state of the market from a veteran recruiter

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Alrighty. What's going on, fam? Good morning. Happy Wednesday. You know, Taylor, you're people people probably was like, Taylor, I missed the guest, right? I've been doing a lot of solo shows. Uh, so the guests are back. The guests are going to start sprinkling in. Um, I I still need to write a curriculum. I'm going to continue to kind of how to use this AI and the job search thing. Um, again, the, you know, we we we concluded, uh, the last, uh, we concluded our last week yesterday. Um, so Tony, I walk people through eight weeks on kind of super high level on how to use AI, right?

Like, you know, throw your resume into in the cloud, you know, pick it apart, LinkedIn, pick it apart. Uh, how to use like the voice agent part to do it like a mock interview. did that, you know, kind of kind of walk through that stuff. So that was an eightweek series. Finished that up yesterday. And so Tony's like the first guest back. Uh so um but Tony and I met >> with but through an AI agent thing, right? So shout out to boardy.ai. Um got us connected. Um you know, and so uh Tony and I chatted. Uh it's been a few weeks now, right? >> Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's been like I think I think like months, maybe two months. I don't know. Time flies in this industry. So, anyways, Tony had some good thoughts. I was like, "Tony, why don't you call my show, man?" Tony said, "Absolutely." So, we're here. Um, so uh so again, for those of you tuned in, welcome. I know we started a little bit early. Uh if you do, uh if you do catch this, please say hey. Uh would love to hear from you. You know, I was telling Tony backstage like this this has kind of morphed um into kind of like me yapping to really it being a virtual meetup, right?

I mean, I know I call this a podcast. I call this a live stream. Um but uh but basically, you know, it's it's it's really just a virtual meetup where you can come hang uh you know, put this on the background as you work, listen to some experts like Tony um with the market um and then obviously continue about your day. So, uh, kind of a few announcements here. So, first off, I I do want to say, um, if if you do want to get that is a very large banner. That is an insanely large banner. If you want to get updates on when I go live with guests like Tony, shoot me a text.

This is actually my number. Um, I'm going to start doing more with this number. More to come on that. Really want it to be kind of a hotline for people um when they're on their job search. But if you if you want to be just updated when I go live, shoot me text live to this number. This is actually me. I think it's only US only. Um, so I need to get on WhatsApp. I'm starting to use WhatsApp more, Tony. Um, with all my international friends. Um, also too, I I I I do want to say, all right, so we are I I have uh been heads down with getting some cool partnerships for the tour community.

Um, and we've already landed, uh, we've landed three now. Um, so, um, coffee sponsorship, which I've talked about before. My buddy Seek, uh, or no, my buddy Caleb, who runs Seek, a coffee company in Nashville. I got that. Um, so, so, uh, and then I just got $10,000 worth of tokens gifted to the TOR community, uh, by an AI company. So, and then I got gifted. I'm still confirming the details, but I think it's a month or two free of an email, an AI email provider that's a competitor of Superhum, um, for free for Torque users. Jump in the Discord. It's going to be posted in the Discord.

It's also going to be posted on our platform, too. So, you're going to need a profile to sign up. So, so do that if you haven't done already. Um, more to come there. I will announce it once it's officially live in the Discord and on the platform. Uh, what else? I think that's it. I think I I think I think that's all the announcements. Um uh I know Roxy is headed to uh KCDC this week. Um so look out for Roxy in Kansas City. Um but uh but yeah. All right. So I think that's it. Let's get into it. Tony, let's give the people what they want, man.

Just who are you, background about yourself, and then uh Tony was just just an absolute delight and sent me all of his notes he came up with. So I'm going to I'm going to pull those up as easy. So Tony, give a quick background, buddy. >> Okay. Thanks, Taylor. It's really great to be here uh and speak to you and your crew and uh I'm here in the UK. So uh and I've had quite a well maybe sort of 25 26 years in talent and I think I've kind of done a bit of everything. So there was sort of 15 years sort of running agencies uh on the sort of the external side.

There's then the following 10 years is working inhouse with scaling businesses across the world um especially in the sort of the tech area and especially with sort of series A and B businesses and then the last 5 years sort of crossing over with that is actually uh building technology so building the the AI based as it is now hiring systems that businesses are using or not using and you know but very much hands-on day-to-day still working with businesses I do a lot of consulting with businesses to help them sort of understand what they need to do to kind of improve their hiring, to get it off the ground, to, you know, to slow it down sometimes.

>> All those sorts of different things. So, a lot of different angles there. Um, so it's great to sort of come into a community where, you know, there's people that have hopefully got lots of questions and maybe I can help them with some insight. >> Yeah, I love it, man. I love it. So, so, so, so again, shout out to you. You sent me a lot of notes here. Do do you have any burning one you want to start off on? Because I can go ahead and pick and go down a rabbit hole, but I'm curious on where you want to start. >> Well, I think if we think about sort of the application process a little bit.

>> Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. That that's a big thing right now, man. >> It's a huge thing. It's a huge thing. We're going to, you know, touch a tiny part of that. But, um, I know that and and this comes from not just me as a talent professional, but me as a job seeker as well. It's a really hard place to be when you're looking for work. And and the worst thing that can happen is that you you have this black hole that everybody experiences. And not many companies have kind of got this right yet. And what it comes across as to a job seeker is it's like, you know what, what the hell's going on?

