How to Negotiate a Salary after Job Offer | Top Tech Recruiter gives Job search Secrets

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh, how was.

Speaker 2: 0:01

AfroTech.

Speaker 1: 0:03

AfroTech was cool. I loved it. Like we all know that there was a lot of scrutiny around AfroTech and public information, so no surprise there. But I don't have any scrutiny. Like I absolutely loved the experience and, for it to be my first time, I don't have anything to compare it to. So I will say that, like I love being able to go around the X-Fo floor. I spent most of my time in the X-Fo floor. It's most of my time understanding, like, what companies were there, what companies are in existence that I may not know are in existence, and being like very intentional about walking past these companies, talking to these people and following the company on LinkedIn. I'm very, very good about that and so I did that quite a bit. I mean, I loved it. Like I didn't have any bad thing to say about it and I will say this isn't a bad thing, but it's more of like something to note. Everything was expensive. I will say that, like I do agree that everything was expensive, because that's what the public is saying. Like I did have to pay for everything, but I also planned to pay for everything, so I didn't expect anything to be cheap or anything like that. But I think the gratefulness on the other side of that is you get swag from a lot of companies. So I don't know. I loved it. I love the camaraderie, I love the events. I love the blackness in Austin. I love how everybody came together. It wasn't no pettiness Like it wasn't. You jumped in front of me in line. It was everybody's trying to. It was trying to help everybody. So I thought it was really cool and it was really empowering.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Yeah, that's what I experienced for my first Afro Tech last year. Well, nothing is different for us that make content. I think it's different for us because you have people that say oh, I recognize you from LinkedIn or YouTube.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Yeah, that was like every 30 seconds. Yeah, yeah, so you run into that.

Speaker 2: 1:58

And so it's a different experience for you. I didn't go there last year looking for a job. I was there actually on behalf of my company, and you write everything was expensive, but I also had a company car, so they paid for everything.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:11

And I think that, well, we experienced this good. But I think for the people who are coming for more, or I'll say like this I didn't get to come this year because our company didn't have a booth. So they were like, okay, why are we gonna sit here and people for? And then my manager wanted me to come, but he was okay, we got to find some justification. So what are they gonna be talking about there? And they take a loan to release their sessions, that we couldn't find the sessions. And by that time the company just said, hey, we're scaling back on traveling Q4. So I know I made a tweet saying, hey, I believe Afro Tech should partner with the company. Is Microsoft, aws and Pearson and all these people just try to do like some certifications or some other things they can do there. So other companies can. I mean, I think companies wanna send their employees there, but it's hard for them to make a justification if it's not gonna help them enhance their role or do anything that's gonna positively affect the role, and so that's the thing For the most part. I'll tell people this too. Or you can just plan for it and just if you wanna have like a really good time and network like that's probably like what the peak is for, like networking. Like I see, you met Zatovin and everybody else. I got this coming in on his, so that's what I did.

Speaker 1: 3:23

That way. That's what I did. I apologize for interjecting. That's what I did. Like I, my company, didn't pay for me to go, so and I knew that I was going on my own dime, which meant I planned financially the entire year so that I understood that whatever Uber's I was gonna be paying for, whatever food I was gonna be paying for, the hotel and my flight and anything that I wanted to really do, I was okay with financially being able to do that. So I don't go into things as like, well, they should do this or they should do that. Actually it's their event, they can do what they want. Like, I don't go into stuff like that, because they should do this is not gonna matter. If they believe that whatever their organization has to do for it to be as big as it is, as successful as it is, then they have to do that, and if you have to charge a heavy penny, then you do. Now I do, on the other hand, think like dang, like it was expensive, especially for people who need a job and who might have used their last to hopefully find a job while they were there. I do think that at some point there has to be some type of revisiting of how much the tickets cost, but, on the other hand, you have early bird tickets, which I do believe that yeah, I already buy it right now. Yeah, right now I do believe that they listen to the public. They've released the early bird tickets, which are very affordable right now, and I'm just like, hmm, like, based on what you get. Like you get a five day conference, well, for the first days registration. You get a five day conference or a four day conference for however much you're paying, but you get all of this access with it, and so I don't know, I got, I have a, I'm on the edge for both. But then you also have companies who are paying for scholarships for people to go and all of that. So, yeah, I don't know, I enjoyed it. It was, it was dope. I only went to one learning lab, which, honestly, wasn't surprised that I only went to one, but I'm glad that when I did sit in on it was very valuable because it was talking about relationship building and it was by Shopify, which was really, really cool, and so relationship building is something I talk about all the time. So that was perfect for me. But a friend of mine who was also an influencer, was telling me that the learning labs are more for people who are in technical roles, and for me, who's in a non-technical role, I can understand why the learning labs are for more technical people. But it was still beneficial if I would have made it. It was still beneficial. It would have still been beneficial for me, for someone who recruits for technical roles.

Speaker 2: 6:01

Yeah, I agree, and this will probably be the last thing we touch on this topic. I was telling people it's not the same thing. But I say, if they go to like vendor type of conferences, they'll kind of see the difference of what I'm seeing. Granted it's a vendor, but like, for example, I've gotten a chance to go to Splunk Cuff in Vegas twice and it's much different because they have these people that are in the industry, that are helping you with, do things that's related to your job. You can take different courses, you can go there and get certs and of course, they also have like the last night I think they had them because I know Afro Tech they always have like the one thing they do have they bring the stars out to perform. The last night at Splunk Cuff they had DJ Jesse Jeff there and there was like this party and it was pretty cool, really big, like any expo center, like Afro Tech. Actually, listen, blavity of y'all ever listen to this. Do Afro Tech in Vegas one time. Do Afro Tech in Vegas.

Speaker 1: 6:53

And maybe expensive, but it may be worth it.

Speaker 2: 6:56

It'll be worth it because the thing in Vegas, you know, depending on where really all the hotels, you don't have to leave the hotels because a lot of times they're connected to malls. So that's the whole reason. I was like, just do it in Vegas, Speak, do it at the Venetian, do it at the Venetian or the Palazzo. I stayed at the Palazzo, so do it there, so I can come back and get a sweet.

Speaker 1: 7:16

I noticed right.

Speaker 2: 7:19

But anyways, guys, welcome back to the Tissue Talk podcast. I'm your host HD, the number one tech and career podcast out right now, episode 108, and we got none other than the recruiting cousin in the building and I don't have my gunshot set up, but I would normally put my gunshots right here. This new Windows computer has really been giving me the blues. Before we even recorded this, I had to switch out capture cards and do everything else. Just listen. I'm just dedicated to getting y'all this good content and, for those of y'all that know her, she is a superstar. Especially a LinkedIn like she could share something, and I think people just resonate so much with her and that's why I want to get on the show.

Speaker 1: 8:00

There's been a long time coming and so, without further ado, Halfway I think I ghosted him a little bit and so somebody reminded me to go reply to his message. So yes, it's been a long time coming.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Yeah but I mean I think you're running to that a lot with podcasting. Some people actually have. I don't have a VA, so I do all listen guys. I'm the person that gets all the guests on the show right now, so I don't have VA's to go reach out to people. I think it's a little bit more personal if I actually reach out to you versus someone you never talked to before. But I want to go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience because she's been on a couple of pods. I've kind of taken some notes from some of the things she said and I had another, I had another. I mean I think I added it. I added it to the questions because I was. I said let me go search and see what she's talking about and I said this is a good topic. So I did throw it in there, but without further ado. Here's the recruiting cousin.

Speaker 1: 8:51

Hey y'all. So my name is Shanae Irker, AKA recruiter cousin. I am originally from Camden, New Jersey. Went to school at St Augustine's University in Raleigh, North Carolina, majoring in political science science minor in English pledge the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. Went on to law school at North Carolina Central University School of Law. Graduated in 2015. And, to my surprise, I didn't pass the bar. So I took the bar, took the North Carolina bar three times. I did not pass it, and so that forced me to pivot into something different, and so from that experience, I teach other people how to pivot from one industry to another. I teach job seekers how to stay afloat, be frustrated but keep going, and all that stuff. So at my core, I'm a motivational speaker, spoken word artist, and then I put kind of like my spoken word, motivational speaking, and marry that with my job, which is recruiting and something I love doing. So that's me.

Speaker 2: 9:58

You answered one of my questions already because I didn't know the answer, because I was going to ask you about the bar stuff. But briefly, I do want to touch a little bit on Shanae the artist, because I did find a lot of like articles he would have done with you and you had like different projects out. Is that? Are you still working on any of that, or what Is that on the back burner?

Speaker 1: 10:19

I wouldn't say it's on the back burner, I would say it's in the middle of my mind. So anytime I need to release or I've been doing too much with job seeking and I'm starting to feel empty, that's where writing comes in for me and the motivational speaking for me. So I do still write. I recently came back from Jamaica, probably by the month ago, so my last poem I wrote about a month ago after taking a very long break. I'm not writing anything and I'm spiritual, so I felt the Lord telling me if I don't write something I'm gonna lose it, and so I started writing again and as I'm going into the holiday season, I'm thinking about writing a little more. I took a break in writing books, so I wrote three books before I turned 30. That was a goal of mine, and so I don't know if my next book is going to be poetry related or if it's going to be job seeking related or if it's going to be both. It will probably be the latter. I'm probably going to incorporate being able to teach people how to job seek from like information I put in a book, with throwing a poem in there every now and then. So I may do that, but it's still up in the air. I kind of right now I'm writing for me and not writing for anybody else, and actually my next, next time I'm doing poetry publicly is in December. Got asked to do poetry the other day, so I'll be doing poetry in December.

Speaker 2: 11:43

And I feel like when you said the Lord told you, if you don't use it, you'll lose it. I feel that so much. A lot of people don't notice about me, but I pretty much like grew up playing the drums, Church drummer all the way up until I moved out to Texas and I have not played drums so long. However, most musicians as we tend to do for listening to music, we'll probably act like we're playing our instrument to whatever song we do. I do it all the time and I'm always like dang man, I need a drum set. I haven't played in a while. It's like I'm so busy and like that's the thing when you have I'm going to say like if you're a decent and multiple interests, it's like where do I do everything? But I actually do.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Yeah, how do you fit everything in?

Speaker 2: 12:25

But I actually do want to like get back to playing because it's a release. It's a release, anything you feel. That's why I like my music or the arts or even a lot of the things that I did there. I translated onto the content like yesterday. I knew we were going to do this one on a Sunday, so I knew I'm going to. I can tell you I can get this out by tomorrow if I wanted to, but I'm not, so I shot a solo episode. I always tell my content creators even though if you're guest based sometimes, just tap into your audience one-on-one. That's how they just come back to you when you build that relationship with them. I had stuff I wanted to get off my chest. I'm talking about my career, job search, like regrets of, like taking the jobs because there's more money, like all those different things that I want to get out. I can get out and I can put it out in that avenue and that's one of the, I think, the beautiful things about content. Regardless of it, get a million views or one view is yours. That's what I tell people all the time when it comes to creating stuff.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Yeah, definitely, I heard it.

