[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Zafar__Zubin: the experience of entering an industry where you don't really have a background, is a very human experience.
[00:00:05] Zafar__Zubin: A struggle setback. Chaos, confusion, self doubt and a lot of rejection. An agency or an external recruiter is more of that hunter and that in house recruiter is more of that gatherer how do you filter candidates for specific roles to find a match? now you're looking at thousands of applicants from everywhere in the world, not just geographically where your business is, but everywhere in the world.
[00:00:26] Zafar__Zubin: the LinkedIn easy apply button, good thing, not such a good thing. I mean, I might get roasted for this too, but I dislike it so much.
[00:00:34] Zafar__Zubin: Applicant Tracking Systems.
[00:00:35] Zafar__Zubin: People go around going on about how the A. I. Is filtering them out. My understanding is that's not what happens. It's still the old manual filter process, just slightly better you I and it's slightly better tools to do it right. What is using?
[00:00:48] Zafar__Zubin: I need to be very careful about how I how I deliver this.
[00:00:51] Welcome to Easier Said Than Done with me, Zubin Pratap, where I share with you the tens of thousands of dollars worth of self development that I did on my journey from [00:01:00] 37 year old lawyer to professional software engineer. The goal of this podcast is to show you how to actually do those things that are easier said than done.
[00:01:10] Zafar__Zubin: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to easier said than done and how to do it. And on today's episode, I'm super excited. Super, super excited to have Zafar. Who's on the show with us and Zafar and I connected a few months ago through actually one of my students, one of my students who got very, very good results and he connected me, Zafar and I've been, speaking, with Zafar on and off, you know, for months now, and I got to tell you, he's one of the most real people out there, big, big heart, heart the size of a planet and really, really good takes on what life is like as, as a recruiter, but you know what, Zafar?
[00:01:41] Zafar__Zubin: I should shut up. You should take over. Tell us a little bit about who you are, where you are, what you do, man. Yeah, thanks, man. That's a really nice and really cool intro. Yeah, my name is Zafar Mohammed. I am based out of Vancouver, BC, Canada. As Zubin mentioned, I've been a recruiter technical recruiter for about 10 years now, five years [00:02:00] specifically in technology.
[00:02:01] Zafar__Zubin: And yeah, you know, we connected a few months ago through Through a candidate that I had, I was screening for an ML role, and you know, here we are a few months later down the line. I'm really excited to be here. I appreciate you having me, and I'm excited to jam a little bit. Yeah, no, man, absolutely.
[00:02:16] Zafar__Zubin: And that's right, I think Milo was sort of, you know, got in touch with you in connection with the role. He's doing really well now, so I'm really happy to see him. And he's happy, right? He's, you know, he's doing really well. So, and he spoke very highly of you. I really enjoyed getting to know you, man. But I think really what people would love to know today is A bunch of stuff about the reality of the world, because, you know, as you and I have talked about, we've got an entire generation of people that's coming, you know, 25 to 32, 33, who've been brought up on a social media diet, who've kind of not been given the opportunity to understand how recruitment really works outside of what the influencers say.
[00:02:50] Zafar__Zubin: And, and you and I are slightly older folks, so slightly more old school in our ways, and we understand how the market works. So, you know, I think a lot of people just go by the two dimensional portrayal [00:03:00] of a TikTok video or an Instagram video. And that's. I believe quite dangerous due to career planning, right?
[00:03:05] Zafar__Zubin: So maybe what we can start with Zafar is, is, you know, how long have you been a recruiter? Yeah. So I, I actually started in my recruitment career back in, oh man, aging myself a little bit here back in 2014. But I didn't start in technology. I started in like logistics, production and manufacturing.
[00:03:23] It's it's a different game to technology. Obviously, it's, it's very different, but you know, the struggles and the pains are the same, you know, whether you're recruiting for, you know, accounting, finance or technology, you know, some of the struggles that folks have every day are going to be universal across the board.
[00:03:38] Zafar__Zubin: So, you know, you made a very, very beautiful and important point. I really hope people catch on, but I'm going to repeat it . So yeah, logistics recruitment is a different beast and a different game. But the human experience of it and the struggles and the challenges and the and the obstacles to overcome are the same regardless of which domain it is.
[00:03:57] Zafar__Zubin: That's kind of true, I find, even when I [00:04:00] switch from, you know, lawyer to coder, right? Like, yeah, it's a completely different game. It's a completely different domain and expertise set. But the experience of entering an industry where you don't really have a background, is a very human experience.
[00:04:13] Zafar__Zubin: A struggle setback. Chaos, confusion, self doubt and a lot of rejection. Because in some senses you've changed from a type of recruiter to a completely different type of recruiter, but there are some experiences that are common, right?
[00:04:24] Zafar__Zubin: It's a kind of career change in its own way. Absolutely. Yeah, it's a, it's a different type of recruitment. You know, it's, it's a, it's a different ballgame. But again, like you said, the struggles are the same, you know, it doesn't matter if you're applying for a very senior software engineer role or, you know, a very junior order picker role, you know, you're still going to put an application through, you're still going to have to deal with the hiring manager or a recruiter or go for an interview.
[00:04:49] Zafar__Zubin: And all of the, all of the, the, the mechanics of it are going to be the same. Absolutely. And I, and I think, Again, going back to social media and how sort of Instagram makes it look, [00:05:00] I think people just gloss over, completely eliminate the reality that the mechanics are fundamentally the same, regardless of which industry, like I see a lot of LinkedIn posts about, you know, for a software engineer, you need to do this.
[00:05:12] Zafar__Zubin: And I'm like, no, you need to do that for anything. It's not unique to software engineering. You know, my classic bugbear is, oh, you need to be a great communicator to be an effective software engineer. And I'm like, you need to be a great communicator to be in the workforce. You know, it's not unique to software engineering.
[00:05:27] Zafar__Zubin: So let me actually ask you another question, right? Like, let's break this down for folks out there. There are, as I see it broadly, two types of recruiters, right?
[00:05:36] Zafar__Zubin: The agency, external recruiters and the internal recruiters. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah, there's, there's agency, there's folks who are in the service and then and there are folks who are serving their business properly. Yeah. Okay. So if you were to tell someone, what the distinction is and why it matters and how, you know, the two types have to perform slightly different tasks or roles they discharge different duties.
[00:05:59] Zafar__Zubin: [00:06:00] How would you explain the differences? Yeah. So, I mean, if I was trying to explain agency recruiter versus in house recruiter to somebody who had absolutely zero idea of what even recruitment is, I would sort of say you know, it's like having someone who, is working for the team an in house recruiter, obviously working for the team, but internally, you know, they, they have internal their, their perspective is a little bit different in that they're more focused on the business itself.
[00:06:24] Zafar__Zubin: You know, they're focused on aspects of the business and how this role will be involved in that business. And they're very much their goal is to get this person hired. They only work for one client. So they're serving that one team and, and that's it.
