reid evans + critical thinking and how to separate yourself on the job search

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? Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. I really hope that you enjoy this episode. I wanted to, of course, remind you to please rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast. It would mean the absolute world to me. So take some time out right now. Put this thing on pause, go rate and review it, and come back to listen. If you need to reach me, shoot me an email, TaylorD at VACO.com. If you wanna join my texting community, I am doing a ton, ton of sharing of general career advice, job tips, et cetera. Shoot me a text, 615-235-5650.

As always, if you wanna follow me on social media, I'm doing a ton on Twitter at TdSNT-D-E-S-S-E-Y-N connected with me on LinkedIn. And again, I hope you enjoy this podcast episode and thank you again for listening. It means the absolute world to me. What's been going on, man? Man, we've just been swamped, you know? Really? And it's part of what I wanted to chat with you about too. Because, so here's what I've noticed too, a couple different things online recently. And they seem to be like this growing tinner that's coming in, and it's like, everyone looking for a job, they want a job, they keep looking to have a job in this like, kind of an old concept of a job.

Like as a consultant, like my job is to kind of find jobs, but not jobs in the sense of like W2s and HR and, you know, it's like, look, I mean, just start solving problems for people. Right. And when you get known as someone who can like help, help people, help people solve problems, like there's no end. Like I'm, we're turning down, I'm having to turn down work all the time. Because it's like people, you solve a problem for someone's like, great, you can solve that problem. I bet you could solve this problem too. Right. And it just, now getting that inertia going is problematic, but like, and it's been crazy.

I mean, it just swamped. So remind me again, so you're with results stack, and you guys are a consulting company. And so what is your role specifically within that organization? So I am the principal consultant for results stack. So I'm one of the leadership team, I mean, we're very flat, you know what I mean? That's true. Consultant, go eat what you kill. That's exactly right. So basically what I'm in charge with doing is managing myself, like I look at, Yeah, I work for results day. From the first time that I started working there, my entire intent was, this is me as my own company, as my own business.

If I can constantly find work for myself to do, and I'm bare minimum, then I've got no questions about job security, about anything else, I'm a consultant, so I'm on the profit center side, not on the cost center side, right? Absolutely. So if I can find enough people that wanna really just continue to give me money, give me work, you know, because I'm solving problems for whatever they may be. Like it's not always glamorous, I promise you. But like it's solving value, it's providing value for them. So, all right. And now in the principal consultant role, a lot of what I'm doing is feeling requests that are coming in kind of like an account executive a little bit.

I mean, I'm still doing actual work, but there's a whole bit of like a account executive kind of stuff coming in of like, Hey, yeah, we're working on this. If you want to do this, this is great, but I'm going to need to bring in someone else to help us out because we're already in capacity. Is that OK with you? Yeah, that's OK. Great. OK, let's bring on someone else to come in and try to help us out to provide the additional level of value that they're looking for. So why do you think it's the problem solving side of things is lacking? Well, I don't know that it's the problem solving side of things.

I think a lot of companies, and you would know this way better than me, right, with where you are with it. A lot of companies are not quote hiring, but that doesn't mean they don't have the needs. I mean, if you think about it, I mean, from any of them, for sure my lifetime, unprecedented business challenges, business problems, things that are happening right now, is when people like need help with stuff. They may not wanna hire someone that's gonna go on the cost center side of the things. who have full term W too long term, because no one knows what's going to happen. But they still have problems that they need solved.

And so if you can position, I think if you can position yourself as someone who helps people solve problems or says, look, I don't have a clue how to solve that. Your best bet is to go chat with Bob, because Bob's the guy for that. I mean, that's what I tell people as soon as I start chatting with them, like my number one goal is I want to be able to help you and at the best way that I can help you is to point you in someone else's direction. That's what I want to do. How can somebody I guess show during an interview because you said you are hiring people right?

I mean you we are at least we have people that we have we have more work than we know what to do with right now and we are going to have to hire. We have to be very careful because we're not a huge we don't employ a you know 100 people Right. We've got to make sure that yeah, we can, I mean, it's, we put a lot of trust in anyone that comes to work with us, we put a ton of trust in them. Like we've been remote since I came on board and right. Yeah, yeah, since it, you know, you got to have some trust there.

