lunch it virtual networking group-may edition

full transcript

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

What's going on podcast listeners hope you are safe and doing well during this time really stoked to bring another episode to y'all this week This is actually a recording from my virtual meetup So this meetup. I started earlier this year. It's called lunch it check it out on meetup.com but I now since We can't gather in large places to do lunch. I now have moved this this meetup to 100% virtual through Zoom. And so if you are interested in joining for the next meetup, definitely connect with me and sign up on meetup.com. But I really hope you enjoy this. It is a round table conversation with a few junior developers all the way up to some senior and architect level individuals I know.

And it was really cool is having developers from other cities. So there's a good developer friend of mine from Raleigh and also there's another developer friend of mine from Houston, Texas on this podcast episode as well. So I hope you enjoy, you learned something from it. As always, if you need to reach me, Taylor at VacoVACO.com. And obviously follow me on all social accounts at Tdessintdeseyn. And finally, a little shameless plug. Me, Jake and Dan from a few episodes ago started our own podcast. So it is called Unicorn Finders. Check us out in the Google Play or Apple iPhone store. And it's just a really good round table conversation to have with those dudes every week.

So check that out. Again, please like, subscribe, rate, and review. This podcast, it will mean an absolute ton to me if you haven't done it already. And hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks y'all. I think a lot of good information is gonna come out of this. And so, I'm gonna put this out for other people to learn and pick up some notes. And because I know everyone's kinda lost right now, a lot of people are lost right now. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that. See here, I'll probably go and get started. I don't see anyone else. I'm still trying to get used to Zoom.

I haven't used it a ton. I've used it a ton. I still like Zoom. People are knocking it. I don't know. Hangouts doesn't work. Hangouts doesn't work. I tried that. Go to meeting a Zoom. It's only in class for a month. No, recently. I don't know. I've used it before then too. Well guys and girls, super, I mean it's so cool for me to obviously have individuals from all over the country. So I want to go ahead and just kick it off with obviously some intros. So I want everybody to kind of like go around and introduce themselves and tell them what you do, where you currently located.

So we'll start with that. So Michelle, if you want to kick it off, go ahead. I'm Michelle. I just got out of a boot camp at NSS and so I'm trying to start a career in junior software development. I'm out here in Murphy'sboro and I think that's awesome. That's awesome. Ryan? Yeah, I was in the same boot campus. Michelle and we run several teams together so that's fun to see her again. That's awesome. Yeah, so I'm right outside Nash, so I'm in Franklin and my prior career was technical writing, technical communications, some instructional design as well. So I'm looking to do a career shift and yeah, be a junior developer.

My preference I think is front end but we did the full stack program so I could do any of it. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well Rob, take it away man. Hey everyone, I'm Rob Zelt. I'm a software developer and solutions provider at the University of North Carolina out in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and fairly involved with the development community around these parts in a number of different areas. But yeah, just happy to join and see what I can share. That's awesome. That's awesome. Scott, take it away, buddy. Hey, I'm Scott. I've been doing software development for a long time now, like 15 years, I think.

I lived in Nashville for 10 years, and then a couple years ago, moved out to Houston. been working out here ever since. And we've missed you ever since. I know I've missed Nashville. Colin. Hey guys, I'm Colin. I'm a front end developer. I've been doing this for well over a decade now. Back to the days of IE6 and Spacer Gifts and all of that fun stuff. It's a lot better now. I'm currently a senior front end engineer for Smile Direct in downtown Nashville. Nice. man, go ahead. Well, I've been in software development for about 30 years. And currently, I'm at Grandus Americas in Cool Springs is a senior software engineer dedicated to implementing new MES software in our plants.

Awesome. That's awesome. So, so I guess my big thing is, is I know, I mean, I can sit here and talk for the next little bit. And again, I mean, there's no, I want want this to be kind of concise and not super long. So I mean, if we're all just kind of staring at each other awkwardly, after a few questions, we can all get off. I think my big thing is one, allow individuals to hang out and see other faces, but also to learn from each other. And so I guess I'll go with Michelle first, because she actually sent me the questions that wasn't an assignment.