Speaker 2: 13:56

And the next thing I want to ask you very quickly is what made you, I guess, want to be a lawyer. Was it the fact that, like growing up, like as black people, we typically grow up and people normally attribute success to being like a doctor or a lawyer or something like that? So it was like that aspect of like the prestige of that, because this is a different question, but I think we noticed to be true. People would much rather say I talked to a doctor or lawyer versus someone who was probably very successful in the other field, but that name that they does does not have the recognition, and I think people are attracted to those titles. Was it that? Or was it like an actual love of? Okay, I want to be a lawyer because I want to help people that can't help themselves, or you know some of the things that people get into law for.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Yeah, it was the latter for me. I was never pressured to do anything outside of what I wanted to do. My mom, my dad, my grandmother was very good with that. So I decided that I wanted to be an attorney and it's interesting because I don't have a Cinderella story. I decided I wanted to be an attorney because I was watching court TV one day and I saw the judge and that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a judge. And so I was like okay, and what if for me to be a judge? I got to go to law school and I got to become an attorney first. So my ultimate goal actually was to be the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court. I got beat to it, but it's okay. So I wanted to do that and was watching court TV, made that decision, and then I truly asked myself like why do you really want to be an attorney? Why do you want to go into the legal field? And my answer to myself was I had some family members who had gone to jail. I had some family members who had also gone to prison and I knew that they probably either knew or did not know what the law said based on their rights, and so I wanted to be that voice that for the voiceless essentially, that voice that had the information from a close knit type of person where I wanted them to be able to come to me and ask me questions and I can give them the right information, versus someone who this is a job for them and they're going to do their best. I would have preferred if I was a person in the family who was an attorney. Then they can go oh, let me go to my cousin to ask her, or let me go to my friend and ask her, so on and so forth. Or let me go to my sister, whoever I am to you. I would have loved to be that person, and it's interesting because in law school I was very much that person. So, like my aunts and uncles and whoever would call like hey, shanae, I know you in law school have this question, and so that happened a lot. But what would also help me was I had a very traumatic experience that happened in my family some years ago while I was still in law school, and I was able to articulate some of the legal parameters around what was going on and it helped me to stay calm. Emotionally it was taxing, but legally it helped me stay calm and confident in knowing what was rightfully ours and what wasn't. And so it helped me ask a lot of questions to my mom and aunts and uncles and grandparents of do y'all have wills? Is it a written will? Is it a holographic will? Is it a non-compatible will With? Like a Howard, I was able to ask some questions that I probably wouldn't have been able to ask or know to ask had I not gone to law school. And so now there are certain things that, even though you don't pass the bar, the difference between me and a licensed attorney is a test. All of us were trained the same way, so I'm considered a non-licensed attorney because I graduated law school. And so there are certain things now that happen that I can legally articulate it and go, oh, that makes sense, oh, they can't do that, or, yes, they can do that. And so I still like, even for my own life, there are certain things that I know I can get an attorney for and I'm gonna win, and there are certain things that I know I'm gonna be like, nah, that's stretch, I ain't gonna win that one. So that's kind of my journey Gotcha, okay.

Speaker 2: 18:14

I was hearing towards the end was like oh so you basically Mike Ross, right.

Speaker 1: 18:21

Yeah, I like Mike Ross honestly that was my dude.

Speaker 2: 18:24

I like Mike too and I started about like there are other people, like I say, on YouTube as well, where either they are practicing law, they're in law school and they'll just take these big cases and they'll just use, based on what they know about the law, and they'll just break down the cases and people just tune in. I think that's the best, one of the best skills. I tell people all the time. A soft skill about knowing your audience is being, like you said, being able to articulate those legal parameters is also being able to explain them to somebody, basically on like a child level. Like if you have to explain something to like a three year old, if you can make something that plain, it's probably understand that you got a gift.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Yeah, and that's what law school teaches us. It teaches us how to explain it in layman's terms, so it's helped me to have conversations that are not so complicated and it's taught me a lot about life, so it was a really good experience.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Perfect, perfect. So now what I wanted to get into is right before you started recruiting, what were you doing? Child?

Speaker 1: 19:27

everything. So I was, I didn't even know. I don't even know if I knew that recruiting was a thing Like, and part of it was because I didn't think about it being a thing. So I so, after not passing the bar, I went on this journey of okay, shanae, what can you do with your law degree? So you do not feel like you went to law school for no reason. And so in law school we are not taught what other fields we can go into. We're taught to practice law and pass the bar and practice law. So I said to myself, well, what can I do to kind of feel like, okay, I can use my law degree until it won't go in vain? So I did what we call doc review. So doc review is pretty much like a company or a position where you sit in front of a computer all day and you just review documents and you go through and you try to figure out, like, what's relevant for a court case, is this in discovery understanding, like what the court case is, and all of that. And so it was easy money. If I'm like, if I'm keeping it a buck, I don't really think I was good at it, but it was still very much easy money and for a while I was fine with it because it was easy money. And then I realized I'm a little too ambitious to just sit here at a computer and look at a computer all day and just click and review documents all day. So I went on this journey of after doc review after I no longer am on a project, what happens. And so I was unemployed, without contract, without anything, for months, probably between like July of 2019, to excuse me, 2018 or so to like January of 2019. And so within those months I was doing speaking, I was selling books and driving Lyft and anything that I could do as a hustler to genuinely make money to support my family. Then that's what I was doing. And so from there I went to going into Duke Temporary Service, which the perk about that is once you get hired into Duke Temporary Service, after 30 days of working for Duke Temporary Service you can apply to Duke internally anywhere you wanted to. The hard part about it is Duke Temporary Service would get we're getting like 10,000 applications a month and so I'm just like, okay. So my husband thankfully worked for Duke, so he passed my resume literally old school passed my resume around until they got to one of the recruiters and then the day before the recruiter was vacating his role, he passed it to another recruiter who was a recruiter over Duke Temporary Service and that's how I got in, and so my husband was definitely the plug. So I always attribute my first like opportunity to him because he, very much Terrence, is definitely a G when it comes to that. It comes to support in his wife. And so I went. I was a secretary for Duke's law school, ironically with a law degree, of course. I had people coming up to me saying you're Shanae Urquhart, jd, how are you here? Yeah, so I had to answer questions like that. My second assignment is how I got into recruiting. So in my second assignment the recruiting manager was my supervisor and she, as she's teaching me what I need to do with my job. So my original job was to be a compliance officer and I had to go into Duke Tip and get rid of all of the old resumes that were more than three years old, so I had to like they had resumes that was like 20 years old, so I had to discard all of them because at that point it's a liability on the institution. So she came to me one day and she was like do you want to be a recruiter? You want to learn how to recruit? And I was like, yep, I ain't got nothing else to do. Sure, because at this point I am over it. I had been looking for a job. I had graduated December of 2015 from law school. I had not been able to pass the bar, find my first salary job, and I went contract to contract and when the contract was over, I didn't have a job. Like it was frustrating. So that was a four year period. So by the time I got to Danita, she was like you want to be a recruiter? I said yep, because I'm on my last. At this point. At this point, I'm tired of job seeking. I don't want to do nothing else and I'm very much beaten down. And so she taught me to lay in the land, she taught me how to recruit and she taught me how to understand the candidate experience. And so she broke my resume down, she rebuilt it and within two months of her rebuilding my resume, I had a job, my first full time role as a full time recruiter on the healthcare side of Duke. So that's when I pivoted into healthcare and then ultimately, tech.

Speaker 2: 24:27

Nice, nice, like you know, if you were to came and found me back in the day, even though I wasn't doing the career stuff back then she always said, hmm, law, you should go in Like you was doing compliance work. I would have said, come to the security side governance, risk and compliance Cause they need a lot of that, especially the people that pay attention to detail, especially when they audit stuff and risk stuff, like just catching stuff, yeah, and they pay big money. But I'm glad you, you really did like most of the heavy lifting for me when it came to the questions that's going to actually about getting into recruiting. So let's talk about that first gig at Duke and, cause I didn't want to ask, I know you did the first recruiting gig there and then after that you did Tala acquisition. So I want to talk about, like, the difference between the two as well.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Yeah. So Tala acquisition has and I don't think people understand it has like Tala acquisition itself is the umbrella. You have recruiting, you have sourcing, you may have like an HR business partner in there. Tala acquisition as a whole is HR and I don't think people fully understand that it's just like a branch of HR. And so Tala acquisition as a whole is just being able to acquire talent. That's acquisition acquire. So essentially, when I got into recruiting and then under the full umbrella of talent acquisition and understanding how sources and recruiters connect, how sources, recruiters and directors connect, how sources, recruiters, directors, hr as a whole whether it's an analyst, a specialist, a business partner how all of it pretty much connects, and so it has a lot of legal aspects to it where I've found very, very thankful that I was able to land somewhere where I can use this law degree, cause I was like I ain't spent all this money for nothing. So when I got into talent acquisition, for me it's a lot of things that goes into being a team, a recruiter if you just say being a recruiter, to me that's an individual and that can be freelance, that can be someone who is contracted with other companies to land somebody somewhere where, for me. I'm a part of a department which is at a whole is talent acquisition, so that's how I see it.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Okay, I just thought about like a weird analogy, but I just thought of recruiters. Nost, it's not the same. I was gonna. I just looked at recruiters almost being like agents, like how agents are for like athletes and everyone else, yeah, but then I realized like a lot of times that agent works for the athlete. So it's like I don't think it's like just the same, but most good Well. I mean it can be though.

Speaker 1: 27:22

It can be, though, because the recruiter, the recruiter, is working for the candidate, like that's when people, when people feel like they are, when people feel like they are they're working with a recruiter, all of a sudden, because of that agency type of relationship that we can have, it can seem like we are that particular person's recruiter, just like an agent is that particular person's agent. And so, as a whole, talent acquisition is the entire process of hiring, where it's just the recruiter is just the individual, which is why I said talent acquisition is the department, recruiter is the individual. So I can see where the recruiting and then agency can go hand in hand. But it's also a matter of the person who the agent or the recruiter is representing. That person has to understand that that recruiter or that agent may not be there, that the only person that that recruiter or agent is representing. So I think that's where it's like it can be misconstrued.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Got it. So I wanted to ask you what did you learn overall? Just your stand at Duke? What did you learn there?

Speaker 1: 28:38

I learned a lot. A lot of what I talk about now mostly is what I got from healthcare healthcare, recruiting. A lot of people think that just because I work for excuse me the company I work for, people think that most of the things that I say comes from the company I work for, and it doesn't so. Everything that I talk about, every bit of job seeking, every bit of interview prep all of that comes strictly from healthcare, because I schedule all of my interviews. I sat in on all of my interviews and I took notes on everything that candidates did and did not do to make them successful, and so I also took all of that and simplified it. When I was still in Toronto, there were working in Williams County that just because I work for excuse me the company I work for, people think that most of the things that I say come from the company I work for and it doesn't so. Everything that I talk about every bit of job seeking, every bit of interview prep all of that comes strictly from healthcare, because I schedule all of my interviews. I sat in on all of my interviews and I took notes on everything that candidates did and did not do to make them successful, and so I also took all of that and simplified it. We're in tech recruiting. For those of you who think I got all of this stuff from tech recruiting, I hope you're listening because I didn't. With tech recruiting, I've never sat in on any of my interviews, so I don't even know. I don't even know in terms of like sitting in and being a fly on the wall, the lay of the land of the actual interview. I can prep my candidates for topics and all of that and then, based on discussions I'll have with my hiring leaders or the interviewers, in my debrief sessions, I can pick up certain things that hiring leaders will say that make candidates stand out, and I can share that just in general information, but most of just without having to talk to my hiring leaders. Certain things that I got that I'm able to share with candidates or job seekers came from healthcare, so, and that that is partly because I think I was more involved in the scheduling and the being in the interview itself in healthcare than I was in tech.

Speaker 2: 31:18

Okay, and now that you say that I actually wish that was a norm to where you guys got to sit in on the interviews, I'm going to tell you what I believe and this is something I spend from, like having my clients record their interviews and listening to them. Some of the people that are interviewing the clients are not good interviewers. So sometimes you can have a potential employee that could be a great fit, but maybe they not necessarily don't interview well, but maybe they're just really nervous at all. The interviewer sometimes doesn't know how to welcome them in and kind of ease the tension down and really get to see the real them, and they just, of course, mess up the interview. Or you have people who are just disingenuous in the interview and not really ask the things that would pretty much test like how would they actually do in the actual role, and then that makes for a negative experience as well. So I actually do a command. So, like your company, I was very high on with their interview process because I went through it last year and I loved it. It was like a. It was like two companies I went through that had like great panels and everybody was great. But you don't see that consistency through our all companies, and I think that's why you'll see and this is this is me, I don't know if you had this feeling right here At one point in time this certain company had. It was a role that I interviewed for back in 2019, 2020. I didn't get the role, but I kept on seeing, every couple of months, that same role kept on coming back open, back open. But I had what I gleaned from that was one they're bringing in wrong people or they don't have their stuff together. That's why I said revolving doors. So it was like two things. I was like that's what happens. if your, if your process isn't good, I don't think you're gonna get well. You're not gonna get a perfect fit. Everybody's looking for a unicorn but you probably missed out on what was closest to it because you wanted to do your interview a certain way and it didn't work right. I don't know if you experienced that from sitting in on interviews or saying like you kind of was a little harsh on them. They answer your question, or maybe I think this person is good. I think you bugging.

