chat, and I talked to them, and you can see, some of them really want to learn from you, they want to get your opinion.

I've actually reviewed some resumes that way, and I've met some really good ones, and I have in fact subsequently referred them for some positions. So if you can tell that they're really high quality candidates, they're really eager to learn, they'll ask for your advice. Like that's a great way to learn. LinkedIn, reach out to people, but be smart about it. Like really put in a little bit of effort, put in a hook there, like sending out a connection is probably not enough. You have to put something else in there. And they give you time of day, like, I'm prepared because probably those professionals are also very busy, they're day's busy.

But if they talk to them, they may end up helping you with their firm, which is what I did. Two things. One, if you are junior or transition at tech, you have the easiest way up, basketball term, layup. You should have that one person in the back. Oh, good. Yeah. You have the easiest word track to get to anybody's DMs in any tech company across the club. You know what it is? Hey, we just graduated college. Switching careers, I wanna learn. You have seven minutes to talk to me, trying to figure out this problem and I'm trying to talk to somebody. At the end of the day, people want to help people.

I believe that's my core. If you are junior, you have the easiest layout. Other seniors, I was like, how are your senior, your competitive blah, blah, Juniors and career switchers. I admit, in my 15 years of recruiting engineers, people, especially senior people, want to help juniors. So that's the first thing. Next thing, build. There is absolutely zero excuse to not have something you're built on A on your resume. I am not technical. An over-paternity break. I've high-coded two mobile apps on my phone. So, there's no excuse. There's none. So, get out, build, talk to your friends. Listen, I have things I need to build. So if you wanna get experience, let me know.

I have to think that everybody has, yeah, yeah. So again, like, you have no excuse. Build, network, slide to people's DMs. I promise you, you're 90 days away from something that's always happening. We could probably go until 10 p.m. I literally think we could go to 10 p.m. Thank you for those tailors tips. AI bots are now viewing initial rounds of interviews. In some places it sounds a little creepy. I would like to know your position on them. You see them becoming more commonplace and having potential for discrimination against marginalized groups neurodivergent individuals where the algo has been shown to give a lower weight. For example, somebody might take too long to pause like some of autism or looking away, which has already been determined to be given a lower ranking without having that human in the loop your thoughts.

AI bots for interviewing. I am not a fan. The reason is is because to your point, there could be bias and discrimination in those things. For example, the AI bot can be programmed as such is if it picks up certain bone structure or facial features, it could then determine if somebody may be angry or sad or something like that. When that's actually not the kind case, right? And if it's if we're relying heavily on that, we're gonna miss out on some good people, right? And I think that's why in the human and legal piece is important because of that connection piece, which is what I keep talking about.

So I'm not a fan of it. I don't think it's I think it's problematic. And I don't see a lot of it coming. I'd say I'm not a fan of it either. I think the human touches are so important and we could miss so much if we rely fully on AI bots however from the working standpoint eyes I used to see it as an advantage from the perspective of processing things or importing data instead of doing things manually but to interview a candidate from an AI perspective I think to Bob these point you just missed a human piece and it misinterprets things sometimes and there are bias built into AI bots but if you use it to be effective from the data standpoint I think that is fine.

So I have a hot take. It doesn't matter what we think. Because the reality of the situation is companies are gonna do what they're gonna do and I think we are gonna have to adapt. Now do I I hear you yes, your opinions and feelings are valid. Yes, do I think when it comes to inclusive hiring, which I've given talks on, that is the number one thing that hurts, absolutely. But I will tell you this, I'm a tinkerer. I have 16 personal AI assistants. My wife gets mad at me, she's like, who are you talking to? Me or your personal AI assistant? I have tried out a ton of hiring platforms that are purely AI.

I'm gonna give a shout out here. It's a technical competitor, but I think it's great. 40 AI, B-O-A-R-D-Y, AI. Check it out, it's incredible. I did an interview with AI and it was insane. I loved it. It was great. It was a phone interview in it. Preface, saying, hey, I don't know if you've ever had an AI interview before. It's gonna be a little awkward. And I've been on more awkward days before. I met my wife in that interview. And so it was great. So again, yes, I hear you, but at the end of the day, it's coming. I think there's a lot, I think the recruiting industry, which could be a whole another talk, it's about to get flipped on its head.

