EES2024 ROC RESEARCH - Navigating the Tech Hiring Maze :Proven Strategies to Stand Out and Get Hired

Hey, what’s going on good people? Thank you for your time and patience as we navigated some technical difficulties. Y’all know the vibes.

Well, I’m super excited though because this, panel is going to be really amazing talking about navigating the tech hiring maze. I know I’m interested in figuring out a pathway into better ways to get into this career. My guest is Danny Cohen, who’s the president of Rock Search Incorporated, a leading specialist in technology and engineering staffing in the US.

With over 23 years of experience building world-class STEM talent communities. Danny is an amazing speaker who’s going to give us a lot of insight into his strategies for navigating the tech landscape. So without further ado, Danny, welcome.

And I know y’all are in for a treat. Thank you, Cam. I’m going to present to the audience now, I believe.

Let me get my presentation up. Here we go. And welcome everybody.

It’s a pleasure to be here and thank you Copar for having me. So firstly I just want to welcome all of you and wherever you are in the world. It’s lovely as I mentioned to be here and also appreciate all of you giving up your precious time for the next hour.

My name is Danny Cohen and I’m going to be talking about navigating the tech hiring maze and really proven strategies to stand out and get hired. Before we kick off, I would love everyone to put your location in the chat box. So, where are you?

I want to know how far we are reaching today. New York City. Here we go.

Columbus, Atlanta, New York, Brooklyn. Love it. Love it.

Love it. And the other thing I’d love to get everyone to do today is just to put in one thing that you would love to get from this session. So for instance, as you can tell by my accent, I am in Austin.

But I am English. And my goal today is to give as many tools to get a job and stand out to get hired. So if I go to the next slide, I’m just going to talk through what the agenda will be.

So, I’m going to tell you a little bit about who I’m I you know, why would you listen to this British guy? Then I’m going to talk about a program that we created that was born out of a nonprofit that I was part of which have helped thousands of students and really anyone who’s looking for a job in technology. And then I’m just going to break it down into the four steps.

Building a brand, the art of storytelling, your network is your net worth, the plan, give you a couple of examples, and then we’re going to just finish off with a conclusion and a Q&A. So, let me bore you a little bit about who this guy is. So, a little bit about me and why should maybe I maybe I how can I help you?

So, I’ve been in recruitment longer than I haven’t been. So, I started as an 18-year-old kid. So, I’ve got 23 years in tech staffing.

I’ve worked for three companies during that time. Currently the president of Rock Search, which is a specialist in technology and engineering staffing, but I also sit on several nonprofit boards. It’s actually how I found out about CodePath.

And I’ll tell I’ll share a little bit more that about that very shortly. I recently got voted fourth in the world in staffing. And I won DEI influencer of the year.

So, it’s really important for me to give back. And you’ll hear that throughout my purpose and passion within the presentation. Also a little bit about me.

I have impacted over 100 thousand of lives whether it’s finding jobs and I pretty much know someone at all the top organizations in the US because I work with most of them in terms of staffing their jobs. But also why do I do this? You know, the thing is I do this and this is free because my mom is my queen and I’ve always really wanted to help people out because I watched my mom suffer for many of years without the support of a community, the support of others.

And I feel it is because I’m so privileged now that I have to create pathways for others, the underserved and underrepresented or those who are really finding their first job in recruitment or in technology. And you know, I do this because it is my why and it does bore out from when I started as a kid. So, what I’m going to teach you today is a little bit about my journey and how I’ve helped people through this.

And there is a famous quote. It is give a man a fish and you feed him for a date. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

It’s not the most diverse sentence, but the point here today is I’m not exactly going to give you a job, but I’m going to give you the tools that you allow you to find a job forever. Before I get into that, again, a little bit about me. I do have a lovely son and wife.

We live in Austin, Texas. We lived in Amsterdam before that for 10 years. And I’m originally from London.

I am a massive fan of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. But it shows how much I’m committed to this because they’re playing right now and I’m not watching them. I have recorded them.

Ah, Geneva, I can’t believe you’re a Liverpool fan, but hey, no worries. You can have a number two. And then I’m going to So, that’s a little bit about me.

I do love to travel. I love to eat at the best places. I’m a bit of a foodie and you can tell by my hips.

But that’s where we’ll move on from the next slide. So here are here’s a guy called Claw Jones. So about four or five years ago someone came to me.