[00:06:36] Zafar__Zubin: Now an agency recruiter or a contract recruiter, or, you know, RPO recruiter, whatever title you want to give them you know, they may be serving multiple clients, they may be serving one specific client, but they're not necessarily an internal employee of that organization they're competing for said business.
[00:06:52] Zafar__Zubin: They're competing for candidates in the market. Right. And they're trying to sort of matchmake between their, their [00:07:00] folks and the role that they're working on. They've got a lot of, it's a, they've got a lot of skin in the game, right, as an agency recruiter, because often they're, they're competing for business with other other agencies, other service providers.
[00:07:10] Zafar__Zubin: You know, they have to navigate things a little bit differently in that, you know, often they don't have applicants that they have to work with. So they're doing that headhunting. They're, they're messaging you on LinkedIn saying, Hey, Zubin, how's it going? You know are you open to something new?
[00:07:23] Zafar__Zubin: In house recruiters tend to sort of focus more on the funnel coming in. You know, who's interested in working for us? If I put a job out, who's going to who's going to apply to that role and who's going to be interested in working for that company. So you know, if, and this may not be the perfect analogy, but if you want to sort of look at it as.
[00:07:38] Zafar__Zubin: An agency or an external recruiter is more of that hunter and that in house recruiter is more of that gatherer.
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[00:08:29] Zafar__Zubin: that is super, that's actually a really good metaphor, the hunter and the gatherer, but On the surface of it, that sounds like, okay, the difference is one goes out prospecting, like the external recruiter will go out finding and the internal in house recruiter will basically kind of be like a gatekeeper and be a filter and sort of, you know, handle all the inbound requests.
[00:08:46] Zafar__Zubin: Right. But from what you're describing, there's a very clear analogy in my mind to sales, where you have the outbound sales and then you have the inbound sales. Right. Would you say that it's either actually quite a lot of parallels between [00:09:00] recruitment and sales? Absolutely.
[00:09:02] Zafar__Zubin: Absolutely. You know, I think recruitment, our product is people. We're not selling paper or a pen and not selling physical products, but we're selling people and we're selling the idea that this person is a perfect fit for your organization .
[00:09:14] Zafar__Zubin: And I know people hate that word, it's a very like taboo type word, right? Sales, oh I hate doing sales, cold calling. But there is, you know, we're cold calling candidates, and we're cold messaging candidates, and you know, we're cold calling hiring managers, and people that have never heard of who we are and what we do.
[00:09:29] Zafar__Zubin: And that is sales. Yeah. And so I know there's a taboo around sales, but you know, what I keep telling my students is whether you like it or not, you're in a job market, right? And if it's a market, someone's selling, someone's buying. That's the definition of a market. So you don't have to like sales. You just have to deal with the fact that that's the nature of the marketplace.
[00:09:46] Zafar__Zubin: And so You know, you're an external recruiter, right? You're an agency recruiter? Correct. Yeah. So I, I, I've I've done both. I was internal for a pretty large health authority here locally. But I think just based on who I am and [00:10:00] what I enjoy agencies, it is what gets going for me. So yes, absolutely. 100 percent agency through and through.
[00:10:06] Zafar__Zubin: You say something really interesting that based on who you are. So obviously you have certain values and you have certain temperamental, needs and requirements and your nature is such that you obviously, at least from what I'm hearing, you enjoy agency more than you do in house, right?
[00:10:20] Zafar__Zubin: Absolutely. Absolutely. Help us understand what those values are that you're able to meet being an agency recruiter versus being an in house recruiter. Because I think seeing it through your eyes and through your values would help people understand. There are actually big subjective differences here in the actual experience of it.
[00:10:37] Zafar__Zubin: Absolutely, yeah, it's you know, it's, it's It's doing a similar function in a completely different setting. For myself, I, I like to go back to that hunter gatherer metaphor I used. I like the hunt.
[00:10:48] Zafar__Zubin: I enjoy the hunt. You know, it's, I like the idea of going out and, and finding people and companies and and, and people that I can connect that I'm responsible for.
[00:10:57] Zafar__Zubin: And if I'm working for one client, I may [00:11:00] not get that same type of stimulation, right? It's different clients, different problems.
[00:11:04] Zafar__Zubin: It's a, it's a very different game. Again, the, the, the role is the same. The responsibility is the same. The functions are the same. Internally, you're also dealing with folks in different departments and not just necessarily an agency person. So as an agency recruiter, you deal with your contact, you deal with whomever is you know, your champion bringing you in and saying, Hey, we need your support.
[00:11:24] Zafar__Zubin: But in internal recruiter, you're dealing with all the sort of the internal pieces of the business as well, the hiring managers, the executives, the leaders, the finance people . People are very expensive. Talent is the biggest cost any business is going to have.
[00:11:38] Zafar__Zubin: It's tough when, as an internal recruiter, you're trying to build these teams and you're trying to get, you know, different things happening from different people. But as an agency recruiter, you don't necessarily have that
[00:11:47] Zafar__Zubin: requirements for that due diligence. You know, you simply, what you do is you find a client willing to work with you. You find a client willing to pay you for service and you go out and execute that service. You're not dealing with the internal red tape.
[00:11:58] Zafar__Zubin: An external recruiter, [00:12:00] sorry to jump in there, but it sounds like from everything you're saying, your job as an external recruiter, Yeah. You, you kind of, what you need to focus on is different from the internal recruiter.
[00:12:07] Zafar__Zubin: Internal recruiter is a lot of stakeholder management. You know, and getting all the buy-ins and the approvals and running through the process. Whereas it is an external recruiter. Your job is to connect two sides of the market, right? Which is the, the candidate side and the, and the, and the company that's looking for top grade candidates, right?
[00:12:22] Zafar__Zubin: So that's, you, you're sort of more a marketplace broker, whereas an internal recruiter is the person that, that. Runs the process of recruitment and bringing people into the company. Is that kind of more or less is it? Correct yeah, basically and I think over the last few years those lines have muddied a little bit
[00:12:38] Zafar__Zubin: so for startups and scale ups a little bit different, maybe they don't have a built out recruitment team and they lean on us because it's simple solution. But yes, fundamentally what you've described is what I would say is the, is probably the bones and meat of it. Got it. Got it. So, so this really is some really, really important questions and I, and I'm glad to sort of dive into this with you.
[00:12:58] Zafar__Zubin: And the reason I think this is important is I [00:13:00] keep telling people when I'm coaching them as part of the Inner Circle, that You know, it's not just about the code. You have to understand how recruitment works. You have to understand how the hiring manager is thinking. You have to understand how the recruiters thinking.
[00:13:11] Zafar__Zubin: And then you have to, I have training in my, in my in my program about what internal recruiters are looking for, what external recruiters are looking for. I know this because I've been on the recruitment side, not as a recruiter, but I've been on the hiring side. In three careers in four countries, and it's the same, more or less the same principle.