She went above and beyond. So what I'll do is. I just put in your previous thing, saying you might have us do it. I'm like, well, this might help him. So might as well just send it. I love it. I love it. So, so I'll read one of, one of, you know, her questions and I definitely want everyone to chime in, right? Because I mean, obviously, you know, it's really cool because I mean, we have two individuals coming out of bootcamp and then we have, you know, the rest of y'all that are extremely technical who've been in obviously the field for years. And I think obviously they can learn a ton from you.

And then also, I can learn, I mean, I'm always learning, right? So like Colin, you said a bunch of weird things when you said your intro that I have no idea what you're talking about, but like Rob and Scott giggled and started Bill. So obviously, you know, what I would love to learn from y'all as well. So the first question is, you know, obviously Michelle, you know, I'm out of boot camp. You know, how do I set myself apart from others? So I didn't know if anybody had any thoughts initially and if not, I can obviously dive in. Never stop learning. I was a very dad answer Rob, that was great.

I think it's so true that learning often leads to opportunities. And one of the hardest things where you complete something, I've got a set of skills, I can put in a boot camp, what's next? And the ability to pick up some projects, get involved with some things, continue to grow and learn, that opens up a lot of doors with opportunities and meeting people and trying new things. So I think for me, learning has been a path to many of the biggest opportunities in my career. So I would tag that with never stop meeting people. With the exception of one job in my career, every role I've had, it wasn't like me formally applying to it and like cold applying, it was a friend you recommended I apply for something and I sort of already had, you know, somebody who was aware of the application was coming in.

And just whenever I've done interviews, I mean, whether or not it's, you know, you're intentionally doing it or not. If you know somebody or somebody knows somebody, you've just rise to the top of the pack basically, immediately, because there's like that personal connection. So the more people you know, the easier it is to find a new role, even if you're not even looking for one. And that I'd say, never stop learning is good, but also never stop meeting people and trying to make connections. I love that. I wanted to kind of add, and everyone's talking about meeting people, meeting people, right? But now we're stuck at home, right?

And so I think, you know, I think some of us are probably more social than others. Um, you know, and, and I think the biggest thing is, is how to meet people. So my thought is right now, and I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts too. I mean, obviously this is one of the reasons why I did this, this, uh, meetup, right? You know, ultimately I want everyone to connect with each other on LinkedIn after this, you know, so obviously they can stay in touch. But I think the big thing right now is LinkedIn, right? is utilizing that's to connect with individuals to start conversations. I think for the people on the job market right now, I'm kind of preaching, having, try to have one intentional conversation today, right?

So for people who are looking, Michelle Ryan, this is your one intentional conversation, right? And ultimately now, I would advise to hit up these individuals if they're open to it, and obviously have further conversations, right? Because I think people right now I feel kind of socially constipated. I know it's a terrible term, but they're sitting at home and they're like, hey, listen, how do I find a job? How do I network? And it's like, I think when it comes down to it, it's hand-to-hand combat. I was like to tell my recruiting team. It's finding somebody on LinkedIn, connecting with them, starting a conversation, hopping on a phone call with them.

And so I think that's incredibly important right now during this time. So I don't know if any others had any comments of what you're seeing in the market, how to build relationships during this time right now. No, no main thoughts, no big thoughts, that's fine. That's fine. It's hard to build a relationship when you're sitting at home in your office, like that is a tough road to get down, no matter what. And I empathize to people trying to do that right now because it's, I mean, I see my wife and my cats and outside of going to Kroger. They're like, that's basically, I was excited for this call because I was like, I'm gonna get to talk to people and that is great.

Yeah. The people other than kids is nice. Yeah. And it's a challenge to communicate with people that you don't really know on LinkedIn right away. I know I get a ton of contacts and everything through LinkedIn and a lot of recruiters and you know, I have to just basically ignore a lot of stuff. So it's going to be a challenge for somebody that doesn't, that you don't know to start conversations with that are going to be long lasting or productive even then. But that's a challenge. But I guess my only bit of advice is when you do get into a place, communication is essential. And I mean, that's something that's constantly overlooked for technical people, at least from my perspective, from a senior perspective, the ability to communicate requirements and to bridge the gap between the technical and the non-technical people.