He was the head of Walmart Labs in San Diego. And he was also the CEO of a company called the San Diego Tech Cup. And he approached me because we were working with them helping them with their mobile applications.

And he asked me to join his nonprofit. And he specifically said, "Can you help our community of four to 5,000 people who really need help to find a job?" And I said, "Well, of course I can. I’d love to, but let’s build out a program.

Let’s build out a project and let’s really help others. So, we created a program called Hire Me, a really clever spin on getting hired uplifting and upskilling people to get jobs. And you know, it’s all very well and good of me telling you how great I am, but here are some testimonials from people who have gone through the program as students either from CodePath or from San Diego Tech who have actually got jobs through the program.

And you can see, for example, Tai is now working at Google. You can see Samantha, she’s got into technology transformation. And you can see here three more examples of others.

Wii who has now become a software engineer at Bloomberg or Tiffany Chry who initially got a job at City Bank and now works at Amazon and Sylvia Deen who is actually three years now at EDF and we still speak today. These people all they did was follow the program and of course there will be other things in that that you will require. So hopefully you can all walk away today when you’re looking for that job, you’ll be able to find it.

So if we go to the next slide, I’m going to first touch on your brand. So in short, I want to ask those in the room, what do you think 8 seconds means? And if you just put in the chat box what you think it means.

What do you think 8 seconds stands for? Time for first impression. Thank you, April.

First impressions. A glance. Yeah, I think you guys are on it straight away.

So, there isn’t a statistic and I know a lot of the statistics are made up on the spot, but I work with hundreds and thousands of recruiters. I speak to a lot of hiring managers. Perception is projection.

What you project out is what people perceive. You have 8 seconds to convince a recruiter to stay on your profile. That’s not a lot.

So, it is so important to keep it simple. Be very clear to hiring managers and recruiters that when they look at your profile first, they can tell instantly who you are and what you do or what are you looking for. Now a question to all of you should be well what do you want to be known for?

So let’s say in three years time you had what Sylvia had and become a software engineer and for three years she’s been that. What do you want others to know you for? And I think one question that people tend to have is, well, I’ve got no experience.

How can I be a data science engineer or how can I be an AI or software engineer? You don’t have to be a subject matter expert to become one. So things like in your resume or on LinkedIn or wherever you want to go, it really is important to be very clear that I’m an aspiring AI engineer or I I’m a future data scientist.

In this way, you’re identifying to your market what you’re looking for and you’re being very very clear to yourself that this is the role that you want. It allows you to be searched on a keyword. It allows people to be attracted to you and that is absolutely essential when I or any of our recruiters are looking for people.

These are the things that we do. Now, as I’m sure a lot of you can see today more than ever, social media has really taken over. If you think about for example I haven’t mentioned on here but Tik Tok and the cancer culture Tik Tok now if you make a tweet from 10 20 years ago it can be found.

So your social channel, your brand is so important because people like me who are always hiring for our customers and myself, we will be looking at you and going, "Okay, I’ve got your LinkedIn. Let me make sure it matches up to your resume." And you know what? We have access to Facebook.

We have access to Twitter X. Now more than ever, it’s so important that you are building your brand today for that better tomorrow because people do look at your LinkedIn. And it is so important to be aware how crucial it is to make that right first impression.

Now, of course, that’s through a social channel, but when you’re in front of people, I am honestly as authentic as I can be. I’ve got tattoos. I’ve got piercings.

And I yesterday was at one of the largest women in tech events where I moderated one of the biggest panels. And I am who I am now. And I feel it is more important than ever to be your authentic self.

That doesn’t mean to say that you go in with shorts, whatever, ripped jeans and look unprofessional. But you have to be comfortable being who you are and owning that. But also being aware and adaptable to the customer in front of you, the audience who is watching you because you always have to make that impression.

But today more than ever, be yourself. Be your authentic self. But also recognize that your brand is being watched all the time.

And as I earlier mentioned, perception is projection. So that’s the brand part. And that’s the first part of when you’re building out and looking for a job.

Make sure you know who you are. That’s where it starts first. So the second part is building your story.

So when I first got asked 15 20 years ago to do a speech, I’ve got to be honest, I absolutely freaked out. It was in front of 400 people and I’d already done a few speeches in front of a smaller groups and I was okay. But I had this fear of public speaking and I don’t know if you know this but fear of public speaking is up there nearly with death.