So, so yeah, it's a lot of trust and we have a ton of work that we can do so much work. So, so what do you mean? Yeah, I have Yeah, so you interview somebody and it's like, all right, so how does somebody in the interview process really kind of come across quickly? Like, what would you recommend for people who are interviewing right now in this market, how they can add value immediately in the interview? Or at least maybe some things that you like to see about it? Yeah, I mean, so I can, I for sure can speak now again. I do not want to say I'm indicative of a typical hiring manager because like, you know, the first time we met you, you saw me presenting on stuff that like, you know, I'm the weird guy in the room, right?

I love it. I embrace it, you know? Yeah. So, I mean, for me, you know, my interview process, like I'm not going to ask you to code FISBUS. I'm not going to ask you to write any code. like we're gonna have a conversation just like what we're doing right here. Yeah. Sure. Because as a consultant, like people think that what they want to be is like the best coder. I want to be the best developer. Well, I mean, like that's not really attainable. Like bubble bursting, you're never going to be the best developer. You know, it's crazy. So the longer I've been in recruiting, the more I realize developers just Google.

like you're never gonna reach peak. And so when I started recruiting, like I was so naive, I was so naive, but like it was like, you know, I was told developers shouldn't Google on code test, like they should fly through test. And the more I hang out with developers at code conferences, it's like, man, like, you all Google a lot and that's okay. It's, look, I don't care how much you know in your head, I would much rather you be able to solve a problem someone. I love that. You know what I mean? Like no one's coming. It's not school anymore. Right? In school, there's quite a right answer and you're supposed to know it on a test.

No part of real world is like that. I mean, unless I don't know. That's a whole other deep dive on model education that I've talked about. Well, sorry, I've been doing it. We've been doing a school orientation with kids all morning, right? That's why I had to wait. That's why I wasn't sure if I'd if I'd make it back by 1045 for us, or not 45 year time. So like, I mean, it's a different sort of a thing when you get into it, well, no one cares whether you know it or not. If I can say, hey, can you get this done by the end of the day and you say, yeah, sure, I can't.

I don't care whether you Google, I don't care. I mean, I don't care whether you, I mean, assuming NDAs and there's no legal ramifications, I don't care whether you even do it or whether you have someone else do it. So long as it's delivered at the end of the day, right? Yeah. That's what people care about. That's what we get our work. And so it sounds like individuals who can communicate properly and just be aware that they aren't the best in the room, sounds like it goes a long way. Yeah, so I think there's that. The being able to communicate is huge, because if you as a developer can't communicate with business people, you can't, whatever.

And technology as a whole wants to silo people. And that's fine if you wanna work the same job with just a different name on the W2 probably. Because they wanna get siloed, oh, you're a developer. You can't figure out business requirements. You're a project manager, you can't develop, whatever. They wanna put these labels on you. And you can be very successful. You can have a great career being absolutely you know, quarantined in whatever it is that you wanna do. But like, as a consultant anyway, if you can go in and you can talk to people and they say, hey look, we really need to make this button yellow.

Look, I can make that button yellow for you. Let's figure out why you want that button to be yellow. Oh, well because people keep clicking this other button, it's on the screen. Does the other button need to be on the screen, right? So it's this conversation of what do you really want want because yeah, I can just, like I can, I can, I can sling tickets all day long, right? But sure, but that may not be what they really want. And so someone who can think and ask good questions, there's a certain level of competency that you just have to have because you never are going to happen, right?

But I mean, I've said it a few times, I would almost, I think it might actually be easier to take someone who's somewhat technically inclined, like, like, take someone that works at like a T-Mobile or something, right? They're technical enough, amazing customer service skills have to be because they're right there in front of the customer service. It's that that portion is really hard for us to find. Well, it's for self aside there. That's that's huge. Yeah. And that's crazy because like it's kind of the same with recruiting. Yeah. Right. Like it like with so many recruiters, it's like, Hey, you do.net. No. Okay. Thank you.

Have a great day. Yeah. Right. only call and it's like for me and trying to educate my team and then also you know try to help our sales team. It's like you know I just got off call literally right before you with my manager and on the sales side and we were chatting and it's like you know hey instead of asking you know hey mr. manager hey Reed do you have any do you have any dot and that positions open no Taylor I don't say hey Reed what projects you got going on right And then it's like, you just said, because, because let's be honest, if I ask you, if you have a.net role, all of your projects may be in JavaScript.

Right. So you're going to tell me, you know, on the dot. I'll tell you absolutely. Aside from very, very rare situations, and most of these we don't bring on as a W two, it's a 1099, you're an external contractor, which is probably not what these people are wanting anyway. For us to say, Hey, we need a C plus plus expert that works with you know, see like, you know, listen, for the 1% of the time that we need that person, sometimes we absolutely just need that sort of person. Right. And we do, we do keep those people 1099, but it's not a, yeah, it's not going to be a technology specific thing overall.