We're talking about engineers. The recruiting industry's just about to get absolutely just railroaded right now. And so because there's a lot of things that can be done with AI that recruiters do, But again, it's the people that are the essence of what we do, and it's why showing up here is important, and it's why showing up and listening to these amazing panels is so important, because you can't get this information necessarily from AI. I ended on a good note. We want to keep going, and people can keep the information. Well, you know, as we're doing this, I'm thinking, you know, God, does this become, you already delivered your workshop on Monday to 19th and all things open.

Oh, Emma? Do we? Yeah. How long is it now? Well, I just spoke to news. Yeah, you did. That's not true, by the way. I've never been there. Yeah, it is. Not. Just kidding. You were intentional. But do we need to dedicate maybe another day, or like an all day conference, or one day conference to hiring into this topic? It sure seems like it's relevant, sure seems like it's needed for sure. So now that's actually what I'm thinking. I've got 758. Can I take just a minute to give you a few of my thoughts? And this is the only reason I say this. We're coming at this from a very unique perspective in that we host events, right?

So I did not go down this path. I started out in a technical services consulting division and I deviated into events. It's never my plan. This is where I'm at because I started using Linux and I started using OpenSwers tooling and I was, I just wanted if anybody else was using what I was using and at the time I'm older. That was before YouTube was really a big thing. That's how I went back and go. Yes I know. And then books and education and things like that weren't so readily available. So I was just like, is anybody else using this? That's why I spent my first event on it.

But in the current position, I've been in all things open and hosting me, that's the own thing. We're looking at this from the employer side because we're talking to employers. We're also looking at this from the employee side, the intentionally employee side, as we're talking to attendees that are attending events in an effort to get hired. So we're seeing it for both sides. We're hearing it in both directions. I think the conversation was amazing. I'll be honest, I've seen some panel events go sideways. They're not all great. Sometimes you have panelists that want to talk too much and won't let anybody else talk. And you have some moderators who are doing all the talking.

That did not happen here. This one was well moderated. The content was fantastic. You're all very knowledgeable. This was a, I've seen probably conservatively two or 50 panel discussions. I've hosted probably a hundred of them, and this one was really good. I cannot overstate, based on what I heard tonight, I cannot overstate the awards of networking. You're here, see you obviously again, I'm preaching to you, inverted. But meetups and conferences are extremely important. At the end of the day, we're all human beings, And the stat tailor that you showed, 7% are based on referring, you know, 7% referrals, 40%, 50% of the actual hires are based on those referrals.

That is huge. And again, at the end of the day, AI is assisting in some cases replacing, but we're all human beings and human beings are connected with human beings. You know, when you're connecting with somebody in a event like this, I think that you can also connect in very human ways. You can talk about family, you can talk about current events, you can talk about things that are non-technical, and I can tell you some of the best connections in friendships that have formed have been in technical events, but inadvertently not going into a conversation, planning to talk about someone's family, learning that they have kids, or that they've overcome an illness, or they were recently sick.

I can tell you then, I've become like really close to them, in ways that I never envisioned, I never planned, I never would have predicted in 10 million years, And those are some of the best connections I've ever made. So I would encourage you, you don't want to leave with that. You don't want to be weird. Say that in a weird way. Like, you'll never believe it. I was sick last week. You just don't do that. However, if you have something in common, that's the way you begin to learn about another human being. And you can make very, very deep connections. Books. Guys, like all the readers, like I can tell you some of the best connections I've ever made and we're talking about books that are recently read.

Please continue reading. Don't let this replace your willingness to read. I think unfortunately the long form reading and books, they're going about the wayside. But I will tell you that in order for you to have something to offer to another human being during a conversation, you have to deliver value. Before you can deliver value, you have to have substance, you have to have death. The only way that you gain death is through reading and education. So make that a priority that way when you encounter someone, you've got something to offer, they come away from a relationship saying, I learned something from them, like I didn't know that.

I had no idea. That person immediately becomes valuable to you. They stick in your mind, read for God's sakes, please do not stop reading. How many have linked the LinkedIn app on your phone? Good, most of you. How many people know how to use the scan or be scanned feature? I just want you to look at it. I'll be honest, I'm not gonna throw anybody into the bus because I was one of the ones that was under the bus. I was under all four tires. When I'm talking to somebody at an event, I'm like, do you have LinkedIn? And they're like, yeah, I did it.

And I'm like, hey, why don't we connect? And I don't know how to use that feature. And they're just like, I need a pie. What's your name? And I'm like, do you want to be scanned? Can I scan your QR code? And they're like, yeah, right? You know, it is not negative because I swear LinkedIn changes is like weekly now on the weekly how to get to this feature. But for goodness sakes, learn how to use that feature because if you're talking to someone, you're just like, look, you're LinkedIn app. Do you want to scan like QR code? Do you want me to scan yours?