[00:13:25] Zafar__Zubin: There are cultural differences, there are market dynamic differences, but the principles are broadly the same, which is, you know, we're moving candidates through from what we've heard of them, to get to know them, to evaluate them, to decide whether we want them. You know, like there's this entire funnel that people are being moved through and most candidates just don't think about it.
[00:13:45] Zafar__Zubin: From the point of view of the hiring side, they only think about it from the point of view of the candidate side. And I think that's a big mistake because you're not understanding the whole process. So question for you, what are you seeing these days, Zafar, that's different from, you know, 2014 when you started out? Like Just to put this in context, in 2014 [00:14:00] most people, as I remember it, because that was, you know, 10 years ago, LinkedIn was starting to grow.
[00:14:06] Zafar__Zubin: It wasn't what it is today, right? And so back then, how were you finding candidates and how were candidates finding jobs? Yeah, so, yeah, to totally echo that, 10 years ago was very different in the, in the recruitment space. I think traditionally at least where I started and where I, where I learned and got my training.
[00:14:28] Zafar__Zubin: You know, we were, we had this big database and everybody that you talk to everybody that you connected with, whether it was at a career fair or on the street, you manually put their information into this database and you're manually sorting it that way. You know, you're. Outside of the information that you put in, you have no idea anything else about this person, this human being, what they're about.
[00:14:47] Zafar__Zubin: So that's how we did it. And just to jump in there, because I, you know, the old database style where you manually entered everything into basically a giant spreadsheet, right? But not did you add data? Like, okay, this person knows [00:15:00] Java. This person knows, you know, HTML. Like, did you add all that metadata about the kind of skills that person had?
[00:15:05] Zafar__Zubin: Or was it just literally just contact details and then you didn't have much data? I think that depends on the recruiter. Some recruiters were going into depth of adding specific details and some just wanted high level of what do they do, where do they live, what's their phone number, salary details, like basic, basic information, right?
[00:15:23] Zafar__Zubin: And then I think as ATSs became more readily available, they became improved technology. You know, the organization that I was with built their own ATS and so they factored all of those things in, right? What about skills? Like, how are we managing skills and how are we showcasing that so that when we want to find skills quickly how, how do we even manage that?
[00:15:43] Zafar__Zubin: So that was going to be my next question. So back then, if people weren't completely disciplined about putting in the data about what skills the candidate had, and you had this giant database without the ability to figure out what people had, how do you filter candidates for specific roles to find a [00:16:00] match?
[00:16:00] Zafar__Zubin: Manually go through every single candidate and call them. It was like, like we, we literally used to make call sheets, man. It, that's how it was. It's, you know the, the database can do some, some sort of intelligent queries for you. You know, it maybe can bring you. A thousand people and that's just rough numbers, easy numbers, you know, we can even use a hundred.
[00:16:20] Zafar__Zubin: Let's say we use a hundred and you're like, cool, okay, I need to get through these a hundred candidates and I'll have to manually go through them and look at their details and did someone put their, their resume in? Did someone put the right information in? You know, does this information match up? Is it consistent?
[00:16:34] Zafar__Zubin: Like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of admin required that I think, A lot of people don't necessarily want to know about and even recruiters will struggle to get through it because we do a lot of admin. There's a lot of computer viewing and data verification.
[00:16:48] Zafar__Zubin: So, so, so, and just again, as an, recruiter's point of view, you now have to work with two sides of the market, right? You have to work with your client. Who's your buyer, right? And you have to work with the candidate who's a [00:17:00] stakeholder who you're selling to your client, right? Like that's broadly the three points to the marketplace, right?
[00:17:04] Zafar__Zubin: So now you've got to stay on top of what the client needs. You have to really understand their needs, their goals, how their business is structured, what kind of skills they're looking for, what kind of culture they're looking for. And then you've got to go to this database that doesn't have a lot of this data and manually work it out.
[00:17:18] Zafar__Zubin: So as I remember, Zafar, back then, like there were fewer applicants per job on average, not because there were fewer people interested, but because The information didn't connect like people didn't know about jobs as easily as they find out about them today on LinkedIn. Right? And so on average, people were less aware of jobs in the market.
[00:17:37] Zafar__Zubin: I remember looking at at local classifieds, newspapers, local job boards and career sites like there wasn't a LinkedIn super aggregator, right? There were a few aggregators. You know, 20 years ago, it was a newspaper ads.
[00:17:48] Zafar__Zubin: Like that's how I started my career. Right. So there was an information problem. Candidates didn't know about roles and hiring managers didn't know about all the candidates. And there was still, you know, lots of applications in that [00:18:00] world. Now, since the information is free, I'm guessing it's just exploded.
[00:18:04] Zafar__Zubin: The kind of application levels you're getting. Is that right? Absolutely. And I think that the lines have, have sort of muddied as well. Right. And that you made a good point. A lot of hiring managers didn't know where the applicants were. And so the role of the recruiter at that time was even more valuable in that they connected those two pieces of the coin.
[00:18:23] Zafar__Zubin: Right. Today with technology and LinkedIn and everything being so, you know, I can do LinkedIn easy apply and see exactly who's posted this job. And like, it's sort of, it's, it's, again, it's, Made the access very easy, but now you're looking at thousands of applicants from everywhere in the world, not just geographically where your business is, but everywhere in the world.
[00:18:43] Zafar__Zubin: Help people understand why this huge volume, the tsunami indiscriminate applications from around the world has created a problem for you guys.
[00:18:53] Zafar__Zubin: I think it's, it comes down to like funneling, right? If we take the perspective of, Regardless of whether your agency or whether you're [00:19:00] internal, you know you're you're going to have a funnel of applicants come through and for numbers, let's say let's use 100. Let's just say we use 100. OK, cool. So I've come in.
[00:19:07] Zafar__Zubin: I looked at this. I look at this job. OK, senior software engineer. I've got a hundred applicants sitting there. Now I can do some manipulations with, with technology and maybe filter out location. Let's say location is important for me. We're in Vancouver. We're a tech hub. I'm going to say I want people who are in BC.
[00:19:23] Zafar__Zubin: So cool. I filter that out. It brings me to 80. So cool. Now I know off the top of my head that 20 of these applicants are not in BC. And so 20 percent of my pool is already. Not going to bring me value, right? So cool. Okay. Now, not a problem. I've got 80 applicants still that I have to go through now.
[00:19:44] Zafar__Zubin: With higher volume of applicants, the, the idea that a recruiter is going to get through every single applicant, although it may be, you know, a pipe dream that's exactly that. It is a pipe dream. I, I don't know, I have not met any recruiter who is so on top of [00:20:00] applicants, especially right now, simply because there's a very, very high number of them.
[00:20:04] Zafar__Zubin: You know, we're, we're getting thousands of applicants all across the world. Sometimes we're getting multiple applicants, the same applicant with multiple resumes. It happens more often than you think. I think some people have an idea that if I try different CVs, it might work better for me. But we have to filter through all that.