Like you, right. Now, if you have some experience with that technology, but you are just a general problem solver. Oh, man. But again, right? It's the problem solving, right? From a staffing perspective, we're not problem solvers, right? If I call you for a .NET order and you, on top of your head, no, we don't have any .NET, but you just told me to start this call, you guys are crazy, busy with projects. You haven't turned on projects. So if I asked you what projects you have going on, then you're like, well, I got six projects right now. I'm like, all right, tell me about those projects.

And then we got, well, I'm working with this client and this client. Okay, well, that insurance client, we have three people, three dads that just came off of an insurance project for us. you want to look at them? Actually Taylor, that makes more sense. Yes. Absolutely. So it's again, it's same thing from a development side. It sounds like as well. It's like, you know, it stopped being so and listen, that that's been a fault of mine for years, right? I mean, I don't think macro. I'm very micro. I'm very much of like, give me a ticket and I'll solve it. And so trying to elevate your game, but it's hard for people.

It's a different way of thinking. Just going back to education. I think our modern education system is like, again, I mean, I'm going to to put one of these videos out and it's going to go bonkers for the wrong way. But listen, I got no problem being the weird gal. Yeah. That conversations are both. You're. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. But it's like we've been taught to follow a role. We've been taught to do this and then this and then this. And it's like, you know, realistically, it needs to be reversed. Like, Hey, where are you this project? You do have everyone do it. Yeah.

I mean, but yeah, it's the go to school. That a good job. And no one ever tells you what's next, right? No. Where is you? You're not in any of that. Your business is not in any of that, right? Let's say I come to you and I'm like, hey Taylor, I really want to be a recruiter. Let's see what we can do here. You hire me as a recruiter. I'm like, great. I got my education, check. Got a good job, check. But all of that is making money for you. Right? I mean, yeah, you're gonna pay me a salary, but like, what am I doing for me?

Because none of what I've done there is for me. All of that so far is for you. Right. You're giving me a job. But that's only a very, very small portion of what makes me me is the career that I'm in. What do I do with everything? I think it's taken a cry in your work, right? I mean, you said it yourself, right? You take it upon yourself to go in and Barrett new projects and ask the question why. I think a lot of people right now are just comfortable at just being and they really don't want to become, I just made that up, I don't know if that works, but the thing is, it sounds like a tweet.

It sounds like a tweet, yeah. And so I just talk in tweets now. But no, I mean, I think people aren't empowered, right? And again, I think as companies, you need to empower your employees to go the next step, to go the next level. I mean, I know this really large healthcare client in town and a lot of devs that are placed a few myself, and it's like they spent an entire day, I saw one guy post on the link, and they spent an entire day talking about NoSQL versus SQL databases. Just like the entire day classroom stuff, right? And it's like, I think a lot of time from a dev perspective, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I think there's so much we got to solve this.

This is burning, this is broken, let's fix this, let's fix that. And there's no like, hey, let's just take time to just like enjoy what we do and learn something else. Yeah, and I mean, you know, every situation is different. And I think, you know, this has always been the case with me. This was, you're talking to going from micro to macro, you know, a huge growth moment for me was when I stopped being prescriptive or believing that there was any right way to do something, right? You've got pros, you've got cons, everything that you're gonna do is gonna be a trade-off. Try to figure out what makes the most sense for this client.

And this client could be for you, You could be for your own personal side project. Any additional complexity that you add, we developers think that it's just free complexity. It's not, promise you it's not full stop. They're like, well, but if this ever changes this way, you're trying to predict the future now. And if you can do that, then look, just like Bitcoin's a thing, right? Go predict the future. With those swings, and even, we could even talk about the market, with the swings that the markets have, any of the markets are having right now. You can take, if you can predict the future, I give you $2 right now, you better be able to give me back 100k next week.

You know, it's not feasible to predict the future. You're only protecting yourself in ways that you have thought about. So it's that Rumsfeldian, you know, unknown unknowns that you, and now all you've done is guaranteed you've added complexity to the system. You know, I'm all about building, can we build something that will provide value and then I don't have to touch after it's built. Because if I'm constantly having to maintain that, I don't get to work on new stuff. I love that. So let's talk, you know, this whole conversation setup because of one tweet, which goes to my fact, I think Twitter right now is having some resurgence from a network inside of things.