People’s fear of death. It is that terrifying. But there is an art of storytelling.

And the art is building out a process. It is practicing what you preach. So if I was to ask any of you today, and you can just write yes or no. I’m not going to call anyone out.

But if you I was to say to you, I want you to share me your twominute elevator pitch. I want you to share with me your story and I’m going to hire you based upon that story. How many of you would feel confident today that I could put you on the spot now in front of the group and you could share your winning story and I’ll wait for you to say yes or no. I’m not going to well I might do later but I’m not going to call anyone out to deliver your pitch to us.

Thank you April. Thank you Air. And look, nose, it’s not a problem at all.

This is why we’re here today. And April, 30 seconds is the elevator pitch, but it’s when you get asked that question. Imagine someone goes, "Hey, I’ve seen your resume.

I would love to have a chat with you." And they go, "April, tell me a little bit about yourself." That is your chance to give them the best things about you. And what I always say to people is imagine it’s like a film trailer. That for me is where you go, hey, I’m going to tell you the best things about me.

I’m going to tell you the things about my resilience. I’m going to talk to you about what makes me so special. And I’m going to give you the best bits of my film.

And my film is my life. But I’m going to give you that two minutes. Now, of course, being put on the spot is what’s going to happen in interviews.

And they’re going to ask you some really random questions, but there is going to be a consistent question on any interview. Tell me about you. Tell me about your story.

Tell me about why you’re here today. April, no one’s going to be sick of you, but no worries at all if you don’t want to join, but no worries at all. So, what I’m getting to is it’s really important to make that first impression count because you don’t get a second one.

And what I do, and many should do, write it down or type it out and practice until it becomes perfect. Practice it in front of a mirror. Practice it in front of people you feel really comfortable talking in front of.

Give them enough that they’re excited about it. Give them enough that they want to know more. Don’t give them everything.

Make them curious, but make them excited to want to know who this amazing person is in front of them. Now, again, statistics can be very, very different depending on the year. But I know myself and it’s terrible, but I a first impression counts.

And sometimes we as human beings do make judgments very very very quickly. And then doesn’t mean they’re always reality, but what I find when I’m interviewing someone in the first two to five minutes, I’m usually making a kind of decision on whether or not I can see this person working with me or working with our customers. So that’s why it’s so important to get your story right.

If I go to the next slide, this is where it really talks about your network. And your network is your net worth. I’d like to ask everyone a question.

What do you think the number 250 means? So the question is on building your network what do you think 250 may mean? Average number of people who know who know you.

Good answer. Rejection 250 rejections. Fair enough.

Good answer. Connection request. Brilliant.

Minimum of connections, number of characters in your introduction, number of people you know face to face, LinkedIn, Mr. Danny. Fair enough you. I like that.

So the number 250 LinkedIn connection. Thank you. So right today, right now, I have 30,000 connections and that’s the maximum you’re allowed to have.

So you can connect with me. I’m always trying to move and shake my connections to make sure they’re relevant. So I’m always cleansing my data or cleansing my connections.

But for example, Yug I met 125 of my connections just yesterday when I was at this women in tech conference where I was moderating a panel for women in tech. And but the number 250 is there you go Erin. It is how many a couple of years ago when we were looking at it, it was how many applications are made before you get a job on average in the United States.

When I started in recruitment 23 years ago in my first six months, I spoke to a thousand managers. I didn’t even place one candidate. Not one candidate.

I wasn’t focused on the right market. I was trying to call everybody and their brother, mother, son, and daughter. I wasn’t focused on the right people.

But when I did, I started to really recognize that building my market, building my network couldn’t be more important. Identifying people that are relevant to me. So for instance, I saw someone earlier was a data scientist.

You should be right now adding managers who are in the data science field. You should be right now speaking to recruiters in the data science field. You should be going to events right now in the data science area.

You should be talking to communities who are supporting people in these areas. You should be even asking your friends, tell me about data science. Do you know anyone in this space?

Talk to mentors who are looking for who are data scientists who can give you support, who can give you advice because I promise you there are so many people out there who would be willing to give you that time, who would be willing to give you that support. And honestly, when I get approached by people, I get approached quite a lot to say, can you help me? I’m always willing to help because it’s quite powerful when someone goes, hey, can you help?

