Matt Vance: Hello everyone. Today we have something new for you. We’ve never done this before, but we’re doing a special round discussion. We’ve invited three expert talent acquisition leaders to share their best tips for your job search. Finding the right job for you is key to your success and that of the business you join. So, let’s give a warm welcome to each of our special guests. So, we’ll introduce our three guests today. Sarah Bradshaw, can you say hi?
Sarah Bradshaw: Hi everyone. Thanks for being here.
Matt Vance: We’re so excited to have you, Sarah.
Matt Vance: Sarah is the senior talent acquisition manager at Mango Mint, a leading software company for salons and spas. Whereas the founding recruiter,…
Matt Vance: Sarah has played a key role in building and scaling high-performing teams. Outside of work, Sarah enjoys hitting the gym, crocheting, and indulging in reality television, especially anything on Bravo. Love it. We have a fellow crocheter here. So, what do you crochet?
Sarah Bradshaw: a little bit.
Sarah Bradshaw: I see some of your work, Matt. Blankets. I only know how to do straight lines. So, blankets, scars, hot pads. That’s it.
James Conway: Awesome.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yep. That’s impressive.
Matt Vance: That is so cool. I like to do hats and I’ve done stockings for our kids.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah, you’re more talented than I am at it.
Matt Vance: That’s where it’s at.
Sarah Bradshaw: I have some things I need to learn from you,…
Sarah Bradshaw: it sounds like.
Matt Vance: You just,…
Matt Vance: you just kind of go for it.
Sarah Bradshaw: Love it.
Matt Vance: Let’s next give a warm welcome to Marcus. I already messed this up. Marcus, remind me how to say your last name correctly.
Marcus Paiz: eyes like baking a pies.
Matt Vance: Nice. I should have already known that.
Marcus Paiz: You’re good.
Matt Vance: Okay, here we go. All right. Next, let’s give a warm welcome to Marcus Pies. he is the senior technical talent partner at Net Documents, a legal tech company with expertise in scaling high performing teams across the tech and SAS industries. He has a wife and three kids and enjoys doing graphic web design on the side, gaming, and listening to audio books. So, thanks for joining us, Marcus. Hey,…
Marcus Paiz: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Matt Vance: I want to hear what your most recent audio book was.
Marcus Paiz: My gosh, I should know this, but I love Ready Player One. That book got me back into reading, and I’ll just relisten to that audio book over Yeah.
Matt Vance: There’s a movie on that, isn’t there?
Marcus Paiz: I don’t want to be cliche, but the book is way different and…
Matt Vance: Okay. Yeah.
Marcus Paiz: it’s Yeah.
Matt Vance: I as usual, we’re excited to have you, Marcus. And lastly, JD Conway, can you say hi? We’re excited to have you.
James Conway: Hey everyone,…
James Conway: glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Matt Vance: And JD Conway is the senior director of talent acquisition at Trordia, a top 20 US insurance brokerage headquartered in Lynen,…
Matt Vance: He is also the founder of multiple organizations including Track Talent and Nimbus Investment Partners and is a member of the Forbes Human Resources Council. Very cool.
James Conway: One thing we miss is that I also crochet.
James Conway: Okay. No,…
Matt Vance: Do you for real?
James Conway: maybe not.
Sarah Bradshaw: I was going to say we need party.
Matt Vance: He’s But we need to hear one thing about you, too, because we talked about them, too. tell us one thing about you.
James Conway:
James Conway: I am excellent at being a bonsai hobbyist and killing them slowly over time. So maybe that’s one of the I wish I was better at it.
Matt Vance: Are so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the ones that have the trunks that wrap around, right? Those are really cool.
James Conway: And they take a lot of TLC over time. You got to watch them and have the exact right amount of water. So I like the idea of how meticulous you need to be with it. And then I slowly kill them and I don’t do it very well.
Matt Vance: You just keep trying.
James Conway: But it’s fun to try.
Matt Vance: That’s a lot of determination.
James Conway: Really? I’m going to keep them alive for Someday simplicity.
Matt Vance: Yeah, that’s awesome.
Matt Vance: I can relate to that, too. I’ve definitely had some plants die in the office, and Christa just got me ctus. Maybe this one you can keep alive. Yeah, I hear cactuses are a little easier, so we’ll try it.