Speaker 1: 33:18

Yeah, so there is a gray area when you're not able to sit in on interviews, but the gray area is lifted when you're in the debrief, and so when I can hear, so I hear when I'm in the debrief I normally don't say anything unless my hiring leaders say, shanae, do you have something to add? And most of the time they do. And so what I can hear. Most of the time in my debriefs I can hear, I'm listening for the tone of the interviewer, and then I'm comparing that to interview feedback that I'm reading, and if if I can connect the two, then for me it's. I would wonder did you interview that person based off of their skill set or did you interview them based off of bias? And so I can always catch it. Most of the time I do, and so I normally have to correct and this is anything you have to correct bad behavior. But you also have to hold them accountable, and that's what a recruiter's job is, is being able to hold hiring leaders or interviewers accountable for their own bias, and we would. I would hope that, as your recruiter, you will hold me to mine as well. And in healthcare, when I was able to sit in on my interviews, you're right, there were a lot of things that you can see in the interview process. That needs to be fixed immediately when you're sitting in the interview, versus you having to use context clues and then being able to kind of understand how the interview went. But the only reason why I'm able to do that in my debriefs, in my technical debriefs now, is because they prepared me from when I was sitting in interviews in healthcare, and so now I can decipher how the interview went based on what I'm reading, and that's why my company they do a really good job with the process, because all of it has to be fair and equitable as best as possible, and so I commend my company for that. In healthcare, some of the things that I would catch like I could, I would catch the body language in my interviewer. So, like I talk about this all the time, there was an interview I sat in on in healthcare and I could visibly see the. So we were on zoom. I can see the hiring leader. The more the candidate spoke, the more the hiring leader sunk in her chair. The candidate spoke, she kept sinking and she kept sinking and I'm like why the hell is she? Why does she keep going down, like further. So I I made sure I sat up. Now, mind you, my camera was off, but I made sure I sat up and I sent her a message on zoom, a private message, and instead of her doing it subtly, she went like, like, looked at the message and, like you know, but I literally said, hey, you're slouching, sit up. And I didn't say it in a nice way, I like I meant what I said, what I said you're slouching, sit up. And so she like grand, and she sat up and so I was. I've also been able to catch interviewers. When I can tell what interviewers are looking at their phones and then not paying attention, I can tell when they look like they talking to each other. And so those are the certain things that I've been able to pick up in my interviews that that prepared me for debriefs in technical recruiting. So it helped me understand how to be an advocate, like in the moment. So the net way, if I'm not able to sit in interviews later, that I can be an advocate after the fact.

Speaker 2: 36:43

That's dope, that's dope. I'm glad that you you brought that in and hopefully, like the audience is listening, because you know there's so much that people don't understand about recruiting even me, because I've never recruited before. There's so much people that what they don't understand about it that they just always feel like they're the victim. I saw and I meant to share what you've added. No, how's it going to fit in? And I may share with you really quick Matter of fact. Where's my phone?

Speaker 1: 37:08

I'm going to send it to you on the is it the okay? Because I saw something on Instagram that was like what do you think about this? I can't remember. That was me. Was it your stories? Yeah, that's from.

Speaker 2: 37:20

YouTube. Yeah, I asked them. Could they give me some context? Because I I answered that question back, but I also want a context to see, like, okay, what are you like talking about? Okay, I'm going to share it. Let me take it All right. So what it was was the dude applied for a job and tagged APEX systems in and it was talking about please contact me on why I was rejected with no interview by the recruiter. I feel like I was qualified. That's why I applied. He deleted the post, but I remember what it said and it just was hilarious because when I went to his profile I said, okay, I guess he got experienced with then as you go to him talking, so he don't have that much experience and he probably just wasn't a good fit. But it was just hilarious to me that he tagged APEX and said why would I reject me just from and not even talk to me? I was like what's what is going on people? I was like I still get rejected for stuff all the time and I got more experience than most people. I was like here's what it is.

Speaker 1: 38:14

You need to be surprised how bold people are, because we get it too. I've gotten those. I've gotten those emails like why you reject me and you ain't even called me for a recruiter screening. I've gotten that. That's crazy.

Speaker 2: 38:26

That's great we're going to. We'll get into some of that too, because that's why I had like a take. It was like the bad part of recruiting that people don't talk about, like the things that you guys deal with sometimes.

Speaker 1: 38:35

So, yeah, like real quick, real quick. So when I first started in my current company, I got an eye so there was a position that was posted and it was cyber threat analysts and cyber threat hunter. So of course they sound the same. And so the the candidate was disqualified from the cyber threat analyst role, but he wasn't disqualified from the hunter role, which was mine. And so he sent me an email just randomly. It was like he started with so let me get this straight. And I was like what I had to remember, shanae, you on your work email, like I had to, like I had to come back like hold up. And so he was like I would appreciate if you could tell me why I was disqualified for this role. But I haven't even talked to the hiring leader yet and I was like what are you talking about? And so he came back and realized he inadvertently said that email, not realizing that the analyst role wasn't mine. So he wasn't disqualified from my role, he was disqualified from the other one. And he immediately like, when he realized it it was too late because I had already read the email. And so I responded and I said let me tell you something. I said, shanae, say this nice because this is written. You don't get fired. I said I understand your concern and I will speak to the hiring manager. I said he could either be in meetings, he could have been pulled away, it could have been an array of things that makes him kind of pause on the hiring process. I said, but before I do that, reread the tone of this email, before you ever email me like this again, and before anybody can tell my manager what I said, I went directly to my manager and told her exactly what I said, because you're never going to be able to tell me. I'll tell you exactly what I said Because for me, if one of my core values of my company is respect, I'm going to demand it, and so if you disrespect me, I'm not going to come at you, but I'm going to ask you to not use that tone with me if you need me to help you, and so there are certain things that now they have. There were recruiters who disagreed with me, like you know. You should just be able to take it, and I and my counter to that is if my, if I am operating under a company that a core value is respect, you can't tell me, just take it because it's disrespectful. So so yeah, we deal with a lot of, a lot of stuff that a lot of people don't know Right.

Speaker 2: 41:08

And I would say, if you deal with that, that's in the precedent of people can always come at you in a certain way, and so you got to get in the bud and I also sense like you might have been a teacher in the past life, that tone with me and talking to the kids and making them put their heads down.

Speaker 1: 41:26

It's not that it's I disrespect burns my biscuits Like I can't stand it. And so for me, if, especially when I know I'm going to respect you and then you have to add, like I'm a black woman, I got natural hair there's a certain level of respect. I got to demand because I know I'm going to be in rooms where people are going to look at me and all of a sudden they think I don't know nothing because of how I look. Like we deal with it all the time, and so I'm already aware of that and I I just teach people how to treat me. I was just respected too much in my life in general, so I was just like, yeah, once I reached a certain age and a certain level of of balls, so to speak, that I have, I'm not going to walk away like I used to with carrying the weight of the burden of how people made me feel. So it's, we're going to respect each other or we're just not going to be in conversation.

Speaker 2: 42:23

We got it, got it. And this question I know I want to slip this one in here too, because you pivoted from doing the document review to getting into pretty much recruiting, and that was way about six, seven years ago, right.

Speaker 1: 42:41

This was. I'm going on five years, so I'm at like four and a half.

Speaker 2: 42:45

Okay, we're just going to say five years, so it's like five years ago, so five. So five years ago what were, or sadly, is like going into an inch of recruiting back then.

Speaker 1: 42:58

So I think the question normally that I get to to your point is like how did what was the thing that made you get into recruiting? Like I understand you were a temp recruiter, but what was the thing that set you apart? Like what? What was on the job description inside of the minimum qualifications? What was the words themselves? And so for me the pivot was on my job description it said that there were two very basic minimum qualifications and it pretty much said a bachelor's degree and one year of professional experience and which means you could have been a cashier with a bachelor's degree and become a recruiter in this role. And I was like, okay, so I just apply. And I think what helped was I was internal already and I was also in my manager at the time, who was Danita, the manager I was going under. She used to work for that manager, so anyone coming from up under Danita, that manager knew, oh, they got to be good. And that honestly taught me that whole like deliver your your, you know your work will speak for itself and the work will give you reputation. And all of that, knowing that I was coming from up under Danita and that hiring leader Michelle, that Michelle actually trusted because I was coming under from under Danita, she was going to hire me and that set the precedent for me. A recruiter cousin, whatever you say, you have to deliver in what you say so that anyone who is coming from up under you, just because it's coming from you and you deliver and you mean what you say, meaning you it's factual, you can data and all of that then you have to exemplify that and so that's kind of like I was able to get into recruiting.

Speaker 2: 44:54

Yeah, that reminds me of one of the jobs I got really strictly off of who my manager was, because my manager used to talk about me to this other person who was I think she might have been her contemporary I think they both were managers or directors at the time of the company but she knew who I came from because she would talk about me. So, yeah, I know a contract, you know, and you work under Ashley right and, needless to say, I got the job pretty easy just because of like what you said. So I definitely agree with that. It's like the term that we use about networking is like not who you know, but who knows you. But I want to ask you right now what is the best thing for you right now that you like about being a recruiter?

Speaker 1: 45:44

So I get in trouble about this a lot, and it's not a bad trouble, it's more like feedback I get from my current manager. So my current manager always tells me to be careful about how late I'm working or how late I'm online because she doesn't want to give she doesn't want me to give off the impression to candidates that that is what our culture at our company is. And so I took that feedback and I said, okay, if I decide to work late, I'm going to tell a candidate this is my choice. So the best part about being able to being able to be a recruiter right now in the moment is the hustle mentality of being able to land a candidate and knowing that you prioritize a candidate. And so what I mean by that is I just had an offer, except maybe today is Sunday, so I got it on like Thursday or Friday. One of the two and this candidate is he lives about an hour and a half away from me, so he's also in North Carolina, and what was dope is I get a chance to. I've made two offers in two different fiscal years to North Carolina residents three I'm sorry, three offers, and it's always a joy to be able to give them to North Carolina residents, because most of my roles are set in Redmond Washington. So when I find a candidate that the hiring leader is very much open to them being fully remote, they don't have to relocate and they don't care where they work and it's in North Carolina I get hype. I get like, oh, I live in North Carolina too. So the best part is being able to show a candidate that they are a priority. So after so this is something that I say all the time after you interview with a company and we debrief, and then the hiring leader decides they're going to go with you as a candidate. At that point you have shown that you are the right person for the role. So for me, as a recruiter, it's my job to land you now. So now I got to work to show you that the company cares about who you are, your flexibility. What can we do to land you? Because we're going to do our best. And so I had a candidate the other day. He was a consultant and so he was coming out of full-time consultancy into big tech, and so I was like making myself available at like 10, 11 o'clock at night, and he was very surprised and he was like, ain't it like you still working and I'm like, well, I kind of just log back on just because because I understand you're busy throughout the day. I'm not doing anything, I'm not even in the big yet, so it doesn't, I don't mind, just having back on if you have any questions. And so he made he like he felt very much like a priority and realized like they really want me. So the favorite part of my job right now is showing candidates exactly that and then being able to see their lives transform when I make them that offer and be able to show them where their money is going and get them to understand where their money is going.

Speaker 2: 48:46

That's dope and as a person who, like I said, raved about y'all's process and then another process, I feel like every other podcast episode I'm talking about how great Yahoo's process was, specifically the recruiter that I worked with. Readers should take note, like they do. They know they have qualified candidates they're working with, like making them feel like a priority and feedback or just a message back of updates saying, hey, I haven't heard anything about theology, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Even some smartest like that goes a long way, cause sometimes I do that all the time, right, cause sometimes we're not. I'm not trying to ask you, I just want to know hey, did you hear anything? Cause I, you know we all interviewing with different people, but I really like you guys so I want to make sure, like, did I miss anything or what's going on? But when, when, when cruders act like that, it really speaks to the type of recruiters and people that you guys have at the company, which makes us more inclined to actually choose you guys over other people because of, like you said, the prioritization. So I'm glad that that you're one of the few that's out there doing that, really giving people those good experiences, cause typically that translate over into like a good onboarding process and have a good company and run into good people, so that's, that's great.

Speaker 1: 49:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 50:00

And what's interesting.