I’m like, yes, of course I can. I can save the day. Well, feel like a bit like Superman or Superwoman.

The key is there are people out there who really do want to help. They they really really do. But sometimes there’s fear.

There’s sometimes there’s the struggle of just even getting past that. Do I even want to approach these people? And I have this saying, I’ve had it all my career.

When in doubt, send it out. And what that means is very simple. If you have a resume that you want to send out, just send it out.

What’s the worst that can happen? Well, the worst that can happen is you don’t hear from them or hear from her. And guess what?

Chase, chase, and chase. I want to see people who are enthusiastic, who want to speak to me. I want to see people who want to connect, but I want to see people who are resilient, who are, you know, resilience.

Resist persistence always beats resistance. It really does. And I know there are some clients who I’ve been trying to speak to for years and I was talking to one of my colleagues the other day and I spoke to them about a client I used to work with in Amsterdam called G Bank and there was a manager there who for three years every month I would call him and his name was Ferry Philippy and he would never respond and then after three years 36 reachouts he responded and goes I’m hiring and we placed C plus developer.

It was years ago. And then a month later goes, "Danny, I’ve never seen someone so tenacious. I’m actually looking for a job myself now.

Can you help me?" Now, deep down inside, I think he actually was nice to me and gave me the job the month earlier because he probably wanted a job himself. But hey, it was me being really persistent. So, April, don’t give up.

Ever give up because I promise you, it will happen. But you’ve got to build your network. And look, the fact is recruiters like me, we get paid for it.

So input always beats output because the results will come through. But just getting your resume out is crucial because the truth is in anything, especially when looking for a job, it is a contact sport. The more contacts you make, the more chances you create.

So if I go to my next slide, what we all hope when we’re building a plan is it’s going to go like that first picture at the top. It’s just going to be easy sailing. You’re going to ride a bike and you’ll get to your goal and you’ll get to your finish line and you’ll be woohoo.

I’ve got a job. I’m happy. It’s definitely not like that.

As you can see on the slide, the truth and the reality is it’s ups and downs. It’s thunderstorms and bears. It is a tough it can be very very tough.

So, the key is to build a plan from day one. And that plan could be, okay, this week I’m going to work on my brand and by the end of Friday or by the end of Sunday, I’m going to make sure that I’ve checked all resources. I’ve checked all other LinkedIn profiles and I’m going to build the best brand in the world.

I’m going to look at all my social channels and I’m going to do that. This week, I’m going to work on my story. And then next week, I’m going to start adding those connections.

I’m going to start building my network. I’m going to start connecting to the right people. It is very important to have very clear goals, timelines for yourself, and be really disciplined.

You know, I’m a big believer in your why, but it’s irrelevant if you don’t have the discipline to get there. The other thing that I would say to every single person here today is focus on the small wins. It’s very easy to get to beat yourself up if you’re not getting a job.

But the key is not the job. If you focus on every single week that timeline and those actions and celebrating I did my story amazing celebrating that it is so incr crucial but celebrating the journey because it can be really tough you know only celebrating the finish line when you’re running a marathon can sound awful and painful. So there is I I like UFC which is Ultimate Fighting Championship and one of my fighters in in the old days.

He’s not really that good anymore. He’s Conor McGregor and his coach wrote wrote a book called Win or Learn. And it’s something I really take solace from.

Winning, celebrate. Celebrate hard because you’re working hard. If you’re going out there and you’re trying to look for a job, celebrate.

Celebrate every little win. But anytime that you feel like you’re failing, learn from it. I promise you when you’re doing well, everything’s good and you don’t really look at the cracks.

But when it’s not going well, you’re like, "Oh my god, it’s the worst. I don’t feel good. I feel like I’m losing." Well, actually, you’re learning.

And that is the key to learn through this. The other thing that I would really recommend all of you do is find your tribe. Find the people that you can lean on when you’re going through this journey.

It is so important when you’re going through a journey like this that you lean on those around you. Whether it’s friends, family, colleagues, ex-colagues, students, other people that you can talk to who will pick you up. You know the whole saying, you’re only as good as the five people around you.

Find a good five people who can bring you up when you’re having a moment because you need that. It can be tough. And then of course remember why you’re doing it.