James Conway: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Vance: Yep. That’s awesome.
James Conway: The succulent’s the only one survived me so far. So Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Vance: Hey, we’re so excited to get started. We want to hear a little bit from each of you. Yep. So Sarah, why don’t you kick it off here? What are your top pieces of advice for finding your dream job?
00:05:00
Sarah Bradshaw: especially with the way the market is right now. It’s a really competitive market and so it’s really important to do what you can to stand out. So, as I’ve been thinking about this and kind of talking about it with some of my colleagues and things, one of the things that really stands out I think about an application is the effort that you put into it. And one way to portray that is making sure that you’re answering the questions that are on an application. obviously there’s some that maybe you don’t want to answer, desired pay, and that’s a different story, but questions that are asking for more information, why are you applying to this job or things like that are going to go a long way. I would venture to guess that most of the time the company actually does read them. so actually answering those questions is going to go a long way.
Sarah Bradshaw: And along with that, not using chat gpt or other AI platforms to write your answer for them. because it can be pretty obvious when that’s the case. And although it just doesn’t show a lot of effort. so I think that’s something that can really help candidates stand out and stands out to me is when they actually put the effort to put in a genuine answer. so that’s something that I think can go a long way. the other thing that I kind of thought about was really trying to display your interest in the company itself as well as the specific role. at Mango Mint, we’re very intentional with who we hire. why we do what we do, a very strong and clear mission and vision.
Sarah Bradshaw: And so it really means a lot when we find candidates who are passionate about the things that we’re passionate about and really care about what we’re doing as a company and are very excited about the specific role that they’re applying to. So those are the first things that came to mind for me. Right. Yes.
Matt Vance: watch one of those competition shows where they’re like, “Kate, you need to do this and this for your cake or something and then they just do something totally different because they can’t help but be like artistic or something.” And if they had just followed the brief, they wouldn’t be removed from the show or whatever, right? follow the brief that it can go a long way.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yes. That’s a great way to put it for sure.
James Conway: And just one thing about …
Matt Vance: Love that. Yeah. They’re very familiar. Yeah.
James Conway: what Sarah mentioned, the chat GBT thing, I understand the temptation when job seekers and you’re out there and you’re trying to get a million applications out or you’re trying to find the right place and yet job seeking takes work. so I understand the temptation behind it, but we can read between the lines, too. most of the time people on the other end of this, they’re using chat GBT to write job ads all day. So they can also see what’s going on the other end too. So yeah I started recognizing that recently…
James Conway: where I was like a lot of recruiters are using chat GBT just to streamline and push things out. you can tell the voice right and there’s an opportunity to really have your voice be heard. and it’s sometimes a lot more subtle. but at the same time I think you’re missing out on that. So hats off to Sarah for bringing that up.
Marcus Paiz: The other thing too is it doesn’t need to be a novel with a question that …
James Conway: Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Paiz: if it’s like tell us why you’re interested, just write a couple sentences, And have it sound like you versus AI.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Vance: And I’d imagine that you guys probably don’t have a ton of time to read a novel anyways.
Sarah Bradshaw: It doesn’t have to be super length, very deeply thought out, but even a little effort goes a long way because that unfortunately doesn’t always happen with application. So, yeah, that’s very true.
James Conway: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Vance: So follow the brief and be brief, right? Be to the point.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yes. Very good way to put it in beautiful words. Follow the brief and be brief. Yes. Yes.
Matt Vance: Good job, And yeah, I love that. And one thing I want to point out about what you said, Sarah, because I’m definitely not an expert talent acquisition pro, but I have done some hiring in the past. And I always loved looking for alignment on the company level as you said does this person align with the mission and what we do or are they going to just think this is dumb do they care about this and do they align with that position? can they do that specific job?
Sarah Bradshaw: Yes. Yeah.
Matt Vance: So the fact that you pointed out those two it’s kind of like two levers of alignment that you kind of want to make sure are in check.
James Conway: Help.
00:10:00
Matt Vance: I think that’s amazing Sarah.
Matt Vance: so thanks for sharing that. Marcus, let’s turn it over to you. What do you got?