Speaker 1: 50:01

What's interesting about that is that candidate I made myself available at 10 30 at night cause he was just busy, and then he didn't respond after that. He didn't respond to like four o'clock in the morning but I just so happened to wake up and I grabbed my phone and I just like he don't know. But I was on my phone in the bed but he I just like hey, real quick, cause I wanted to catch him. So I was like hey, real quick, you know, we can meet at eight 30 and he was surprised that I responded at four, four, 30 in the morning. And I only did that because my hiring me, my hiring leader, my hiring leader wants to land this candidate. In my mind we about to go into Thanksgiving, the process of the background check and all of that can take some time, knowing this, the holiday season, and I was like it's, I'm awake. So in my mind I'm like I don't care what time it is. If, like, I need to be able to land you and it's not taken away from my life but it's going to add to my professional life, genuinely not drilling anything out of my personal life, then I don't see an issue and I don't see an issue with like same thing with Afro tech. I was in Afro tech at Afro tech not representing my company, but I was also on PTO and I knew that there was going to be a candidate, that while I was out of office, my hiring leader was going to debrief and then they were going to choose a candidate they debrief. They chose a candidate that I knew they would choose. So I stepped out of Afro tech real quick, called her and made her an offer and I was like hey, just let you know I'm on vacation. I understand that. I said this is my on my own, they're not asking me to do this, but I wanted you to know that an offer is coming tomorrow, so just to kind of ease your mind. And she was like, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. Like I appreciate you just giving me a chance to breathe. And I was like, yeah, it's coming, I just wanted to let you know that. We'll talk about the numbers later. But but you are the chosen candidate and an offer is coming to be able to ease the kindness mind like that. I don't think people fully understand what it does to a candidate's psyche when they are just waiting for an answer. So I just rather not take you through that.

Speaker 2: 52:06

Right, you don't know the half of it. I tell a person that's been through this before hearing like, oh, you're going to get offered an offer, but you never get anything at right and get it like happens. So that's why I always tell them all the time hey, let's just keep interviewing, so we get some actually in writing and you get some equipment, because things change. Like for me I had the, everything was verbal. Then they say, hey, got some kind of bad news for you. We got to pull that wreck because of the coming next year we're going to try to rehire again a Q one I mean. So it's like you're like up on the high. Then you realize, Dang, now. I start all over again, and it'd be like that sometimes. But while you were talking about making offers, I figured we jump into one of the questions that I had for you, because you're talking about anxiety with black people and I know I get anxious when I was waiting on the offer. Like until I see it, it's probably just from the fact of being laid off. So before I get anxious, I know, I know those offers. Why do you think it's black people that we tend to negotiate, or X was so low of a salary.

Speaker 1: 53:07

So this is, this is perfect. This question is perfect for the timing, because I was literally on Instagram this morning watching, you know, one of those reels where the person is interviewing somebody just on the street and they go oh, you're in so and so how much do you make? And the person shares what they make. And so there was a. There was a white lady interviewing a black man and he was talking about how he's a system admin and he she asked how much do you make a year? And he said 93,000. And so now my recruiter mine for someone who makes offers, I went okay, if you're starting out, I can see 93,000. I can even see 70 if you're just starting out. If you got some years under you, that's when you go. Okay, I'm hitting 125, 135, 150 and up. And so he. So she asked if, if he was happy with his salary, and he, he paused, he shook his head and he said I'm grateful. And I went nope, absolutely not. Because my recruiter ear said you are not grateful, you want more money. And so we don't. We don't ask for what we're worth, because we are taught to be grateful for what we have, and I don't think that's fair. So in certain black communities. If you're in one side of a black community, if you make 80, you make good money, like you have made it, and when the other side of the black community, if you ain't hitting 130, you ain't making nothing. So so I think that we ask for a lot less money because we are playing catch up. We're not privy to a certain, a certain lifestyle until we have seen it, and lately, tech has been the, the industry where we've seen a different type of lifestyle. What we are not paying attention to, though, is we're not paying attention to the, the money that comes from utilities, manufacturing oil and gas from from a high level perspective, energy from a high level perspective, and so tech right now is sexy. Everybody wants to be in tech right now. Again, not paying attention to the other industries that really pay you good money. Black folk, we are taught. We are taught that if we are not like very beginning to this, if we're not doctors and lawyers, we not. It's not really a prestigious type of of job or industry that you're in, and for us is when you come from a city, if you work for the state, you got a good job Like. I'm from Jersey, specifically Camden. So if you work for the city or the I eat the county, you in a good job. If you work for the state, you're in a good job. And so we're not taught how to reach a little higher for a little bit more of a complicated role. That would make what makes our skill set very niche, and so I just feel like we're taught a little later in life. We're not. The STEM programs are available now. The STEM programs weren't really. I didn't really know a lot about STEM when I was in school, so they're not. It's, it's not a sexy thing to do, right? So I mean, when I grew up, it was you play basketball, you play football. You were good, you were a good writer, you could do math, yes, but they didn't also teach us where math could take you, and so, if anything it was, I want to go to college. I don't want to go to college, I want to go into a trade school. All of that is good, but the path to getting a really good salary and understanding where your money goes, I didn't really learn that. So I got to my thirties. So I feel like we're taught late.

Speaker 2: 56:57

Yeah, I agree with all that it's like for me. I think I've witnessed money before. My uncle has a friend who's like I think he's a millionaire and he was. He had one of those high paying occupations for was it Merrill Lynch or something like that? It was years ago. He's an Italian guy, but I'm talking about you know how we are talking about. They say something like well, people have on designer, but then you know the people who are really rich and their designer is like dress clothes type of like, really like $2,000 button down shirts and that you put on with your suits and like regular white shirt, like stuff like that. And I remember just seeing him like give his escalator stuff away and I was like, okay, that's money. We say you know what they not give me, what I want for. I was going to give me a new one and give my uncle a brand new SLA, barely used, like, and after undergrad 2014, I had a mentor at the time. He was working with, I think, a DOD. He was retired from the Air Force and he had some high paying job on there. He was saying, hey, for your first job you need to be asking for, I think, $65 or $70,000. Now I didn't really know what to be asking for. I just wanted to get a job. I didn't get that for my first job, but it was like you said. It's like you don't know what to ask for and you really start figuring out what to ask for once you, like you said, either late 20s, sometimes, if you're lucky, early 20s and you have the right network or the right circle value. And that's why it's important. I started one of my friends in my close circle who's young, like 10 years my junior, but he's like doing really good in this space security and he was telling me about the new offer he accepted. I was like really happy for him and I just started thinking back to myself. I was like this is what people mean. When you count like your closest people around you and typically you may start doing too, or everyone is going to be in a similar path of making like either a lot of money or a little money, you'll mostly see like a group of I hate to say it, but like I want to say broke people, let's say people that's just not making a lot of money, average people hanging around. Then you will have high achievers all being around each other. It's rarely, like you said, middle ground where you just got these other people. That's just around people. I think it's like the ends of the spectrum and that's one of the ways you figure out you're making money Like. We also see people who stay at companies too long. Most people who stay at companies too long are underpaid. The new person that comes in is making $23,000 a morning. Because if I'm not and you can, I guess, correct me on this because I remember this to be true from being at a company and you won actual bigger raise but, like, do an HR that can only give you like X amount. So a lot of times you got to leave and come back to get whatever money you want. I think you run into that too. It's like a lot of different things, and we all I'm from the South, so it's even worse in the South. When you say about good jobs I'm from the street put Louisiana People are typically nurses, firemen or policemen. So if you're a fireman or something like that, you got a good job. I mean, they, five days on, five days off, they really don't make that much money because they're always. They got so much free time. They work second jobs. But STEM, cyber security, networking, recruiting, what's that? You don't see anything of that. You know back home, if you were in street poor making $80,000, you got it. You can have your car, house, you made it. But anywhere else 80,000 is, you might not. You might not be able to get an apartment in a decent area. So yeah, that's the TED talk on that I think. I think that could be like his home, his own conversation one day so we can really break down the psychology of of us. Because I did a. I did an episode on that a while back. I found an article and it said it's like you know, it's two things right. I think two things also happen when it comes to I know, because black women complain a lot about getting underpaid. So two things happen. I did, I read this article and I could find a video for you, that way you can see what I read it from. I was saying a lot of people sometimes, sometimes the black women, get underpaid because they're not negotiating right when it comes to their salary, so they're getting paid because they're not asking what they should get paid for. And two, sometimes they are just being offered lower than what their white contemporaries make. So I believe two things can be true in that as well, and that's why you need a recruiter cousin to help you. I say no, that's too much. You're trying to ask for 105 and this role pay up to 185. We've been a submission for, you know, 155.

Speaker 1: 1:01:32

Yeah, and it's interesting because I've openly said in my role now, I didn't really negotiate my salary. I didn't feel like I had to Now, knowing what I know now, what I have, probably, but I'm still glad I didn't, because, when I was offered my role, my base offer, without me negotiating, was 38,000 more than what I was making in healthcare. Add the sign on bonus and stock option. When you add all of that together, it went to a good maybe almost $50,000 more than what I was making and my salary. Now, since I've been promoted salaries going up and bonuses and everything I've grossed a good more than 65 to 70,000 over what I was making in healthcare, and so I didn't negotiate my salary because I didn't feel like I needed to, because it was already life changing as it was, and, knowing what I know now, though, would I tell people to negotiate their salary anyway. Yes, if you negotiate your salary, though, the question is do you have something to stand on for it to make sense? So, like when you're negotiating your salary, do you have a compete offer that you want this company to be? Are you taking a pay cut Because in base and you want it to go up and sign on and stock option. You can't just say I want more money because I want more money. It has to make sense, it's got to be valid. And I don't think people fully understand how negotiating salaries work. And I offer you $150,000 in a base salary, but you want 175. But the 150 is technically a salary increase for you and there is no compete offer, there's no pay cut, there's no. You don't have any dependence or anything like that. It's really hard to justify going up in salary and being equitable within the team that you're about to go into. So I don't think people fully get what goes into and I may actually write a template on this what goes into negotiating your salary and why it's important to have something to stand on, Like you can't just say I want to make like everybody. I want to make $100,000 in tech, Cool, Great. What do you have to stand on?

Speaker 2: 1:03:56

What do you have to offer?

Speaker 1: 1:03:58

Why should we pay you that?

Speaker 2: 1:03:59

What have you done for me lately?

Speaker 1: 1:04:01

What have you done for me lately, correct?

Speaker 2: 1:04:04

I agree because, as a person who, at this current company, I actually took a pay cut to get out that last row, I was able to successfully negotiate a sign on and a comp buyout here because I was taking a pay cut and I said I need this and they saw that what I was making. The last thing, because I got to see documentation. Okay, you say you're going to get this bonus, you know, and too much, show it to us. And so you're right, it has to be, it has to be justified. You got to say based on the market or what you got, what you've been seeing in the market, this is what I deserve. This is the value I believe I could bring to the team. I can help do XYZ. Sometimes you've got to pick yourself up and then say you know what? I guess you're right and I will say, a lot of times people are expecting you to negotiate but, like you said, negotiate in good faith, not just throwing some number out of the way. I hope it sticks. That's why I'm glad that more companies are putting the range on there, because a lot of people like I tell people I was like you can't try to get the max range, because they want you to have someone to grow. So you got to figure out what number is going to be a minimum that you would stand on, like you said that you would accept if they don't budge at all. So don't play yourself on the minimum. Don't give this wide range. Maybe stay within 15 Gs of a range you want and beginning they'll say we can work with it or we can't work with it. It's a yeah, like I said, it's a really fascinating crowd. I think that's the like everybody kind of you know in black community kind of taboo about money. Don't tell people what you make. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:05:24

You see it all the time I will. How did that come from trauma, though, that comes from trauma. That comes from us not. Yeah, yes, it comes from trauma personally. It comes from trauma professionally. It comes from it in the community aspect of it. It's, it's we already. We, we walk with this victim mentality. If you come at me after saying that, I understand why, you may come at me, but hear me out, we walk with this victim mentality that I, I deserve to make a certain amount because, whatever right, the victim in you says I was done wrong before and you're still doing me wrong because you're not giving me what I want, when the people who come later in life is trying to be fair. So I put up a post one day on LinkedIn and got some people to me out. Some people understood. I put up a post one day and I said you didn't get the job is not because you're black. Could it be that you just didn't interview? Well, like, could that actually be the thing? And so I had an influencer like come at me, like it's understood what you're saying, but how. You said it was just wrong. And I'm like but how else am I supposed to say it? Because the comp we have to be able to have that conversation it's. I've sat in on interviews where black folk just did not do well. I've sat in on interviews where white folk didn't do well, hispanic people didn't do well, like we, like whoever, whatever, what you look like, you just didn't do well. I've also sat in on interviews where you did amazing, and so it's sitting on this side, it's y'all. We can't walk with this victim mentality of I deserve this because I said it and not being able to have some type of something to stand on, and so it's. I want to be able to teach our community like, yeah, we do deserve it, but you have to give evidence of why you deserve it, and that may come from you taking a pay cut, or you have a compete offer, or you may be a single mom or a single dad and you're the only person in your house that takes care of your house, of however many of is in your household, like it's a, it's a lot that goes into it, and so I just want I don't want us to continue to walking around with this victim mentality of we're done wrong. We already know that we done wrong. Yes, we are. We are done wrong. Yes, we know that. Okay. So I just want to say that by giving evidence as to why I deserve this doesn't mean that other p, our counterparts, are going to be made to give evidence. No, but we already know we got to do it. So I just, I just feel like at this point we already know what it is. So let's just, we're going to fight against it, but we're also going to adapt to it until we get into the spaces where we're the decision makers and we'll have to Right, and so that's where I'm like in that space.