[00:20:22] Zafar__Zubin: Is that even if we're able to leverage the best of technologies, it takes a human being to process that raw data. And processing any raw data through being a human and sort of manually ish is going to take a significant amount of time. And that's the important piece here is that hiring is a very time sensitive thing.
[00:20:39] Zafar__Zubin: You know, people often wanted people yesterday, you know, not, Hey, we'll need them in two months, but we needed them yesterday. We just realized that now we need to hire. So it's causing a lot of bottlenecks in terms of the admin that recruiters are doing. And this is the thing I keep telling my students.
[00:20:54] Zafar__Zubin: I'm like, I mean, we're going to talk about this in a moment, but I'm like, if you don't understand what the [00:21:00] recruiters process and situation is, you're not going to be able to optimize yourself to to make it easier for them to do their job .
[00:21:06] Zafar__Zubin: I do a lot of training in this, which is why, you know, sort of my students sort of reach out to you as well, is you have to know how to make it easier for the recruiter to consider you. Like, that's the best thing. That's the only thing you can really ask for. You can't guarantee that someone's going to like you.
[00:21:18] Zafar__Zubin: That's not in your control, but how do you at least get on their radar enough for them to put you into the consideration set, which is really the filter, you know? What I tell my students is just think about it this way. Let's assume there are 500 applications for a job. Okay, you are doing incredibly well. If you can actually process an application or even just read the resume and understand what's in there. If you can do that in 10 minutes, you're fast. Okay. Like i've never been able to fully absorb a resume in less than 20 25 minutes like of careful reading and researching and understanding What they are.
[00:21:47] Zafar__Zubin: Okay, that's like that's good. Let's say 10 minutes 500 applications 10 minutes 5, 000 minutes of work for 500 applications. 5, 000 minutes is 3. 5 whole 24 hour days. So if we [00:22:00] started today, we didn't take any toilet breaks, didn't eat dinner, didn't sleep, didn't do anything else.
[00:22:04] Zafar__Zubin: We'd finish three and a half days from now, reading through and fully absorbing from an application like it's not human. That's not how it works. Now. You said something really important that it's time sensitive. So what I don't think a lot of candidates understand is you're not the only ones working for the client, right?
[00:22:18] Zafar__Zubin: You've got other recruiters who also on the panel. in this Hunger Games style race to find a candidate, right? Yeah, that's often the case, you know, a lot of contingency firms, especially when it comes to hiring because of that time sensitivity, because of that urgency, will reach out to multiple firms. You know, and multiple firms, we're all fishing from the same pool, you know, it's not like we have access to a certain pool of people in Vancouver and other agencies are fishing in a different pool.
[00:22:43] Zafar__Zubin: We're all fishing in the same pool. And so We want to make sure that we get out to these folks fast and the sense of urgency is there and that we're getting people on the hook and getting them moving and, and not only are we talking to people, but we're talking to the right people, you know, if our client has given us a set of requirements [00:23:00] and they say, this is exactly what we want you know, And this sort of comes back to JD, and maybe this is a bigger thing, but often clients want that unicorn.
[00:23:08] Zafar__Zubin: They want that special, or closest to the unicorn as possible. An external recruiter has to think about. Add that lens of, Hey, will a client pay me for this candidate? I mean, when you understand how it's working on your side of the fence, I can sort of, I'm actually quite sympathetic to the fact that some candidates get, and I think it's the wrong word.
[00:23:27] Zafar__Zubin: They say they're getting ghosted, but I don't think that's right. I think They're falling between the cracks. It's different from being ghosted. Ghosted suggests like an intention to ignore you. I just think people, it's just not with a volume. It's not possible to respond to everybody. That's not ghosting.
[00:23:41] Zafar__Zubin: That's just, I couldn't get to you. I didn't hear you in all the noise. It's not the same thing as I'm ignoring you. And I hope candidates really understand that you're probably not being ghosted. What's been happening is there was just so many people smashing that LinkedIn Easy apply.
[00:23:54] Zafar__Zubin: And now let's talk about that. Actually, I've made my views on this very publicly, so I'm going to shut up for a moment. But [00:24:00] in your opinion, Zafar, from both sides of the marketplace,
[00:24:04] Zafar__Zubin: the LinkedIn easy apply button, good thing, not such a good thing. I mean, I might get roasted for this too, but I dislike it so much.
[00:24:11] Zafar__Zubin: I think it it's taken something that takes a little bit of time. You know, applying to roles is not as easy as pressing a button as much as we'd like to think. So I don't think that's a solution. And it's because. My personal belief is that LinkedIn Easy Apply has brought a lot of desperation and despair to folks because if, if, if I'm on the other side of the coin and I'm thinking, hey, Applying should be as easy as pressing this button.
[00:24:35] Zafar__Zubin: My CV goes through, they review it, you know, the thought process and the theory of all that is there, but the reality of it is it, is it, is that what's happening? Or because of this LinkedIn apply, who anybody can apply, like LinkedIn apply, all you really need is a LinkedIn profile. It doesn't matter how detailed it is.
[00:24:52] Zafar__Zubin: Just press the button and off it goes, right? So if I'm a recruiter and I've received even 50 percent of my applications are some of [00:25:00] these. Applicants what are, what is the possibility or the probability of me going through all of these with a fine tooth comb saying, Hey, let me check you guys out.
[00:25:08] Zafar__Zubin: It's you sort of have to play the numbers of they're probably going to be junk applications. Right. Yeah, I really dislike that button, man. I really, really dislike it. Well, I'm glad you're talking about it, man, because I've been talking about it for a while. And I was saying the most sewage in the system, the better the filter is going to have to be.
[00:25:26] Zafar__Zubin: And that means there's going to be a lot of people who get excluded. Because the filters have to be that strong, because just the sheer volume of junk floating through the river is that high, you know, you're going to have to trap a whole bunch of stuff and accidentally trap the legitimate guys too.
[00:25:39] Zafar__Zubin: That's, that's a real challenge. So, well, you know, I'm glad you're talking about it because I think we have a generation of folks who quite understandably, it's not their fault, sort of grew up with the easy apply button and figured that that's what job applications are. I had a couple of people I was doing an online Q& A once
[00:25:53] Zafar__Zubin: and I had some people genuinely confused when I said, Hey, how do you think we got jobs before LinkedIn? Like [00:26:00] they'd never thought about it. They're like, how did you get jobs before LinkedIn? I said, we went old school. We pounded the pavement, we found out who was hiring. We went to newspaper classifieds and there wasn't this obsession with working remotely back then.
[00:26:11] Zafar__Zubin: We went to our own backyard and did the rounds the old hardcore old school way. I'm not saying we have to do that now, but the downside of the easy apply button, exactly as you said. Is that it's, there's no controls about who can apply .