Marcus Paiz: Yeah, one of the ones I wanted to talk about is resumeé writing. I think this is always a big topic for people and I think a lot of time candidates think there’s this perfect answer to what a resume is and I think as a recruiter there’s a lot of different answers. but if I had to narrow it down to one thing that I see missing a lot, I think people often leave out outcomes of what they’ve accomplished at a job. instead they kind of default to what’s the job description and they kind of make their resume a job description. so I think if it came down to someone who said I just did this list of things versus this person who said I’ve increased revenue and whatever percent over the course of three years and hired this many people like that’s going to sound more appealing to me as a recruiter and really make a difference of who moves forward and who doesn’t.
Marcus Paiz: So I think that I’ve helped a lot of people with resumes since co. So that’s the main thing I’ve seen. maybe you have something to add
James Conway: what did you at a saved, achieved kind of thing. what are the quantifiables that you have? So to your point, Marcus, this really helps you stand out and also helps you show that you’re a resultsoriented person, not just I’m derping and doing my tasks. Forgive know what I mean? there’s people that just do the tasks and the people that are outcomes driven. no matter what job you have, if you’re working at Slurpee Heaven or something like that, if you’re outcomes driven, it’s going to show. and I also tell people to kind of diminish their own experience if it’s a pretty entry level job or something like that. They’ll diminish their own experience all the time.
James Conway: And I go take pride in what you did, no matter where it was, and show the outcome. So, I just love that you brought that up. So, it’s something that’s lacking in most resume writing.
Matt Vance: So instead of saying I’m a resultsoriented person,…
Marcus Paiz: Yeah. the way it was described to me is look at your resume is precious real estate and…
Matt Vance: you say these are the results I can get All right.
James Conway: There you go.
James Conway: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Marcus Paiz: a resume isn’t a mansion, if it was a place where you live, it’s like a studio apartment. as soon as someone walks in, they’re going to see everything that you have. So it’s have that first impression count. yeah,…
James Conway: Okay.
Marcus Paiz: and I guess just to tie in with what Sarah said, the chat Same thing with resume writing. Some people do that and that’s fine. Use it to guide how you’re writing your resume, but also make it sound like you and make it unique.
Matt Vance: That makes a lot of sense. And I love that comparison of viewing your resume as precious real estate. that’s what you want to emphasize and…
Matt Vance: having those pieces where you focus on what you make, save, or achieve. I love that. And JD, I think we should also put the I’m derping in the highlight reel. I think that’s perfect. so everyone whichever the three of you that gets a resume that says I derping at this job.
James Conway: So, I don’t know…
James Conway: where these things come from, but yes.
Sarah Bradshaw: hired right away.
Matt Vance: I mean they know that they’re listening to you.
James Conway: I excel at that. So that’s why I commented on it myself. So, …
Matt Vance: That’s awesome. But really chat GPT there is a place for it. You mentioned it.
Matt Vance: It’s a great starter give me a template for a resume and then you can go from there.
Marcus Paiz: I agree.
Matt Vance: But as far along as chat GPT has come, it can’t take the place of your voice, And so I think having both of them together can make a strong case. JD, what do you want to add to the conversation? What are some of your top tips?
James Conway: I love that we’re talking about the design of things and being thoughtful about what we’re writing, I think that’s the whole issue that I’ve seen in kind of modern application. A lot of people that I know that I’m helping out try to find jobs, they get application taxation. I made that up so we can just write that down later. but they get exhausted by the amount of applications they’re pushing out to the universe. And I think that’s the problem is they need to chop the amount of applications they’re pushing out to the world and be thoughtful and deliberate. Not saying you throw all your eggs in one basket, but at the same time, you should be looking at many different opportunities and opportunities to pivot and look into different fields.
James Conway: and I think that opportunity is often not taken just because people think that’s what we have to do. So, After a little while, that’s going to get exhausting and you’re going to get exhausted of catering your resume to each one trying to rewrite something else. I often tell people to write a master resume and then they can take pieces from their experience and easily kind of plug and play for different jobs. But I think the most important thing nowadays is to be more targeted. We have opportunities to network that we didn’t have during the ndemic. mean other than more and more video calls which made us all want to just rip that’s how I lost all my hair. no there’s just an opportunity now where you even see in many different industries like the financial services industry they’re trying to bring everybody back to the office.