Speaker 2: 1:08:14

Yeah, and that's like one of the answers I said to that thing that I asked them a story. I said, well, when we become more like managers or hiring managers and on our own companies, we probably can help combat this thing. But, like you said, just because you feel like that, like I felt like that in 2018, not because I was black, but I felt like I went through some interview processes and I just felt like they don't know, I got weird vibes when someone I met the people in person because back then these were in-person interviews I didn't know that, but older white people all like in what their 50s or 60s I just feel like they wouldn't have been the hire of me. They just bought me an interview. I feel like that sometimes. Can I prove that? No, because I know that interview went well. It went well. Once I did bad. These are just some things I've met. Or sometimes I used to feel like this that at certain times, they didn't want to pay me what I wanted to be paid, based on like they'll ask me for something and then just go goes. I feel like that. Do I say that they just were being racist? I don't know. It was a lot of different things that I experienced through that 2018 job search. I can't prove anything. I know I had a company one time tell me I believe it says some of my own songs are the best fit, but they going somewhere else. That kind of made me upset too, because I'm asking the person to do the job. You tell me I'm the best fit, but you want to go with somebody else. That pissed me off too. There are different things that we all go through. You just got to keep it trucking along and go with the company that believes in you, that company that gives you that chance. That's, most of the time, what's what you need.

Speaker 1: 1:09:52

That's right.

Speaker 2: 1:09:53

I got this video and I said sometimes the job you want is not the job you need. That's right. I remember that. And since we're already on the salary topic, I wanted to ask something. What's the most I want to say? Interesting thing you've maybe seen the candidate negotiated for maybe Shit.

Speaker 1: 1:10:20

Listen, I was going to say this before you asked, but I heard this candidate and I'm glad you asked that I can just spit it out. One time I heard this candidate say I said what's your salary expectation? Now, I'm sure you saw the first interview I did on Techist of New Black. So when I did that one, I said someone asked for 400,000 total comp. Since then I had a candidate asked for at least 725 total comp and I was like, at least. I was like oh gosh. And so he was like listen. He said straight up. He was like listen, you know, I worked here before, I worked for Google. Now I want to come back here and it makes no sense for me to come back, leave my job when I don't have to and come back if I don't get at least a 15% increase. And I was like, okay, like I can't argue with that. So so now, now did he did not get hired in my in one of the roles that I was recruiting for, but I'm not and I'm not sure if he got hired back into another role that one of my colleagues is is recruiting for. But when he said that number, when people say certain numbers, when I heard 400,000 total comp, I was like wow. Then when you hear 700,000. It makes you think, like what am I doing? Like what, what am I doing in my own negotiating life? That I am not, that I am not comfortable with saying I want $200,000 base salary. Like what are we doing?

Speaker 2: 1:12:12

That's the point that I missed when you were talking, and it came back to me about salaries as well. About negotiating is because if you don't keep negotiating, getting higher salaries, you're going to be scared to ask what you really want.

Speaker 1: 1:12:23

Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:12:26

That's what I want to touch on. So if you, if you, scared to ask for $80,000, what's the next thing they can say is no, you'll never. You could be 15 years in and be and be scared to say, hey, I want at least, like you said, 400,000 comp, so I want to 75 base and I want this and bonus and this, and that you'll be scared to do it because you never asked for it. Or if you haven't seen the offers come around your way, like I just did the episode this week and I was talking about the chick who makes pretty much like she made like a quarter meal and tech this past year. She was a course over employed and you know that number of strengths people, because some people can't fathom it. I was, like I said, just appears like me, being 10 years in now I get rose that hit me up all the time for money, especially when you, if you move to finance, like you got coming. So we'll give you a base of 250 K, probably more. You'll probably come in like three days a week. I was like the money's out there. It just got to have the right type of skill set. I still tell people to this day credit commerce probably the biggest number I seen, just from base alone In my inbox and they say, yeah, you got to move to Charlotte.

Speaker 1: 1:13:32

But does that skill set come with a certain level? Or that job, does it come with a certain level of learning that you think people are not willing to do? Right, and here's, here's why, here's why I say that right. We, we have all of these boot camps out here. No matter what the boot camp is, whatever, no matter what the program is, we have all of these boot camps out here. That is like However, however much they decide to charge, if it's not a lot, if it is a lot regardless, if it's not a lot, people are going to invest in it because it's not a lot of money. But then when you add, it's not a lot of money, which means a whole thousands of people are going to invest in this because it's not a lot of money, and they're teaching you something where you can get, you can increase your salary, yes, but you're also in competition with all of the people who also decided to invest in this. You then have you then have programs that is in the middle of, in the middle of a boot camp and just short of being an associate's degree, where it's literally like right in there and they may charge a little bit more and it may take a little longer for you to learn, but you're developing a skill set that is always going to keep you marketable, and so for you it's you've college or not, me, law school or not there is a certain level of skill that we were able to. We were willing to sit and learn for an extended period of time that was not self paced. That made us like buckle down and actually do it and be held accountable for it, versus someone who is in a program, whether self paced or not, and they decide to take the discount and hopefully they can land in tech. I think that's the for me. It's is I'm back and forth and I'm up in the air with Are you willing to sit for a longer period of time to learn a niche skill set or do you want to quick fix Right?

Speaker 2: 1:15:43

I totally agree with that sentiment. I've had that conversation a lot of times and we talked about how was that? Was that being brought us? Shout out to a little open tech. I probably see the logo here. Oh, yeah, I love him. Yeah, we were talking about how people want to make a lot of money but they're not willing to invest the money in themselves, like correct. And then, like, you just brought up a commonality between us. You brought up school, you got a JD, I have a masters and I went back to get my masters after I already was like in and taking general, but it was just something to do because I had nothing to do, but I was willing to go, do all those projects and learn this and pay that money. So now it's like when you, when we also talk about what do we have to negotiate with? When they start checking all your accolades amongst people on the team or your user experience, education, certifications, how will you interview? Those are things that they factor in when they're going to make that offer. So, like you said again, if you come in there and you're like, yeah, I'm going to make that offer, if you come in there just because you, you did a program, but yet like they're giving you a shot and you're trying to negotiate too much. It doesn't really make sense versus what you really know, maybe shooting yourself in the foot. But I definitely agree.

Speaker 1: 1:16:52

Which is why I never talk about how much I make. I never talk about that because I never talk about. I talk about the increase that I got. It's very seldom that I will say what my number actually was, because I don't want people to think that just because my there was a big gap in how much my total comp is now that you can come into big tech and do the exact same thing because I did it. That's not true. It's people out here, their experiences, their experience. If they have a unicorn experience, they have a unicorn experience. They have a common experience. They have a common experience. Is I just hate for people to see all of us who are talking about it and then think out in your first job in tech, if you make $65 to $70,000 a year, is what I didn't get six figures and I'm like but you got a $20,000 increase, yeah or yeah, it's, it's, it's beyond me.

Speaker 2: 1:17:54

Yeah, yeah, we, we talked about that. I was like there are people out here we know like the median income in the country might be like 3040,000. So people are trying to scoff at like making 657080. I was like, let's be honest here, like I want you guys to relax and like you said, I just I'm very transparent with my audience or the episode that's dropping tomorrow is like I said, what I talked about is money or choosing what you like to do versus making a lot of money. And I told him like how much I walked away from in that other role because I don't want you to know like the money is not what makes me want to keep doing stuff in my career. I was like it could, it could serve as a motivator for a little while. But then what? Like I was talking about how, if you're just chasing the money even early on, job hopping a lot, but not learn anything, how are you going to have questions to map, to start and sell yourself interviews for, for more money? You're not going to be able to. You're going to be job hopping to the same job and getting an increase, like that, but you you're not going to have anything to show that you're actually completed in a in a time. It probably takes two to three years. Unless your job is like more project based and you just brought in to work on a specific project. It takes a while to gain those skills and show the things that you've done. And so that that's the type of stuff I'm talking about tomorrow, because that's what the people need to know. It's like, of course, yeah, you can, you can stay somewhere six months and go get some money, but then what happens when you get the money? What happens when you plateau at the same skills and now the person who stayed at the same company probably two, three years and they did all this stuff, so now this next job, take them up here.

Speaker 1: 1:19:29

That's right, and that's what that's something we're not seeing right now. That's right. Like you mentioned earlier, you talked about not going close to the max because you won't have room to grow. I tell, I tell people that all the time, and it's not to undercut you, it's if you make the max and then next year you don't get a merit increase because you can't, because you are at the max of your level, unless you get a promotion, you will not make any more money, which is going to make you mad, so like. So, for example, one of the most recent testimonials I got was this software engineer. He first software engineer role he asked for my name, started my negotiation template. I sent it to him. He got company one offered him they had a max of. I think the max salary range was up to 114. And I want to say they might have offered him very close to that, but it was a contract role. The second company offered him a $98,000 base with a $10,000 sign on bonus and it was a full time role. So he used my salary negotiation template and with company to he negotiated. From 98 K base he negotiated up to $100,000, $100,400 in base with a $15,000 sign on bonus. But the money, but the role is also full time and so and they're both very prestigious companies. And so when he was negotiating I was telling him you do know that the higher offer is not always the best offer, and he was like no, I get that like, because you have to know where your money is. He was like no right, so he went with company two, which was a lower offer, but his sign, but his total count was more.

Speaker 2: 1:21:19

Yeah, this, y'all are getting a lot of gang right now, because these are the type of things I like to bring on here. So people can whether they're job and they call, they just listen and they can just understand us talk candid about some things that they are not aware of, because some of the people are still just trying to get into the industry or they're seeing a lot of different things out there that's telling them, oh, you should do this and that and get the money, but this, your career, this I want everybody kind of. Just put this like in a like internal vision. Real quick, it's only been three years is the pandemic. It seems like it's been like six. It seems like it's been like a long time, but it's only been three years. Everyone's really been trying to get a tech job and so to you that seems like you and did nothing in a long time, but it's only three years of your life, you still got a long way to go. So if you don't get what you're getting, just put your head down, do the work, figure out what you don't know, talk to people that's in the role she want to do and you can get there. And just sometimes, some of you that's trying to get in. Sometimes you just need to get out social media because you match. You don't have somebody else's ass but you don't know what they did to get that. I tell people I got clients that want to break into this and that I'm like, okay, what you been working on this weekend Because y'all want these results. That person, a guy like I was telling about the guy Because I'm pretty much like my mentee, but now it's also a contemporary teen year younger to me For like the first two years of pandemic. Every time I'm up late because I'm working on something. He working on something. I was like do you see an artist of kind of fruition now, because y'all not willing to do all that. And some y'all got no kids or a family like I got. I'm doing everything while having two girls and having to please the lady and all this other stuff. Some y'all is just y'all and y'all being lazy. And yes, I said y'all being lazy. So look, it is what it is. I want to ask you in the questions I have since you came into recruiting with a different background and I also may add, I think your transferable skills of the things that you did learn in law school helped you to become a phenomenal recruiter. What would be like some just essential skills you think a recruiter would need to actually succeed in their role?