I think it's an incredible tool and it obviously, you know, keeps me connected with guys like yourself who we just obviously can't hang all the time. I wish we could. I wish I was in Oxford, probably I would be out with your house more often. But, I mean, I got an extra face. We're good. I love it, dude. It is not as nice as yours, though, man. You're looking pretty posh over there. Dude, this is my guess. That's your best friend. Especially for a new dad and everything. We haven't even talked about that. I don't want to get us off on whatever. But yeah. Yeah.

No, I like making beds. And so like, it's, and my wife's a photographer. So we have all the natural light coming in. So it makes a big difference. No, I'm in the 70s. This is actually all wood paneling back here. It's just painted, which is why it looks like my walls like all crap. Yeah, we got a GC coming by here before too long too. That's awesome. Yeah. So, so, so the tweet you tweeted me was was centered around resumes. Yeah. And I'm pulling up the pull up what you tweeted. So, so I tweeted, you know, after reviewing some more resumes, here's just something of what I need from you.

No double columns or you're going to triple, no fancy picture font calls or lines or well, you did it. I need your resume to tell me what you do in 15 seconds. You go, oh, man, I'd love to discuss this with you. After going through resumes, that all looked the exact same over and over. I start looking for something that lets me know the candidate is an actual human with personality. So that being said, what are your thoughts? So here's where I think the, I'm not even going to call it a disconnect, right? We had different perceptions. We were, there's a lot of things we do that are similar, but there's a lot of things that we do that are different.

Most of the time that I get a resume, like, so if I get a resume, and we've chatted about this, I think a few other times on Twitter, if I get a resume or ask for a resume, it's because I don't already know somebody or no one else on our team knows somebody who's going to be able to fulfill whatever role that it is that we have. So these resumes that I get blind, I don't know how clear who this person is, never chatted with them. They haven't tried to reach out to me. I'm quite available, I believe, on the internet with different things. It's pretty obvious who I am, where I am, a simple LinkedIn search would pull up me with results stack.

These people do blindly. It's this idea. Just keep applying. Just keep applying. Cinge resume, in Cinge resume, in. You know how many resumes we, now admittedly this was before COVID and everything was remote. Or 100% remote. You know how many resumes I get for random stuff? Like I throw, some of those some JS experience, maybe some type script, basically we're looking for general problem solvers, like 120 in the first hour. I'm not reading through 120 resumes. That's not feasible for me to do. I'm not providing any value to my clients reading through 120 emails. And that's why I make my money. That's why I'm able to have a home office as such it is, but that's the reason.

So for my standpoint, if I get 120 blind resumes that come through, I got to do something, which ones are going to come to the top. So in my first thing I do, is it have a cover letter. No way. It goes into one stack. Now if that cover letters. You like cover letters? I do. Because I have to have something to set it apart. You know how many of them I get? it's like, hey, I've got C-sharp and angular experience, whatever, right? P-P-P-P to technology, right? Just very common ones, right? C-sharp and angular experience, you know. Senior level developer, okay? What languages are they working in?

C-sharp and angular, okay. Okay, well, I'm not sure how senior level you are from a consultant level perspective if you've only ever worked in those two technologies. Some companies would absolutely love that, right? Because they went deep with that. For me, that doesn't really help me too much. Again, I'm sort of a different sort of hiring person, right? And what we need, what we look for. But I bet 80 of the 120 resumes that I get look identical. It's a different name up top. You know, there's a few things that I do to weed out. We don't have it set up to be able to hire non-US citizens.

So that's, you know, that takes off a portion of it. Sure. If it's got a cover letter, hey, I'm gonna at least take a look at it. If that cover letter is, I'll say this, if you have a cover letter for a position that you're submitting to blind, for me, this is me, and that cover letter is a copy paste from, and it's the same cover letter for everything you send, it's obvious. I had a guy who didn't have anywhere near the credentials, didn't have anything else wrote a custom handwritten, not handwritten, but I'm tight, but like in Carson. It was very clearly, hey, in your posting, you said you value people who are problem solvers who like to work with clients to figure out the best way for them at that point.

I mean, it was well thought out. That's awesome. Did he have the best everything else? No, did I care? Not at all. Not at all, because he took the time to stand out and not be just another, you know, white resume with Ariel Faunt at 12 point, you know, like, but that's from my standpoint. My guess is, and I'll switch back over to you here, my guess is that in your case, you've probably already chatted with these people. So you have a little bit more context for some of it. And I'll let you speak to that. But that's where I think sort of our difference in perception comes in there.

