nashville technology council panel-part 1

full transcript

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

What's going on podcast family? Hope everybody is safe and doing well and you've had a wonderful week. Sorry about taking the last week off. I've been very busy with my other podcast, the Unicorn Finders, where you can find an all podcast apps. It's with my dudes Dan Thompson and Tampa and Jake Shepherd and Raleigh. Really digging in with that podcast. We have six or seven episodes out now. So go check that out. Little shameless self plug there. So this week this episode is specifically focused on the job search process. And it's actually panel interview that I did with the Nashville Technology Council. And I was on a panel with a corporate recruiter and a few other individuals in HR.

So it's a really good organic round-table conversation. So hopefully you get something out of it. This is a two-part series. So this first part is released obviously this week. So if you notice this podcast ends a little abruptly. Just tune in next week to hear the rest of it. And I hope you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed being on the panel. As always, if you can please rate, review and subscribe to my podcast through this podcast and share it with others. And really if you can rate it, rate and review it, that would be huge. Even if it's just five stars and no comments.

Because I really want this to start gaining traction in the app stores. And honestly, I think it already is. And so please continue to share with your friends. Let's just be a tool for you to obviously navigate the job search. Also, if you need to reach me, email us the best way, Taylor at vacovac.com. And finally, I'm really digging my heels into all social media platforms with content creation around the job search process. So follow me on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn at tdsintdssen. And hopefully you enjoy this podcast episode as much as I did recording it. Thanks y'all. All right. Hello everyone. I'm Steve Cherry from the National Technology Council.

Thank you for joining us for our event today job search tips for navigating the COVID-19 error. The panel today will be narrated from Cato Neil, co-founder of teaming. And we also have with us page boy to Tyler, Dessen, the linter, boost themselves in just a minute. So I want to turn everything over to Kate to begin our session. Hey there everyone. I hope everyone's having a good week. I'm excited to have you all here. Really, this is just going to be kind of a Q&A with Taylor and page. And I'm going to let them introduce themselves here now. Page go ahead. You first. I was just going to say he's going first.

Hi everyone. It's page boy. I am the owner of a local coaching and consulting company called Speaking Change. Prior to that, though I spent 10 years in staffing and another 12 to 13 years in corporate HR. So I'm excited to be here with you today and share some of our insights and learnings about the job search process. And hey everybody. My name is Taylor Dessen. I work for Vaco and town. I've been recruiting for eight years. I'm a senior recruiter advocate. So I help manage a team of 10 recruiters. I work mainly with software developers in the market. And I had the opportunity to speak at a handful of code conferences across the Southeast last few years.

And obviously, you know, really try to help educate not only the recruiting world, but the developer world. I'm really how to work with recruiters. Not only during this time, but really just a job search in general. So I'm super stoked to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's start with you Taylor. You know, from a recruiter perspective, right. You know, you get a call from a recruiter or you have a call set up with a recruiter. What's the best way to have a conversation and engage with a recruiter? Yeah. So I mean, this is this is the question I get a ton.

And it's, it's, you know, I'm sure right now if you haven't yet, you probably will be blown up. You know, over, you know, LinkedIn a ton on how to work with your recruiters. And or just you're just overwhelmed and you're probably asking yourself, how do I even fair it out all these recruiters. And so the big thing that I would that I would say first and foremost is something called the two and two rule that I say. I would look to see if the recruiter has been at that same recruiting company for at least two years. And then also have been in the markets specifically for two years.

I've been in Nashville for six years now and I'm still learning about companies in town. And so typically this is a very unpopular opinion, but I still stand by it. I have one of my recruiter friends actually just affirm me the other day on this at Vaco. But usually recruiters who are not the best at their job, they usually have to bounce around to try to get their base raises because they can't hack it from a commission perspective. And so if you see a recruiter that's bounced around a few times, I'd maybe stay away from, but again, I think the five teams specifically a lot of individuals are under that two year mark.

But I got Hayes the other day about saying this because they're incredible recruiters as well. So again, that's just a general role on how to filter kind of through recruiters at just an eyeball test. And then, you know, on the screen right now there's a ton of questions to ask recruiters. And so I can go through all of them. But if recruiters sends you a job, these are 10 questions that actually my team asked our companies that we work with. And so, you know, some of the questions right here, you know, if it's a contract to higher role is the budget approved to go full time.