[00:26:23] Zafar__Zubin: So, so, you know, continuing that in, in that vein of things that we wish candidates really understood about how recruitment works. Let's talk about remote work, man. Like what, what's the real deal with remote work. People seem to think that it's only working from home or that it's working from anywhere on a beach in Bali, like.
[00:26:43] Zafar__Zubin: What do you see happening with this entire remote work thing? And, you know, how would you define remote work? Yes. So for me, remote work for me, remote is remote. You know, whether you're on that beach in Bali or whether you're at your home office or a coffee shop, remote is remote. [00:27:00] You know, I know that each company has sort of different opinions and policies on what remote is and how much work you can work remotely and where you can physically work remotely.
[00:27:11] Zafar__Zubin: And some companies like, don't care, we'll meet quarterly somewhere. Personally, myself, like we've been remote much longer than the pandemic, you know, our business is one of the few where, you know, we've, we've been remote for a very long time. So we've had, we had that taste of working remotely or working from that coffee shop.
[00:27:29] Zafar__Zubin: And so I think for us, remote is not a new phenomenon. But I, I did see through the pandemic, obviously how quickly it accelerated and how many companies were jumping on that and saying, Hey, we're going to work remotely. But I also see the flip side of it now is how many more in office mandates are coming and more, you know, hybrid, but, you know, very scheduled type of hybrid.
[00:27:49] Zafar__Zubin: Hey, you have to be in X, Y and Z days. And some smaller companies are forcing, you know, Hey, you have to be in five days a week because we want to be able to get together and, and jam together and process [00:28:00] ideas. And it's easier when we're together. I, for myself, back to sort of circle back to the question, I think hybrid is a perfect model, man.
[00:28:06] Zafar__Zubin: And for a long time, candidates were only applying to remote roles. So I only want something that's fully remote. And that slowly as those roles are progressively going away, you know, the, the fully, fully remote companies, I don't imagine they have a lot of difficulty hiring, you know, Generally, and this is a general statement, but everyone wants to work for a remote job.
[00:28:28] Zafar__Zubin: It's simply the fact. I'll take candidates and I can promise you 75, 80 percent of them would prefer a remote role over a hybrid or an in office role. But that is now changing, you know, the four years of, of us all sitting at home and having these cool offices, it's changing. Companies are changing. And fortunately or unfortunately, whichever side of the coin you're on, the companies are the ones that pay our bills.
[00:28:50] Zafar__Zubin: And so we have to sort of adhere our, our our, our expectations or temper them a little bit, right? Cool. Okay. If I, I haven't had a job for seven, eight months going [00:29:00] on 12 months, whatever the case is, I'm going to have to temper my expectations a little bit. If I want something that's fully remote and I've been trying and can't get it.
[00:29:07] Zafar__Zubin: Would I be open to something that's more hybrid? Would I be open to something that, okay, maybe it is in office, but maybe it has some flexibility? You know, I think that piece is coming back. And what is, what is the most important to you, you know, finding that remote role that's perfect, or finding some type of role where you can get some income in, continue your career development, and wait for that perfect remote role to come up, it's, you know, You know, pros and cons.
[00:29:31] Zafar__Zubin: 100%. And then, you know, it is going back to what we talked about earlier. This is the marketplace, which means there has to be the meeting of the demand and the supply at a common intersection point. Now I happen to work fully globally remote, but I honestly don't believe I would have been able to compete for that kind of role had I not had Google behind me.
[00:29:50] Zafar__Zubin: Like, you know, had I not had Google on my resume, not, That helped me just stand out a little bit from the competition. And so I was able to compete with some really outstanding people [00:30:00] for this kind of role. And that's pretty rare. Like I keep telling people that's not normal. Like I probably represent 0.
[00:30:05] Zafar__Zubin: 0001 percent of the total market in terms of being able to do this because you know, a few thousand people out of 50 million developers working truly globally remotely is a tiny fraction. It's so small, the vast majority of people don't do it. And hybrids probably more likely to be the norm. And even that's really nice to have, but I can see why, like, Google doesn't do remote, 90 percent of Google's workforce will not be in remote because they want people in the office. You know, they believe in that, like, as you said, in that jamming, in that serendipitous exchange of ideas, and, you know, and the culture and all of that.
[00:30:34] Zafar__Zubin: I did a podcast recently, actually, Zafar, about, The 10 skills that I, because I've been working with globally distributed teams since 2011 now, right? So while my team was locally, maybe a lot of my stakeholders are across different time zones. It's been like that when I was in the law, when I'm here, et cetera, in an engineering and all that.
[00:30:52] Zafar__Zubin: And there are 10 skills that people don't realize they need to have to. In addition to their core skills to do remote work. Well, I'm sure, you've seen this as being [00:31:00] a remote worker, but it has to do with being organized, seeing around corners, communicating properly, setting context correctly, asking for context correctly, planning your work, knowing that other people are not going to be synchronously on, like there's a whole bunch and then being visible, making sure your work is visible to other people who need to know about it.
[00:31:15] Zafar__Zubin: Like all these skills that people don't realize . But, you know, going back to what we wish candidates knew that about the reality of recruitment that they don't. Let's talk about this doom and gloom situation about a down market, man.
[00:31:27] Zafar__Zubin: Like, I know everyone talks about the tech down market, but the market as a whole is down. Non tech workers have been laid off in droves, but the media doesn't cover it because they're not on the NASDAQ. So when you encounter a candidate or you know, someone who's watching this an aspiring coder who has never been through a down cycle before, what would you tell them to pay attention to in terms of what they see in the social media and what should they ignore?
[00:31:49] Zafar__Zubin: Like, what's the reality? Yeah, I'm really glad we came to the economics of it because the economics of it are so important. You know, it's like you said, like tech has never experienced this type of [00:32:00] situation, you know, tech, but every other industry has. Every other industry from manufacturing to finance operations, they've all had ebbs and flows.
[00:32:08] Zafar__Zubin: And so this is the real first ebb that technology is feeling. And a lot of these workers haven't felt that right. They've been earning very high salaries for a very long time. They've built these certain lifestyles. And they, they, they've never, you know, no one ever thinks that these companies that are, they're getting billion dollar valuations that are raising money left, right, center, that are hiring, hiring, hiring, that they're going to, they're going to get stuck.
[00:32:36] Zafar__Zubin: And the fact of the matter is a lot of them did, you know, majority of them. I think of the big things, I think Apple was the only one to not do a mass layoff because, you know, again, they, Apple's a little bit different. I think we'll put an asterisk on them, but everyone experienced it. Right. I was looking at the actual data. And most of them were not engineers so only about 40 percent of something were engineers. The remaining 60 percent was sales and [00:33:00] recruitment. Like that's how big the layoff. It wasn't just tech. It was everybody.
[00:33:06] Zafar__Zubin: That's exactly it. And the tech was highlighted. Oh, my God, all these technology workers, engineers laid off. But recruiters, we've been getting, recruiters were slashed the first people, in FANG and all the FANG companies, it was recruiters, sales and engineers in approximately equal thirds.