No one cares. No one's reading anything. You know, I could do this job, but you know, no one's looking at my details. And the reality is very different. But there is just such a terrible communication channel there between applicant and you know and and talent team whether that's inhouse or external uh that you know you've got no other way of describing it. Yeah. Okay. So they're not communicating with me. I'm not going to get that job. That company's not that great. That's kind of how it works out and that is the reality. But from the other side of things, usually I 99% of applications are rejected because of the fit with the the person or the CV.

So it's the CV predominantly, right? And still >> even today, >> you know, September 2026, it's gone AI crazy, right? The world's gone AI crazy. in-house talent teams and most agencies are still reviewing CVs manually. All right? And I know that's not a popular opinion because a lot of people will say, "No, no, they're not. They're not." They are. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Um, a lot of it is based on the industry not being ready to adopt. And if you think about, you know, an in-house talent team, they're getting pressure from above to be more efficient. They're getting pressure to adopt AI.

Yeah. Some of the teams, a lot of the teams I talk to, they get a message saying, "Use AI, but they get nothing else. They get no support. They get no training. They get no >> just use it, right? Just use it. Let's be cheaper. Let's be quicker." And >> it's then really hard for them because there's so many things out there now. There's so many tools and and that that that uh concept of tech fatigue is is huge, especially when you're on the buying side. Yeah. and and you know I spent you know 25 years on the buying side. >> Sure. >> You want a piece of technology whether it's an ATS, whether it's a screener, whatever it is, >> but there's so many to choose from.

Everyone's claiming to be the best thing since sliced bread. And the reality is that you don't choose anything. Yeah. You're worried about being of biases. You're worried about the technology. You're worried about data uh protection. And all of the time you're sticking to reviewing CVs manually, which is where most of companies are still are at the moment. Um, but their communication is still bad. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, it's interesting. I put out a post this morning on X. It was like it was like around like stop telling clients that you can do the job, but start telling when I say clients like hiring managers.

you can do the job, but tell them how specifically you have done the job. And I had somebody message me before the show and they're like, I've done that and it's still not going anywhere. And so, like, I feel like right now, like I know a lot of senior engineers that are struggling. >> Like, do you like do you have thoughts at all? Any words of encouragement? >> Yeah, totally. Totally. I think um so some of the notes I sent you was some sort of you know advice on stuff and I think the the big one that has been it's actually been the same advice that I've been giving people for 20 years and that advice is you have to tailor every single application.

Yeah. It's it's no good anymore having a CV for financial services companies, having a CV for this type of job and having a CV for more senior jobs. This doesn't cut it anymore. >> And the the the primary reason for that is that the job application numbers globally are off the charts. And if you think about um you know how you would review documents, whether it's a CV or anything. >> Mhm. >> We've got customers at the moment that are getting 1,000 applicants per job. >> Yeah. This is no exaggeration. It doesn't matter what the job is. There's a thousand applicants every time. >> That's just that's just impossible to >> It doesn't matter how big your team is.

>> Yeah. Exactly. You can't deal with that. A few years ago, I spoke to the head of recruitment at a company called Twitter. Doesn't exist anymore. It's now called X, obviously. They received 800 applications in one day every time they posted a job, you know, and and this was uh obviously this is a few years ago now as well. This is before CO even. So, you can just think of that and I'm not saying, you know, let's get don't get too sympathetic to the teams. Yeah, they've got a job to do. But a lot of the time if you think your CV is not being looked at sometimes you're right.

Yeah. Because they just not got to it. Yeah. If you're not in the first 250, you've often not got a chance at that job. And sad sad as it is, you know. Um and and that leads back to why we tailor the the applications as well. I mean, I I can understand the kind of, you know, anyone thinking, why should we bother? If they're not going to read it, why should we bother? Well, you've got you've got to play the numbers, right? You've got to hope that you are one of those first few. And you've got to and it's not just about standing out. I know that there's this concept that, okay, you've got to be the best looking person for this job.

You don't. You just have to be between this thing and this thing. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. So, breaking it down a little bit, companies, especially grow fast growing companies. Yeah. And I'll come on to why in a sec, but fast growing companies want risk mitigation. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. They want someone that's, and I'm going to say this, and I know that this is this is biased, but I'm just, you know, this is what people think. We want people that are not too old, but not too young. >> We want people that are experienced, but not too experienced. We want people that and and this is an actual stat.

We want people that have been at their last job for two years minimum but a maximum of 5 years. >> Mhm. >> And okay, I'm generalizing. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> But that that last stat is a LinkedIn stat. That is a LinkedIn uh talent insight that they send to their customers to say who are the most likely applicants for your job. It's the ones that have been at a job for two years but not more than five years. >> And that so you can see >> so it starts to like snowball on itself is then that's the frame of thought. >> Exactly. Exactly.

And when you again and then come back to the number of applications you've got all of these applications what you're going to do you're going to try and home in on the ones that are the most likely for you and the least risk. And you know, I don't like it and we'll come on to what I've done to do things differently maybe later on, but >> it's always at the moment because of this the sheer number of applications, it's come down to experience over potential. >> Yeah. And if you go back maybe 15, 20 years, businesses all all wanted the potential, you know, they they really like, oh, find me the next one of these.

find me the next one of them. Now it's no, no, we want readymade. We want uh off the shelf. We want hit the ground running, you know, we want they've wor with all the frameworks. We we don't want them to kind of ramp up and spend time training. We want them just to I mean I saw I saw a job application yesterday and it said you will be committing code on day one. I mean, I don't think anyone in any job should be doing anything like that on day one, >> right? Right. >> You know, besides working out where the bathroom is, >> you know, is it?