When you know how to do that, I swear it builds credibility because when you're talking to someone and you're educated, you're red-booked, you have something to talk about, you're delivering value, you're conveying competency. Really human beings respect other human beings and we're in deer, they were pulled to other human beings that are competent. Whether you're in a personal relationship, whether it's a spouse or attracted, or spouses to people that are competent, but in work environments we are as well. It's absolutely a plus. So, I'm worried how to use that feature. Thanks, Jason. I know, I know, I know. This is extremely important. Thought leadership, guys, we love open source.

Write a blog post. Get some visibility. We will, we will, Jason, will work with me to promote you worldwide a blog post that you want to write. Convey thought leadership, and you become recognizable to a lot of people and you never know who in the receipt of your blog and who's going to read your stuff is going to be hiring. We will also put on the tour platform, So if it's made, and it will turn on my platform as well. We invite anybody here to write blog posts for us. We will do the anything, we will do all the training, we will do everything with Mark to get it.

The application process, we focus on open source. How many people here contribute to open source projects? A very small percentage. Guys, even with AI, contributing to open source projects is still a thing. We do not know the number of people I've spoken to and have gotten jobs by contributing to active, engaged open source projects. If you submit your resume to a hiring manager on your beyond supplements, if the first thing you see is their get up, you know, account and you look at that get up and they have contributed and they list their contributions out, you can go and actually look at that. In my opinion, that's immediately set you apart that you've actually contributed to projects you're active, you're engaged.

And it also leads you would not know, we're not believing a number of times we'll talk to people that are saying, Hey, I started contributing to an open source project. And all the other people, I didn't even know who they were. They were just handles, but they were hiring us. They worked at other companies, and these big companies, because they liked my contribution, and they found value in my contribution, they followed up with me about a job and that's how I got a little entry level job, or an advanced or a more intermediate level job, etc. Continuous education. As the reason we do the AI conference, it's funny.

People that attended the AI workshops in March, a lot of what was taught in those workshops is already out of the day. This stuff and you guys get on it is changing so fast. You cannot give up on continuing ed and continuous education anyway and that is one reason why we do what we do to these meetups. You would not believe the conversations we have behind the scenes as to what the feature and focus on at our events. It is hard. It's like literally hard work because it changes so fast. The favorite question and the favorite comment that I had up here my very favorite Bobby was you as governance.

You do not know the number of conversations I've had recently with people that buy code and that break about 10 laws in process and do not even know the break in 10 laws. They were just like I buy coded it, it kicked ass and it's awesome. And I'm just like well yeah but did you consider, have you thought? I mean governance and laws and like regulation on the stuff is like an afterthought. If you, you don't have to Bobbi's point, don't have to be an expert, just be knowledgeable. Like if you can have a conversation about governance right now for ATO 2026 in October, we are scoping and looking, we are getting ready to announce and we're finally asking an AI governance workshop because we think that topic is so important and so few people have a clue about governance, it is vital.

If you understand governance or if you You can convey competency in that area. I think you immediately stand out on a resume. That's just my personal opinion. And then startups. I'll end on this because I know you can come to hear me blather on. Taylor, to me, disrespect to AWS, we're great partners, love ya, meet ya. They'll love ya, meet them. All the big companies, fidelity. You know, we are long-term partners, however, this has been my experience. interview process, maybe a little more rigid, maybe a little more restrictive, maybe a little more formal. You must do this. I don't mean that in a bad way.

You have to. When you're that big, that's where you have to have a very normal process. So from an interviewee standpoint, I can see how you might feel like, ah, Mike, I need to give you a chance to screw me out of AI. Startups, they're just happy as hell to see you. They're just like this person's I'll hire that person. My experience has been for what it's worth. The process is far less formal. Your chances of getting in with the startup are greater if you display some minimum or minimal level of competency or understanding of AI, skill set, etc. And startups are a great way to get wonderful experience that can serve as an on-ramp and larger companies or you can You can help that start at grow, get funding, and then take the next step.

And, dude, you can become rich working for startups. Not everyone's a success. The majority of them fail. I get it from the right source of experience. Don't give up on the startup space and seek it out wherever you live. If it's here in the trial, what's CED or some other organization like that? I'll shut up, I promise. But this was amazing. I really appreciate it. I learned so much. And this is an area of huge interest to me because, you know, Guys, I've been in this space for 20 years now. I'm just going to shoot you straight. I'm sort of a concern. I don't know exactly where this is going to go.

