SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast. In this podcast, we look for genius technologies and talented people. We aim to bring you information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers. Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering. I am AJ Murray at NoBlinkyBlinky. And today we have Dan. How you doing, Dan? Howdy. I'm doing good. How about you, AJ? How was your day? It was pretty good. It was pretty good, yeah. Yeah, you don't look stressed at all. So I'm actually just going to agree with you. Yeah, no, I feel pretty good today. I had a pretty good day. You look good. Thank you. You're welcome. It's mainly because of that t-shirt. Yeah, so Dan is sporting a fresh new Art of Engineering t-shirt, like literally hot off the presses. Like, is it warm? Is that shirt hot? Like too hot to wear? It's a little sweaty, but I think that's me. Mine too. Weird. I'm not even wearing one. Yeah, I don't know. Aaron, how you doing? Swell. Thank you so much for asking. I appreciate that. No problem. How are you, AJ? Actually, I just heard that, but... How are you, AJ, since you didn't answer Dan? I'm doing well. No, I'm doing really well. Good. How was your day? You know, I'm digging in on some new stuff that's challenging and it's fun. That's all I'm going to say about that. Okay. I would have probably said it sucks, but that's just me. I said it's challenging and it's fun, Aaron. I know. I heard you. Andy, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

I'm

SPEAKER_01 1:48

fantastic. I'm still on an emotional high from... recent appearance I'm feeling really good we got a lot of awesome feedback from our from our Knox interview on YouTube it's pretty awesome yeah for everybody that like just now started subscribing because of that I'm like predicting the future because this episode will air in the future crystal balls out thank you and welcome Typically, what we do on this show is interview network engineers, right? Typically. Typically. However... But before we get to the typical thing, we have some wins to celebrate. Oh, dude, who do we got this year? By the way, we apologize ahead of time because of the time delay. It's really difficult for us to keep up, but the holidays, we got a little bit of backlog of episodes. So if you got a W and we didn't say it, we're sorry. We'll get to you. Just keep listening. Yeah, these are a little delayed. So we're announcing things that happened this week as we record, but we're not going to release this episode for like a month now at this point. This week, earlier this week, somebody by the screen name, Handel, what do the kids call it these days? What's your Discord name? I don't know. Handel? John. I think it's a John. John. Maybe in Philadelphia. Yeah, John. Discord John. Discord John. All right. Well, his Discord John is NKM. His first name is Martin. He lives in Denmark. And he passed the security core exam. Oh, that's a new one.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Previously, he had completed the, I believe he said it was the ICE specialization exam. So he completed his CCNP security with that pass. So congratulations, Martin.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah. Big win.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah. Absolutely. A good friend of mine, Michael, lives in Ireland. He passed his Encore exam, and he goes by Frames and Packets in the Discord. Ah, good old Frames and Packets. I didn't know he was in the UK. Yes. Well, I guess Ireland is not the UK, technically. Interesting. Got a lot of international Ws. Yeah, yeah. From across the pond. Congratulations, folks. Over there, yeah. And then one last one. It's a couple weeks old now, but he posted it in Winning just the other day. IT guy Blake, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that his first name is Blake. Nice. Passed his CCNA, and he put a wonderful write-up on Reddit. So you can find the link in the Winning channel and read about his success on the CCNA. Yeah, go check out his Reddit. The title was a super high score, and then it said CCNA is doable. in some portion of that. So if you go check it out and kind of get a story, he did a very good write up as AJ said. Excellent. Well, that's all the wins I have for this week. So Aaron, I will let you pick up where you. Oh yeah. Sorry. I was just interrupting anyway, but yeah, for all the people that just joined us. Thank you. We appreciate you. Uh, we love you right back. Um, And hit that subscribe button, please, so that you can get notified in the future when we have new episodes. Typically, we do, let's just call them industry people. And usually, those are engineers. We've had some architects. Who else have we had on here? Help desk. Help desk. Just anything IT-related you could think of, but mostly in the network area. field. Obviously, this is the art of network engineering. However, today, the episode will be the art of job recruitment. And with us, we have a very special guest. We wouldn't dare just talk about job recruitment without having a job recruiter with us. But that's a lie, because I have a lot. And I was probably very, very loud and obnoxious about it. So I apologize for that. But I do not apologize for our next guest who actually hangs out in our Discord channel. Brittany, how the hell are you?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

I'm doing good. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Of course. And you live where?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Houston. Houston, Texas.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

H-Town. And Brittany was just telling us she bought a house, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yep, I'm moving in next Friday. First day, I'll have trick-or-treaters.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Oh, dude, I didn't even think about that. So that's pretty sweet. That's pretty

SPEAKER_00 6:23

sweet.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

So I mentioned you were in our Discord, and I think it's a great resource. Obviously, it could be a little sketchy. And I think I heard you say this, so I'm just going to paraphrase and correct me if I'm wrong. You feel a little slimy. Like, you know what I mean? If you're hanging out in a, like, 500-person Discord group where we all do the same thing and you're like, does anybody want this engineering job I have? Because, I mean, look, you got to put food on the table. We get it. I don't hate the hustle one bit. I think that was a freaking genius move. Like, you know what I mean? If there was a Discord server full of recruiters like you guys, I'd slide my butt in there. I'd be like, what's

SPEAKER_00 7:02

up? Be careful.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

A recruiter's Discord? That's

SPEAKER_00 7:08

awesome. I don't even want to find one. those no you're right I did feel like sketchy or slimy or almost spammy in a way like joining it because I know you guys y'all get probably 10 calls a day for jobs or just spammy emails all the time so you never know like what's real or what's fake who's legit so I felt like whenever I was able to like talk with you a little bit first and AJ is like you can go you can go join the discord and at first I was lurking a little bit just being like what are y'all talking about studying what because I like to learn the lingo. So that was kind of why I was in there. But then AJ was like, don't feel bad. You can go ahead and post jobs on there. If anyone gives you a hard time, I got your back. But then you also said, um, but then Aaron, you also said, um, you had my back on there the other day. You're like, she's genuinely trying to help out. And I was like, thank you. But, um, but yeah, I've, since I started posting in there, it's been, I've had probably like five or 10 guys reach out to me separately that I've been talking with. Yeah. It's been really good. Um, It's such a small world, too. Like, in that Discord group, as you mentioned, in the winds, there's people from across the pond, everywhere. Yep. I went... One of the guys that reached out to me from the Discord group, I just knew his name. I think it was netsecweezy. Oh, yeah. He was like, hey, I might be looking for a new role. Let me know. So he sends me his resume, and he ended up... living in the smallest town in Texas that I went to school for in four years, Laredo, Texas.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, I was like, what a small world. So did you get

SPEAKER_01 8:39

him a job?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

No, I didn't. He got a job about a week later after I talked with

SPEAKER_01 8:43

him,

SPEAKER_00 8:44

which I'm happy for, of course. But yeah, I was like, that's crazy. What

SPEAKER_01 8:47

did you think of his resume?