[00:33:21] Zafar__Zubin: So basically, that means 60 percent were not engineers, because 60 percent were sales or recruitment. You know, and that's what I keep doing just because it happened. The tech sector doesn't mean it's just engineers. It's happening to everybody, everybody. I think that's the thing. And I think sort of as as people as a recruiter, like that empathetic voice of like, yeah, yeah, you know what, as a senior engineer who's never been laid off before, you're not the only one.
[00:33:44] Zafar__Zubin: And I think the other piece of it also is some of these folks, especially on the engineering, recruiting and sales side they're very high earners, right? Some very senior engineers make very, very high salaries. And when it comes time to cut costs, you know, we talked about it earlier at the start of the chat.
[00:33:58] Zafar__Zubin: Talent is your most [00:34:00] expensive expense. So we've got to get rid of some of these people who are making very high salaries, you know, recruiters, salespeople they're commission focused, they earn a lot. Engineers as well, you know, there, there's a reason why the 10X engineer verbiage exists, because there are engineers that are able to bring in that type of revenue based on what they, what they're able to do.
[00:34:20] Zafar__Zubin: And they earn a lot of money, you know And that's the thing is that, that it's not that they're just earning a lot of money. It's because the things they do produces 10X the revenue. So nine X, the company keeps one X, they give to the engineer. It's very rare that someone can actually produce that kind of revenue impact because a lot of engineers end up working in cost center roles and then wonder why they don't end up earning those, those, you know, those, those, those salary.
[00:34:44] Zafar__Zubin: It's because they're not in the revenue center side of the business. You know, that's exactly it. Again, it's down to the economics, right? Is that an engine, even engineers are required to make things work and, and, and keep things on, keep the lights on. But it's the engineers that are producing. [00:35:00] You know, the, the money making products that are earning that crazy amounts of money.
[00:35:04] Zafar__Zubin: And, you know, we sort of have to, to engineer software engineers become such a big, broad job title now, and everyone's an engineer doing, but they're all doing different functions. Right. And so that's something else that I think. If I, if I was laid off right now and I was an engineer and I was looking at sort of what's next for myself, that is something that I would keep in front of mind for me, is that when this happens again, not if this happens again, but when this happens again which side of the coin do I want to be on?
[00:35:33] Zafar__Zubin: Do I want to be on the side where I'm in a position where I am creating Some type of dollars for the business. So if I do get laid off, I can value that in my CV and say, listen, even if you pay me a hundred K year, easy numbers, right? Let's just use a hundred K a year. I have experienced and I can show you demonstrate that I can bring you a million dollars a year because of this, this, this thing that I can do, right?
[00:35:55] Zafar__Zubin: So that's what I would do. And A lot of people just don't know that they just don't know that, Hey, an [00:36:00] engineer can do that. I didn't, what, what do you mean? Like, I thought we just go, we do this and we call it a day. Dude, this is the stuff that I didn't learn in college as well, but I learned about this during the financial crisis.
[00:36:10] Zafar__Zubin: And then later on, cause I've been laid off in my career as well, you know, before I was an engineer and that I realized that I, the roles that get laid off, cause I've been on both the laying off the management side of the decisions, head of the layoff and on the receiving side. And I'm like, ah, now I get it.
[00:36:25] Zafar__Zubin: If you're in a cost center and it's expensive, you're probably going to have a target on your back compared to someone in a revenue center. This has nothing to do with engineering. This was in the law and then later in the executive world. And I'm like, that makes perfect sense, actually, because ultimately we're here to make revenue because that's how we get our salaries paid.
[00:36:42] Zafar__Zubin: And if our work is not getting our salaries paid, we're going to have to be in our acts. And that's what happens. Now, there's something really interesting. So obviously, when I became an engineer, I was aware of all this and you can't always control that. But as part of your career plan, you want to try and get closer to the revenue centers.
[00:36:55] Zafar__Zubin: All the growth areas. And this is something people don't realize. I have a friend of mine from [00:37:00] Google. And she got laid off and she's a pretty senior engineer, really great person, and she got laid off. She got a six month severance or whatever they were giving at that point in time. And then she got hired back four months later for 25 percent more, right?
[00:37:14] Zafar__Zubin: In a different part of Google. And this is what I keep telling people, just because people, we see the layoff numbers, we don't see the rehire numbers. Yeah, it's a smaller percentage, but what's actually happening, it's not that engineers are not wanted. Is that that business unit was not performing well and had its funding cut and now those people need to be reabsorbed either on other parts of the company or on other parts of the economy.
[00:37:34] Zafar__Zubin: But it's not that engineering's in trouble, it's that that business was not performing well. Would you agree with that as a recruiter? Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially as you get larger and different businesses. Google's a great example 'cause they've got multiple business units, you know, and if the body part is not working, cut it off.
[00:37:52] Zafar__Zubin: And reallocate, right? It's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty basic and when you break the economics of it down, it's very easy to see, right? If, if I put [00:38:00] a spreadsheet in front of you and said, Zubin we've got 10 departments, three departments are making money, seven are not. You're going to be like, crap, we need to get rid of those seven.
[00:38:09] Zafar__Zubin: Cause they're not making money. It's the fact that people cancel their their various, you know, streaming connections is because they're like, I watch a lot of Netflix. I don't watch a lot of ABC or whatever it is. And so I'm going to cut that one because it's not a great use of my money. I'll allocate that capital to something else.
[00:38:25] Zafar__Zubin: Right. It's we all do this in a home budgeting and we don't fully understand that it's the same thing happening in, in, in big corporates, just bigger numbers, like more zeros, that's the big difference. Right. That's not That's so great to hear you say that. Okay, so down cycles. It's gonna happen. It happens to everybody.
[00:38:40] Zafar__Zubin: It's not that the profession that risk is Yeah, times are tight, but then the cycle will change. We've always seen this. Now, next question, and I'm mindful of time, because we're having such a great conversation, I've got so much to ask you. But, you know, as quick as you can make it, because I know you've got to go as well, this is really important to me, because this is what I spend a lot of my time with my [00:39:00] students.
[00:39:00] Zafar__Zubin: When hiring managers are looking at candidates, what's going through their mind about risk? Now, I know what I do when I'm hiring, but I want to hear from your point of view because you see a huge breadth of the market. How do hiring managers look at candidate risk? Meaning when a candidate applies to them, how are they assessing the risk of one candidate over another when making recruitment decisions?
[00:39:21] Zafar__Zubin: Yeah, so risk right now I think is a pretty big one. You know, I think traditionally when hiring managers look at risk, they look at risk for themselves and their department and they also look at risk for budget, right? Are they using a recruiter? They're going to have to spend a lot of money. But when it comes to the candidates specifically, you know they're going to look at, you know, who's, who's jumped around a little bit.