And so how many other vendors are working on this position as well. I had the unique opportunity to actually speak at the Chattanooga dot net user group and I shared this template. And funny story is how to develop or use this template on these six months later. And so it worked really well. But I think if you can save this and just email it to every recruiter, you'll definitely stump them. And really, I mean, correct me from wrong here right, but a recruiter wants to put you in as much as they want the company to find the right role right or the right person for the role.

They also want to make sure that this is going to be a good role for you. So I love that guidance on, you know, make sure they've been in the market, make sure they know a little bit about what the ins and outs of the job are, because they're really guiding the whole process. And I think as a candidate, let's say, and for the company from hiring perspective, it's going to be right right fit right. Absolutely, absolutely. And Paige, I don't know if you have any thoughts on kind of all this as well. Yeah, I was actually I love your question. I love a ball.

But number three really stood out, you know, I had mentioned I spent a lot of time in corporate HR. I didn't say specifically that about five to six of those years was leading talent acquisition at two local big companies. And so, you know, I want to add today that kind of the other side in that recruiter desk is Taylor and I talked a lot about all the different people that are in the process. And so number three is really, you know, a lot of times just be unsure before you put yourself in the mix. You know, if you definitely need something that's going to convert or that's going to turn into something long term, you know, does that client have that position budget.

Is it in the plan for the following year? I think that's just a real important question to ask, you know, things may be different right now. And the reason we're here is, you know, COVID-19 has changed the world for all of us. And so what I would say is it's probably a good time to maybe take a few risks that you might not normally. I think, you know, maybe getting your foot in and getting started. A lot of things can happen over the next six months that none of us can anticipate. So these are great questions and the other thing I would say is Taylor and I share I love of like recruiters against recruiters.

I love his tagline on his link did. Even though we both are recruiters or have been in a prior life. There's, you know, we understand that sometimes being on the other end of that is a challenge. And so hopefully today we can share some behind the scenes advice to. Absolutely. So first maybe Taylor, yeah, you can answer this and then page would love your opinion. But, you know, we're all in this digital world right and we want to make sure that we are as a candidate's attracting the right companies for the right roles. Can you share a little bit about what's the difference between what I should put on my LinkedIn and what I should put on my resume.

Yeah, absolutely. So this is I've gotten this question so many times over the last six seven weeks. And this is my two cents right. And again, I'm always come out of place sense of I know I'm only one recruiter right. And there's a ton of recruiters out there page page and I've shaded offline. We have different thoughts and different things and that's what makes it that's what makes working with a few recruiters at one time. So just so important because you get different voices. I mean, right now, this market. I would say if you do not have a job. I'd work with up to four of us right now.

Usually in a good time I say work with one or two. And so right now just outside bar work with up to around four of us because we don't work with everybody in town. Every recruiting every recruiting company has their own book of business. So just FY on that. So let's get obviously to the question. I have a tendency to go all over the place. But yeah. So LinkedIn versus a resume. So the example up on the screen right now is actually from a dear friend of mine that I made when I worked in a rally office for a year. And his LinkedIn is written really well.

But in a nutshell your resume your LinkedIn should be a summary of of essentially it should be a summary of your resume. And so that that's incredibly important. You know, for me, he outlined a lot of different areas of what he's done, which is which is incredibly important. But your resume should be a little bit more detailed and your LinkedIn should be obviously a little bit more. And hiring managers get flooded a lot of times in resumes right. And so you want to you know you've probably heard the sound by the recruiters spend seven to 10 seconds on resume and a lot of cases that is that is true.

But you want your resume to stand out in the eight the weird areas that you feel like you had unique strengths that align to the job. And so I always encourage people whatever the result is like your resume should be written in terms of results, not responsibilities. People want to know what you uniquely have done and not what the job is for, she says. And so when I'm helping with clients with resumes we really hone in on like holding and italicizing. You know, just a few words that represent the outcome the result that they got what was different in the job as a result of their work.

I think that's great advice from from a person who's hiring manager right I look for those things right what are the key words what are the key skills right that that are coincidentally often the key words I'm looking for and as may. I love that this is bulleted and honestly you know I've struggled with this as a candidate myself right it I might be looking for two different type of roles right in in this instant we've got a program manager and a software developer. He's got both of the skills, you know, I like that I can quickly kind of bang down his his LinkedIn profile and see alright he's got strong skills in both these areas he's concise to the point and by the way I'm assuming that this is a man could be a woman to.