Speaker 1: 1:23:28

So this may sound very like, like very baseline of baseline, but you have to have empathy, like you have to be able to connect with your candidates. A lot of recruiters that I come across no one specifically, but just in general a lot of recruiters that I come across this is a job for them, and so you may feel like you're ghosted, or a recruiter just went on to the next person because for some people this is a job, for some of us this is a passion, and so, like I do podcasts on the weekends or like after we record this, I'm going to jump on a call with somebody who, just at this point, she has paid for every single person to talk to and I'm like, girl, keep your money. We'll just jump on a call and we can just go through questions. But in order for you to be, in order for you to be a successful recruiter one, you have to do your research. I think that is with any role. You have to understand what goes into making an offer within a certain industry and the differences between where you've worked before so for me that would be higher education and health care and legal. And then how are you? What's different from that in tech. So that's one thing. Another thing is I am learning from a lot of the senior recruiters who have been recruiters either longer than me or who have been in technical recruiting longer than me, and so part of that comes from me being very willing to be, to humble myself, to just learn, because while I may think I'm the best recruiter there is, I also know that I am not. I don't know everything. So I'm very willing to sit classroom style and just listen to a recruiter kind of how they run their desk and how they approach certain things. I've learned a lot from my own teammates about how to make offers that are very high, offers that I wasn't used to, so they out. I was taught how to actually do that. I was taught how to show up in offer calls. I was taught and I'm still learning how to set certain expectations with my hiring leaders, because there are certain things that you run across as it relates to certain hire leaders and their personalities, that you kind of have to set expectations with in the very beginning. I've been taught how to slow down because I actually move too fast. I know that about myself. So I, like my, I've made dire mistakes in my job because I moved too quick and so my manager was just like slow down, and I was like, cool, you're right, like you're wrong. I'm someone who I like to hear feedback, whether it hurts my feelings or not, and so I like to be able to process that feedback so I can understand and something I'm learning now I can understand how to filter feedback. What's for me understanding, what's for me versus is your projecting. I've learned how to, and still learning how to. One of our directors said the other day when, when we get feedback, you may not, it may not be feedback that you apply immediately. Some of the feedback is not immediate in the media application to it, but it has everything to do with you taking for future reference and when it's time to apply it, you'll know. And so I'm learning how to also not be so hard on myself. So that's another thing. That another thing that I think a successful recruiter is, it's not being hard on yourself and it's genuinely a matter of leaving yourself room to make mistakes and giving yourself grace in the process. Because I've made I think, all of us as recruiters. We can say we made a ton of mistakes, and I know I've made a ton since I've been in technical recruiting, but I am grateful for the team that I've worked with, my sound and board at work, to be able to teach me something different and to show me show me a way that is in love and in wanting me to be professionally successful and not be someone who is just good at the candidate experience. So I've learned how to take all feedback from all angles, which is a recruiter, which is what a recruiter needs, because it's easy for me to be an expert in the candidate experience or LinkedIn and being able to pull people from LinkedIn into the company. That's easy. That's the back of my hand. It's. A successful recruiter also has to be open to strengthen those weak areas that we're not normally used to, and be able to humble ourselves and go to people who are stronger in the areas where we are weak.

Speaker 2: 1:28:38

That's nice and when you were talking about is just a job for some people and then for everyone else. I want to get on this question. I had to ask you and I must found on it more. It was like, what's the bad part of recruiting that people don't typically talk about because you know typical out of politics with time, like all the good things and the fun things that changed their lives. But how does it feel when that candidates you really want the nap doesn't accept that offer? How does that feel?

Speaker 1: 1:29:12

So when I first got an offer that a candidate turned down, it felt like, oh, how long is it going to take me to land to for the hiring leader to choose somebody else? Have they already choose their number and chosen their number two person? So what it feels like, honestly is, at first it felt like a defeat. Now, if anything, if anything, now for me it feels like I understand. I just understand because I have to. But again, I work for a company that understands. Like I have never met a bunch of people who just understand, and those people genuinely like yep, I've been through that. Yep, I've gone through that too, and anything that I've had to overcome, any challenge I've had to overcome, I've been able. I have a sounding board at work that I can go to. That's like yeah, girl, I feel you. And if they don't, they give me a different perspective and help me kind of see a difference in it. So when, when I've gotten a candidate that will turn down an offer, one of the first instincts I do is I go this is a great offer. I'm not an engineer. This is amazing. On the other hand, I think they're engineers, though, so they know for them what's a great offer and what's not. So at first it was a defeat, but now it comes across as more of a. You can see it coming If you, if you pay attention, you can see when the candidate is going to is going to turn it down.

Speaker 2: 1:30:45

Really, what? Are they just not responding to you, or?

Speaker 1: 1:30:49

No, it's not that it's if we already have their salary expectation and I know that the salary I'm about to offer Ain't even touching their salary expectation I understand that either I'm going to have to get some approvals and do some salary negotiations or I just know that they're not going to, they're not going to accept the offer. And I actually tell my hiring leader up front, like I actually did that the other day. I told my hiring leader like dog and I don't think that's how sometimes, depending on how I talk to him, I would like all right, dog, listen. There are certain things. There are certain things that I can tell, after either speaking to the candidate or reading the notes, that, like I said the other day hiring leader, this candidate, if you don't offer them this, he's not going to accept his offer. And so and I had a conversation with him and had to advocate for the candidate because Because also to with depending on how you interview can in any company, honestly, can depend on what level they think you should go into because you're now showcasing your skillset in the interview. And so I had to advocate like, if you don't make this offer, this number to him, you're going to lose him. And I immediately knew that and that could be anywhere between the difference in salary. It can be the difference in In, like if they're going to make a salary increase with our offer, it's also going to depend on if that that can has a compete offer. So if a candidate has a compete offer in, it very much exceeds our offer. I always tell my hire leader, so you do know, this compete offer is $3040,000 over us. They're not going to accept this. So it you can kind of pick up. You have to turn into that from recruiter to consultant. Turn into that consultant for your hire leader to understand this is what we're up against. And for someone who looks at the market because I have to then you're going to have to come up or you just going to have to be OK with losing this candidate. And so I've said are you OK with losing this candidate? If they say yes, I make the offer and we'll see what happens. If they say no, I say all right, before I talk to the candidate, you need to come up. So what can we do? And we'll talk about it.

Speaker 2: 1:33:15

Yeah, cool, cool. I was going to ask you some funny when you're talking about single mom appearance. I had somebody ever notice that. It was like I bet, Can y'all pay daycare? I think they can cause.

Speaker 1: 1:33:31

No, I haven't heard anyone say specifically like can they pay daycare Cost? But I have had candidates where, like, if their significant other is on disability or if they are, because essentially, if you're, if you're the only person bringing in money, then I don't I don't mean to equate it as being a single parent, but it's your a single income household, and so so I've had people where I've had to leverage a sign on bonus a little bit with the idea that this may be a single income household with both parents and then however many kids they have, or or conversations about like, if you have a, if you have a dependent in another way, if you're a caretaker, like I said, if you're a single mom. I try to factor all of that out Whenever I need to go up in sign on bonus or stock option to understand that we do care and in order for it to work and make sense, we may have to come up a little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:34:39

Yeah, hey, listen, I've said that before. I'm the only person that works. My kids don't go to daycare, they're watching them. So one time we were like yo, so I don't care why you want to like look for another opportunity. But they would ask me, like why? Would you say I was like well, shoot inflation and I'm trying to take care of my family. That was good enough for him and they submitted me. I just like I don't know what you want me to tell you Like I'm not the only person that work.

Speaker 1: 1:35:02

Yeah, if anybody can understand, the company prioritizes you.

Speaker 2: 1:35:06

Right, right Now let's talk about some stuff. We're all on LinkedIn. I just want to give you the clapping hands for your 100K followers on LinkedIn. Yeah gosh, you got 100K, only got a measly like 20. Yeah, I'll be killing it. The people say that like I asked somebody, they were, they were talking about my mentions. I can't believe I'm talking to a celebrity. You got 20,000 followers. I'm just a regular person, like people actually say that to me. Sometimes I was like I can't believe you're like responding to me. I said I responded to everybody as long as you're not in here talking foolish.

Speaker 1: 1:35:41

I get that all the time.

Speaker 2: 1:35:42

Messages like if you're saying stupid stuff, I'm not going to respond to you. Or sometimes people reach out to me and say, hey, are you hiring? I need a job? I said what told you about I was hired and I never said I was hired ever. Or they're just rushing to ask me something about getting the security operations without even saying hi and I'm like, okay, set up a consultation.

Speaker 1: 1:36:02

Yeah, that's.

Speaker 2: 1:36:03

I've had some people that, like I've had to put up posts that say y'all, I understand y'all need a job, but y'all can at least say hi, hello, yeah greet me something, the simple things I tell clients when, whether it's going to tell my, when we doing interviews, my hey look, they might not reciprocate it, but if you want to start off, let's start off like it was dating. It's just my thank you for taking your time out to meet your me. My name is so and so yada, yada, yada. Don't just get to talking about yourself. Kind of just introduce yourself first and thank them for being there because everybody's busy. But I've noticed that too with a with an interviewer. My clients did like three times and said you know, hey, how you doing. The dude never said nothing back to him. So I just like I told the person that referred him because I used to work with that same person to interview my client. I was like y'all need somebody else to interview him. People just do skills. Interviewing skills are horrible. And he couldn't tell my client was nervous the whole time during the interview. I was like not once tried to ease him down, like I was nervous in my first loop interview with Charles last year and the interviewer like calm me down. He was like it's cool, I know you're nervous, and he eased me in and after that I was good through the loop. And so that's why I was like when you expand, somebody actually wants to interview you and not just want to ask you drill based questions. They Google, you'll have a better experience. But I wanted to ask, like what are what are jobs? It was getting wrong. Like I do understand it is a tough market, I understand, but what are they getting wrong? Why is so? Like I had somebody connected with me. My friend can be like a young lady, she's mentoring and one of the first things she is talking about in her resume. When I said I looked at her resume, I said you know, your resume is pretty aesthetically pleasing but it's doing too much. It's all over the place, it's not given what you need to give. And her first reply back was like, oh, I work on it being more ATS friendly. And I was like I don't know where people like kind of get that from, because the ATS is kind of just used to keep up with us applying to the jobs. But it's like no, that's not the end of BR If I say your resume is doing too much, because me a human looked at it and seen is doing too much and it's not showing me much. And that's what people are. One thing they're not getting in there complaining. I put out a thousand jobs and nobody said nothing. So one part we know is your resumes. If you're about 2000 jobs, the other part may be hey, your interview skills are bad you might just not be in there, no matter what you look like. Right. And I also tell people sometimes too, if you are applying to that mean, just that mean you're not applying to most of the same type of job. Your skill set may not fit all those roles you apply to. They probably just interviewing you, just interview you. But it's like your skill set no fit, no thousand jobs Right, especially for you, all that's just trying to get in. So I was like how do you expect to be successful at this job search without being intentional with your job search? I think a lot of people are missing that.