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, for me, it's, and that's what I'm seeing, right? I mean, I put a tweet out the other day and it kind of spread like wildfire with CVs as well. And it literally, I think the recruiters take away the CB aspect, right? So I guess that makes sense in that if you're not submitting, and that's one of the things I've saw on Twitter was that, you know, everyone's like, well, I'm submitting to a job posting that requires a CB. I'm like, I think that's the thing, right? You're not using the recruiter using a job posting. And so, you know, but again, I think it varies, I think it varies, but I'm really glad that you said this because I think it actually again continues to affirm what my thoughts are that the recruiters are your CV, which is even more important why you should meet a recruiter and do a video call.

I put out a LinkedIn post today this morning about, hey, what is your first initial call look like with a recruiter right now? Is it a video, a phone? And it's the majority is a phone call. I'm sorry, but I do everything video right now. You got to be good. Yeah. It's just it's so much easier to do video. now everyone's used to it, should be used to it. And you just build relationships, right? I mean, I've met more people through video obviously in the last four months and I've stayed in touch with all those people. And so, but yeah, I mean, again, for me, I mean, let me ask you this though, like headshots on resume, columns, I mean, do you like the colors and all that stuff?

And in fact, as someone who is, you know, without giving away my age, who went through school in a non-woke timeframe, I believe I used that term. Yeah, non-woke. We were very un-woke. We made fun of all the woke kids. I mean, I didn't, but like, you know, that was the thing to, you know, very 90210, he kind of thing. Like, I want, I don't want that. I want you to tell me what makes you separate. I don't want your headshot. I don't want to have, whether we want to believe it or not, there are biases, unlimited biases that we have, right? I don't want to work with a whole bunch of people that look like think like me.

That's not where we get strength. We get strength by having people who have differing opinions. Perfectly. I work. I know amazing. The guy actually who, when I got this job, we have very different perceptions and how to build software. What we think is quite the right way if there were no whatever. Brilliant guy. guy, right? Like we both had this mutual respect of like, look, that works great for you, so keep doing that. This is not typically the way that I do it. So this is what I do. And we're like, great, hey, it's working for you. That's perfectly fine. If I need something to help out for the way that he writes software, boom, hey, swing on over.

Let's take a look. Let's see how you're doing it, because that's where, you know, I think that I am right for me. But, but like my way of thinking about doing things is not prescriptive. There's no prescription for any of it. Right. So you're saying, and again, just to recap, is that, I mean, you really put a lot of emphasis in the CDs. And you probably, and this is my last question we wrap up here, like, do you read one of the questions I get a lot is like, how long does a resume need to be? Do people read back? For me, I always say your last position or two needs to be pretty beefy with some details because that's about as far back as I look personally.

I'm wondering as a hiring manager what your thoughts are with that. It is as much as I hate to say it, given the variety of work that we sometimes do or let's say the more things that someone can do the easier it is to player them up with a client to solve a problem. So I would say if there are technologies that that you have worked with at all. Now don't come into me and say, hey, I'm a JavaScript expert. And then I ask you about the prototype and you're like, I don't know what a prototype is. You don't have to claim to be an expert.

Like, I have worked with these technologies. It could have been 10 years ago. And it doesn't even have to be up high, just like, hey, these are technologies that I've used. I'm like, okay, well, you know, what Taylor's got some experiences, you know, with C++ from 20 years ago, that's fine. I mean, if someone that's got code that's 20 years old that they're trying to deal with, and I'm like, hey, look, I know it's not your jam, but can you exercise some demons and remember what you worked on? So I think, yeah, the past few jobs do that. I think make sure you know what it is you really enjoy doing.

And, you know, and be yourself, like, flaws and all, you know, like just be bold, be yourself. with your resume. I think the very top line, like it's a summary, right? It's your Twitter bio, it's your resume bio. Make that strong. Yeah. I'll put your personality there. Anything that's under that for your work experience, you know, my favorite quote is the one chooses the wizard, right? Like, you may not have chosen any of the texts that you've chosen that you've been working with. It may not be where you want to go with your next role. And if that's the case, call that out. I've done this because it was solving value.

I'd prefer to be in this tech stack or be doing something else, whatever. Call that out. I love that. I love that. Especially if you don't have someone as amazing as Taylor helping you out. Right. And repping you as your CEO. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure it's cool man. Well, gotta run. Thanks for hanging. Let's talk about dad life here soon. Okay. We'll do it. We'll do it. All right.