SPEAKER_00 8:49

it was good it was it was well written definitely

SPEAKER_01 8:52

oh god get out of here wait no no get out of here so

SPEAKER_00 8:57

why did y'all y'all have a look at it

SPEAKER_01 8:59

a couple weeks beforehand before he got that job he hit me up in the discord he's just like hey i i kind of want some help you know i want to look for a new job would you take a look at my resume for me and so yeah like him and i went back and forth and i helped him spruce up his resume you knew that was going somewhere right

SPEAKER_00 9:15

i just i had no idea i just

SPEAKER_01 9:18

gave you the ultimate compliment so so i I think it's important to note, uh, Brittany, that you're not just a technical recruiter. You don't just recruit for any it position. Your focus is network engineering.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Hmm. I don't think I've ever heard that before. I guess like maybe I'm a little ignorant, I guess is the best way to put that to like how you guys operate. Is that typical or is it just like, walk us through that basically.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Okay. Definitely. So, Really, in the US, it's not that common. In England and the UK, recruitment is massive there.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Why is that?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

I have no idea. It's smaller. My whole office is... Yeah, I know. My whole office is British guys. Like we're a UK company. My company is headquartered in Manchester. Got

SPEAKER_02 10:06

it.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Okay. Got it. Right. So I don't know. It's been, recruitment has definitely grown out here. The external side of recruitment has grown out in the U S um, I've only been doing it for about three and a half years, but definitely in the last 10 years probably. And, um, I don't know, most recruiters will be very broad. One day they can recruit for a systems admin. One day they can recruit for a finance guy. One day they'll recruit for a doctor. So you never really get specialized in what you're talking about or what you're doing. So that's most companies. Some companies, and we have our competitors. Oscar Technology is not massive by any means, but we'll be external to where we're very niche in our market. So my company, for example, we have a whole cybersecurity team. I'm the network and infrastructure side, and then we'll have a whole DevOps team. We have a construction team that just recruits for construction guys. So yeah, it just depends on the company, but that's one thing that's important too. Make sure you know your recruiter Get a good one that you know is literally talking to your industry every day.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Let's clear that up then. You said just make sure you get a good recruiter. How does one get a recruiter? Because my inbox is recruiters. I've never once searched a recruiter in my life. Is that something you could do as a service?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

You could, definitely. But Most recruiters that are good, they're going to find you. They will end up finding you if they need you for the job.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Touché.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

As far as finding a recruiter in your industry, it's as easy as going on LinkedIn, typing in network engineer recruiter. Of course, you'll see tons of bad results, but then you can find good ones. Look at their LinkedIn. Do they have recommendations? Have they been posting? Did they engage with their network? What are they talking about? You know? Right. You can just see, like, are they in the know?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Right. Yeah. That's what impressed me about you, Brittany, is, like, you were posting things about, like, hey, here's this, like, free Keith Byers Python course that, you know, I hear is really good. And, like, you're contributing to the community, which is rare from my perspective, you know, of

SPEAKER_00 12:14

recruiters that I've dealt with. Most of the time you'll see, like, job, apply now.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, right. That's pretty much it. Like, you know, not really creating any value or having a conversation with, with the people you're trying to work with.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

And that I did, I have changed my model of that a little bit too. Cause you know, obviously the like posting of the jobs to apply, they are good, but without the network, you're not going to get any responses. So I've really like this past probably year and a half or so have been focused on like, let me actually build connections with these guys, figure out what's going on in the market. And then, you know, Just be able to work with them in the long term and stuff like that. So I've noticed when I do start those conversations, I build a lot more flow of income and people coming to me and talk to me about stuff.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Like myself, obviously. Yeah. So look, you guys know how I roll here. I will dip my pen in the company ink as much as I possibly can. And what I mean is I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'm not going to tell somebody to go get a recruiter and I'm not going to tell somebody to change their resume. I'm not going to tell somebody or help them fix their LinkedIn if I'm not going to do it to myself. So with that being said, I reached out to Brittany. I was like, what's good? If you got any, if you got any weird stuff out there, hit me up. Like nothing right now, obviously. And we chatted for a bit. It was good. She got to know who I am, what I do and stuff like that. And am I looking for a job? No. Does Brittany know that? Yes, she absolutely does. But she also knows like, I'm not just going to, this guy's not desperate. I'm not going to bring him anything. You know, and even if she did, she'd just learn me and then she would go, okay, he needs this much money. You know, he needs to be in this place. He needs to be able to do these things on the job, right? This is what's important to him. And then she would find a match for me. So of course I did that. Absolutely. Which I would recommend everyone do. Speaking of that,

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Not all at once.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Not all at once. No, no, no. Don't all go to Britney either. There's lots of Britneys out there, right? Often imitated, never duplicated. Never duplicated. Never duplicated. There you go. But let's say that, because I have one very important question to ask you, and I'll just stick it in somewhere at some point. I just don't know when it's going to fall, but I have a feeling it might just get brought up naturally anyway. But one of the other things I wanted to ask was, as someone that would be looking for a job, What do you think is, or what should be my focus when I'm trying to find a new job? So let me be more specific. So yes, I need to update my resume. Yes, I need to update my LinkedIn. Yes, I need to be available. But what should I be doing addition to that that's gonna put me over the edge, from your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

from other candidates and everything else to be ahead of the curve, really. I mean, those are all key things, the resume, the LinkedIn. If you know what you're looking for, so say in this scenario, do you know what type of company you want to work for? Or, you know, it just kind of depends.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I would say, no. I would say, like, let's just say maybe I'm looking for my second job, right? I got a little bit of experience. I got maybe one or two. I have a CCNA. I'm going to make up a fictitious person right now so that we can actually– make this like a realistic scenario

SPEAKER_00 15:38

so it's different for everyone right sure

SPEAKER_01 15:40

exactly but let's say i have uh two years of help desk experience um i have a ccna and no college degree and i want a job as a junior network engineer okay what should i be doing like what could i do to help myself Is this somebody with no experience? Two years. Two years of experience. Oh, two years, okay. Two years.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah. So about two years of experience, say you're sending out your job applications and you're not really getting any feedback or anything. I mean, that is tough, really. I mean, apart from the following up.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Okay,

SPEAKER_00 16:18

whoa, whoa, whoa. Pump the brakes. Slam them

SPEAKER_01 16:23

down. What did you just say?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Following up.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Okay, define following up.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

So... A lot of times, I think I've heard you guys talk about it as well. It's me. Yeah. You'll just get these automated messages saying, oh, thanks for replying. We've moved on. the candidate or whatever you'll just give up okay done with that well that's not necessarily the case there's so many like automated job systems when your resume goes in they and say they found one candidate they want to talk to they'll just automatically decline everyone else and so you'll get an automatic message you know it's always good to keep following up there's so many candidates like from my my point of view that have applied for jobs and say i'll get 50 applications in a day and i it just it simply passes by me but they end up calling calling me and I answer and they turn out to be like the best candidate and I'm able to place them otherwise had they not called me and caught me on the phone I would have I would have slipped by me and that could happen to everyone that I

SPEAKER_01 17:26

think that okay so that's perfect because that's kind of what I meant by what is following up and you you said it in there which is they call me they find me they call me right so this is LinkedIn guys like we're all in the same industry. If you guys can't find the person you're looking for on the internet, you might wanna rethink what industry you're getting into because you're gonna spend all day on Google anyway, so you might as well just get used to it. So from your perspective, someone that calls to follow up, even though they got that dagger in the heart rejection letter, like, sorry bro, not this time, and you're saying call.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Call, definitely. So especially... Say it's a tech company. They have a tech environment. They're obviously always going to have tech openings, network engineer openings. So you call, say it's an internal placement. You call that recruiter. She says, oh, I'm sorry, that position did close. What's to say in a month they won't have an identical opening? You called her, so you're at the top of her pile. She knows she can go right back to you and you're available.