>> But but that >> that's what they're asking for, you know, and so >> Yeah. So, that's why kind of tailoring the CV is really crucial just to get you past that first check, whoever's doing it, human or AI. >> Yeah. So, let me let's let's let's get to a question here, Jacob. Uh, golly, dude, these banners are just absolutely massive. Uh, would would you consider a specialized recruiter >> seeking the right talent to put in front of the hiring manager versus a talent team reviewing CVs? I think this is a fascinating uh question. Um, so I want I want you to go first and see if there's any overlap and then I'll answer.

>> Yeah. Yeah, sure. Um, so I'm I'm presuming the question is about, you know, who would you prefer to work with in in sort of getting a job rather than, you know, which route to go to get a job, right? Um, I think if you're looking at sort of a a specialized recruiter, they should know about things that you're not going to see online. They should have a network. They should have clients that they know there's jobs coming up and that they can even get you in before the jobs even get posted online. So, that's a big advantage, you know. >> Mhm. >> Whereas the the in-house talent teams, they don't really work like that.

They sometimes have a view of a few months ahead, but classically and especially in fast growth companies, 3 months max. So, they don't really know what's coming ahead. So building a relationship with those people is less important. What I would say if you wanted to build relationships with people, let's just say that you targeted a company that you really wanted to work for, the relationship you want is directly with the hiring manager, not the talent team. >> Yeah. So um if you're nurturing relationships, do it with the hiring manager. If you want someone that's going to search on your behalf and hopefully come up with some stuff that you can't find, yeah, go with the external uh the external team.

>> Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think I think I think it's Yeah. I mean, right now you need to go highly highly specialized with everything, right? Like I think I think for me so again so I think so Tony so I've only worked agency Tony has worked agency and internal I think both type of recruiters are good for you but they're very different right and internal recruiters recruiters that work for one company can only really help you so much however they have the most inside track when a role is hot it right now I would be using AI using chat GPT whatever uh you know using all of these AI assistants and that's probably what my next segment of talk is just how to set up all these AI assistants to help you in job search but like I would be like setting up an AI assistant be like hey if there's a recruiter posting about civil engineering jobs I want to know them right or if there is day agency recruiter that's talking about software developer all the time.

That would be me, right? Like I want to I want to get to know them because I think right now and then even job boards, right? I get on chat GBT or Claude or whatever your daily driver is and be like, "Hey, I want to go I this is my background. What job platforms or communities do I need to niche down on?" I think that's going to help you because that's going to help you rise to the top. Thoughts on that, Tony? >> Yeah, totally. Especially in the technical area, you want to be specialized. I think on the internal side, what you can do is is also do some research around where some of the, you know, the re the good teams are that does what you want to do, you know, and that's quite easy to find on things like LinkedIn, obviously, you know, jobs as well.

And I know it doesn't help if you're looking for a job, but if you can think ahead and think about when you want to be looking for a job, whether it's 6 months, 12 months ahead, you can start putting uh making relationships uh based on that. Um but yeah, I mean I'm 100% behind scheduled tasks on claude work, you know. Um I use them for everything at the moment, whether it's, you know, finding a fish tank for my son or, you know, climbing comps. So, it makes perfect sense to use it to scan all the job boards so you don't have to, >> you know, and 100% get all of that off your plate because that is soul destroying, you know, been there.

And, you know, and and you don't want to be doing that. But if you can have a collated list where you can literally go through them, um, if if you're pretty good with Claude, I'd even say get Claude to rank them based on what your preferences are. So that again, you don't need to do that. You know, again, why why look through a 100 job postings when you can just get Claude to tell you which 10 are most suited to you. And then, as we will come on to later, get the CV created for you as well. >> Yeah. which which again if you go to my YouTube or Torque's YouTube I I've I literally walk through that.

I literally walk through that like yesterday and it's in our Torque Discord for folks listening now in the future. We created a job search tracker but it went as deep as like how many it basically turned into like an outbound sales motion where it's like how many connects have you had? You know what I'm saying? And and Claude created it yesterday and you can just plug in the information. It does it all for you. So, you know, again, if if you are trying to figure out how to use AI, in my opinion, the job search and finding a job is a great way to do it.

So, um >> Yeah. Yeah. totally, totally. I've also I created a a prompt that will do all of the CV analysis for you. So, it will look at your CV, it will compare it to the job you're looking at, and it will create you a new CV. And there are safeguards built in there to make sure it doesn't make anything up. I'm gonna get that prompt from you after this. >> Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Look, it's it's free. It's available to everybody. People should use it. >> That's great. That's awesome. All right. Looking at the notes you kind of sent me as we kind of continue on with this the application process.