Maybe it’s because I want to be I’ve always had that dream to be a software engineer or maybe I just want to make loads of money and I know I can by being in technology. Whatever the why is, don’t ever forget that because that’s that light when it feels a bit dark. So, as I mentioned, there’s a lot in there, but in conclusion, keep it simple.

Don’t try to think that you can you need to reinvent the wheel. You know, it is really simple. Building your brand can be really simple.

Don’t overthink it. There’s so many tips and tricks and guides out there, but give yourself a deadline. Secondly, you know, it is never too early to start building that brand.

It is never too early to start working on that story. It is never too early to start building your network. But it is so important today that you start working on that plan.

The other thing as well is have fun and enjoy the journey because you can either go into this and not you can make it tough yourself, you can beat yourself up or you can have fun doing it. Look, honestly, job searching can be really tough. And I I’ll give you an example from my own experience.

I worked for one group from 18 years old to 38 years old. 20 Years at one company and when I left that company I went out and tried to have fun. I spoke to everybody.

I interviewed at 31 different companies. And the reason why is because I wanted I wanted to I hadn’t been on the market for so so long. I actually just wanted to like you know finding my my king or queen.

I wanted to kiss a lot of frogs. So, I wanted to find out what the market was like. So, I spoke to everyone and I really enjoyed it.

I really tried to figure out what was right for me. But because I knew my why, I knew why I was doing it. And so, I enjoyed the journey, had fun, but constantly remember why I do this.

And look, evidently, look, it’s, you know, it is hard work, but believe in yourself. Now, for me personally, I want to be the change I want to see in this world. Now, everyone’s different, but that’s what I want.

And that’s why I do things like this today. I’m so honored when Geneva contacted me to come here today because I’d love to help. Even if one person today goes out and finds that job from some of this advice, it will mean the world to me.

And obviously, if you want more time, I will always give it. But I wanted to reflect on someone who is not a student but a CIO. And this lady is called Nina Fenti.

She’s based in Florida and she worked for Royal Caribbean for many years and lost her job. And I remember speaking to her and I said to Nina when we were going through this coaching program, "Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. I promise you, you’ll get offers.

Just follow the process. Just follow the process." So, I asked her before today. It was only a few days ago.

Hey, Nina. I’d love a testimonial from you. I’m I’m I’m going to be speaking to students around finding a job and navigating the the the journey they’ll be on.

And so I asked her, "What would be your advice to the students today?" And she and this is what she said. So it was really quite this was a year ago since she’s been at Princess Cruises. And I said, "How the heck did you remember that?" She goes, "I’m a really good notetaker, but it changed my life, Nanny." So this is what she said.

There was so much great advice that resonated with me that I felt could action. And here are a few nuggets. Recruiters spend 80 seconds on a profile.

Keep it simple, relevant, and engaging. LinkedIn source good testim testimonial mo testimonials and recent recommendations and what that means is all the projects you’re working on all the students you’re working with all the the the professors whatever it is get testimonials get recommendations get referrals as I said your network is your network and you don’t know who could be the person who could introduce you to your next job work on your storytelling focus on what will get me in the door Write down all the things that make you amazing, that made her amazing. There are so many things.

Ask your friends if you don’t know what your superpowers are. But think about why you do this, what your purpose is, and the person behind the wins. Talk about your struggles with future hiring managers and how you dealt with it and what got you here today.

But be confident you can do it because you can. There’s a really good film called Goodwill Hunting. Sometimes things aren’t your fault.

Sometimes things are out of your control. But what is in your control is believing in yourself. And if you don’t come to me and I will give you that confidence.

And as Nina said to accomplish it, I had to do this. And the reason why I am so perfect for you when in front of customers and one thing I did say and I did say to her was 80% of the time all of you should have a core story. But 20% of the time you’ll be meeting a different client whether it’s Google, Amazon, Salesforce, it doesn’t matter.

So 80% should be core, but then 20% should be relevant and sold back to the person in front of you. Sell to their needs because you want the job. Make them feel like the most important person in your life because you want the job.

And as Nina said here, networking, networking, networking, play the numbers game. And this was really this made everything to me when I flew over to Florida and met Nina to talk about working with Princess Cruises. She said to me, "Danny, you did not tell me you you did tell me not to worry about getting an offer and follow the process and then I got three offers to decide from." So, you know, a lot of people go through imposter syndrome.