UNKNOWN 18:31

I like being at the top of the pile.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

You have to have a conversation. You need to speak with people because I guess looking at a LinkedIn profile or a piece of paper, the resume, I guess doesn't really give you a a true sense of who the person is, what their strengths are, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Not at all. And, you know, I, I'll have so many conversations myself with candidates and I'll have ones that I'll just, they don't want to talk to me. It's only on email. They're like, right. So I'll tell them like, okay, you submit me, but then I'll have a nice 30 minute conversation with the candidate who may not be as good technically as the other guy looks on paper, but you bet I'm submitting the guy I got to talk to and gave me a time of day. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

So

SPEAKER_01 19:07

that's interesting. And I, And I can flip that and throw it back at you too. So yeah, how you have to talk to a candidate to get a feel for them. The recruiter who found me on LinkedIn and placed me at the job I'm at that I've been at for five years, he said basically what all the recruiters say. Hey, I saw your profile. You're a great match. I'd like to talk to you. The same, you know. But when we got on the phone, we talked for like an hour and 45 minutes. Lovely guy, was local. He's like a fisherman. Like we just had a lot of stuff in common and he was a person, not me. whatever I thought he might have been. And because of that relationship, you know, I'm still in touch with him today, but if we had never talked on the phone to your point, I don't know if I probably, I may have just blown him off. Like, cause he said what everybody says and that would have been the end of the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah. There's so many generic emails and templates out there that so many of the same recruiters will use. So it's important to separate yourself from the bunch, talk with them. You know, it's the networking. It's, you can't say it enough network, network, make those connections and just grow on

SPEAKER_01 20:06

them. We know about network. I was going to say, this is cool. Yeah, y'all know how to network. This is a different type of networking, one that we're not used to.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Yeah. Y'all are in a way. Y'all are all very good with your LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

We are. Well, everybody but Dan. I haven't touched that thing in years. Can't even spell LinkedIn. We should have an episode where we all just help Dan build his LinkedIn page. Except he can't write any of it. I'll get the About Me section. AJ will get his certs. Andy gets to write reviews for it. So okay so somebody calls you they call you back up they're like hey uh i saw a rejection letter i tracked you down on linkedin this is like me leaving a voicemail tracked you down on linkedin um give me a call back uh but you never call me back what should i do

SPEAKER_00 20:58

call me again

SPEAKER_01 20:59

call

SPEAKER_00 20:59

you again oh yeah i would i

SPEAKER_01 21:02

would

SPEAKER_00 21:03

definitely um plus as i mean as a recruiter we literally get i'm on the phone four to five hours a day sure you know so it's hard to to get everything leave me a voicemail people don't leave me voicemail sometimes it misses so it really is like call text email whenever i'm working with candidates and i know y'all are busy and say i want to get someone scheduled for an interview and they don't answer the first call well i'll text and email them i know they'll come back to me some avenue yep linkedin as well if i can't get a hold of them

SPEAKER_01 21:34

i'd like to add The knock job I got, which was my first job in IT, I called the recruiter every two weeks, religiously, for eight months. Wow. Until I got the interview. How am I just now hearing about this? That's great. Because they kept telling me, you don't have WAN experience. We need somebody with WAN experience. I love it, though. This is like a gem from you because I had no idea that you were... That took forever. You know what? I believe it, though, because you were in sales at one point. And it's a mentality, right? And I say that because I'm in sales. But the most valuable part of being in sales is I'm not a sales guy. Like I don't cold call people, but the most valuable part is the selling, which allows me to learn how to sell other things like myself. You know what I'm saying? So like there's an art to that too, right? Well, asking for things is scary, right? And if you haven't been trained or learned to do it, asking for the sale or asking is magical. You're dead on. You're dead on. Asking for those specific things Yes, that's hard, but because people by nature are going to fear rejection right just this is why this process is so funny to me you go online you put in an application half the time you have to upload your resume and fill out an application which is redundant but you know what we're not here to bitch about that we're here just like talk to britney so anyway i'm filling out the same information that i just filled out maybe they're just trying to see if i make a mistake like i was lying or something fact checking myself and you know and then i get past the captcha how many stoplights Do you see? Click on the stoplight. Oh. And then I start sweating. Those are the worst. No. And then you get through all that. That last little corner has the stops on it. Right. You're like, does this count? It's like, AJ, the other day, AJ said that key appeal sweating emoji. Yeah. Because, oh, that was too funny. So, yeah. So, I get through all that process. And, like, then I get this rejection letter. And the thing about it is that, is just that. Like, I'm just sitting here. I probably went on 10 websites that day and did the exact same thing. It's like, Oh shoot. I don't even remember applying for that one. Cool. Like, you know, uh, so, so I don't like that approach personally. And you're almost saying like, yeah, slow down a little bit and you could ride like one pony across the finish line really basically by, and I'm not saying like a recruiter necessarily, but like, if you like found a company you wanted to work for, you could work there. Cause that's what you just said. It's like, Hey, you can call that is like an internal recruiter. For instance, like they're saying that like every, you know, Andy's calling the guy every two weeks. You're saying, Hey, maybe there's an opening, maybe even in a different department. Like maybe you could transfer over as a, as a help desk guy. And you're like, Hey, I want to do this. Like, what can I do to get into your company to get to this position? They'd be like, well, we have this open. I'd be like, I'm willing to do that.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Right. It's just a foot in the door.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Exactly. Like don't underestimate the foot in the door move, man, because that's so slick. Like Andy and I both took jobs as cable guys. Like Andy, how much were you making when you started?$13 an hour. Okay. Uh, I was making eight 75 and that's nothing. Right. Uh, I could, I couldn't afford to pay a single bill I had. Um, except I had to work overtime to do that, right? You know, it might've been eight in class and then maybe it went up to like 12 when we were in the field or something. It wasn't much. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was nothing. It was pathetic. And it was for the work that we did, right? Like brains. The reason why I took that job and it was only eight bucks an hour, I was making like 12, I think at my first like cabling job, I took that job for that exact same reason. Cause I knew that if I got my foot in the door at the cable company that I was going to be able to move up quickly.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

So sometimes you gotta, do stuff like that i'm not recommending it by any means but you know if if that's if you found like most of us look for not uh companies most of us look for a position right and that it's okay to be the other way around you could look for a company like if you want to work at a company figure out a way to work at the company

SPEAKER_00 25:56

yeah definitely That's a good idea. I was going to say on the like looking for a position versus the company as well. Like if you if you really I thought of an idea to say if you don't if you don't know who's hiring like for your role, you're struggling finding that just find like companies and their competitors as well. Like that's another good idea to look for different avenues to type in that that company and be like their competitors, you know, and then also go to them. If it's like a type of company you want to work for, like a cabling company, a telco company or, you know, whatever. That's one good good way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Yeah. So are most jobs, like are most postings filled by recruiters?

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah, I would say. I mean, that's what

SPEAKER_01 26:37

it seems like. Companies don't have HR departments that are looking through hundreds of resumes a day, right? Like you're the way. Oh,

SPEAKER_00 26:43

they do actually. Yeah. A lot of companies do. We do. But the issue. Yeah. You do?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yeah. I mean, there's 190,000 people here though.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Because I thought it shifted like two recruiters and the recruiters on LinkedIn and that's what you got to do to get a job. But I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Not really. So most companies have their HR and they'll have their talent acquisition like internal team or something like that. But where they really struggle is on the very like specific technical roles and niche roles because their talent acquisition team, they don't know how to find the talent or whatnot so that's when they will reach out to external partners or external recruiters that are a little bit more like niche and specific on what we recruit for because we're able to find that talent quicker it's it's for cost for them basically like how much are they

SPEAKER_01 27:27

losing do they try to fill it themselves and then when they can't they'll reach

SPEAKER_00 27:30

out definitely oh yeah definitely but um but we are able to find the talent quick so

SPEAKER_01 27:36

and they call it they call out the big guns you know no big deal They're like, you know what we need around here, guys? I don't want to say it. And they're all, like, drinking their coffee. They're like, don't do it. Don't say it. Do not say it. Well, I'm going to. We need a real recruiter. I

SPEAKER_00 27:55

imagine that's how it goes sometimes. There is a big stigma with recruiters, but we're not all bad. It's like y'all were saying earlier. We are network engineers like you. I am a recruiter, so I just do my best to be good from my side at least.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, and I want people to use you more in the Discord selfishly. I don't want them to overwhelm you, but I do like when you post jobs because for one, they're relevant. Yeah. For two, you're a specific type of recruiter, which is rare, in that exact specific type of Discord where all these people happen to exist. So it's like... Everybody in the Discord, just get off your butt, okay?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

I was going to ask, actually, because all the recruiters I personally know are external recruiters, so they're all pretty market-specific. Have y'all really not come across that often where you found someone that only recruits for network engineering? No, when you told

SPEAKER_01 28:50

me that you just do network engineering, I was like, what? That's cool. That actually didn't make sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Really? I mean, don't get me wrong. I am external, and I have bills to pay, so I will recruit for the odd role every now and then. Oh, sure. But it's always going to be infrastructure, IT-related. It may be a program manager, data center worker, AWS security guy, something like that. Why did you

SPEAKER_02 29:13

choose that area?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

I just really like the networking, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Now you're getting us going. All right. What exactly do you like about it?