It's way too far, not emphasized enough in jobs. It takes more than just the technical acumen to be successful. And like a couple of the other guys said, you have to be willing to constantly learn. I mean, I spent 20 years in consulting in Wisconsin and I did everything from Lotus notes development to net development to cobalt development. You learn to adapt quickly, you learn to become a utility IT person as opposed to trying to specialize in one specific field. I love that. That's so good. Thank you. I think that's the build to that point. That's kind of the challenge for us newbies. At least maybe I can just speak for myself is that I don't have the experience.

I don't have I have the experience in industry in corporate America and other places, but not in this regard. And so I have an idea of what I want to go into, but there's no context with it so that I can't communicate that effectively to others necessarily that I want to go into, like I can say front end design, but I can't get much more detail than that. Well, and I know when I'm interviewing, I do a lot of interviewing. And when I interview people, we're usually looking at entry level or minor experience to be there. I guess this is why I'm doing this right now.

Yeah, and I'll be honest, when I'm interviewing people, I'm not really, you know, I'm gonna look at your resume and see what kind of technical background you have. I may ask you some technical questions just to make sure you're not BS in me about stuff. But for the most part, I'm looking for a cultural fit. I'm looking for personality. I'm looking for the soft skills. like, do you seem to be halfway organized? Are you able to communicate? Can you, I guess, communicate your thoughts. I mean, if you say you're gonna be a front-end developer, I may just let it go with that and just ask you maybe a few point questions about specific industries or specific types of applications or whatever, but I'm not so much worried about what your long-term goals are.

I'm more worried about trying to make sure that you fit in with our culture and our group. And I want somebody productive and be willing to hit the ground running from the get-go. And I totally understand being able to, I've got people make mistakes every day. I make mistakes every day. But what I need is people that will be accountable for those mistakes, learn from it and move forward. And sad to say, a lot of cases, there's a lot of people out there that are not willing to admit that they make mistakes and not willing to learn from them. I'd much rather have somebody out there that makes mistakes, oldens up to it and moves on.

Taylor, you do a lot of team sports and I think great analogy is the teammates you want on your line where you don't have to score a goal or whatever, every shift, but hopefully you don't get scored on or you don't trip your teammates. You're gonna hold your own with the group and you'll be an asset and you know, Rob and I are big hockey guys. So Robin and I, funny little story, he and I got caught in a snowstorm and Raleigh together. We were having lunch and the runchel ran long and then we had to like take four hours to get back to our houses.

So fun little factor. Amazing what an inch of snow we'll do in the south. I know, that was not an issue. There's no 12 inches that I think that day was nuts. So any other questions, I can go through obviously all of my shows, I definitely want to see if anybody has any questions or just kind of what you're seeing in the market or any thoughts or any market until anybody's wanting to hear about. I mean, again, this is kind of an open floor discussion. I got a question. Yeah. So is there any value in doing something like having a blog, like a technical blog or operating your own website or something like that?

Colin, you were like immediately perked up. So go ahead, he take this. Yeah, so I got into having, as a front end guy, I have a blog and I also have a code pen account where I'll throw a little snippets up of fun stuff I've built that I think is reusable. And for a really long time, I thought it was a total waste of time and it was more of just like a catalog of like my experiences for me that I'm gonna reference and nobody else is gonna go look at it. Doing that blog and having that code pen account has unlocked more in my career than anything I've done with the exception of maybe speaking at conferences.

I have this blog post on Medium that I wrote like one night just for me and for two years, it's been the number one ranking result if you search for horizontal scrolling containers. It pulls over 100,000 things. You know, I Google that all the time. I Google that all the time. I've been doing this long enough. I've been doing this for over a decade. I've had a lot of people I've worked with over the years And they will reach out to me, like, hey, man, I haven't talked to you in seven years, but I found this blog post because I couldn't figure out how to do this.