00:15:00
James Conway: more and more companies are starting to go more hybrid or more in office or something like that. So you’re by the nature of what’s going on in the market, you’re going to need to look closer to home more often. The remote jobs are still there and they’re always going to be there, but they’re going to be a lot more competitive. So maybe when you see that there are 700 applications for that job already, maybe don’t chase after that one so hard unless somebody in that company or something like that. But I think there’s a lost art of actual networking. And that’s the beautiful thing about LinkedIn. What’s this is why I love LinkedIn. I don’t have to worry about the formatting of my LinkedIn page or anything like that, It’s already there. It’s just the profile. May maybe mine’s a little bit too verbose, but I don’t need to worry about very much. My experience is there.
James Conway: and the beauty of that is that you can take your network and you can start building it a fresh. go back and connect with people you used to work with that would recommend Take people to lunch in fields that you’re curious about. Fields are constantly shifting and people are going to remember you when you are having this kind of these active proactive conversations. You should be looking on kind of a regular basis and keeping things open. I would say one of the biggest mistakes is people will wait until the last minute until oops I got laid off or something like that to network. They wait to network. They should be networking all of the time and then that way it makes it much easier for a transition down the road. So in 2025 that’s what I would say is do everything you can to take people to lunch have the phone calls you need to discover more about other industries.
James Conway: develop network relationships where you’re giving something to them too. And my gosh, that’s going to yield results for years. So,
Sarah Bradshaw: building a network. there were some applicants recently that I ended up chatting with in large part because connections of theirs commented on a post of mine saying, “Hey, this person,” and tag them in it is really great. Loved working with them and had nothing but great things to say about their experience working with them. And that stood out a lot to me because that doesn’t happen very often. and then I had someone that they had worked with before who knew messaged me on LinkedIn and just said, “Hey, I’ve worked with this person before. I know they’re interested in this role. I think you should really chat with them.” So, that coming from someone who they had worked with and having that recommendation who I knew and trusted went a long way as well and ended up doing a call with both of them.
Sarah Bradshaw: In large part becau, I mean, they were obviously qualified as well, but it helps them to stand out because it’s at this point for me, from what I’ve seen with jobs, it’s It’s about standing out from the qualified candidates because there’s a plethora of qualified candidates that apply. and I unfortunately can’t talk to all of them. And so those things really helped them to stand out from the number of qualified applicants who had reached out.
Sarah Bradshaw: So yeah,
Matt Vance: Totally makes sense.
Matt Vance: Yeah, I love that. And honestly, these are some incredible tips like standing out. you are selling yourself. when you’re looking for a job, it is sales, but there’s only one unit’s being sold and that’s And you’re bringing your talent and your skills and your knowledge to bear to help move a company forward. So you have to think a salesperson a little bit and think what does this person want to buy? They want solutions. They want value. And I think that’s kind of the root of standing out and u focusing on those outcomes instead of just I was part of the team, …
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah. Heat.
Matt Vance: I was present, I showed up, that’s way less impactful than I made a difference. I am curious on this topic.
Matt Vance: I know all of you do a lot of helping people way beyond the job description. people come to you because you’re so knowledgeable. They say, ” Hey, Marcus JD. I did get laid off. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. what advice do you give those people to help them find for themselves…
00:20:00
Matt Vance: what they want? Yeah, because you never want to say you should go do this.
James Conway: Great question.
James Conway: Would you say to help them find for themselves what they want to do?
Matt Vance: You’ll love it because what if they don’t?
James Conway: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Vance: It’s kind of this inception fall that you or…
James Conway: Yeah. I think helping to empower people to recognize that you can learn almost anything and…
Matt Vance: role that you play of helping them find for themselves what’s the best idea. So, how do you guide someone through that self-discovery? They’re laid off. They don’t know what to do.
Matt Vance: How did they find that next thing that they could really love?
James Conway: and the beauty of what’s going on in the world right now is that information is available everywhere and you can find some free channel of it, right? You don’t always need a structured course to do X, Y, and Z. You can go, in fact, so much of u what a lot of talent acquisition people have to do is teach themselves because they’re in small teams or I think when I met Marcus, he was a one-man show at a company and he’s something like that. and so people you just have to learn so many things yourself and to empower people that I was talking to a family member and I said listen you don’t need to go back and get a four-year degree in X Y or Z. you just need to go learn what you want to do and try different things out and it’s okay. Everyone’s going to have many different career pivots that you shouldn’t feel bad about it.