SPEAKER_00 29:24

I don't know. It's so... When I started reading stuff about software dev and all of that, I don't like it. It makes no sense

SPEAKER_01 29:31

to me. Preach, girl. Preach. Same. Same.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Oh, God. If anyone I've recruited in this field listens to this, they're like, what? Brittany. But no, I don't know. It was something about the networking. Being able to look at the routers, the switchers and stuff, learning how stuff changes, it just interested me. I did play around with some CCNA tests just to see how I could do and stuff like that. How did you do it? I used to screen.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Did you pass?

SPEAKER_00 29:58

No,

SPEAKER_01 29:59

no. If you did, don't say it to Andy right now, please. He's already about to break. Two years of my life,

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Brittany. Two years

SPEAKER_00 30:10

of my life. Don't you say no. First try. Yep, done. I used to screen my candidates. How did you do it? I used to... I used to screen my candidates with a list of CCNA questions. Give us

SPEAKER_01 30:21

one. Give us one. Give us one.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Five states a spanning tree. What are they? I even know this one.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

What, like port states? Hold on. You mean discarding, blocking, listening, learning, forwarding?

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Forwarding, yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Good.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

What was another one? What type of protocol is EIGRP?

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Oh, come on. It's hybrid. I want to see. Oh, I was going to say distance vector. Distance vector. Boom! But... But... You're wrong, Aaron. No, it's... But most people say DV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hit us with another one.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

You're testing my knowledge here. We're testing your

SPEAKER_01 31:55

testing.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

It's been a while since I've used it. I don't got no more.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

All right, all right. Fair enough. But, hey, that's a good... representation of like a real life scenario though. Right. Like don't be caught off guard by this stuff. And I'm not saying go like do all the, do you, did I remember this tests from like every OCG you ever bought your entire life? You know, that's a little extreme, but you know, like it doesn't hurt. Like we love having these books and stuff. Like we've all got them like, you know, within arm's reach of us, all of us. And it doesn't hurt to just when you have five seconds to just peel through it for a second. And quite honestly, like I, I've been talking about this a lot lately on the show. It's like these decision points that you have throughout the day. Like you have so many decision points. Like I'm deciding to pick this up right now. You know, I'm deciding to look in this direction. It just is like, do I click on this and scroll through Facebook again? So if you have half of a second and you know, God forbid, you're actually looking for a job to open the book and read it for like half a minute. Like it's not going to hurt. You actually, You should

SPEAKER_00 33:00

be surprised too.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah. I mean like you don't use it, you'll lose it. Right. And, and that's one of those things too. Even if you're in a, a pure layer two environment all day, every day, and somebody hits you with a, what are the five states of Spanish tree? It's going to take you a second, you know, like, like all of us were like, uh, states of what? So like we, we stall, we're like MST or are we talking? I was thinking the same thing. But, but those are good to know because like that stuff does pop up and we've had some conversations in the discord channel about that too. It's like they can hit you with some surprise questions and the point really isn't necessarily like, do you know the five States? it's it's after about five seconds and you realize it are you gonna go you know what i don't remember but that that's that's testing like the kind of person you are it's not testing

SPEAKER_02 33:58

yeah

SPEAKER_01 33:59

do you know the five states of spain which i mean it is to an extent right like do you even know what the heck i'm talking about right like but like i'm sure you're not like oh this guy's an idiot because you know he's he forgot the discarding portion right like

SPEAKER_00 34:11

right yeah so it's That's definitely key. Like honesty is policy as much as I hate to sound cliche. I

SPEAKER_01 34:19

don't think it's cliche at all. I like, I've been saying it all the time. It's like, if you don't know something, just say you don't know. It's cool. It's totally cool.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Own it. Just be like, I don't know it. I do know a little bit about it. This is what I know or something like that. You know, don't just flat out be like, Oh yeah, I know. And then nothing.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Brady, you know, you know what I would do if, if somebody asked me a question in an interview and it stumped me,

SPEAKER_00 34:41

what would you do? Tell me

SPEAKER_01 34:42

if this is wild. So if I felt completely, well, first of all, I always do this at the end of the interviews. I'm like, so, uh, how do you think the interview went? I asked them just so I know, cause I don't want to get out to my car and my wife's going to call me and go, how'd the interview go? And I'm gonna go, it went pretty well. Cause like, I think it did. And she's like, well, what happened? I'm like, ah, it was okay. Like, but if I just straight up ask, I have an answer. I'm like, ah, he said it went well. Like I asked him. Um, so that's been working well for me. But, um, if, if somebody asked me a question, like, let's say I didn't know that off the top of my head or just, freaking period. I don't even know what the hell spanning tree is. I'm going home and I am figuring out what it is and I'm writing like a two page paper and I'm emailing that person that asked me that question before they get into work the next day.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Right. That shows a lot of initiative on your behalf too. I didn't know it, but I'm gonna learn it. I went home and read about it. And this is what I learned since I talked with you last.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

I mean, selfishly, it really just comes from me not wanting to get beat by somebody. But yes, things I've noticed that we've been putting out on this podcast, we've just been talking about it. It's stuff that we've all been doing. We all, probably not Dan. He was plowing a field and getting the eggs out of the chicken coop or whatever. And milk in the cow. I don't know what you guys do over there. Make whiskey. Something like that. You're not going to say anything to any of this? Dan, you don't have to take this abuse. You're just going to sit there? I don't even live on a farm. He's like, well, it's all correct. Now he's going to tell me he doesn't own a farm. Okay. Anyway, where were we? So I do this thing where I get kind of like, this person's not going to get the better of me. I'll give you a perfect example. I had a manager. It was a sales manager, though. Wasn't like a technical person. They wanted to know how good I was at selling or like helping sell. Right. So we did some skills practice, AKA role play. So we role played on the spot and he's like, let's role play right now. So I have, I'll give you guys the cheat sheet. He wanted me to offer him, uh, BGP as a service. So if you work for an ISP, BGP is a service that we offer. Everybody uses BGP. It's the internet protocol, right? But when you're an ISP, you can peer with a customer, basically, and get them direct access, or you can get them multiple different paths in or out of your own network through our ISP network. And you could also, in turn, use your network as a transit network, which is strange, but you could do it. Anyway, he was trying to get me to offer that, right? Because we charge people to do that. So like you want to set up a BGP peering relationship. And the problem was what he was asking me didn't call for that solution. So you would use BGP if you wanted... unlimited, always on reachability, like dual homing BGP with two different ISPs to come into your network, right? So basically what it looks like is there's two roads coming into your network, right? So if one of the roads gets completely taken out, there's still a road back in. This only applies to certain companies, some companies really. Like if you have outward facing things that you need to access from the out in, that's a big deal. However, if you're going from in your network to out of your network, there are different things you can do to maintain reachability to the outside world, right? And that's what he was asking me. He was like, my users want to stay on the internet. And I was like, okay, you don't need BGP. You just need some sort of like HSRP, right? Like you have two ISP, there you go. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think you're understanding. I'm like, Oh no, I understand. I was like, I'm not selling you BGP dude. And also the other part of it that I didn't tell him was that I have a very strict code. That is, you have to be knowing what you're talking about to ask me for BGP. So if you come at me like this and you're, asking me to recommend it, I'm going to just tell you this right now. You probably don't have what it takes to implement the solution. Additionally, I don't know what kind of hardware you got out there, dude, because if you're going to ask me for a full routing table, that thing is going to turn into a toaster real quick. You know what I mean? That's how you crash an ISR. So anyway, long story short, I was right, he was wrong, and it rubbed me the wrong way. And I was heated. So when I got back to the actual person I was interviewing with, I was like, yo. believe this guy like he was having me meet all these people because it's important and I was like you're not gonna believe this I finally got back in front of a technical person I'm like this dude asked me this and I'm like check this out I got it fixed right here you don't need any of this he's like wow he's like yeah yeah yeah so he's like so did you tell him that I was like I mean kind of you know we started butting heads after a while and it just got awkward and I was like all right I think we're done here so anyway but yeah so be prepared for anything I guess is the moral of the story you know it like I always say have like a bunch of resumes when you go on an interview, like, cause there's been times where I've been and I'm only, I only have all these little sweet little nuggets because I've messed up like a bazillion times. Like you, you go to the interview and all of a sudden they're like, Hey, uh, our director and VP are here. Did you want to meet them too while you're here? Like that happens.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