She did. Many of us do. But she fought and was brave enough to open up and talk to me about this.

So we had one session but we had many after because she came to me and my ask of everyone is if you want that support I will always try to find the time for you. I then spoke yesterday as I mentioned at a women in tech conference and there was this amazing woman there called Charlene Jenner. Charlene is the vice president of digital marketing for the American Heart Association.

She’s also the SMU agent professor and she presented on AI and I said look I’m speaking to all these amazing students. What would be the one thing you would tell them? And she said, "It’s EQ over IQ.

We’re stuck in our computers all day. Get out there and become emotionally aware. Talk to people, figure out how to work differently because the softest skills are the hardest skills to have.

You know, we know now people can code and AI is taking over, but it is the emotional intelligence piece that is really setting people apart. So finally, this is one thing I’ve learned over doing these sessions thousands of times is there’s a saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink it. All of this today is free coaching advice.

I’ve only done this job in my career, and there is nothing I can give you advice on apart from recruitment and how to find a job because that’s what I have to do every single day. I have to teach people, my recruiters, my business developers to go out there and how to find clients to hire and then find candidates for them. But I can give them the opportunity.

It’s up to them to take advantage of it. And it’s the same to every single person today. So, we’re going to go into a Q&A.

And I’d love to see if there’s any question. I can see there’s a few in the Q&A box, but the final slide is kind of just maybe some questions that you may have. When I typed into chat GPT frequently asked questions and on what students may be struggling today, these were the main eight ones that came back.

You know, it said lack of experience. Many students struggle with the experience paradox. Absolutely.

Tiffany Chry who I helped three years ago specifically stated, "I don’t have an experience." I go, "But you’ve done lots of projects and if you haven’t, go out and get projects. Offer nonprofit support. Build your resume.

It of course it leads to frustration, but show that future employer that you’re hungry and ambitious. Of course, technology is evolving. This is a chance where you want to show that you’re a learner, that you’re curious, and that is the key to show that curiosity.

So, I’m going to hand into the I I believe we’re at the phase where it’s Q&A. So I’m going to go through the questions. Please ask me anything.

As you can see, I’m quite an open book. So, the first thing I’ve got here, I’m going to go down. Here we go.

Could you please Oh, one sec. Let me see. Okay, so I’ve heard from recruiters that their inboxes are always being filled and that unnecessarily reaching out actually reflects poorly on candidates now with everyone reaching out on LinkedIn out.

Any update advice on building one’s network? Amy, that’s a great question. Amy Fun answer asked that.

It’s a great question. So Amy, the recruiters say that because they don’t want to get bothered. If it’s a specifically tailored message, if you just spam people, which is what people get a lot of, that’s the first thing.

If it’s the same message to everyone, I’m looking for a job. Can you help me? They’re like, spend one minute to two minutes on their LinkedIn profile.

Find something that will show that you’ve actually looked to them and you really care about the person in front of you. That’s the first thing I would say. Secondly, this is a big one for me.

Don’t write a long spill on the message to that person you’re trying to attract. Make sure that if they open their phone or they open LinkedIn or they open their email, it’s short, sweet, and relevant. It’s simple and engaging.

And there’s loads of templates out there that I can help you with or you can create, but make it look like you actually have found a way to approach that person. The other thing as well, Amy, there’s a lot of people when you approach companies that got jobs there. Junior people who are entry level, connect with them and find out how they got into into the job.

But I’m telling you, no one will think it reflects poorly on a candidate if you are constantly trying to approach a client and get a job unless you aren’t listening to the feedback. If someone says, "Look, you’re just not right for this reason." Take that feedback. You can challenge them, but don’t just shut them down.

Take the feedback, listen. Because we have two ears, one mouth. We should be listening more than we talk.

And I’m a talker. So, I have to really be listening all the time to my customer needs because I have to sell back to that. And it’s the same.

But honestly, recruiters, oh, we’re very busy. We’re getting a lot of resumes. So, you have to make it relevant.

And what I try to always do is go, okay, I see they’re looking for five things. How can I sell back to those five things? And there is a thing called FFNA, fact, find need analysis.

Find out the facts and the needs of what they’re looking for and sell back to that. The next question I’ve got here is from Erin Forest. How do I balance showing my personality while still keeping it professional?

Is it okay to joke around a little in interviews, cover letters, or does it come off as professional? I mean, that’s a great question. I think I talk about being authentic and I think people work with people.