It's my good friend David green. Okay, but but you know I think this is something from a hiring manager perspective I can look at this and consume quickly and understand where the talents where the talents lie so. I think that's great. So I think that's the first thing I can tell her I don't know if there's anything else in that year or. No, I mean I think you know I come at everything from a software development perspective so I think if you want to summarize your LinkedIn if you both points it's. You know first bullet point tell me what you're doing like you're describing to a non technical person right under developing the notification you know that pops up on this app right when you order food.

So your second bullet point is you know kind of really talking about the technology specifically using to solve that application to develop that application and then the last bullet point is kind of your entire tech stack that you're working with and. And the reason why include kind of that third bullet point is because recruiters search on keywords and so I think it's important to have your LinkedIn and your resume littered with keywords and I know a lot of. Individuals don't like to just throw in a bunch of you know tech jargon but but it's incredibly important. That's that's great advice we've got a question from the audience here from from Mike do you want to either of you help with the resume writing or optimization and if not where do you recommend going for for that sort of thing.

page you first. Well, I just could say tell you what a good verse absolutely I do you know what I would say in you guys notice if you've ever sat down and written a resume resume writing. I mean it's hard work right I mean it's not hard in that you don't know what you've done and you don't know what you're capable of. But it requires a lot of reflection and a lot of deep thinking and it's pretty detail oriented because you cannot have mistakes you cannot have typos right. So the first thing I would say is for the most part I would not encourage people to to have to just spend a lot of money.

Um on getting someone to help them right because nobody knows you better than you know you so first you know try to do it yourself download their free templates everywhere really the key is just to be specific. You know and I always tell people the resume is to get you the interview right it's not to get you the job. So you do want to put your best foot forward and represent yourself in the best possible possible way. People always ask me can I embellish well absolutely I mean this is a marketing tool right you're selling yourself as long as when you get in the interview you can back it up with facts right it has to be true it has to be you that's really done there's things.

If you're not one like certainly I have plans that come and say yeah here are you but I'd rather outsource it because you know I don't have it in me to do it right. And that's fine in those cases I mean you can Google local resume writing support local resume writing tons of companies will come up you're going to find some that'll help you do it for you know a couple hundred dollars up to a couple thousand dollars. It really is you know what what you're willing to invest you don't need to spend several thousand dollars on a resume. The other I guess the last thing I would say is even if you were to come to me or any other company.

They're we're going to have to you're going to have to be having engaged right like I don't know what you've accomplished right and so you have to provide that the bulk of the content. What I would do or some other company we do is really just try to put it in a framework, you know, put maybe some words in it that are going to be attractive to hiring managers and recruiters we're going to sharpen it up and make it look good. But the content has to come for you. That's great advice. And just we've got some more questions rolling in here for everyone on we're going to get to all of them we've got some some sort of pre content that we want to get through so if I don't call out your your question yet we are going to get to it.

So just want to make sure everyone knows that we will we'll get there if we're not quite there yet. So I think that I would love to make sure we're on the same page about and page, maybe you can answer this first. Can you give an overview of the different types of recruiters that there are and who is involved in the process of hiring a candidate. Yeah, so Taylor, gentlemen here I certainly will and you know so I, as I said earlier, started my career very similar Taylor and I shared a lot of similar backgrounds so I was having for 10 years there are people on the front end who are just sorcerers and screeners and then what we call someone that had full responsibility for a desk like life, full life cycle recruiting.

You know that would work with multiple companies then you might have some that are dedicated to just a few companies right and all of that I put in the camp of external recruiter. So any agencies in town, whether it's you know front line to executive roles and those people work hand in hand frankly with people inside corporations small and large companies right. So sometimes they may be working with the direct hiring manager they might be working with a corporate recruiter they might be working with an HR partner they might be working with a CEO or general manager kind of depends on the size of an organization.

And the most common scenario we see is you know where a hiring manager or a corporate internal recruiter is reaching out to a partner agency and sharing a job spec or a profile you know a need that we're looking for and it's really very much like a partnership. So the process is often you know external recruiter sources candidates presents maybe the top candidates and then an internal recruiter is doing their screen. And then that's passed on to sometimes the hiring manager or an HR partner. And so what I think you're getting at that gate right is oftentimes the process can feel very complex. It can take a while and knowing you know kind of where you are in that process at least helps you have some patience or you know understand a little bit more about what you can do and when you might just you know holding powder.