And I'm like, ah, yeah, I do. But I just don't have any, I ran out of resumes.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

And you don't want to ask for your SPAC. Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Can I have that back? Ask for everybody's card. Have plenty of resumes with you. Ask for every single person's business card so you can contact them afterwards and thank them for their time. Take

SPEAKER_00 40:47

notes, too. Have a pen and paper. It always looks good if you're writing stuff down.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

So, speaking of, so when you call people, like... How formal is that situation, right? Because you're just like testing the waters if you're going to put them in front of a company, right? Is that how that works?

SPEAKER_00 41:04

yeah pretty much so there's a couple different ways about the well the way my process goes yeah too so say my first thing is i'll think who do i know obviously if i know any candidates that are good immediately i'll go to them first and then if i don't uh the job boards right so who's actively looking right now so those will be a lot of cold calls hey i saw your resume on monster dice career builder whatever are you open and usually most of the time they don't answer that first call so i leave a voicemail follow up with an email uh but when it is a cold call. Yeah. It's kind of just like, Hey, are you still looking? And then we'll have like a brief conversation and I'll qualify them. You know, does, does this job, like, does it pay what you need? Is it in location what you need? Is it relevant to your skillset? And then we'll kind of pick up the conversation and go from there. If it's, if those tick their boxes too. A lot of times I'll just get, you know, like tied off if it's just like, nope, I'm not a junior level engineer, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

I mean, that should make people feel better. I feel like about, about this situation, you know, like, you know, interacting with someone like you, like a recruiter, right? Like, like you, you're almost both in the same boat, right? Because you're looking for a job, you're looking to fill the job and you only get paid if you do fill the job. Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

So, so, and so, and they only get paid if they get a job. Right. So like you're both looking to get that next paycheck. And so you're really working together as a team. It's less like Brittany's calling you to necessarily ask you about the spanning tree states. She might. She might. Just be aware. She might. Possibly. You've been warned. And she's more so trying to get an idea of what you're looking for. just so that when it pops up, you can just, boom, call that person and be like, hey, check this out. Like, I got exactly what

SPEAKER_00 42:51

you need. Exactly. That happens so much. Example, this happened this week. I had a network engineer role in Chicago, and I saw a guy's resume online, and he goes, oh, I just moved to Arizona. This week, I had a role in Arizona pop up, called the guy, he's in the process. I love that. It's just... Yeah, it's just crazy how that works.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

It's the network, right? We talk about it all the time. I mean, in this case, it's your network, but it's also his, technically, because he actually told you he was moving to Arizona. He didn't even have to say that. You're like, hey, I got this job in Chicago. He's like, sorry, yeah, I'm good. But no, he's like, I'm moving to Arizona. Sorry, is there anything else you have? And you're like, speaking of, and now he's got a job.

UNKNOWN 43:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Yeah, it's good to keep those conversations open. If a recruiter cold calls you and say it's not a right fit, if they're at least on the right track of skill set, it's not a baker job, if they're at least on the right track, then you can tell they know what they're talking about, so talk with them. Be like, this isn't right, but when you have something that's like this, X, Y, and Z, give me a call. One prime example of that is I spoke with a candidate two and a half, three years ago now. He had only had one year of experience. He was just a little bit too junior for anything I had on. And then I've just recently placed him now, three years later. So he's got about four or five years, four years of experience now. And I hadn't talked to him for that long, but he remembered me from then. I remembered him and we were just able to keep working together. So networking is key. And

SPEAKER_01 44:26

it's years later, right? Like, so it's, you're planting, I'm going to, Dan's going to love this analogy. You're, you're, you're planting your seeds in the field and then come the winter solstice you can harvest your crop that's probably not how it works is it is it

SPEAKER_02 44:47

i i got a question

SPEAKER_01 44:50

okay wait hold on what oh my god say it ain't so

SPEAKER_02 44:55

I just had to wait for you to tire

SPEAKER_01 44:57

yourself out. And just so you know, it's 47 minutes in. Yeah, I was waiting for my spot. So you guys talked about the person with one year experience, the person with two. I think that there's a whole swath of people who have never worked in a production environment. And they want to get into network engineering. And they're told that they need to get a CCNA to do that. So... How does someone without any, what can they do? Somebody who wants to talk to you and say, hey, Brittany, I'm a career changer. I love tech. I always have, but I've never worked in production. I got my CCNA. What can they do to help you get them a job?

SPEAKER_00 45:39

It is tough without any production experience.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

But how do you get the job without the experience? I mean, that's the chicken and the egg conundrum that everybody runs into. And unless you get somebody who gives you that shot, what are all these people supposed to do? Here we are, we've got a recruiter. Obviously you need people with experience, but how do the people with that experience get a job? And they'll tell you a volunteer at your church or the supermarket or whatever, but I don't know how practical that is. Not how

SPEAKER_02 46:07

techy it is.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah, we push big for home labs because, okay, I have a production network in my house that I built. Beyond a lab, let's say, is there any advice you could give somebody who... wants to get in and has their CCNA, but hasn't been in a production environment. Like what, you know, do you just, do you tell them you can't help them? Like, I'm sorry. I, you know, you need experience.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

No. And so, I mean, it is tough like, like that, but the one thing is, you know, there are a lot of, there are not a lot, but there are some places that will hire no experience. There's, there's some like, I forget what they're called, like code ninjas or something like that, where you can just go in and learn to code, which it's not networking. But one thing I have noticed is a lot of schools in like community colleges they do hire a lot of like IT technicians and support with no experience

SPEAKER_01 46:56

like help desk you don't place help desk right

SPEAKER_00 46:58

no I mean I will sometimes like tier one or I do some help desk

SPEAKER_01 47:03

but like if somebody came to you and you couldn't help them would you have like a help desk recruiter that you could point them to maybe that's another thing too thanks for bringing that up Andy yeah you have co-workers I

SPEAKER_00 47:15

do. So I'll have people, like I said earlier, we have some guys that are more on the cybersecurity side, and I have some people that will reach out to me just because they'll see my presence on LinkedIn, and so I'll pass them on to my other recruiters, and they're able to help them find a job. So it's not like it's just me. I definitely have contacts, and I can point you in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