[00:39:41] Zafar__Zubin: If I've got a hundred applicants and, you know, of the hundred, you know, 20 have jumped around a little bit over, over time, maybe they wanted to earn more money or a different title or whatever, and that's high risk for me, they may take off again, and I'm, and I'm doing this all over again, you know also the, and I think the flip side of that also is true, and that's something that a [00:40:00] lot of people don't have sort of a lens for, and that if someone spent it, You know, 10 years at one organization, how hard is it going to be to break those habits that they've learned over 10 years and introduce new ones that we are functioning.
[00:40:13] Zafar__Zubin: So there's also a piece of risk there is that they've been at this company for 10 years, you know, maybe finally that business couldn't sustain them. They had to lay them off. They don't know what to do because. I've been at the same place for 10 years but that, that's a piece of risk as well is that how are they going to be adaptable, you know, or are they going to be people that can change their shifting because for the last 10 years they haven't had to.
[00:40:36] Zafar__Zubin: So as much as yes, jumping is very risky and, and people are like, Oh, the short stints here, short stints there. Like sometimes longer stints also have a negative connotation. Now I'm not saying every hiring manager adopts this mentality. A lot of them are saying, wow, like 10 years. Amazing. I'm going to get 10 years out of you.
[00:40:52] Zafar__Zubin: But we have to, we have to ask questions on both sides. We can't assume especially in a hiring situation, because again, hiring is so expensive, [00:41:00] biggest expense, like poor hiring decisions cost companies a lot of money and time. And that's just this resources they don't have. So that's, it's very risky for them too.
[00:41:10] Zafar__Zubin: And hiring managers like to make the safe call, right? They like to make sure that they bring in somebody who they know is going to do well. It's not going to cost them an arm and a leg. And that they can effectively manage, right? Like it's cool. Even keel. Like, you know, if we, if we break the population into the 80, 20 rule of 10 percent being extremely high performers, everybody wants them the lowest 10 being nobody wants them.
[00:41:35] Zafar__Zubin: And then the 80 in between. I I'm sure a lot of hiring managers will say, I'll take an 80 over a 10, either 10, any day of the week. Right. So that's risk for them as well. It is. Especially when it comes to scale and you're hiring at scale and you're examining all of these resumes because you're not just hiring for one position where you may have some luxury of cool.
[00:41:54] Zafar__Zubin: I'm going to do a few interviews. I'm going to make sure I get the right hire, but when you're hiring at scale and maybe [00:42:00] you need to hire five, six, seven, nine, 10, whatever that number is, you're going to make the safest, less risky decision as you can, because you have to recreate that decision multiple times during the scale.
[00:42:13] Zafar__Zubin: So that's also something that hiring managers are going to consider is who's going to be, you know, the, the safest hire for me. And who's going to make sure that the job gets done, business is happy, and in six months I'm not having to come to them because of performance issues or because the business has died and I have to lay them off again.
[00:42:30] Zafar__Zubin: I think that's something, and not to sort of sidetrack, but that is something hire managers are being cognizant of, you know, is nobody likes to do layoffs. You know, nobody, no hire manager goes into their job every day and says, yes, I want to lay people off today, right? So they're being very, very Very tough when they hire, you know, they want to make sure they get the higher, right?
[00:42:49] Zafar__Zubin: They want to make sure that the risk is averse absolutely completely as possible, whether they're paying a fee or they're not paying a fee They need they have to consider all these things So when people like i've sent 100 [00:43:00] applications and i've done 10 rounds of interviews, you know We sort of don't know what's happening in the back the back end of it You know, maybe the recruiter knows maybe the hiring manager knows Maybe the hiring manager is trying to make something happen.
[00:43:10] Zafar__Zubin: We just we don't know and Yeah That is all risk for the hiring manager. And they're the ones absorbing this risk, right? Oh, totally. Totally. And they're the ones that, you know, hold the can for it. Cause if it goes wrong, they could get fired. They, it's their reputation on the line. So the serious consequences of getting it wrong.
[00:43:24] Zafar__Zubin: So, and this is something cause you know, I, I mainly mentor and coach. Well, I have two types of people who come to me. I have the people who have been through the boot camps, which was 40 percent of the people in the last 20 months have come to me boot camp graduates who couldn't crack it into the market.
[00:43:37] Zafar__Zubin: And then there are others who are starting from zero. And I, and I have both. They had me totally different plans though. And I keep telling them your biggest obstacle will be how do you show the hiring manager that you're not at risk? Because, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but from, from the data I've seen, most applicants to a job are qualified and not career changers.
[00:43:53] Zafar__Zubin: Like they got formal qualifications or work experience on the board in that role, and they're not actually switching careers. [00:44:00] What's your experience about the risk of a career changer and you know, how to overcome that. And that is, that's very high risk. You know, when you're, when you're switching careers in this type of market, it's very, very high risk, you know, like if you were to play the scenario out of, okay.
[00:44:16] Zafar__Zubin: Zubin is the hiring manager, Zafar is the candidate. I've had a 10 year experience in recruiting. Decided, you know what, recruitment's not for me. I want to be an accountant. I've done all the education. I've done all the theory. Now it's time for me to go and apply those skills. I've applied to your accountant role.
[00:44:34] Zafar__Zubin: I'm like, Zubin, you should hire me. I've got no experience, but I'm going to be great. I promise you. Awesome, Zafar, I love your attitude. Yeah, yeah, I love your attitude. But if there's an accounting mistake that happens, it's going to cost my company billions of dollars, therein lies the risk, right? And as someone who is shifting careers the reality of that experience is going to happen to me maybe every second time I apply to enrol, has to [00:45:00] be there, right?
[00:45:01] Zafar__Zubin: Even as a recruiter, like when I, when I review some of these resumes you know, I try my best if I'm getting on a screening call with them to articulate that of, you know I hope you understand that, you know, as someone who is shifting careers and we see it a lot right now with engineers and I'm talking professional engineers moving into technology.
[00:45:18] Zafar__Zubin: So maybe some oil and gas people who. And gas and isn't necessarily advancing, so they, they, they make that pivot and they assume because they've got 15, 20 years of of engineering experience and it'll translate right over or they can become manager overnight. Like, it's just, it's not the same, right? Theory is theory.
[00:45:35] Zafar__Zubin: Application is application. So, but there's also, there's also another reason from a hiring manager that I said, cause I've been on the hiring side for people who are just switching careers. It's tough. Is that it quite simply the hiring manager has options. They have alternatives which are far less risky.
[00:45:52] Zafar__Zubin: So why would anyone take the risk, right? You have to really work hard and that's what I had to do when I was 38 and I moved from law to engineer is I had [00:46:00] to show All the hiring managers that I was no more risky than any of their other alternatives and I had the transferable skills Right. I had to level the playing field on risk and show that I had valuable skills that other did.
[00:46:14] Zafar__Zubin: And that's what I train my students to do. And that takes time, man. Like that takes time and focus, you know, it's, yeah, it's not, it's not easy. I mean and again, it comes back down to the economics of it, right. Is like how even someone with one year of experience is going to be, you know, more valuable than someone at a career exchange, right?