Um, uh, always push for feedback. I think that's the biggest issue, >> right? And listen, uh, a lot of HR stuff gets thrown around. can't give feedback. You know, I I used to do talks to recruiters and I'm like, listen, telling somebody specifically where they're lacking skills is not an HR issue. Telling them they have brown hair when it should be blonde is a HR issue. So, what what are your thoughts just on the candidates pushing for feedback and how they can do that? >> Yeah. So, the first thing is to always ask a standard. Yeah. as as soon as there is a rejection um a polite request for feedback.

If you've had an interview, you absolutely should get feedback and I I think you should probably have a call w with the hiring team as well, right? So, you should feel comfortable to push for that. >> Um if you haven't and it's just an application, you should still ask for feedback. I do every time. And but do it in a nice way. Yeah. you're you're not be persistent but do it in a way that if anything changes in the job and this happens all the time you're still considered for the next step. Yeah. >> Um so be careful with that. The the but the reason I say to ask for feedback all the time there's there's a couple of things.

One we need talent teams to get more into the habit of providing it. And the only way they'll do that is if they keep getting asked. And from someone that's built AI systems, it is very easy, very easy to provide feedback. And the feedback you get from, you can get from an AI screening system is very detailed, very accurate. And when we test it with people, people generally say, "Oh, yeah, fair enough." you know and uh but it's not having any feedback that people feel you know disenfranchised they >> you know >> I mean I think the line I always say when it comes to feedback is hey so again I was a recruiter you're a recruiter we hate giving feedback I I am not perfect I have sat on bad feedback to a candidate because I haven't wanted to give it Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. I mean, I'm not perfect, right? But I will say this, the line that has worked with me, some some people have done in the past and I've just started to talk about it more. If you come at the recruiter and be like, "Hey, haven't heard from you in a bit. It's I get it. It's probably a no. Can you give me any any any insight on why?" Because if you if you give the permission to the recruiter to tell you no, they're more likely than not going to tell you why. I think the problem is is that uh recruiters just hate giving back.

I mean, we're we're people, too. And I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to I'm going to defend recruiters for a second. Recruiters, a lot of recruiters I know are very caring human beings. That's what makes a really good recruiter. We deeply care about people, like the good recruiters, right? So if you deeply care about somebody, you don't want to give give them bad feedback, especially when it comes to their job search, right? And so giving them an out I have seen helps. >> Yeah, totally. And so with a bit of from my experience um so when on the agency side um always tried to give as much feedback as possible but there was honestly times where the client said no we've moved on and you can't get the feedback from them and so sometimes that's the case and and I know that as a recruiter it's a bit embarrassing to say sorry I can't get hold of the client but it's a no >> right >> you just That's just the case.

That's that's that's the fact of it. Inside internally, the same sort of thing happens a lot. So the dynamic is that you've got your talent team who are coordinating everything and you've got the hiring managers that are making the decisions. And a lot of the time you'll get a message from a hiring manager saying it's a no on that one, it's a yes to this one. You don't even get a reason why they want to hire someone sometimes, right? And then it's the same thing. You want to chase them. You want to get good feedback. You want to provide good feedback, but you don't have it.

And so a lot of the time that gap is because you don't have the feedback, but you have the result. >> And you just you can't give that feedback to someone. Do you know what I mean? It is embarrassing, right? It's not professional, but that's the case. And it's got worse with remote working because you can't just walk up to the guy, you know, and say, "Okay, right. Just tell me what is it about this one? What is Yeah, we used to do that a lot. Now, >> it's funny there there was some chatter going on in the uh uh Torque Discord about it going back to like paper resumes.

And I'm going to be honest, I I could totally see that. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, things change, you know, ways of working change and it doesn't necessarily make it easier or better just because it makes it quicker, right? Um, and you know, on one side of the coin, it doesn't change the decision. Yeah. You're rejected, you're rejected, right? On the other side of the coin, it's not fair. It's just not humanly fair that you've put time and commitment into something >> and then you don't get some kind of, you know, report back. So, it's difficult. It's very difficult and every company's different. Some of them are great, right?

>> Yeah. Some >> Yeah. I mean so I have I mean you know with kind of being in my position not like onetoone helping people find jobs but like obviously like one to many through content and all this stuff is you know I have a lot of my friends on the job search that lament to me right sent you know I get texts from a lot of people hey here's what I'm struggling with here here's what's going on you know the the most consistent feedback is wow this is awesome. A company actually gave me feedback and they rejected that person, you know, and this was a talk I gave years ago like you know this whole thing about like branding and marketing as it relates to the company for like the job search like in and dealing with candidates.

But like if you treat candidates respectfully through your job search process, that's one of your greatest moes in terms of brand and marketing for your company. >> Yeah, totally. and and on that it it's very hard when it's not your fault that you don't have the feedback you know but um I don't know if people have noticed but the larger a company gets the worse it's communication get >> yeah yeah >> and I went >> I mean I went to a so we have these sort of sessions where you couldn't and this one was with a lawyer so it was a employment lawyer >> and in that session the employment lawyer said If we had one bit of advice for you, it would be don't ever give any feedback.

And that's Yeah. And and the reason for that is that if you say something that they then think is uh discriminatory >> Mhm. >> you can get a claim. >> So again, it comes back, you know, right to what we where we started minimizing risk. >> Sure. Um All right. This is good. This is good. So I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to go figure. So, so let's talk about risk, right? Like, so one of the things you sent me is around risk. I think >> this is kind of a theme that I've been talking about more through kind of my social media and content channels around, you know, people don't understand why companies ghost, why companies slow down, you know, when they have a spot open, why companies are dragging.