Hey Taylor let you take care of it because I know you've got a unique perspective there too. Yeah, I mean, I think you just crushed it right. You know I mean I think there's validity to both I mean again so I'm on the agency side. But then I you know I know you know a ton of really great corporate recruiters as well. And so yeah I mean those are those are the kind of two main types and then I mean you can get kind of specialized they can kind of specialties. And you know I think another thing that just popped in my mind I would ask the recruiter if they do have a specialty I think that's an important question to ask.

Because I work with everybody in tech but my specialty is the software development right and so you know if if you know but I say that I recently just you know place the project manager. And so you know I think I think if you can have somebody who's within your general skill set. and kind of nerd out with I think is incredibly important. And I think all those questions I think that we shared a few slides ago is obviously incredibly you know applicable to about the agency on the corporate side. Yeah and I think to from a candidates perspective right I've been through this before where I talked to the external recruiter I think we've had a great conversation and then and then I'm past to another recruiter and I'm like well I don't necessarily understand.

Until I get into the conversation or I'm like oh okay like I was talking to someone on an agency now I'm talking to the someone who actually works for the company that is looking for for a role right to fill a role. And then typically I'm talking to the person who would actually be my manager or you know someone who actually knows more about the role or is the direct response but has a direct responsibility for whoever fills this role. So just from a process perspective understanding hey you're going to have conversations with multiple people that are trying to understand a little bit more about your skill set that might not be in you know they're not a software developer themselves right.

a project manager or whatever so there might be some you might be talking about the same thing a little bit through that process just it's not even that expectation I think is good. Well, yes, I totally agree I'm glad you said it that way because it reminded me of something we talked about and which you know sometimes what happens is as a recruiter I might not find the exact profile in a candidate that I'm looking for but I find somebody that meets maybe you know seven out of 10 right of the kind of highlights or four out of five and so I want to talk to him and I then you know I really like like they have a really interesting background they have really good instead of experiences.

They seem really relevant so I want to have a couple more people talk to them and what through that process as they talk to other people other people come back and go well you know what they actually are great fit for this role over here. The man I wasn't working or my team wasn't working right and so a lot of times that happens and just trying to keep the minds and it's hard you guys you know one of the things that we talked about is we've all we've all been through a job search. and I see Steve's you know putting up some of the top tips I mean searching is hard right and so just trying to have the mindset that one you know it is going to feel like a full time job and just.

you know kind of leaning into that from the get go and kind of thinking about time prioritization and trying to keep the positive mindset of if I just keeps one step in front of the other and talk into a bunch of people the right thing is going to land it just will right it meant at land exactly the way you thought it would or in the exact place but. there is nothing more valuable than leveraging your connections and you know thinking about that targets that accompanies. Well, and page I may or real quick because I think you said something fantastic and I've been talking to obviously a ton of individuals about this like the job search process is like not something you like wake up and do for like two hours while you're sipping your coffee and then like.

you're done for the day and you go binge watch Netflix like like I have a full time job networking right like like you have a full time job networking and so. Like networking is a full time job and so if the expectation is that you're going to wake up in your pajamas and like get on the internet and like shoot off some text messages and close your computer dump for the day I mean I'm not going to be awesome is just wrong right I think you need to be very prepared. To get up early you need to get up early because all those individuals that are on the job search are hitting the job boards first thing in the morning right and so incredibly important that you get up and get rolling.

But then also to like go through the steps right message people only then I think right now a lot of a lot of developers or a lot of individuals I'm like you have to be a recruiter and they're like well what. Is that me right and so I don't know if i'm skipping ahead but I mean I think it's messaging people LinkedIn that are in your network I think it's opening up your phone book right you're like why don't know how do you think in I don't know how do you search me open up your phone book right and I say phone book it's funny I'm like an old man like no open up your contact list in your phone.

I don't even know what a phone book is I got you. Yeah and so. Yeah so I mean all I've been said like it is work and it takes time but the one little nugget that I want everybody listening to take away with is it's one intentional conversation a day just one hold yourself to at least one call. You know we can't do coffees maybe you can do coffee like you know 12 feet apart but like one call one coffee one zoom a day with somebody in your network that will snowball my dad did it not in the tech industry. he's he's in the restaurant industry and found a job at three months doing that.