That’s a true statement in life. I see people buy into people. When I hear about the biggest customer opportunities I’ve won or others have won, it’s because there’s a relationship or they built that relationship because they’ve shown that commonality.

I think jokes be politically correct. You never know the audience. You never know how there is a cancel culture out there.

To just be conscious and mindful of that. But do you know what? We see the same resume all the time.

Be a bit creative. ATS’s do pick up in keywords. Play the game.

Be smart about it. But I do recognize how important it is to be your authentic self, Eron. And I really love that.

Some people just won’t like me. There’s a there’s a sandwich spread called Marmite. You either love it or hate it.

I don’t think people will hate me. I don’t know. But you’re not going to please everyone and eventually people will find out who you really are.

Sorry, I missed one here. What do you wish applicants knew about ATS? Look, we’re all having to deal with these kind of systems.

I think there’s ways to get around them. There’s ways to play the game. I personally recommend trying to go direct to the hiring managers.

I know people will say go through ATS’s. They can be the bane of our recruiters lives as well because there’s a lot that go into them and they take time. Personally, when I’m looking for a job, I would my personal approach is not to go via portal.

Try to find the hiring manager, try to find the recruiter, try to speak to someone, even if you send it through to an ATS because it can feel like it goes into a black hole. The truth is, April, I worked in recruitment for 23 years. As I’ve mentioned before, I try to not work with customers if they have to go via portal system.

I want to know who the clients I’m working with. And I don’t care if it’s eBay, Walmart, sales. I work with the line directly.

That’s my choice. Doesn’t mean it’s everyone’s choice is, but there are so many tips and tricks that you can do to not manipulate in a negative, but manipulate in the right way. I have a 15-minute phone screen with HR tomorrow.

Any tips? Yes. Here’s three.

Okay. Firstly, find out who’s it who you’re interviewing with and try to do as much research on the individual to have questions both about the business and the individual you’re meeting. HR is about human resources.

Yes, they’re about the humans, but they’re there to protect the company. So remember, HR is really about protecting the organization to do the right thing. So check the values of the company.

Check what they are looking. They will love you to say that. Talk about things that they are going to want to talk about.

Get them excited. If it’s a 15inute phone screen, be punchy and maybe ask some really direct open like direct close questions rather than open questions so you get straight to the point. But what I always say, Mariela, by at the end of every interview, and it’s a bit of a white lie, I always tell the client in front of me, if I was interviewing, tell them that they are your preference, but you do have other things on, but this is your preference.

Because for two reasons. One, you want to create urgency. You don’t want them to go, "Oh, Mario hasn’t anything on.

We’ll get back to you in a week. You want to show that you’re a hot candidate on the market that you have got other interviews and say look this is my preference but I do have anything have other things on when should I hear back from you and if they don’t know say no worries at all but if I don’t hear from you I’ll give you a shout in a few days have a wonderful wonderful week what have been the hardest talent skills to finding candidates well look first and foremost AI machine learning is absolutely going crazy right now I went to the AI4 conference in Las Vegas and there were 138 clients hiring 138. I met one manager who needed 28 data science engineers.

I met the VP of FISA who goes we’re building out the entire machine learning division. But that means there’s going to be software engineers needed front end, back end. There’s going to be full stack everywhere.

There’s going to be network engineers. There going to be so much going on. But honestly when I look at AI machine learning we are so unaware of what is going on and what is going to happen and I got a stat yesterday and supposedly if you think about the AI generative AI and just what’s happening there was a stat yesterday where how many the translation the voice manipulations are there going to be on AI supposedly there’s going to be like eight billion different alternatives out there.

Like I didn’t even know there was that many people in the world. So the thing is there’s so much need in the market right now especially in tech. You’re in the right space at the right time.

But I give you an example in AI there’s so a multitude of spaces that you might want to enter into. And for me if you look at AI for example we have a a client a very very large health pet health healthcare company who are looking for AI engineers with GPU. So when you for example go into the eye space or you go into front end or back end whatever you want to or have a passion with find out the niche within the niche that would differentiate you but there is so much opportunity out in the market and honestly there are ways and tools if you just type into Google what are the most in demand skill set today but also say what are the most in demand skill set for tomorrow because the times are changing they are evolving the metaverse is here AI is going crazy but I’d always be future thinking but if you’re in tech and the forever rapidly in evolving technology you will be okay could you please from Timothy Chs could you please address the fine line balance between finding your niche building your brand I’m an aspiring SW software engineer in AI plus robotics field versus branching out and sending as many connections as possible so that’s a great question Timothy be as focused as you can so I I really do think if you are a software engineer in AI and robotics, there are thousands of connections in that space, thousands.