I would say probably the interview process. I would love some sort of data set on like how many steps an interview process has been like pre20 like like in the last two years versus like 2020, right? Because I'm sure it's probably doubled. Um I mean I know people in 2020 that got job offers off of a phone call, right? And now we're, you know, I've seen seven, eight rounds. So uh talk about the risk part because I don't think people can really understand that. >> Sure. Well, let me put it into some numbers. These are these are UK numbers, but they are official numbers. These are these are actually governmentstated numbers.

When a business makes a bad hire, and that is just someone that leaves very quickly, right? It didn't work out for whatever reason, >> it cost the business on average um $40,000 per hire. >> Yeah. >> That's every time you have one. And with a fast growing startup especially, you you have more bad hires than you have good. That's just how it is, I'm afraid. >> Yeah. >> When you look at a senior hire, so in a, you know, a director, VP, that kind of stuff or higher, that jumps up to a cost of $179,000 per hire. So, that's what businesses are trying to manage in terms of their risk.

And if if you're uh a company, let's say anything from sort of 100 through to 3,000, you're typically your rapid startup, rapid scale up, you're hiring a lot of people. Your percentage of new hires to existing staff is really high. And so, apart from the money, you've got a massive problem with the gap and capacity. You've got a massive problem with the work that couldn't get done that needs to get done because it's all about trying to find revenue. You've got a huge problem with um the the staff and the culture, you know, when you got a lot of turnover. >> And so that's why a lot of these businesses really try to play it safe.

Yeah. >> They they scale ridiculously fast, which is kind of the opposite, right? But they try and play it safe with the hires. they try and look for the experience so they can hit the ground running. >> Um, and it's it's not a great way of doing things and you tend to find that >> when they get to a certain stage, they've kind of figured out that they're doing it wrong. >> Mhm. >> And then they change. >> Yeah. >> But it's almost trying to get to that point for a lot of these businesses. >> And you you mentioned also, you know, insight into why these uh processes take so long and how many steps The smaller a business, the less knowledge they have about hiring.

You know, class, you know, if it's really small and it's still sort of founderled or CEO, you got to imagine that that person probably knows nothing >> about hiring almost nothing, right? Unless they're possibly a second time founder. Um, a lot of the time they're straight out of university, so they they don't even know about business as well. And so you kind of got to that they've got to learn as they're doing things. So that's why you get a lot of job specs that aren't right. You get a lot of delayed processes. You got a lot of changes. That kind of stuff. When they're getting a bit bigger, a lot of the problems are changing priorities.

So especially when you're talking about a VCback business that is typically not making a profit. >> Mhm. They're all searching for whether it's product market fit or new products that are going to get revenue or growth of customers. If in that time they they've always got jobs open, right? And they're looking for let's just say they're looking for jobs A, B, and C, >> right? >> But in in a 3 month period that can change completely. And so you've got live jobs for A, B, and C. And then all of a sudden you've got no no, we don't need A, B, and C. We need D, E, and F.

that is the is literally the everyday >> Yeah. >> for talent teams in these businesses, you know. So, and I'm sure you come across that as as a as a agent. >> Well, then that's where it gets into like contract versus direct hire, which is I mean, and we can talk about a little bit. I mean, you know, I've I've obviously, you know, one of the things I like to do is is, you know, do a kind of market search on Claude and kind of repurpose just some data points on X to um uh to, you know, give some shed some light, right? I mean, one of the things that's becoming very apparent based off my research, aka Claude, uh, is contract roles are spinning up more.

And it makes sense because for the most part, it's low risk for the for the company. Um, they can usually move faster. I mean, even within my confines, like direct hire stuff just takes forever and contract, you know, you can pull the trigger pretty quickly. Um, and so yeah, it just uh I would say if you're not looking at contract roles, I would say that is that is one of the ways companies are derisking themselves but still getting people in the pipe. Thoughts on that? >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think you should consider everything that, you know, on the on the other side of the coin, there's no such a thing as a permanent role anymore.

So, you should kind of think of all jobs on, you know, what that what the timeline of that job's going to be. The contract stuff is quite interesting because typically they're bringing you in because of something you can specifically do and you've done before. So, you should be you should be quite competent and able to do that and you should get a good reference from it and you should get good money for it as I mean, that's kind of the the payoff with these short-term things. It's quite good money. >> Um, >> there's not so many in the UK at the moment. Um, but that's partly to do with some changes the government made over tax a few years ago and so they made it harder for people to be contractors.

So, all of a sudden, like everyone turned to become a permanent employee. >> Yeah. >> Um, but uh so so there you know, you do get some contracts, but it's less so at the moment. But I would definitely say yeah, why not? Look, give it a go. Whatever's out there, it's going to get you workings. It's going to give you experience. And quite a lot of the time, if you do really well and the company like you, they'll find you something else and and quite often offer you a permanent job as well. >> Yeah. I I think I'm just trying to collect my thoughts here.