Speaker 1: 1:38:51

Yeah. So I wrote down four things. I wrote down strategy and organization and then interviewing skill set and expectation. So strategy and organization for me go hand in hand. Strategy says oh, and I would say my fifth one is networking. Strategy and organization for me are pivotal because people think that an effective way to job search is to mass apply everywhere where your arm stretches. I'd be like y'all listen, I don't think I fully understand, like you just literally just throwing applications out there and you don't even remember where you apply. So one of the things that a recruiter posted one day on LinkedIn and he got like mixed comments around this, but he's pretty much said it is not a good look when I, as a recruiter, reach out to you for an interview and you don't remember which company I'm a part of. Certain people said you're right. Certain people say give them a break because they probably apply to all kind of people, all kind of places. I'm on the, I'm in the middle. He is right. But I've also been in situations where I've contacted people and they don't remember that I'm with my company and I give them grace because the job market is what it is. It's the job market. So I understand. So strategy organization tells me that you mass applying and you not landing anywhere, which means you don't have a plan to how you're applying, which is which probably means you're going to result in frustration. You're going to result in frustration anyway, but you're going to result faster in frustration when you don't have a plan, strategy and you're not organized. So a strategy for me means and I actually recently has someone do exactly what I did to exactly what I said she applied to 12 jobs. She got one interview and got that offer. So she didn't mass apply. So what I did, what I said to people, was I said pick the industry that you want to move, you want to work with. So let's say, for example, that is tech. So, since we're both in tech, let's say that's tech. So let's take all of the big companies that are under tech, ie the parent companies. Let's take all of the fan companies. You have your Microsoft, your Google, your Amazon's, apple, intel, meta, samsung, so on and so forth, all of those big, major tech companies that everybody uses. You take those, you take your skill set and you go to each of those parent companies and you determine if that, if your skill set, matches some of the jobs that they want to hire for. If yes, applies to those jobs. You then go by, go by each parent company and you find their child companies to then understand if those child companies have a separate applicant tracking system or a separate application system where you can apply to those jobs separately and you apply to those jobs as well. You go to you then. After that you're at the child company, you then figure out if that child company has what I call a cousin company, so any company that is attached to the child company or is in partnership with that child company and you'll apply to those companies. You'll start to notice that certain companies are going to start popping up. You'll start getting into the nonprofits and the tech startups that you don't know exists. The question you should ask yourself at that point is if I don't know this exists, I wonder how many people don't know this exists. It then narrows down your competition. So then start getting to a place where not only is your competition narrowed, but at this point, since you've reached so far down from the top to the bottom of all of these companies you've applied to, is it that you remember where you applied? So you're organized? You put that on the spreadsheet. You may know or do whatever you had to do. Can you get multiple interviews and then multiple offers based on this one line? You only chose Amazon, for example, and you went Amazon all the way down to the tech startup that might be in association with it. Can you get interviews or offers, that is, in relation to all of the companies you apply to, and leverage all of the offers to get the best offer you want to make at a specific company. You go to the next fan company and then next fan company, you do the exact same thing. So then, that means you are strategic and you are organized. The next thing is the interview part that you mentioned. Can you interview for real or do you think you can just interview and have you really gotten true feedback from someone who has either been an interviewer, who has been a hiring leader or someone in HR? It can't be just your friend who think, oh you did a good job, girl. No, it can't be your mom oh, you did a good job, even if your mom is in HR. You need someone who is non-biased. So it's. Can you actually sit in front of someone, pay, invest, pay someone to mock, interview you so you can get the nitty gritty on how interviews work and sit with someone who has experience in multiple industries so they can tell you how to prepare. The next thing is your skill set. Come back to your strategy. Do you have the skill set that says you have been set apart from everybody? Tech sales when I start with that, because everybody is wanting to get into tech sales, which I think is great Tech sales though when everybody wants to get into it, it has turned into not so of a unique niche skill set, because now everybody is trying to get that skill set at the same time. You then go into something you do, or even something that I do. Something that I do is not necessarily a niche skill set anymore, because a whole bunch of people are tech recruiters. So it's that it's investing in programs that is going to have you set yourself up to always be marketable. The fourth thing is the expectation. I think all of us have this unrealistic expectation of I've been looking for a job for three months and nothing is sticking. I always tell people I don't mean to discount how you feel, sis, but try four years and then we can talk. You've been looking for three months in a market that is not friendly to job seekers right now, where I'm talking to people who've been looking for over a year and you crying about three months Now again, it's not to discount how you feel, because feel how you feel, but we got to find a silver lining in it somewhere, in the expectation. While it's great to have an expectation, the expectation has to be leveled with the skill set that you have, the jobs that you're seeking, the industry that you're in, and then you're now competing with millions of people. So that expectation has to shift a little bit. The last thing I will say on this is networking. People wait until they need a job to start networking, and I don't understand that People wait until they are at this point. They've gotten so comfortable with where they are it's almost as if they have forgotten what it felt like to be a candidate, which is why I always tell people I will never forget what it feels like to be a candidate. So even if I don't need a job right now, I am always networking. I am always staying ahead of whatever I need to be. I'm always helping people, because if I'm ever in a position where I need help, I will hope people move heaven and earth to help me, like I've done for others. So it's all of those things. For me goes into what job seekers may be doing right and or wrong, or indifferent to set themselves up for success, and out of all five of those things. If none of those things work, I have to attribute it not working to the job market itself, because there is a lot of people on the job market, so some of it just may not be your fault.

Speaker 2: 1:47:43

Yeah, and I think there's some other things that I've seen being attributed to this as well. Now I was talking about the pandemic, how it's been three years since then. Everybody's going to get into tech. There was a lot of over hiring then. Most of the jobs were remote. Now they're requiring you to kind of be in some of these bigger cities again to have a better chance at letting it roll. So now that people who are already struggling from the cities that are small don't have a big tech presence or wherever job, is trying to get there for really feeling it. Then I like to touch on the networking portion. I have people all the time. I apply the audacity, but you know who? Have you talked to her? Who have you reached out to her? Have you been able to make any connections at the company that you really want to work at? Have you found anybody there? I applied to a fan company recently and, instead of me initially just saying going like, I found a couple of people that like work around the team that I applied to based on my skillset, I said, oh, this is a perfect fit. And I found a guy and I didn't say, hey, I applied. You can't keep pulling for me. No, I just said, hey, what's going on, man, how do you like working at? I'm just saying, hey, why are you working at Netflix? I just asked them and we just started having a conversation or whatever. And then that's like later on down the conversation, like, yeah, you know, I actually applied to you know such such job or whatever, and then we just went from there and then I found another person. I think that was a manager of like the, the team that's closely related to that team, and he was like you know, I'm gonna send your your stuff over. It's just, it's like simple stuff. It may take some time, like when I, when I followed and connected all these people, they didn't accept me the same day. So I just always just check back and see what they did. I can't remember if I sent you that the director's screenshot from what he sent me from last year about you know me as a candidate, but initially how I found him last year was like, hmm, I'm really interested in this role. Let me see what team this is part of at the company, and that's how I found him. That's how we got to talk before I even interviewed. So it is like I tell people. Like my strategies are super simple. They might not be like quick, but eventually, if they do add you back and then you get to talk to them now if you had at least a decent experience with them. You talk to them every couple of months and just you know if they remember you, that's a good thing. Like you're not going to get, you're not going to get the right a yes on everything. Maybe that role wasn't for you, but the fact is someone saying well, I remember talking to him last year. He was, he was pretty cool and by that stretch I told everybody I was rusty then. That's why I was so nervous. I was rusty. I had been in a year in like a non-technical gig and so I was feeling it in those interviews for real. And that's the other thing too. My job is to try to help you get enough interviews back to back so we can build that skill setup. Cause even one of my clients is like yo. He said I learned a lot from you. I realized you were right. Like if I keep interviewing it's going to get better, cause the first couple of interviews they did it was kind of rocky, but you got to get used to it. It's like going to the gym. If you've been out the gym for two years, you're not going to hit 225 on bench. Sure, ain't got to build back up, right you? might start on the bar. You may be able to do, like you know, a 185, maybe once or twice, but you're not going to be what you were and that's all it is. That's why I tell people actually a cheat code is to just always interview, cause you're going to know what the market is looking for. You can write those skills down, you can learn them and that way you'll be ready. You won't be blindsided when you see the trends start coming and you what? Haven't worked on anything. And that's one of the other things I was talking about too on this episode. It's like you got to keep working, like you can just come to work and just be in that same spot. But if you want to achieve and do good things in your career, then you got to keep on learning stuff. That's right Now as a recruiter. You know earlier I was telling you about the resume a, a TSD. I've seen most work. Who to say this and I just want to see what you're going to say. Would you say, like nine times out of 10, like most of these resumes are bad?

Speaker 1: 1:51:30

Um no, I wouldn't say nine times out of 10. I would say that they're not bad People. I think people are just using fancy templates to catch the eye of the recruiter because it's like, ooh, this is pretty, let me look at that. And while it may very well be pretty, the the resume itself may not be compatible to the applicant tracking system. So simple is the best way to go because, like you know how everybody gets extremely irritated when you, when you hear okay, now that you have loaded your resume manually and put put your experience in and I used to hate it too Now I understand why the system asked you that because of the system can't read your resume. If I can look at what you manually input, then I know if you meet the minimum qualifications and I don't have to reach out to you to say your resume wasn't taken by the system. Can you send it again? Like it slows me down. So in order for me, in order for me to be able to decide whether you meet the minimum qualifications, I have to be able to read it. And so there are many times when resume words would be all over the place and I'm like, ooh, and then I'll go to what they manually input and I'll go oh, they do me that. Okay, I can read this. So, while it's annoying, it saves you on the front end to be able to put it in the content of the resumes. So I am open about how long a resume is, and I know some people will say, oh, one page. Don't listen to people who say one page. I don't understand it. You can very well have a two page resume and be fine, minus three. So there are some people who will say one page. But I've also seen CVs that's a bunch of pages, and part of that has to do with your culture too. If you come from another country, most of the time those CVs are very long, and so I've seen 20 page CVs before and they're extremely you know, extremely long and I've seen resumes at two, three pages and everything is good. So it just kind of depends on what you say, like how you organize your resume and then what you say, because if you don't have something specific that a hiring leader is looking for on a resume, but you say that you have that skill, I don't know if you have that skill because it's not here. It's hard when you want us to read between the lines, but I can't read something that's not there and on a resume you can't read in between the lines If it's not there. You don't have the skill. So I've had people like, like one of the questions that you and I, one of the topics that you and I talked about we haven't gotten to it yet but I'll bring it up now we talked about before this, before we we set a date to do this recording. You said that we both have different opinions on applying to a role. You don't meet 100% of the minimum qualifications for and for me. I am not the recruiter who was going to tell you I'll apply anyway not doing that. Now, if you apply, does it mean you can still get hired? Of course we. I've seen many people who get hired into a role that they don't meet 100% of the qualifications for and they're still hired. For me it's do you meet 100% of the basic minimum qualifications? Not the preferred, the preferred you don't have to meet all of those, but the basic minimum qualifications. Do you meet all those? And the reason for me me saying I wouldn't advise you to apply is not that you still can't get hired, no-transcript. It goes to the legal ramifications of what if someone decides to sue a company, which has happened. Sue a company because they meet all the minimum qualifications, but the person you hire does not meet all the minimum qualifications. How do you, for everybody who touched that requisition, how do you explain meeting hiring someone who is under qualified based on what's written in that job description, over someone who is not, who is over qualified or who is qualified? The second point to that is I want to save you from the level of rejection that you will possibly going to get if you don't meet the minimum qualifications. Like, apply anyway, sure, but if you get rejected you know you don't need it. So in my mind, it's you already know. So if you apply anyway, you, if you get rejected, don't be surprised. And the reason why I say these things is because I've had candidates that I will put up a job that I've just posted on our career site and we have you already. You've been through our loop, so you've been through our applicants, our applicant tracking system, and it'll ask you do you have? Do you have? And you have to answer yes. If you answer no, you're admitting that you don't meet the minimum qualifications. So if you answer yes, it is still on the job of the recruiter to make sure that on your resume the skill is there. And so there have been times where I have asked candidates do you have this skill set? And on LinkedIn they'll tell me no. And then I'll say but you answered yes to this question and I'll go oh no, I don't have it. And I feel like what, what? So? So it's, it's, it's for me, it's blatantly obvious that if you don't meet a minimum qualification and if you don't get hired or if you get rejected, you can't be surprised. That you've been rejected Now again doesn't mean you can't apply, it just means don't be surprised you get rejected. No, I agree.