So does a social presence or engagement with the community help in your eyes at all? Let's say this same person has a YouTube chat and they have hundreds of hours of content of them working on their ccna and labbing and like you know what can you do to overcome that hurdle

SPEAKER_00 47:53

yeah that 100 helps i mean i know you always hear it and see it like home labs self-study do your search get those done because it does show that you want to learn you're continuing your education and stuff uh but yeah i mean definitely like get pull up on your YouTube, show that you're actually configuring something. You never know who might see it or who might forward it on or something like that. Send videos to people. Send videos of you configuring something to a technical manager. I mean, that's something that would definitely stand out. How many people do you think do that? I love that idea. I love

SPEAKER_01 48:27

that idea. Yeah, I wouldn't even have thought of that. Me neither. And one thing I can't fail to ask, because Aaron brings it up a lot, and I think it's good, Are the listed requirements the Bible truth? No. Hold on, she's laughing. Let's just pause for a second. She audibly laughed. The real question is, if you have 15 things listed, how many do you need to be able to hit to be a candidate? Maybe that's a more fair question, because we know they're not Bible truth.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

Right. My favorite thing to say is, when in doubt, send it out. But I would say around 40% to 50% that you would have to mark.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

I mean, I... If it

SPEAKER_01 49:06

says CCIE, but you have most of the other stuff, as an example, like CCIE may or may not be... If you have 50% of it, but not a CCIE, you should send it out, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Definitely. And honestly... When the certs are on there, it's more of a must-have. The only time, or more of a plus to have. The only time I've worked roles where it is an absolute must-have are with gold partners that need to keep their status. And that's really it. Obviously, it does help to have, you know, oh, I got my CCMP guy here. He can help. That definitely goes a ways, but it's not going to be a showstopper. You've got your six years of solid routing and switching experience. They're not going to not hire you because you don't have

SPEAKER_01 49:44

CCMP. Do you see automation becoming a prerequisite more and more?

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Everywhere, literally everywhere. It's insane. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 49:51

don't say that. God, why'd you have to ask that? AJ's like, ha, ha, ha, ha. You just killed Andy, though. For once.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Well, in that regard, a lot of the work I do recruit for is contract project-based. So it is with a lot of enterprise companies that are more modern in their technologies that are doing these transformations.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Is automation nice to have or a requirement?

SPEAKER_00 50:18

It depends on the role. I had an ACI role the other day, and the guy was an ACI. He was an ACI SME, but he didn't have the scripting part, and so they passed on him. But he was strong with ACI.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

So, yeah, so let's pause on that for a second because that's interesting, right? So you have an ACI SME. So the reason I'm pointing this out is because, like, this guy is literally, like you say, checking all the boxes. He's the box

SPEAKER_00 50:47

and the check. CCIE as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

CCIE, he's an ACI SME, right? And you have an ACI role. It says ACI in the check. title probably right it's like ACI guy ACI role gee I wonder where he should work and he gets there and he can't do one simple you know, must have on there. He had all the nice twos, but didn't have the must have. Like, that's a crazy scenario to think about. And we would, no one in the world would ever know stuff like this happens other than the person that's like getting rejected. Like, how does he feel? Like, freaking, his handle or whatever we're calling it, AJ, his freaking, I don't know, what do you call it, handle? His handle is ACIGuy, at ACIGuy, right? And he's getting turned down for a job that says ACIGuy.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Right. I

SPEAKER_01 51:36

bet he knows automation now. Right. Hey, you guys know what I would have done?

SPEAKER_02 51:42

What?

SPEAKER_01 51:43

I would have wrote a script that night and spam that guy's email box talking about this.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

I just thought of something about job descriptions I wanted to say about how are they the Holy Grail. I got a new job description in this week that was written. You could clearly tell it was written by a non-technical person. And it said, this person must be proficient with EIGRB protocol. It's

SPEAKER_01 52:09

a

SPEAKER_00 52:09

new one. Think about it. I saw it. I knew that was not right. You

SPEAKER_01 52:13

knew that was wrong. Right, right,

SPEAKER_00 52:14

right. Right. And I'm thinking, if they sent this to other recruiters, they're sending that out to other candidates. EIGRB.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

EIGRB? Sometimes, though, you guys ever do... Brittany, you just bought a house, so this is going to hit home for you. Oh, funny. I'm going to get a drum sound. I need a little thing. Oh, gosh. For every time Dan talks and it goes... So, you ever read, like, a house description online? Yes. And it's like, first of all, realtors... I hope there's no realtors listening to this, and odds are in my favor here. What the hell is wrong with you guys? You got your caps lock on. You don't know how to spell. You're like putting the letter R instead of A-R-E and stuff like that. Words are just missing. Words are just straight wrong. Like, dude, open up a Microsoft Word, pre-type that junk out, let it auto-correct you, and copy-paste it in there. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

So what I mean to poke fun was that is the exact same thing that happens on job descriptions sometimes. I'm like, dude, the formatting is not even right. Like you guys care not about this job.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

No. Yeah, it's a mess. So that's something that you definitely like. Don't read too into the job description. If it looks like a good fit, you know, do it.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

When in doubt, send it out. Full send, Andy. Full send.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Can we talk about money real quick? So everybody, recruiters

SPEAKER_01 53:52

will ask you, what are you looking to make or what do you make now? And I remember in the beginning thinking like, I never really knew how to, it always seems to be a ping pong match. I want you to give me a number because I don't want to give you a low number and then I'm leaving money on the table. later the more i've talked to recruiters i'll basically tell them what i'm making now and i need 20 even consider it i mean that's kind of my new thing but do you suggest doing that right what okay like with money is it is it a mistake to tell you what i make and what i want because you could be offering 50 more and now you're like well haha i got it for 20 that 30 is mine later dude

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Right, yeah. So, again, that definitely depends on the recruiter. You will have some that will try to stack on that margin. If I could speak for myself, I definitely prefer you to tell me what you need. What do I need to achieve to work with you? Because I don't want to get to the end of a deal or a potential offer and I realize, this is 50K below whatever this guy was wanting. When I recruit for jobs, I'm not recruiting for a job that might be a thing. It's got an approved budget. I know what I can work with. I'll tell you, if I have a budget too, I'll tell you. I

SPEAKER_01 55:09

was going to ask that. And I ask for range, too. And so far, they seem to. I mean, I guess you're pretty honest, right? Like, oh, it's 80 to 115 or something a year. Is that generally an honest-ish answer? Because I'm always afraid I'm going to be leaving money on the table. Part of me wants to shoot high. But then you could disqualify yourself. Too high, right? Right, exactly. So the money thing is always tricky, I think.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

It is. It definitely is. Because you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot either way. I think it is best to give a range to your recruiter. Just be like, I would accept on this end. Because you also have to... There's benefits and stuff. PTO, perks that you have to consider as well. Right? There's a lot of details. So... You could tell the recruiter, I'd be willing to look at this low depending on the package. One thing I like to tell my recruiters or my candidates too, and you could also use this to tell recruiters as well, is I'm going to give you the chance to say no. Even if it's 5 to 10K lower than what you told me, I'm at least going to bring it to you if I feel like it ticks every other box, like every other skill set or something. Unless there are people that are sticklers. I'm not leaving unless it's a 400K base. Don't call me. So, okay, noted. But people that are actually wanting to get a new job and looking for the right move, I'll give a little bit of wiggle room on the lower end as well as the higher end. I'm not going to not call someone if it's too high either.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