I you know, I I I think I think what's become very apparent and I want people and it's interesting Jaylen has seen it too. Jaylen's a part of the community. Jaylen, good to see you, buddy. Um, is that there is no such thing as job security anymore. >> No. >> Right. You don't stay at, you know, you don't stay at a company for 25 years anymore. You don't get a pension. You don't get the Rolex. The fact that that was a thing is absolutely crazy to think about it now, right? I mean, the reality of the situation is you uh you maybe stay at a spot for two years, three years, right?

And you know, I've again a lot of these side text messages that I get, I was talking with one guy. He was uh he was like he was like, "I'm in a full-time spot, but I'm not learning, but then I got a contract gig that this is the TLDDR basically, and the contract spot will allow me to grow and learn and blah blah." And I was like, you take the contract spot. >> Like the market is moving so fast now. You know, you and I were chitchatting about these AI agents, right? Like I mean, it's moving so fast, right? And you know, Chat GBT launched Astra and like, you know, you have all these LLMs and you have all these chat bots.

I mean, and and and and the AI is just rapidly going at this point where if if you get left behind, it's going to be very hard to dig yourself out of this hole. It's going to be very very difficult. And so, you know, I will say if you have the opportunity and you get a contract job, take the contract job. >> Yeah. I I think obviously everyone's situation's different, right? But if they have an opportunity that they think is going to be beneficial for them, I think that that's the key is whether it's beneficial or not. Um, take it. And and bear in mind, contract jobs are just like any other job.

They have a notice period. Yeah. They have conditions in it. So, um, unless it's, you know, specifically stated that you must finish the contract otherwise you forfeit something. if something better comes up or your, you know, your permanent job comes up, you can leave the contract job as well, you know, right? >> It's not ideal, but everyone understands, you know, so I think you need to kind of just think about what you're looking to gain out of it, whether it's experience, whether it's, you know, um just just the money side of things, whatever it is, you know, uh judge it on what you're going to gain from the job.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Chris, you're funny, buddy. You're funny. All right. Uh let's see here. What else? What else we got as we start to round out this chat here? Um, let's see here. AI myths not keyword-based. >> Yeah, I think um >> have we touched on that yet? >> Well, let's let's talk about just yeah, some small AI myths because I mean it doesn't really mean much at the end of the day, but it might help job seekers to just kind of breathe a bit easier, right? because there are lots of there's lots of clickbait out there. You know, most of the stuff on LinkedIn is is absolute rubbish.

But there there's um there's a philosophy I can't remember who who it was, but it's like if enough people say something enough times, it then becomes reality. And actually the reality we live in at the moment is that everyone believes all these myths. But the the first one really as you you know touched on using AI and LM especially is got nothing to do with keywords. Yeah. So don't stuff your CVS with keywords. Don't you know write them in white in fact. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that. >> Well, you know what? No, that that was genuine advice on posting jobs from the job boards 10 years ago, honestly, because they were crazy >> for for reach.

But um but no, no, don't do that. And anyone that you know is an engineer that has worked with LLMs will know that it's got nothing to do with keywords. Yeah. It's all to do with um understanding concepts, the underlying sort of in in CV terms, the skills underlying and what that all kind of means at a higher level. In fact, it's so you're better off not putting in keywords actually. Um, and the second thing is, and I get this a lot, is AI more biased or less biased than a human? And the simple answer is it depends. So the the the the bad practice that we see is that you have teams or hiring managers that build their own screening tools.

>> Yeah. >> And this is really bad news. Okay. And it it's bad news because they're building it with all of their all of the biases in their head into the tool, >> you know, and and the ones that we've sort of audited and looked at, they're just they're just illegal in most places. And so we've had to adi literally like literally they the way that they do things, the way that they screen. Um and so we've had to, you know, advise clients to stop using them immediately. Um, the fact of the matter is, and this is a little bit like, you know, when when you when you're going to tailor your CV, use AI.

Absolutely. Use AI to sharpen your CV, but not to invent stuff. And if you do that correctly, you're going to get a great result. And it's the same with sort of the, you know, hiring tools and using LMS as well. If you do it with safeguards and you use tools that are accredited or you know are built by professionals in the trade, they know what the problems are, what the biases are, you know. Um, and then the last thing I guess which is huge at the moment is AI rejected me. AI didn't reject you. It it it didn't. It's always a human that rejects you, right?

AI cannot make decisions. Um there's not a tool I've seen that is made to make a decision. What you will get is some kind of rationale or advice on people. >> Mhm. >> And for example, um it will bas based on the prompts that the users are giving it, you know, or the job requirements really, it will say whether this person matches those requirements or not. And that's why it's so critical to tailor your CV to each job, you know, because if there's a requirement in a CV, let's just say, yeah, they must have built some data architecture on Snowflake. Simple, right? And you've been in your job, you've used Snowflake, you've used loads of other stuff just like Snowflake, but you've not put Snowflake on your CV for whatever reason.

you know, maybe you've just forgotten or you're using an old CV, you will get on the on the AI, it will say recommendation is not to interview because they don't have snowflake experience. And as black and white as it sounds, it's a must have for the job. Yeah. So get it on there, you know, and yeah, and and and whereas and I know I said no CV key words, what I mean is get it on there in the context you used it, you know, and if you do that, it changes what AI says. So instead of AI saying, you know, not recommended for interview because they don't have Snowflake, it will either say recommended for interview because they've used it in the exact context you're looking for, or it will say high potential has used Snowflake, not in our context, but has potential to learn.