I see some trends that are very concerning to me. So I want you to be as successful as you can be. We work very, very hard to provide us many opportunities for you to do that. You know, the conferences, two events, three meetups, et cetera. OK, I'm done. I wasn't on the schedule. I'm sorry. But this kind of discussion was so good. I've never seen you this far. I've never really took you out. I'm going to be off you. I don't have to do this. I was like, how do you get her a South Carolina memes? And she's assuming you make hot games, right? And if you think I'm the innovator, you should see my boys.

They're really innovating. Anyway, Jason, you post and you edit. Jason is the editor of our Zulu Wheel of Open Source platform. Say a word and close everything. I'm just glad I took the microphone away from Todd. Really quick, 15 seconds. If you have a blog post, If you have a story, you have something you learn, something you want to teach someone, email us at, we love up a source and I can help you get it on our bottom. Looking forward to work with you. Great panel, great panel, amazing panel. Thank you. It's great. Okay, so I'm at 810, we ran 10 minutes over, I apologize.

I want to thank our panelists, you did a wonderful job of Taylor. You're a superstar, I'm on Superstars. You really do a great job. Does anybody here have any important announcements? announcements. Are there any events coming up on our next meeting up at September the 8th? Or, yes, at Fidelity Investments, you are gracious and you will be our venue host. Thank you for doing that. Talk about a long-time partner. Anybody else here hosting an event coming up that people could leverage to learn more or network or better their network? Of course, Danny Kastron. Yes, of course. I can't believe I'm, why don't you tap me on the shoulder saying tell me you're here.

Hello everyone. Happy to take some scientific. Where's your talk at? We have AI tinkerers next Wednesday. It's at the Hunt Library. You can search around the AI tinkerers and RSVP. We actually have for those of you who saw Don Shin do his workshop at the last event. For Todd He is doing a mini workshop with us on how to do an Elo if I'm on your phone. So he'll be doing that for afternoon and we'll have our regular demos. So if you want more dumb shit, we've got that for you next week. So go ahead and register and come join us at the Hunk Library and then see you state.

I'm going to encourage you to make Danny before you leave because he's a heck of a nice guy. He's a great person and he's very well connected. Any other upcoming events? I don't mean to have students, but we've always done this. We want to encourage other events. I'm Mark. I'm visiting from New Orleans. I'm a co-host of the L'Kee Days. We're de-identicated meetups. And find yourself the big easy last Tuesday of every month. We host a very similar list where we have a good discussion, starting a discussion with the community. So if you find yourself in Louisiana, more or less last Tuesday of every month, look at your names.

Thank you. All right. OK. Anyone else? OK. This is the last one we can do, because I think we can get everybody out of here. Yeah, so we have a hack the box needle. And if you haven't heard of hack the box before, it's basically like a web app, web platform that's supposed to teach you how to hack for real a world. as you can get without breaking the law anyway. So if you're interested in red teaming all kinds of security and testing or just curious about how action is done, yeah, we have a half box meetup at Raleigh, you can find it on meetup.com.

We meet every Saturday at BCPI University from 12 to four. And it's a great networking opportunity for the InfillSec community. So yeah, I just call me and hang out and look it up. Talk to me. I call and hack the box, right? Okay, thank you very much. Okay, a lot. Anybody else? I've been to this, my kids would say, Dad, did you fit? No, not me. Okay, yep, I got one more. I promise this is the last one. All right, so for this to be done to me, I'm Mr. Scott. I run the local Raleigh Tableau and Snowflake user groups. So they're not open source, We're big fans of open source technology and AI, all things AI.

So on September 17, for those of you that don't know, there's a big Salesforce event going on in San Francisco, all Dreamforce. You can't make it, don't worry, I can't either. It's very expensive. So we are hosting a watch party at Tech Systems, which is just around the corner. I know another competitor, I'm sorry. But the, so we're going to be hosting at 12, we're going to be doing, we're watching a few sessions. And then at five o'clock, we have a happy hour and then we'll finish off with a, with a tablet over the evening. We'll come and get to hear all, all things, anything AI, creating your own agent, working within an agent within Salesforce and Tableau and other tools.

So, thanks, Tableau. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. reminder please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me at T.

Eston on all social media handles and I hope you have a fantastic day.