Just checking in, want to see how you're doing. Thanks for writing it. And like it makes me feel great. Cause like, Oh good. Something I did years ago helped somebody today. So I was lazy and did nothing today, but I helped somebody. But it's, it's been really useful for, um, like having connections again or connected with somebody you haven't talked to. And it also, I mean, whenever I'm interviewing, I always try to slide that little factoid in there because I think it stands out compared to other people. And it's weird what hits and what doesn't. I've had some stuff on a blog and on a code bin where I think this is badass and it doesn't rank at all.

And then like horizontal scrolling containers, to me are pretty simple, but it gets a ton of reads. And I'm not quite sure how I lucked into that. But I would say, have something, even if you think it's not going anywhere, because if nothing else, maybe one day Google will index it and somebody will find it. And if nothing else, you have a repository of stuff that you've done, you can go back and reference. So in a worse case. And a code pin. I don't know what I'm talking about. You can just go put like little snippets of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and it renders right in the browser.

And I can go to, like if you made a code pin, I could go to that pin and edit your code live in my browser and play with it. So it's like Stack Overflow for front-end developers, where if you wanna show off or demo something, you can throw it up there, you don't need to download anything, you can leave comments. And it's been very useful for me just to have my own stuff to go back and reference, but also for others to grab and copy. And I'm obviously happy for them to go do that. Hopefully it still works. I'm saying there's a tremendous value in doing a blog or something like that, depending on what you're doing.

If nothing else, for a catalog what you've done, but it might help a ton of people and make connections and unlock job and career opportunities for you. So to springboard off of that, what Scott asked, I mean, what about projects, web development projects for others, even if it's, I don't know, like, you know, my mother's friend needs a website or something, I mean, does that, does that? To sell her knitting hobby. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. Well, she her husband does like woodworking and they're trying to get some stuff together. So yeah I mean, you know, even if it's even if it's a static side It's not you know, I probably wouldn't need react or something.

You know considering using Gatsby or learning that I don't know it to to use react to create the static side I mean, does that appeal would that appeal to a potential employer? Having like yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean my two cents from a a junior dev perspective, especially. This isn't a popular opinion, but right now, I would say you need to be taken on a bunch of free work and developing a bunch of sites for a lot of people. Because I'm going to tell you this, coming out of Nashville Software School and your demo day, isn't enough anymore. It was barely enough to begin with.

Now, it's definitely not enough. If I have a junior dev, Smith's resume or her resume to me. And then I look at it, who do you think I'm going to call? Just a demo day project or three or four side projects that they've been able to develop, they can show them to send me a website, they can show me the mobile app, maybe spun up something react native. I mean, that to me is going to be an absolute game changer. And I absolutely think you need it. I'm working with the .NET architect right now in town. He's on bench with a consulting firm, they've had no work obviously.

And so he is actually doing a side project with.NET Core and deployment to Azure. And it's like, it's been, you know, 20, 20 hours a week or so. I said, dude, put it on your resume. Just like it's a normal job. I mean, I mean, if you're putting that much time and effort and it's allowed to obviously for him to show that he's continuing to keep his chops up. So I think it's huge. I think personal projects are literally the best way to get experience. Yeah, I think it's less about the destination than it is the journey. You know, it's great that you ended up building the site but I'm able to show, here's how I got there, here are the things I did and have a conversation about it.

It's great that you did that, you added value to somebody, but I think the real value to you in your career is that journey you went on. I built something, I hear the lessons I learned along the way, you can talk about that, you can share it. That's what's gonna make an employer stop and listen. The fact that you built it is sort of what gets your attention, but the real values and the journey you went on to build. I would agree 100% with Rob. the fact that you actually had the ambition to develop something outside of a paid job. And some of the trials and tribulations that you encountered that would be more valuable to me than what the end product actually looks like or probably what even tools you use or anything but just the ambition and what your mindset was going through the process.