James Conway: Statistically speaking, all of us in recruiting are going to get laid off at some point, if not multiple times, because that’s usually one of the teams that gets cut first. So, no matter what your mental state, just remember that you can learn anything. and as far as trying to learn new things, I always tell people look at the top sectors that are projected to grow in the next 10 years. There’s usually a large grouping of them. That’s off top of my head, I know healthcare is on there, aviation’s on there. When you think the amount of air traffic happening with Amazon packages and everything like that and it’s not just being a pilot in aviation, it’s all the systems people that need to make sure things are together. It’s the mechanics. It doesn’t matter…
James Conway: what your skill set is or what you’re prone to liking disliking. In almost any industry, you can find jobs that are within those kinds of functions. That makes sense.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Bradshaw: I’ll just echo and amplify what JD said about gaining information. That’s going to be so helpful. And that can be talking to people in roles that you think that you’re interested in. That can be listening to podcasts. that can be re reviewing lots of different job ads or job descriptions that are out there. Shadowing jobs sometimes that’s an opportunity that people can take advantage of. But really just trying to gain information and get insight into the good, the bad, and the ugly of what a role or field is so that if it’s something that you would be happy in the long term. So yeah, I’d say that gaining information is going to be really helpful and it can be done in a lot of different ways.
Sarah Bradshaw:
Marcus Paiz: If I can add something too? Is that fine?
Matt Vance: Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Paiz: I think sometimes it can be about pivoting and…
Matt Vance: It’s your turn.
James Conway: Mhm.
Marcus Paiz: switching to a different industry or a different job, but it could also be rediscovering yourself in the job that you’re currently in because I think sometimes we get complacent when we’re doing the same thing day in and day out. and I think that can come across in interviews, too. And I always tell people, especially if you’ve been doing a job for years and you feel like you can’t get a job and you keep getting rejected after interviews, I think it’s super uncomfortable, but recording yourself answering questions, you’re going to hate watching it, but it actually opens up your eyes to something you could change in what you’re saying or maybe the excitement that you’re answering a question. so yeah, that’s just my two cents there.
Matt Vance: I love that you don’t necessarily have to say, “I’m just going to go off and do this completely new thing.” You can take some time to kind of check in with yourself on, hey, why did I get into this skills to begin with? I did enter this space for a reason. Let’s revisit that and kind of refine. I really like that and I like the idea of pivoting as well. One thing that I’ve told a few different people is, give yourself space to evaluate.
00:25:00
Sarah Bradshaw: Mhm.
Matt Vance: Make a checklist of your must haves and your nice to haves in a job experience. Is it industry? Is it this type of schedule? yourself better than anyone else.
Matt Vance: And if you do this audit of your needs and wants, then you can almost reverse engineer which types of jobs companies could align with what you really are passionate about. And I think to your point JD and Sarah about you need to align with the company that could help you be more targeted because then when you actually do go apply to that job you can say very specifically why you align to say I need a job that aligns with my schedule remote flexibility and…
Sarah Bradshaw: Breathe.
Matt Vance: I love this space and those two things together is why I’m really excited about this opportunity.
Matt Vance: I think a lot there. Marcus, I want to pick on you here for just a second. I know you helped a lot of people in the COVID time. Were there any patterns you saw as you were talking to people reoccurring themes of u what questions you were getting?
Marcus Paiz: just about job searching.
Matt Vance: Yeah, just like anything related to finding that next role. Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Paiz: First of all, I do want to point out, sorry, I’m kind of going back, but Matt, you’re a perfect example of pivoting, right? Because you’re doing things like with your own business. So, you pivoted in the same industry. So, I just wanted to point that out as an example,…
Matt Vance: Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Paiz: too. It’s not just about moving to another company. you could start your own. but as far as helping people during COVID, that was just a very unique circumstance, but I do think the resume writing was a huge topic and it always is. I have people reaching out to me all the time asking what they can do differently. And yeah, there’s some résumés I see and I’m like, “Wow, I really need to work on this.” But there’s other ones where they’re super self-conscious, but they’re perfect. I’m like, ” there’s nothing I would change.” just going back to what I said before, I think it’s representing yourself in the right way because I’ve interviewed people where I was so excited going into it based on the resume, but they really didn’t wow me or really didn’t show what the resume said in the interview. And so, I think it really does go back to practicing that because they don’t know what they sound like when they’re talking to recruiters, hiring managers.