Or if you’re just looking to get a job and find your feet and get your resume built up, software engineering, there’s millions. So, it really depends. But you can do both approaches.

You can do 50% 50%. You can build up 50%, I’m going to do this, 50% I’m going to do that. My suggestion is always 8020.

The par rule. Focus on the one main thing and then 20%. So if you really want to get into AI robotics within the software engineering space, 80% of time focus on that.

But I’ll give you a little bit of a tip. When you type into LinkedIn AI software engineering, add the word hiring in your search bar and you will probably get 250 managers or recruiters saying I’m hiring for AI and robotics engineers. You will be shocked how many hiring managers are literally saying, "I need you and I need you right now." Yash, I’ve heard that recruiters have talent pipeline, for example, Ivy League students first, referral programs, no art sponsorship.

How can an international students, small liberal arts college stand out in the biases, your story is beautiful, reaction, that’s the thing. It’s about making that story beautiful. So there is a football coach who is now the coach of Bayern Munich and people challenged him or question him the other day around who he is and he goes I was a young kid in Congo and look at me today.

If I had to listen to the doubters I wouldn’t be here where I am now. I shouldn’t be here today myself. You know I shouldn’t have the life I live.

You know I had a single parent mom. I’ve never met my father. We were homeless.

I was on the streets from 16 to 18. And then I got lucky and found a job. You know, there’s always going to be haters out there.

There’s always going to be, oh, well, you’re not this, you’re not that. But my god, when you build your story, this is your opportunity to tell them that you are an international student and then you are brave enough and courageous enough to get out there with the background you’ve got. But what you can do is add the other things.

Show that you’re looking to learn. Show you’re a learner. Show you’re willing to work hard.

Show the extra things that you do that will make you stand out. When I was 18 years old, living outside London because we couldn’t afford to live in London, I had to take an hour and a half train every morning to get to work by 8 and an hour and a half train every day. It was three hours and did it for five years because I knew it would change my life.

I remember standing on the streets of London with shoes that had open soles with the cold on my feet. I had to do what I had to do because I wanted to change my life. There is a means to an end.

That doesn’t make mean to say it’s going to be easy, but something worth it is not going to be. It’s worth fighting for. Do you think tech talent hiring from April is spreading out from tech center cities or is tech reconentrated with the rise of RTO post pandemic?

So the fact is April when the market is a bit tough and to be honest just so you know my company we are having our record-breaking year in technology starving we have doubled our contractor book this year alone we have broken our 10 years we’ve been in America this is our best ever performance so it doesn’t matter the market is still there and there’s still loads of people hiring yeah of course there’ll be some clients going you need to be in this office you need to be there and there was a very large telecoms company who hires thousands and thousands and thousands in Denver and honestly they need you in the office. But not everyone is like that. But sometimes you have to leave your city to change your life.

I went from London to Amsterdam because I got given an opportunity and I grabbed it with both hands. I got call from my CEO saying, "Hey, I know you’ve got a big job in Europe, but I want you to run our Americas." And I said, "Where do you want me to go?" And he goes, "Houston." And I go, so I not that if anyone’s on the call and is from Houston, no offense, I like Houston. It’s I’ve actually got a tattoo of Houston here.

It’s my story. But the truth is I love Austin, Texas. So I lived there for six months to climatize, but I negotiated with my CEO and moved to Austin.

The truth is a lot of companies will want you to be in these tech cities. Austin is one of them right now. But I think you should create companies should be much more flexible with flex working because the fact is if you want to be and hire the best people they could be anywhere and everywhere.

I’m assuming with Cam coming to the cam that my time is running out. So over to you Cam. Well I just wanted to say thank you Danny because you’re just dropping gems back there.

We were not throwing Cheetos on the screen bro. We were just snapping. Thank you brother.

I appreciate it man. Can y’all give some love to my brother for all of the insight that he shared so far? Please drop some appreciation in the chat.

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