Sell them while you build something and then just stop. Especially when you're starting out in your career, you're still trying to figure out what you want to do. Like I'm a front end developer, but that's a really broad term. And there's aspects of that that I enjoy more than others. And the only way I figured that out is by doing. And a lot of like fun little one-off projects have turned into bigger than that where I was like, I'll just play with this for three hours because I'm unexpectedly at home tonight. And then a month later, I've worked on it, you know, 10 days or whatnot.

So in addition to like building experience for yourself, you might discover that, hey, this is the niche I want to go down just by building something that you thought was going to be something small. That's a good point, yeah. Yeah, and Scott, I mean, I think you and I've messaged back and forth about this, right? I mean, like, for example, what are you doing right now at work? Like a project you're currently working on right now? I am upgrading everything to .NET 3.1. Cool. Okay. Yeah, so like for me, I mean, obviously I come from a non-technical perspective like I would love to know some of the features and upgrades Right document it right because because I think a lot of people who want to move that way Want to know it and you can be the guy that they see and you know what's crazy about LinkedIn when I like one of Collins things All of my followers see Colin Like that's how and then I don't know that's good or bad probably more bad than anything else, but But I mean, that's what's crazy about LinkedIn right now.

And so from a development perspective, I talked about kind of hacking the job interview with LinkedIn. I put that post out a few days ago. And I truly think that if you're out of work right now, I think you should interview yourself. And I think you should post the video on LinkedIn because the moment somebody likes that, all their connections are gonna see it. And if one of those is a manager and someone else's network and then they see you, like that's an immediate opportunity for you to get some traction with these hiring managers. So for you, I mean, if you're upgrading, like from, you know, Hey, listen, we're doing and document it, right?

You don't have to like people think, do you have to come up with something clever? Literally for me, I was having lunch one day with my wife and it was right when COVID kind of hit and I was able to kind of place a guy that got laid off at HCA. I mean, you know, in town and literally, I was able to place him and my wife was like, I mean, isn't that so cool that like you can, you know, help people find a job during this time? And I was like, well, I didn't even think about it. I literally documented that conversation and 40,000 views later on LinkedIn and like 400 likes.

And it's like, you just never know. But then of course I'm putting out like really good information. Like Colin says, like, yeah, this is gonna hit, this is gonna be really good. And there's like two likes and you're like, great. So you just never know. Like I was, you know, so I was like, yeah, I mean, there's gonna be, you know, people are gonna love this meetup thing, right? And it's gonna be great. And then like one of my postings had like zero likes and like 30 views, right? So it's like, it just all depends. But I think for you, I'd be fascinated to kind of walk, like walk with you through that journey of upgrading that.

So that's just what I thought. What is using like to post like blog posts and videos and stuff? Say that again. You kind of broke up. I said, uh, what for blogs and videos and stuff? I mean, I'm, I mean, I'm using YouTube LinkedIn. I mean, I'm going directly, I mean, I'm on my phone recording and then uploading directly to LinkedIn. I have a website that's Squarespace that my wife is like set up for me, but I don't really actively use it one because I'm not technical and I can't really like figure out how to navigate things. I'm like zero friction. So I directly, I mean, I think LinkedIn right now, everyone should be on LinkedIn at least two or three times a day.

Easy. Like LinkedIn should be your Facebook, LinkedIn should be your Instagram, LinkedIn should be your Twitter right now. It's nuts. It's crazy. A lot of other people using things like GitHub pages, post blogs there and have the repos there's a lot of great sort of free locations to put content out there. And then to Taylor's point, don't just put something there and leave it, link it from LinkedIn, other social media, point to it and give opportunities to others to point to it as well. Yeah, I mean, I think right now, I mean, this kind of goes into kind of the personal brand conversation and people like, personal brand, great, here we go, right?

At the end of the day, it's just your reputation. I mean, literally personal brand is just reputation, right? Like when you think of Taylor, you think of floral shirts, right? I have one of my favorite ones on right now. For sure. For a floral shirt. You say what? We're sure floral shirt. I can't see it. It's right here. Okay. It has some flowers on it. This is more of my muted one. It's it's so, but no, I mean, right? So like, Rob, Rob could post about Canadian hockey all day, or maple syrup, right? Rob, Rob, don't you have some like crazy, like Arduino stuff for your bees or something like that, or tomatoes or your pie?