And that's literally what it will say. So that's why it's really important and that's why um yeah well you don't get decisions from AI but they it will inform the decision. >> Yeah. And again like this is where you know I talk about the job search being your your job search process being like building a house. Like I'm not I barely know what a screwdriver is if we're just being totally honest with each other. But I do know that you can't just build a house with just a screwdriver. And I think the problem is is most people think applying for a job all the time is how to find a job.

>> Like building the house with a screwdriver. >> That's it. And I think what you need to realize is that I do think you can you have to have different tools. The applying for a job is one tool, but it's the DMs, it's the networking, it's the you know, I always tell people like if you show up today, like there's been a few people that comment today. Like message those people and say it was great to see you. start a conversation, right? Get into the torque community, right? I mean, again, I talk about all the time, but like the the micro interactions that you have with people lead to something down the road, right?

And I think I I think I posted this today on social media is that usually the the work you do networking now isn't going to help you find a job this time around, which people don't like to hear that. It's going to really help you the next time around, right? And so again, tools tools in the tool belt. So um >> yeah I would I would I would say utilize meetups as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh 100%. Because I I see that especially on the engineering side quite a lot of the time the speakers will be hiring managers and you can talk to them and you could pro most of the time get an interview with them there and then you know um and if nothing else you'll meet up with loads of other uh engineers who will happily share your details around you know just because you've met them you don't even have a good conversation you know you just have to met them and sat with them through a talk and shared something and you know there say, "Yeah, great.

No problem. I'll put your details under this guy's desk or whatever it is." >> Yeah. Yep. Yep. Uh, what else? Yeah, we talked about running your CV through AI checks. Seth goes, "Can't build a house without a screwdriver. Hold my beer." I love it. I love that. Um, no, this is great. Let me ask you this, man. Let's as as as we wrap up here, what what what do you see in the market? I mean, obviously you're across the pond, so it's not quite a onetoone here, >> but I actually do like that because it gives more of a global uh approach to things. Let's just end here.

What are you seeing? What are your thoughts? Words of encouragement. Like I said, we'll we'll wrap up here. I think um if there's one thing I'd say especially you know for engineers it is embrace more technology and embrace that uh concept of orchestration of development rather than purely the development itself >> because that that's that's literally where every team's going. There are teams that are are not doing any coding. There are literally teams of hundreds of people not doing any coding right now. And being a you will be a step ahead if you can show that understanding. Even if you've not necessarily done it a lot, show that understanding.

>> Yeah. >> Be able to bring that to a job. I think that would really help. In terms of where the market's going, I think there was a lot more jobs the last few months. 2026 compared to 2025 is like diff, you know, different side of a coin. Um I think now the summer's gone because we have a bit of a hiatus here in the summer. >> Yeah. Well, same. I mean, same here. Same here. It's >> Yeah. And and you know what? without wanting to get political in any way. If if your chap over there could sort sort some things out into the Do you know what I I honestly I think there is there is good stuff coming once that's out the way.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah. Because it just keeps coming back. Do you know what I mean? I mean I I know you guys don't like high gas prices, right? But but you you would get ill compared if you saw the prices here. >> Sure. Sure. Oh yeah, I've I've I've been to Europe. I've been I know. >> I know. >> I mean, I I I can't even say it because it makes me ill just thinking about it. But no, so I think actually I think there's good stuff coming once that's out the way. You know, all of the kind of turmoil and stuff. >> Um and so yeah, uh keep keep going.

Keep going. >> I'm trying to think. I'm trying to I'm trying to like rack my brain of all these like micro conversations I've had to get your thoughts on them. Um, how long how long have you seen people take for the job search right now? Just just in your anecdotal experience. >> Yeah. So, um, okay. So, if you're the right person and and everyone is right for someone. Yeah. If you're the right person, two weeks. Yeah. And and >> I don't think so. >> Honestly, honestly, two weeks for the right person. Right. >> I'm not going to lie. There's I I that that stat lines up with what our friend Claude's been telling me, which is crazy.

>> It and and you'll know you're the right person because of the speed of response. Yeah. And it might not necessarily be the first one because of all the things we talked about before. It might take a while to get to your details, but if you get a request and an interview within a couple of days that happens, you get another one. That's your job. Focus on that one. Keep the momentum. nailed it, right? Because because that's what the talent teams are doing. >> They're going, "Oh, look, we've got the right person. Let's get them through quickly." >> Yeah. >> The ones that get spread out, >> and again, it's a generalization, so don't if you get spread out, there can be reasons for that.

You know, summer hiatus, people on holiday, whatever. But you could probably think that, okay, there's less chance of this job. Yeah, it's taking longer. And so that can be, you know, four, six, eight weeks. Um, >> Seth, I Seth, I love you. He Seth's one of our ambassadors and, uh, he just needs to go into standup. This dude is one of the funniest guys I know. >> Yeah. I mean, listen, I So, I I I I'm going to push back on Tony because, again, this is just again, this is why I like these conversations, right? I can get up here and yap, but but but you know, I feel like I would be doing my community a disservice.

Um, it's taken a while in the States, man. It's taken a while. Um, I have I'm texting with somebody who has worked for some really good companies in Devril and he's looking at going back to a factory worker. >> You know, I had literally a message from a person who a lot of people know. He messaged me this morning, right, for the show. He goes, "I've been looking for nine months." Here is here is my thing. You can't stick your head in the sand anymore. So like So like here's the deal. If you So me sticking I'm going to give a practical example here, right?