Speaker 2: 1:57:33

Now I'm actually with you on the minimum part. I just was like I was just saying far as like, not a hundred percent of everything or some of the stuff I think is bunkers that I see on job descriptions, because some of that stuff is two and three roles or based on the level that they're hired for, like the amount of experience they want you to have. There's no way some of those people can know some of the things in the job description. For some of those things and that's what I say, just apply anyway. Cause it's like there's no way possible there, especially to know some of that stuff. If you only got two, two years in the game, like they didn't hire a major, they write their job description. Some AI or something wrote it like just apply. So that's kind of like where I'm at on it. But it was like when I like out my console or give me a job and I look at it, I was like, uh, you know your resume. The one idea for you doesn't really resonate with this, like you know. So whatever you're working on, so we can, you can look like you know how to do all this stuff. Cause, like, cause, right now your thing is geared towards this. I don't know if they're going to select you for this, and I'm just honest with them right there, cause, based on what I see and I tell people that all the time and they're gonna get mad like they're, they're getting denied or whatever's happening I was like, well, this is what you kind of have when you're resume, or then we'll get, then we'll start getting. It's okay, we'll learn these skills. I got one client and this is like I know where he's at. I think he's just in the crossroads in his career. Like every other day he's asked me about something new and I'm just like, listen, linda, like we got to focus on this one of these two things. Let's just master these first. Like stop looking at. What else you already doing is just learning these things. That's going to be easy for you to learn so we can put you in a different position. I was like it's like. It's like if I was like I think you're some of my poetry. The other thing that I love is boxing. That's what I want you to, since you're from Jersey, or you or Shakira Stevens affair.

Speaker 1: 1:59:17

I've, I've. I've loosely heard his name, but I'm not. Boxing is something I do when I'm working out box basketball is my sport, like I'm a like, if you like, wanny Wagner. He's like the hometown hero for basketball for Camden. But then his son, dj um, he's up and coming, he's with Kentucky right now. So yeah, so basketball is me.

Speaker 2: 1:59:40

Got you what's? I mean it's with any sport, right. If you want to start out playing ball, the first thing they teach you you're not coming in there and dunking Like the. Your first thing might be just dribbling and they probably going to say well, we want to make sure you know how to dribble. Well, like decent to well.

Speaker 1: 1:59:56

It may be like sliding across the floor.

Speaker 2: 2:00:00

Yeah, yeah, no, no, seriously, like like we, we talk about boxing, like everybody want to do auto offense to the hate, not love.

Speaker 1: 2:00:06

I'm just going to show you how I throw this one, this one too, and you're going to be really good.

Speaker 2: 2:00:09

That's it, it's. It's the same thing. Like you want to learn how to say, let's get really good at the the the basics and foundations. First, I made a post a while back telling people like, listen, I've been seeing a trend that's been harder for some of us for you to get into cyber. And, like you said, if you're not getting a program that might be a little bit more costly but it's teaching you some specific stuff, you might have a harder time because you just don't have the resources at your disposal to learn from people in the field, to learn all these different things you need to know, to kill it on the on the interview process, cause you don't know what you don't know Like bottom line. So I told people hey, it's harder, so you know what you may have to do a feeder roll. You may have to do some type of role Like that's an IT that's going to give you some type of foundational skill set with some sub security principles, and then you can go ahead and pivot over. Yes, cause I'm telling people it's not. It's not as inchy level friendly Some are. You have some rare jobs. That's saying zero to two experience. You got some rare jobs. You got some really good companies out there. That's rare, but I tell people all the time is like a lot of companies, their teams are a little bit leaner now. They don't even have the resources to really I was like training, what's training? They don't really have a lot of time to even train people anymore cause they're so busy and that's one of the harder things that people run into. And one of the one of the companies I actually want to start was a company that specifically kind of like a professional services company, like with some of my friends, all of us a bit of like IR, sec, ops, forensics, where you know companies don't have time to train people. Hey, give them to us, we'll train them for three months and then they should be able to hit the ground running at your company. Like that's a lot of the gaps that I see. Yeah, I was going to ask you this how has the pandemic affected recruiting? Has it been easier, harder? I know, like I said, remember earlier, you could do much more cause, like, hey, everything is remote, but now with, like you said, some of them saying well, you need to be a red man or need to stay in Dallas or New York or Atlanta. Now it's still been a bit more different. How has that been for for recruiting?

Speaker 1: 2:02:09

I think it's. I think it's in the middle for me. I'm neutral to that, because the pandemic taught us that you can do your job from your bed, so and it also taught us that we actually may be a little bit more proactive in getting our work done because we're in the comfort of our own homes. I think it's. I don't think it's the recruiting. I think it's the recruiting and the job seeker expectation that has made it hard. It's now people want to be fully remote, right, fully so, because fully remote says you save more money. On the other hand, it's if, if companies now are becoming more of the exercise, more of the hybrid model, then it's we want you in an office at least three days or at least two days. And most people feel like I don't need to be in the office. I can do my job from home. Why do I have to come here Like what's are you? All I'm doing is changing the location, but I still have my computer, so why can't we just do it here? And I think that it's made it harder because most people, most people with expectation of working 100%, work from home, have the expectation without the skill set to do so. So it's that they want to work, 100%, work from home again, rightfully so. But if you don't have experience in an industry or in a position and you have competition and that competition does not want to work or does not want to come into the office, and you're willing to come to the office, you may be chosen over the person who is willing, who is not willing to come to the office, and it's it's almost like everybody wants their cake and eat it too. Everybody want to make $100,000. Everybody wants to work from home. Everybody works, wants work life flexibility All of those things are very needed for all of us to be successful. But there has to be a give somewhere to me and a job seeker, and that give is if the office is 15, 20 minutes away from your house and you can get there without no problem, go to the office. If the office is 45 minutes to an hour, all right, we talking about something. We talking about like that's a little bit of a way to do back and forth every single day. When you got a family, you and traffic like that, I can understand that. For me it's it's the compromise on both ends. It's the compromise on getting our, our companies as a whole in general and getting companies to have to be a little bit more flexible and letting people work from home. But then job seekers understanding that if they absolutely want you to come into the office one to two days out of the week, do that and then, once you come into the office five days out of the week and you can get to the office with no problem and you don't have no experience, I don't think you're at liberty to argue I absolutely want to work from home and I'm not compromising that dog. You don't got no skill set in this particular area and that will only give you a shot at it. Boom, like at some point. You got to go with it until you get the skill set to where you can call the shots and you say, either you you hire me from where I am or I'm going to just go to the next company.

Speaker 2: 2:05:39

I agree, and here's, I think, why I asked you about the daycare. Right, I had the liberty for working for JP Morgan about like six months last year and one thing that I did notice that they had that was cool about their campus out here in Plano is they had a daycare. So I see people it's like a really nice daycare to bringing their kids there until they're right there. Because I think about, sometimes you have like single mothers or we just say single parents who don't have you know it's a, it's a blessing for them to be remote, because the kids stay at home with them. They don't have to pay that extra money for daycare. Now, sometimes, if it goes with the hybrid, it's okay. What do I do with my child? Am I able to bring them here? That we have? So I think that's like one of those things, like one of those things that come into play with people that kids like before they're actually school age, because for some people who don't have kids, you could be paying apartment rent for your child to be in daycare per month. If you can save that, please believe it. I understand why you would want to save it. I definitely understand that.

Speaker 1: 2:06:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:06:39

Now here's like to wrap it up. I want to ask because I was brilliant I almost thought we was having at a Sunday service when you had your notes out with the five questions by strategy organization. You probably wrote this out too, but what are three or five things that you would like to leave our listeners and our audience with from this conversation, or just about anything in life in general?

Speaker 1: 2:07:05

Yeah. So I want to start with one of the questions that you didn't ask me. That's on here, but in part of that is because our conversation just didn't allude to it and or I jumped over it. You asked on here. You put how did recruiter cousin become about, like the name itself, and one of the things I always told myself was I wanted a big following on social media. It had nothing to do with the amount of people following me, but everything to do with the partnerships that come with the people who follow you. And it's not a matter of you just taking any old partnership either. It's you, whatever company you decide to take the partnership with. Do you believe in the product itself? If it were me, what I use or invest in this particular product? If yes, then you go on with the partnership. One of the things that recruiter cousin has done for me is I've been able, like I said before, I've been able to marry my motivational speaking and spoken word with my job and being able to motivate job seekers and all of that. The recruiter cousin, how recruiter cousin was? Birth was out of a need of I'm a recruiter, yes, but I also want you to feel like family when you're talking to me. So, cousin, I want, like, first thing, the easiest thing for us to do when we want to call each other family is either sis, bro or cuz. So I chose cousin, because cousin makes us close enough and far enough to where, if you need anything from me, you can know. You know you can go to your cousin, and so that's where recruiter cousin came along. I want people to be able. First thing I would leave you with is be able to make a name for yourself. It could be your first name. Don't have to be a brand, but I mean who you are is a brand. So one thing I would say is you should be so good at what you do that your name enters a room before you do. I say that all the time my name should recruit a cousin or shanae, whichever one you decide should enter the room before me. If I'm talked about in rooms and somebody says shanae or recruiter cousin, they know exactly who you're talking about. And so that's the first thing. And or if I, if I help so many different people and I recommend if they, for whatever reason, at some point get a job as like a CEO or senior VP or wherever, and they know that when they need a job, shanae or recruiter cousin help them get a job. And if I subsequently sent Henry, someone who is now a CVP in, let's say, jp Morgan Chase, for sake of argument, if you're a senior, if you're a senior VP in JP Morgan Chase and I helped you get a job at some point, and you go oh, you came from shanae. Oh you, good, let me interview you. That's the kind of reputation, same thing with Danita, same thing with the person that you talked about. That's the kind of reputation that I want. I want people to be able to equate my name and my legacy with excellence and delivery and no nonsense. So all three of those things mean something to me. No nonsense, specifically because I am a person who demands a certain level of respect to the CEO, to the janitor, and I mean that because I do not talk to titles, I talk to people. So I want people to have that. That's number one. Number two I want you to walk away with understanding that grace is important. You have to extend grace to yourself. That's something that I learned every single day. I understand that I I'm not perfect. I work on my clarity a lot when I'm speaking. I work on my explanations. I work on my being my level of concise, because I know when I answer questions I can. My answers can be long, so sometimes I'll listen to how long I've been speaking and try to narrow it down the next time. So it's being able to give yourself grace and giving yourself room to make mistakes and then growing. And so that's the second thing and that was the last thing I will probably say is knowing your level of confidence is going to help you climb over the wall that you feel like you're stuck in front of. That level of confidence for me didn't come until years and years later I've. This is this level of confidence I worked on for years. So it's being able to exercise a level of confidence that is so contagious that you don't have no room but to believe in yourself. So I need people to understand that, especially black people, because we have a level of confidence that, while it is attractive and it is and it's engaging, there's a level of confidence that I want us to reach that when we walk into a room, we command the attention of that room, and if you are intimidated by that, that is an insecurity that you have to nurse dog. So I am 100% like a number one believer in that and I want people to carry confidence, your name and grace, nice nice.

Speaker 2: 2:12:34

Listen. She's blessed y'all, she's blessed me. She showed me stuff through this whole conversation and the reason why I didn't get a chance to ask some of the questions, like we were just going and flowing and so I was trying not to interject all the different questions and ask like the different things. So it was just like because I'm looking at like dang, we had two, like we had in my way, but the kids are quiet. I don't know what they're doing. But I know sometimes they've been in there with their mom and she's like are you done? Yeah, I've been in here with them for two hours and whatever. So that's why I kept on looking at the times. I don't want to hold her all day because me I can pie. Look, if I had a three, four hour pie, I let it go. But I also want to be mindful of it being Sunday and you want to be with your fam and doing everything. But I know I really appreciate you for stopping through. I know they're going to appreciate it. Can you also tell the listeners and the audience how they can find you on social media?

Speaker 1: 2:13:24

Yeah, sure, so you can go on LinkedIn type in C, h, e, n, a E. Last name is Erkard E R K E R D, if you put those two names together. Only I'm going to pop up because my mom gave me a name that can't nobody spell and my husband gave me a name Can't nobody say or spell, so those two names are really unique. So here we are, and then you can find me on Instagram, tictoc and and I don't know if you use fan base, but I use fan base, fan base at recruiter cousin, so all of those are at recruiter cousin, and then YouTube at recruiter cousin, consulting, okay, cool.

Speaker 2: 2:14:08

When you start saying C, h, I start thinking about they call me, you, h, e. I thought about that. I'm so goofy man, but now it's been another episode of the textual talk. Man, I appreciate y'all for rocking with us and, like I always say, let's stay sexual, we out until next time. Peace Y'all. Have a good one.