Yeah, we do some stuff with, you know, where my wife and I are, you know, Hobby Bee Keepers and I've done some projects with hooking up our Esbury Pie scales, monitoring way to the hives and just a fun little experiment that's opened up a lot of other conversations and opportunities from it. See, you don't have to recreate the wheel. And like literally like Rob was doing that when I was out in Raleigh, six, seven years ago, right? And I still ask him, Rob, you still need to send me honey, by the way. So, you know, like, but it's just, it's cool stuff right like that, right?

You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You just start documenting, then you start getting, you know, kind of into kind of your groove. So I would say Scott to answer your initial question, yes, I would highly recommend doing it. And you just have to start doing it, but also you have to be consistent. Right. People like, well, I'm going to post one time. No, it doesn't work that way. Usually you have to post every single day to get some sort of attraction. And it doesn't have to be a lot. Like if you just, like the other day I tweeted something about how I put four equal signs in my JavaScript.

And I was like, oh, it's been that kind of morning. I don't even know what that means. It means you're dumb. And I was dumb. But I mean, it's just putting stuff out there. And then I had a couple people text me and say, oh, dude, thanks for posting that because I had crap you're doing it. It made me feel like I'm not the only one struggling one on a Monday morning working in my office. And that tweet took me what, 30 seconds? So just throwing something out there. It maybe doesn't go anywhere. Maybe it, you know, the connection from maybe skyrockets, it gets tens of thousands of years.

It doesn't mean you have to devote like four hours a day to crafting something. Yeah. Whatever the analogy is like throw stuff in the wall and see what sticks. Some of it that sticks, you would have never guessed that it would. But the only way you find out is by throwing stuff up there. And, you know, I'm not going to go put on a floral shirt, but I'm sure some stuff on my wife wouldn't want that. But like it's not like I got my point is it does not to be a lot. It could just be something really small. And, you know, see where it goes.

Yeah. And I think too. Um, so there's one guy follow on Twitter, uh, for everybody in Nashville, you probably have seen him Seth Alexander. Um, he's at, uh, evidence care right now really involved with, um, uh, the meetup. Uh, the freak out can. Yeah, and the JavaScript meetup that Kyle Welch did. Oh, okay. Underground JS last year, but he always posts every day, what are three things you're thankful for? Every day, every day, consistent, every day. What are three things you're thankful for? And literally like it, like we're talking here, and he was the first thing I popped in my head. Just because he stays consistent.

So I would say that that would be my thing, Scott, from a, if you want to document, do it, but definitely stay consistent. Okay. That was a good conversation. Any other questions? I can definitely keep reading Michelle's question and go back to it. Or if you all need to go grab lunch, we can obviously wrap this thing up. I'm totally down for whatever. Oh, we have one question. There's more of those questions. We have one question. Oh, cool, awesome. See Rob, take it easy, buddy. So let's talk from a, I'm kind of curious, Scott, really, everybody. Are you guys getting hit up by jobs a lot still from from recruiters right now or has it died down at all?

Um, in Houston, it's died down some. It has. Yeah. Colin, you're shaking your head. That I mean, obviously it's still it's still pretty rampant right now. It's rampant, but what's kind of funny is it's everything that's not in Nashville. Um, there everybody's like, hey, do you want to move? I'm like, I'm not moving in the middle of coronavirus. Um, I think I've gotten like one or two, like the, Amazon's in Nashville and they usually spam everybody once a week just to see if you're interested, but I've gotten I usually get Um, I don't know a couple messages a week and most of them are like, hey Do you want to move to Seattle?

You want to move to California? And I even I mean I put on my LinkedIn profile like my wife and I live in Nashville. We're very happy here We're not interested in relocating, but they're not reading that so much Now we don't we don't really read that much. We just kind of dive in bill. Have you seen anything at all when you're in? I would say it slowed down. I still get a lot of contacts though because I've got some unique platform experience with Microsoft Dynamics and sure things are a little bit harder to recruit for. So I'm still getting a lot of those every day but probably even with that it's probably less than it was three months ago.