Marcus Paiz: but also, another thing too is going back to JD’s comment about you seeing 700 applicants on a job. If that’s the job you want, go all out. Do some of the things that JD said, go connect with people at that company. And maybe the timing isn’t right. Maybe they hire somebody else because of just what the market’s like right now. But I think if you get your foot in the door, maybe it’s in a year they’re hiring again and you get that job and they don’t even open it up, They just reach out to you. So there’s things like that, like the networking piece that I think it’s really important now that we’re out of the co era.
Matt Vance: And it’s this.
Matt Vance: It’s JD, you go first. Mhm.
James Conway: No, I was just going to say the importance of having many irons in the fire I think can’t be diminished at this time.
James Conway: No matter what platform you go from what you’re targeting or anything like that, having discussions with people about different fields Matt, I don’t know who you talked to when you did your pivoting, and other things like that. If you’re constantly learning about how to maneuver those things and learning who has done it and trying to get your foot in the door. Like Marcus said, you can have many irons in the fire. And I think that’s what’s missing is that people at their current job maybe kind of falling asleep at the wheel a little bit, getting a little complacent rather than I guess excitedly looking forward to whatever that next thing might be. and I think if you have purpose in doing that, then it’s going to be a lot easier to have these irons in the fire at this company you’ve always wanted to work at. great.
James Conway: you may not get there eventually at all, but you may not get there for three years. you may whatever it might be, you worked into it and you took the opportunity,…
James Conway: the advantages that the modern world has, which is things like LinkedIn. I can go find out who’s in charge of hiring today at that company.
Sarah Bradshaw: Mhm. Yeah.
James Conway: That’s weird, 15 years ago, there was not a thing.
Matt Vance: Yeah.
James Conway: You just And I feel like people may have missed that. Maybe it’s just because I’m old, but There’s so many things that are available to you right now.
00:30:00
James Conway: And I sometimes have to remind job seekers, I’m like, Google it. You’ll figure it out. You’ll be okay. Sometimes we just need to feel like someone’s holding our hand to go through that. But it’s like you got You’re fine. just go after it. It’s all right. So yeah, There you go.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah, that’s true.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah. One more thought that was brought up is just to be open. Even employers might not love me saying this, but even when I haven’t been looking for jobs, a lot of times when people reach out to me about hey, I want to chat with you about this company or this role we have or things like that, I’m usually upfront with them. Hey, I don’t intend on leaving anytime soon, but I’m still happy to have a conversation because I want to be respectful of their time. So, I’m always very transparent about where I’m at.
Sarah Bradshaw: So back when I came to Mango the recruiting market was really hot and people were really needing recruiters and I was open to having conversations. I wasn’t planning on leaving and obviously ended up coming to Mango and have loved it but even before then I had lots of conversations with people which really just built my network and helped me to learn more about what I did and didn’t want in a company. which was instrumental in my satisfaction in my role in a great way as well as in my long-term growth and…
Sarah Bradshaw: trajectory. So yeah.
Matt Vance: That’s amazing.
Matt Vance: And having those open conversations along the way just help you see things so much more clear, which I think is very powerful. Transparency really is for the benefit of both the person applying and for the recruiter because both sides,…
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah. Yeah,…
Matt Vance: They have to match. And so when you’re not honest and maybe you get that job and then it’s not a fit.
Matt Vance: So on both sides it’s important to be trans.
Sarah Bradshaw: totally. And even sometimes those conversations will lead you to be even more happy or more satisfied in the role that you’re in because sometimes seeing what else is out there, you’re like, I’m really happy to be where I’m at. So it can go either way, but it never hurts to be open and…
James Conway: There you go.
Sarah Bradshaw: have those conversations and build your network. So totally
Matt Vance: Love that.