If I I got hired to be a community person, okay? If I did just my job description, I'd probably would be only doing, how do I ref how do I frame this? I would only be doing 25% of what I'm doing now. But I knew I needed to iterate. And I'm going to be honest with you, I don't care what you think about Elon Musk or whatever. X is the place where I have seen trends, where the market's going, and I've followed it. Right? So for me, I I have aspirations of continue to grow the community, take on more marketing responsibilities, right? I have seen on X how that now I'm sure there's a ton of contractors, but the guy at Anthropic who was running their growth for the longest time was just him.

Like and a lot of these startups want to hire just one growth person. So, I'm like, "Hey, I need to make it to where I can run a fleet of agents and and work on my behalf and gain that skill set." What I feel like from a developer perspective, it goes, "Oh, I'm just a front-end developer and I'm going to stay a front-end developer." >> I mean, every every job I'm looking at, every client, I can't tell you the last time I saw a front-end developer job. >> Same. I don't even see the arguments anymore on X of Angular, React, Vue. It's gone. >> No, no, it's it's, you know, it's JavaScript and Python and anything else.

It's full stack. And if you can't do full stack, it you know, it's unlikely you're going to get that job. I I think um that that's the way it's going really. Um and I think you need to embrace that. I mean, I I do have some opportunities not for developers, but for people with that skill set could do. anyone wants to get in touch with me, I'll put them in touch with the right people. If they've, you know, been out of work for a while, I'll do what I can. >> Yeah, I saw the great Aaron Francis, VP of marketing and commu and community at the Laravel Company Incorporated.

Um, he posted yesterday that every role is now a technical role, >> right? >> And I agree with that. Like the stuff I'm doing, like I was even talking the stuff. So, put in perspective and and I'm tooting my own horn here. I'm gonna be honest with you, Tony. I barely know how to turn on a computer. Okay. However, what I'm doing with AI, I we we we went to meetups. Uh we did activations for one of our largest clients in Bentonville and Sunnyville in the US. I was sitting with developers telling them what I was doing. None of them knew what I was talking about.

>> So, everything is technical and you have to iterate. you have to evolve. And I'm going to be honest with you, some of the people in my DMs, it's not happening. So, >> yeah. And actually, it's easier than you think, I would say. Um, >> yeah, if I can do it, there's no excuse for anybody. >> Yeah. So, so similar to you a few years ago, uh, you know, I toyed with some technical stuff years ago, but it never really went anywhere because I kind of decided if you're going to concentrate and be a coder, that's the people that you want to hire, not people like me that are just kind of fiddling around with it.

But I started working with Lovable few years ago >> and I'm now globally in the top 10% of lovable uh producers. Right. >> Are you really to send? >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And >> you can do it. >> Exactly. Exactly. So if I can do it, you can do it. I think anyone can do it. I think you just have to get on it. Watch some YouTube stuff. Yeah. Everything's on YouTube and you can create something. And actually, if you're thinking about if you do want to focus on the job search, you want another angle, something that's going to impress, show them something you created.

Look, Jared. Look, look, look what Oh my I can't even see Tony. Uh, I'm just going to read it off the screen right here. Build something and build it like a startup. >> Yeah, >> that's it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I And you know what? I've got um I don't know how many projects now, but uh every time I come up with a problem or a blocker um I think outbound was one of the things I was having troubles with. Um you can go and buy some stuff. It's really expensive or you can build it, >> right? >> You know, and actually it's a lot easier to build it now and you you just talk to Claude, talk to Lovable, they work together, you've got a thing, you know, and you kind of iterate with it.

And I found actually, do you know what? Personally, I found it really fun. It it became a hobby before it became, you know, a job. So, you know, give it a go. >> Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Well, that was great. I said I wanted to wrap up. This is why I like not going off a script because that I feel like that was like the money right there. The last 15 minutes was the best. So, Tony, where where can people connect with you, man? I I'll I'll I'll drop your LinkedIn in the comments after the show, but how can people reach out to you if they have any more questions?

>> Yeah. So unlike you, I I have given up on all the channels apart from LinkedIn. So that's me. >> I love it. Just dial it in on LinkedIn. I love it. >> Honestly, that's it. That's that's find me on there. I'd love to chat to anybody and if I can help them in any way, I'll absolutely do that. >> Yeah, Tony Tonyy's a great resource. Take advantage uh of of that offer. Um all right, y'all. That was great. Tony, stay on so I can say bye to you backstage. Um but that was uh that was it. No, I have a live today. I have another one, Tony.

I have another one. Not not It's somebody else's. Uh I'm going live on LinkedIn. So, more to come there. It's at 11:30. So, if you're just doing absolutely nothing with your day, uh just be on LinkedIn 11:30. Watch my profile. I'm going live. I'm going be talking about community and conferences and stuff like that. Um otherwise, see you in the Torque Discord. Again, partnerships are dropping. >> Just create your profile. It's free. you can potentially get a job and then you get a bunch of cool perks. Okay, so do that. Um, otherwise, appreciate y'all and uh Tony, thank you my friend. You're a gem. >> Thanks.

Thanks everybody. Peace.