And then I get a lot of contacts just because I've been in in manufacturing for a while now. So that's another hard industry to find people. Because a lot of the stuff I do is not front end pretty. It's a lot of machine level two integration types of. So it's a little bit probably more unique skill set in today's marketplace. So. Cool. Hey, Taylor. Yeah. I was gonna say, in terms of like LinkedIn message, I think this was something you posted about a week or two ago. The best way to get a job right now was to not try to ask, to get a job, just check in and see how you're doing.

Yeah. Was that you? Yeah. Yeah. That, if somebody messaged me and just was like, hey, just checking and wanna see how you're doing, it's gonna, I'm gonna be more likely to respond rather than if it's just, hey, I'm looking for a job and here's my resume. Because people do it all the time. Bill, you're nodding your head too on that one. If you just send me a message And it's like, hey, you know, I heard my other act is doing well or whatever. And I want to see how you're doing with the coronavirus because I know you guys have retail stores. What's your reopening plan?

Something like that. It's starting a conversation about the industry or technology or something. I will absolutely, absolutely write back even if I'm like, oh well, they're probably looking for a job. But if you just start the conversation with like, hello, how are you? I think you're going to be a lot more reset. You're going to find people a lot more receptive to write back, especially because we're all sitting at home I agree 100% because I can't tell you how many times I get this, hey, here's my resume. And it's just like, okay, you have zero percent chance of me reading that. So, yeah, it's all about the approach.

It's all about just common courtesy. You know, at least show some, feign some interest in what, and what my job is or where I'm at or whatever. But yeah, I totally agree Colin. Yeah. that no, I mean, I think that's big. I mean, I think again, right now, what's cool about LinkedIn, so like with Twitter, I can follow Colin. Colin doesn't have to follow me back, right? I'll follow you back. No, I know you do. That's not the point, Colin. Dang, dude. I just wanna get that out there. I know, I know. And so, but like with LinkedIn, once you connect with somebody, both of y'all follow each other, right?

And so I think the big thing is, and from hacking, and again, I'm going, I'm talking a lot about social media in LinkedIn right now because, you know, I would say that's the best way to network, right? I mean, Michelle, Ryan, I mean, if I were y'all, I'd be on LinkedIn all day. I mean, and I would be, you know, messaging people, you know, you can customize the invite on the messages, you know, hey, just wanna check in, kind of curious to hear what's going on at Smile Direct, right? You know, what are you working on? And so I think that's big. I think that's big right now, for sure.

Well, cool. Any other major questions? I feel like this was a good time. You know, together, I didn't know if there's any burning questions anybody wanted to ask before we sign off. No, no, just anything you want to get off, cool. All right, well, we'll get all thanks again for hanging. I did this was really cool. Connected with everybody on LinkedIn, everybody on here. And Holly from Nehemia, okay? Taylor, one thing actually is this, so is this a regular thing or is this the first time you've done this? So I, so this lunch I.T. meetup I've been doing consistently, well from the beginning of the year, we were doing, I was doing intimate lunches of 10 engineers.

And obviously because I can't, we can't do lunches, I just figured, you know, people, one needs some social time, even if, you know, you are an introvert, unlike Colin, I am an introvert, I think Colin is, Colin should be a recruiter. But so I think I'm gonna make this consistent, right? I think for the next few months, I think it's gonna be an interesting time. And I think different people can get different things with each other out of each other rather. So yeah, I plan on doing this in June. Okay, good, yeah. And may I reach out and connect with you, all of you on LinkedIn?

Yep. Okay, so what's here for? Yeah, Michelle, I'm already connected to you, I think. Yeah, we've known each other for six months. We're good. I love it. I love it. That's awesome. But y'all, thanks again for hanging. You all enjoy the rest of your Friday, and be safe. OK? Thank you. All right. See y'all. Thank you. Bye bye.