First of all, thank you for saying that you have the approved budget with you because I always answer this question. I'm kind of like a bull in a china shop though because I wait for them to do it and it's like a trap. Cause you know, it's going to happen. And when I say them, I mean like, you know, your fellow recruiters, Brittany, I did not do it to you. My kind. Your kind. I just, for the record, I did not do that to Brittany. She, she can attest. Um, but they say, they always say like, all right, so one or two questions. They, they either say, you know, what are you making now? Or I make it three questions. What are you making now? Or what would you like to make? Or, what are you making now and what would you like to make? Right? So I've always thought, I've always found it very easy to navigate that question personally. I don't know. Maybe it sounds like it's not. I guess early on I was, I was, I felt that way too. I would, but I always highballed. Like I was never, I never got scared that I was going to outprice myself. You know what I mean? Like if, like let them come to me and be like, whoa that's way too much and then i would be like okay well what what is your upper limit then i mean maybe i can just to your point right but since i've always done that um i think like maybe in the last like seven years or so i've i've always kind of been like because i do it all i kick the tires a lot um i'll always just put it right back on every single time Uh, like, cause I know you have a budget. Like I know that, like you just said it. So that's, that's why I'm like, thank you for saying that. Cause I know, I know it happens. Right. Cause you're as a recruiter, like they give you a list of stuff. Like here's who I'm looking for. Here's the budget. Cause you would be wasting your time otherwise. Right. I mean, those, those two go hand in hand. That's a requirement too. Like the guy has to be worth this or the girl has to be worth this. And I started just throwing it right back and saying, Hey, really good question. Cause it's usually like, how much do you make? I'm like, really good question. I'm like, what's the target? What's the range?

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

I mean, I just ask.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

Do you find that most recruiters tell you right away or is it kind of a struggle? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

Yeah. I have yet to encounter an experience where they were like, well, like they'll hesitate maybe like, well... They're saying like top range, like let's, I'll just throw some random numbers out there to make it easy. Like let's say top range is like a hundred and I'd be like, ah, yeah. Like let's say I was making 90 and they're like, well top around a hundred or so. And I'd be like, yeah, that's might be close, but I, I'm probably going to look for somewhere on like one Oh five, one 10. Because the second you show me your cards, I'm going in full force. Like, I'm coming in hot. That's something

SPEAKER_02 59:30

you've got to be careful

SPEAKER_01 59:31

with. I'm shooting over your head. If you tell me that, yeah, well, actually, the top is like 100, and you're at 90 now. So, yeah, you're within range. That would shoot me in the foot right away. Like, oh, your top's 100? I'm looking for like 110. You know? But I'll talk to him. I got another

SPEAKER_00 59:53

question. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

OK. Culture. So when I'm are you able to get a sense of the place that you're recruiting for? Because when I've interviewed places. Everything can be right, but you just never know what you're walking into and you're not going to until you're there. So that's that's a scary thing. You know, I'm going to leave where I'm at. I might be getting a couple more dollars, but. you know, is 15, 20 grand more worth walking into a really bad situation, you know? So as a recruiter, are you able to gauge that at all? I mean, how would you know the environment? Like I use Glassdoor, you know, if I look and it's one and a half stars and 5,000 reviews. I don't know. I don't know though, Andy. What else can you do though? Like, that's what I'm saying. How do you get a gauge for the culture you might be walking into?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

That is hard. I think as myself, like when I was a job seeker, I would use Glassdoor. as well. That's really the best thing to look at her. in that regard, or even LinkedIn. Look at what their profile is like. But as a recruiter, like from that side, when I'm talking with hiring managers or taking the job spec, whatever they need, I'll ask about the team and the culture and the size and what people like, how many are on the team. That way I am able to talk to my candidates about what they are stepping into to hopefully make it a little more of an easy

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

move. Yeah, is there a team? Is there going to be somebody there that can help you get acclimated and get you up to speed? So the hiring manager is the person that would be my boss, right? So you're basically talking to the person who's going to hire me and they should know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

Basically, yeah. That's what we try to do. We typically try to talk with the technical guys or the technical person that has the decision because they are going to know more about what they're talking about versus the HR team that put out the job

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

description. I was going to say that too. Like Andy, you're eventually going to get to those people anyway, right?

UNKNOWN 1:01:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Yeah, but it's like dating, you know what I mean? You might have to... an interview is a date you go in and you interview and they seem normal and what happens if the interview goes well Andy like let's say it goes really well well You've all dated someone. The interview went really well. Six months in, you're like, oh, my God. Total compensation. AJ. I don't even know what we're talking about anymore. AJ, that's when you used the little video of him doing this. So, Aaron, you pushed back a little bit on the glass door. You're not a fan of maybe that way to gauge a place? Look,

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

I'll tell you. Normally, the people that leave reviews are the bad reviews.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

Andy, we had a full-blown... Hold on. We did, but I'll push back on that, saying that my wife works at SAP, and they have four and a half stars... 30,000 reviews, everybody I've ever talked to loves that place. So there's one example of everybody loves it. But you're right, most people, it's negative. The data's skewed, right. Yeah, your disgruntled employees, they go on there. Because you read them and you're like, so what I always look for if I ever do go to Glassdoor is the ratio of good to bad reviews. Because look, I love working where I work right now. I absolutely love it. Am I going to go on Glassdoor and leave a good review? I'm absolutely not going to do that either. You know what I mean? I'm certainly also not going to put my salary in there. No, I'm not doing any of that. And I didn't leave a bad review at that place that I was crazy about. Totally. I hear what you're saying. It's like an Amazon, right? The guy gets a bad package, he puts one star, and it's like, ah, and it ruins the whole data set. I think that's the scariest part of the whole process for me when I'm going through it. What is? I don't know what that environment's going to be like in that culture when I get there. You may or may not be able to trust Glassdoor. If you can talk to a couple people who've had experience there, that's great. But all the boxes are ticked. You look like a good candidate. You have the skills What's the saying? The devil you know or something like that? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:05

Especially before... pandemic. I mean, a lot of people like final interviews were able to have multiple stages on site. So that definitely can help, like at least see the environment a little bit. But now things are remote or virtual interviews and stuff. So I could see how that could probably be a little tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:21

How has that changed things for your for your industry? Is there are there less postings? Is it? Good question.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Yeah, it's come in waves, actually. I would say I would say I would say I've seen more contract roles, contract and contract to hire roles than I have direct hire and perm roles in the past eight months or so. But one thing is I feel like everything will be moving remote and it will stay this way for a long time. Most roles I had before would be like on-site, on-site. Now they're all like remote. We don't care. I mean, I'll have the odd one where they're like, we need you open remotely. to at least one day a month on site or something. But that's been a big change is the remote working.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

And I guess it depends on the company too, right? Like I was just talking to a neighbor, she works in HR and her job all day every day is to try to get people back in the office. because they just signed a 10 year lease in the city. Oh, God. Right. So, you know, I hear what you're saying, but then it could be another place like we have to get people in. We spend a billion dollars on this darn building. So, right. That remote, that remote thing is very interesting to me. So like, Brittany, have you noticed like so let's say, for instance, because this brings up a whole new way to live, because you're saying like everybody for the most part is realizing like they can they can be remote, especially in our field. Right. Because like we just use computers all day anyway. Right. So unless we physically had to be somewhere like, or a data center or something, I get that. But are you noticing that the, like the pay amounts, um, are being adjusted because of that? So that's, so that's crazy. Okay. So let's just throw the scenario out there then, because I've lived in the Bay area and I've lived there when it's been like it is right now. And if I could make the Bay area money and live in Boise, Idaho, I would do it in a heartbeat. Right. So this brings in a whole new era of paying someone for the title, not the geography. It's that adjusted cost of living or whatever they call it, right? They'll pay you less in Ohio. Right, right, right. So you're saying that doesn't exist, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