Marcus Paiz: And those relationships transcend whatever current situation you’re in. so I worked at Bamboo, but I interviewed there multiple times before I got the job. And I feel like if I would have been bitter and resentful, I don’t think I would have ended up on that team and I had really good relationships. But same thing with where I work now. I actually was declined and then later on they needed another recruiter and they just reached out to me and hired me. So, the relationships really do matter and sometimes I am surprised when an applicant reaches out in frustration after they get declined or…
Marcus Paiz: something. I totally get it though and I relate to that frustration. But at the same time, is that the type of person to reach back out to?
Matt Vance: Keep that door open.
Matt Vance: Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Paiz: Not I think there was one thing right JD that it’s something we’ve discussed together before…
Matt Vance: Play the long game for I think that’s really important to have those relationships intact. This has been so energizing. I feel pumped. Yeah, we could keep this conversation going for a long time. But any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Marcus Paiz: But I guess I’ll just start into what we were saying but just remember that everybody is human with their own lives, their own things that they’re going through recruiters and…
Matt Vance: Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Paiz: applicants like recruiters sometimes we have a lot of positions we’re working on with a lot of different candidates to sort through. We’re trying our best, but at the same time, hold us accountable. but just realize give some grace, and when things aren’t going perfect, I
James Conway: continuous job growth. The jobs report just came out last week. Unemployment’s at 4.1% nationally. That’s solid. So, there’s good things going on in the job market. It’s just hard to read where it’s shifting sometimes. And one thing to note and to kind of piggyback on what Marcus was saying, a lot of companies a few years ago when everyone did a pullback, they cut lots of recruiting staff. So right now you have a lot of recruiting teams that are very understaffed or non-existent at this point and you have somebody in an HR function it’s only 15% of their job to look at applicants. So sometimes people will get frustrated. The main thing you have to do is not get frustrated in your job search which is very easy to do. It’s very taxing, right?
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James Conway: So, don’t get frustrated because on the other end, as Marcus said, there are people on the other end that sometimes they’re just trying to make through the 300 applications they got in 24 hours or something like that. and they’re trying to do right by people, but there’s only so much they can do as well. and any effort that is persuasive but not and I guess persuasive and persistent will go a long way to Marcus’s point if you are just being kind and send a quick outreach message to somebody in the team or the hiring manager or somebody you want to know at that company or something like
James Conway: That effort really isn’t wasted. It’s not a big deal. you send a very short note. Hey, wish you the best. I’m not asking anything. If there’s any opportunity for this job or another one down the road, we’d love to talk about it. Best of luck to you. What a gracious way to introduce yourself and then move on if you need to. You may never talk to them again, you may develop a really really cool networking relationship.
James Conway: And some of mine have lasted years and years and we’ve never worked at the same company, but it’s been pretty cool.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yeah. …
Sarah Bradshaw: I know that job searches can be really emotional and very draining. And so I just say, try to not let it get to you and recognize that, there’s a saying, I don’t know where it comes from, but that rejection is just redirection. And so it might be leading you to the next best thing for you that could be even better. remembering that specifically and hiring teams just recognizing that it can be a very emotional and very taxing process. and to recruiters specifically I’d say remembering that the hiring process is not about you. It’s about the candidates and the teams that you’re hiring for and finding the right fit.
Sarah Bradshaw: So taking that ego, taking kind of yourself out of it and just remembering why you’re doing what you’re doing I think can just make the process and experience a lot more enjoyable for yourself and for the people that you’re working with too. So,
Matt Vance: Thank you. I think that’s a perfect closeout for this episode and amazing advice for anyone who’s maybe dissatisfied at their job and needs to just get that excitement again and those who are looking for a new job. So, listen, tune in and leave us a review and we’ll see you next time.
Matt Vance: We’ll make sure to include links so you can connect with JD, Marcus, and Sarah on the highlight article for this. So, if you want to connect and…
Matt Vance: take the advice here and keep the conversation going,…
Sarah Bradshaw: Please do.
Sarah Bradshaw: Yes. Thank you.
James Conway: Do it.
Matt Vance: Be awesome. Thank you guys for being here.
Marcus Paiz: Thank you.
Matt Vance: We’ll see you.
James Conway: Thanks so much for having us.