Not that what I've seen. Okay. Like I have, I have seen the adjusted cost of living. I've heard of people talking about that. If they're like at a company now, say they're living in California and then they move, but they stay at their company that the companies are talking about adjusting their salary.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

Oh yeah. By the way, don't, don't, we're going to have to delete that from the podcast. That's like my biggest secret. Just so everybody knows you get, all you gotta do is live in California for like three years and then you get your salary like sky high and then you just bounce. I get a raise simply from moving from two different state because the taxes are lower but but back to your back to your question Aaron you're not Brittany you're not seeing companies pay less because people aren't commuting aren't you know they know that they're not putting as much money out to get somewhere

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

yeah what I've seen is my rates have stayed the same or my budgets have they've they've always been different between like California and budgets in you know midwest wisconsin but um but i have noticed that the rates have stayed the same for each area like they haven't gone down in california just because you're

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

right right like it still costs aaron more per month to live where he lives than where i live so he would basically have to make, you know, more for the same job. Right. Like I, like I need it. Yeah. Right. Right. Like, it's cool. Like if you looked at my salary, you're like, wow, that guy's rich. And you're like, well, not really. You know, you look at my taxes and you're like, Oh God. Uh, so Brittany, do you have any, like just ultimate, uh, recruiter gems to drop on us like like what is the one thing that a job seeker should be doing or what's the one thing you could do right now that would that would exponentially change your life so like what would have the biggest impact from a single like maneuver or what should they stop doing

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

oh yeah that's good too that's good too if that's an easier one right guys stop doing x you know that's a big question

SPEAKER_01 1:08:31

yeah

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

Let's see. What should they be doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

Single biggest impact, right? Like, okay, so let's say I don't have– I'm fresh. I'm trying to get my first job to, like, Andy's earlier story. It's like I'm looking for a job. I'm green. I have no experience. Like, I have nothing. So I'm Dan Richards. And I– Dude, you got to say something back, man. Otherwise, this is not going to be fun for me anymore. I'm just taking the punches

SPEAKER_02 1:08:57

now.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:59

Yeah, but now you're making me feel bad because you're not saying anything back. Dan, you figured out a way to shut him down. I hate it. We're deleting that part out of this too. Is

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Aaron the group bully?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Yeah. Obnoxious ones. The annoying one. I'm all that. According to Aaron, all I do is upgrade Flash on router. Yeah. Uh-oh. I said that? And work at a million places. Yeah. I said all that. Work at like 30 jobs. I said all in 29. And Andy's worked on one network his whole career and knows nothing. No, that was Dan's. No, you're a cable guy like me. So if I'm starting out and I don't have like... Let's say I don't have a social presence. Let's say... I still have yet to build my resume. And I do all those things. I get a LinkedIn. I do all this. Next step, what should I do? Should I buy a book about interview questions? Should I find someone to practice interviewing with? What should I do? Should you become so good technically that it doesn't matter you don't have experience? Right. What can these people do? I want to guess the

SPEAKER_02 1:10:13

answer. I want it to be just call Brittany. That's going to

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

be what you're going to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

That's a good one. Definitely. If anyone is listening to this and they have interviews, they need interview prep, I'd be happy to run through it with them

SPEAKER_01 1:10:25

as well. That's

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

awesome. First thing, You've got your resume. You've got your LinkedIn set up. Like I said earlier, call people that you see jobs. Find the number online. You can Google anything. Find the number. Call them. Find who's hiring, basically. Just keep calling up, sending in your resume. Yeah. Follow up.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:48

I love that. Follow up. We'll make that the gem because I think personally that that was the single most– impactful thing that you said was follow up, but, and it was also the way you said it, it was like very nonchalant matter of fact, like, yeah, obviously follow up, but not so obviously because folks are not doing that. Um, and it's hurting them, right? Like, because me, I'm calling back. If you're listening to this and you don't call back, I am calling back and they're giving me the job because I'm calling back. Just know that. It's not a competition necessarily. It's kind of like a sales skill. You have to be persistent. You have to ask. You have to be vulnerable and it's scary and they might reject you. Be a little uncomfortable. You

SPEAKER_00 1:11:34

are selling yourself. You are.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:38

It's definitely like sales. Finding a job is a job.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

I don't want to make a blanket statement, but maybe a lot of technical people don't feel that comfortable That could be. Putting themselves out there. They want to sit in their room with their computer and just do their nerd stuff. Dan's raising his hand. That's people in general, though. But maybe that's it, right? Maybe they have to get uncomfortable, and they have to ask, and they have to call Brittany, and you've got to get out of your comfort zone and not hide. Yep, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

Yeah, I mean, you have to get out of your comfort zone, really. There's going to be that. And then once you break through it and you find that first role, it's almost like the connections are open up and you'll be able to start growing

SPEAKER_01 1:12:22

keep pushing keep pushing right you just need that initial spark and then you can just keep pushing you'll start meeting people like pretty soon you'll have a podcast where you get to interview recruiters like it only gets better folks ladies and gentlemen Brittany Brittany we really appreciate you coming on like we also really appreciate everything you do in the discourse or posting jobs helping people out giving advice like You know, anything you want to add to that? It really adds a lot of value. I mean, seriously. I can't imagine every... discord server study group has a resource like this and i'm very thankful that you are one a fan of the podcast too you know you came on here and talked to us and shared all this wealth of knowledge and and you're there for our our discord members i think you're really adding a lot of value bringing a big service and i i appreciate that i know these guys do too

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

yeah thank you i'm glad y'all let me have like let me join everything it's been great oh yeah

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

we let no we let the shark in the water you know And I think at some point we'll probably, I'm just guessing, we'll probably end up having you back on here and get maybe some updates and we'll get some more tips and tricks from you because I think you've got a lot more that we have yet to uncover. Mock interviews. Mock interviews, yeah. You guys want to see Dan's butt really bad? In his brand new shirt. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:51

That's great. Yeah, I'd be happy to join. If y'all want to set up like a... top 10 questions of people that they want to ask

SPEAKER_02 1:13:58

me and go

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

through those and be happy to do that too. Oh, gosh. Okay. All right. We're on to something here. We might have to release this episode a little bit sooner, AJ. I don't know. Yeah, we're going to figure this out. So, yeah. Thanks again, Brittany. We really appreciate it. Thanks for helping us out. Thanks for helping everybody else out. You know, we look at you and I know the community looks at you as like, you know, kind of like a source of truth for this sort of stuff because we're all literally doing the same thing. So, you know, we, we need to have someone who actually has real world experience and does this for a living. Tell us like, Hey, this is how it actually is. So we really appreciate that. So where can we find you by the way? We, we'd never got to that part.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:40

Oh, LinkedIn, Brittany Mossett. And, uh, That's about it for now. I'm thinking about making a professional Twitter. You should.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:48

We all have one. This is coming from the guy that just got a Twitter. And we had a poll to pick his name. If you're feeling frisky, maybe we could do that for you too. You might end up with something cool. Recruiter of the year over here. Big gun, Brittany. Our very own Art of Network Engineering recruiter, Brittany Mossett. We're going to put all of your information in the show notes just like we always do so people can find you if they need to. Even just pick your brain or whatever. Folks, she has jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs. You get a job. You get a job. We really appreciate you coming on here. Hopefully, everybody that's listening now that came over because they listened to Knox is now going to stay because of you that was our plan we did this on purpose you had a tough act to follow and you did it very well and we appreciate that so and until next week everybody see ya Hey everyone, this is AJ. If you like what you heard today, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher. Smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. We are at Art of Net Eng. That's Art of N-E-T-E-N-G. You can also find us on the web at artofnetworkengineering.com where we post all of our show notes. You can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world. Thanks for listening.