[00:46:31] Zafar__Zubin: Like the learning curve is so steep versus someone that's done it. So like I as someone who will, who, who would switch their careers, like, like you did, you have to sort of fight it out front of, Hey, I know I'm switching careers, but you have to be able to demonstrate with data, you know, and not just say, Hey, I can do this because everyone's going to say, Hey, I can do this, but how can you demonstrate to a certain degree that I can do what you're asking me or you're asking of me, sorry.
[00:46:57] Zafar__Zubin: And going back to what we talked about at the start of this, like, [00:47:00] because there is a, an economic principle here, and I learned how to do that de risking process when I was doing my startup. And I was basically producing a new product in a space that had competitors. And the big question is, why would the customer switch, right?
[00:47:17] Zafar__Zubin: It's exactly the same principle. Why would a hiring manager take a chance on a new product? I mean, you, when you're completely new to the field, when they've got established products that they already have reputationally de risked. In the marketplace because other people use them, you know, it's the same reason.
[00:47:32] Zafar__Zubin: Like if a restaurant has customers in it, we're more likely to think it's good than it's if the restaurant is empty, you know, we don't actually know what, you know, but we're going to go by the evidence, the social data around it and say, okay, that one's empty. That one's full. That the full one must be better.
[00:47:46] Zafar__Zubin: It's same principle hiring is if someone's got a track record. We assume that they better, even though the actual new candidate may be way better, you know, in terms of pure technical. Right. So it makes perfect sense. I'm glad you, you share [00:48:00] that point of view because I keep telling folks, especially those that go to boot camps, like boot camps are great.
[00:48:03] Zafar__Zubin: They'll teach you how to code. But there's a big missing piece is you have to individualize your application strategy to who you are and who the hiring managers. Otherwise, you're just not going to make it through. You know, you've absolutely got to say and you've got to make it de-risked for people like you as well The recruiter because you have reputations on the line.
[00:48:21] Zafar__Zubin: You're running a race. You've got competitors out there fishing from the same pool and you've got massive numbers and numbers to sort of deal with And I have to stand out enough to get your attention to say Zafar i'm worth your time and i'm not a risk. Yeah, I I think that's sort of nail nail in the coffin right there is Often recruiters are the first line of defense right and in order to get to that hiring manager You have to not only Demonstrate that in your CV, but convince us who it's our jobs to assess you, you know, as much as we.
[00:48:48] Zafar__Zubin: I think we are matchmakers. We evaluate people. That's what we we evaluate your skills, your characteristics, your personality, and we have to have a good evaluation of you that, you know what, you are worth [00:49:00] the risk. You know, maybe two years ago, more people would be open to taking that risk.
[00:49:05] Zafar__Zubin: You know, there was a high demand for talent, a lot of open roles, growth was happening. You know what, cool, I'll hire somebody with no experience and we'll learn along the way. Right now there's a major influx of experienced talent in the market. And now when you have experienced talent in the market there are people who know who have that know how already.
[00:49:24] Zafar__Zubin: And you're right. I, as a hiring manager, I've sort of got, you know, pick of the litter. Like, yeah, cool. Okay. I can, I can take a look at all of it and, and see, yeah, you're good. You're good. And no, you're, you're not as good. And then the same thing happened, you know, in the financial crisis, which was much worse than it is now.
[00:49:41] Zafar__Zubin: And I think, I mean, I was already four years into law at that time. And I lost so many colleagues. I was one of the last people left standing, but that's because I had learned that, you know, you have to show value in ways that other people aren't in order to hold on to things in the down market and a lot of my colleagues, very senior lawyers, Was built into the market and [00:50:00] it took them months and they were experienced lawyers Took them months to get back in because it was down cycle in a good cycle to get back absorbed in very quickly But in a down cycle, it's bad.
[00:50:08] Zafar__Zubin: And so cycles will change like right now things aren't great But that's why I keep telling my students to join me now I'm like in 12 months the market will change because these cycles come and go and then you'll have another 10 15 year Boom, you know and a bull run and that's great because you're starting at the bottom of the market And you're not in any rush to get in there, and you're willing to let, you know, let the cycle take its time, but you're preparing, you're using that time to prepare really well, and then you can ride the next big wave, but you have to do it super intentionally.
[00:50:34] Zafar__Zubin: You have to understand the risk. You have to understand the marketplace dynamic. So, man, thanks for sharing your views on that. That's really awesome.
[00:50:39] Zafar__Zubin: Now, just two more questions before I let you go. One, and you know, you can give a yes or no answer. You can sort of give a slightly more nuanced answer, but ATS is Applicant Tracking Systems.
[00:50:50] Zafar__Zubin: People go around going on about how the A. I. Is filtering them out. My understanding is that's not what happens. It's still the old manual filter process, just slightly better you I and it's [00:51:00] slightly better tools to do it right. What is using?
[00:51:02] Zafar__Zubin: I need to be very careful about how I how I deliver this. But in my experience, I have not found an A. T. S. That can do that type of filtering that candidates are thinking about through AI. And if there is one, please send it to me because I want it. My fingers hurt from doing all the work. Like, I, I, I've yet to find it.
[00:51:22] Zafar__Zubin: But there is a place for AI in ATS. You know, ATS give you functionalities and, ability to sort of decipher some things, look for things, but there's no such ATS that I'm aware of. And from the ones that I've worked with, I've worked with quite a few, I've worked with all the big players, I've worked with small players, I've worked with personalized ATSs that is going to completely filter you out.
[00:51:44] Zafar__Zubin: Because I think we have to sort of think about the full set of this also, right? Is everybody wants data. Every company out there knows data is very valuable. So every ATS also wants your data. They want your CV, they want your resume, they want your details. They want your experience. There's no reason for them to filter you out completely, right?
[00:51:59] Zafar__Zubin: [00:52:00] Because their, their product market fit when they go to companies and say, you should use our ATS is we've got all these different avenues and you can, you can have this data, that data, salary details, you know, this detail, that detail, like that's their value prop. So there's no reason for them to filter you out.
[00:52:15] Zafar__Zubin: But yes, no, I, I don't believe anything like that. So it's still a recruiter then that needs to apply the filtering layer to say, well, what does my client need? What do the candidates have and how do I sort of narrow it down to the candidates who have the right fit? Because you're, you're racing the clock here.
[00:52:30] Zafar__Zubin: Right. And, and you gotta find them back. Yeah. There's, there's, there's always a person, there's always a human, whether a recruiter, hiring manager, an HR person. There's always a human. Always a human. Alright. No, that, that's the key message. I wanted people, because that was my experience too. I'm like, I don't know, you guys started inventing this mythology around, you know, ai, ATSes that I, you know, after you and wanting instead exclude you.
[00:52:49] Zafar__Zubin: And I'm like, it's not that you would've been excluded anyway if you weren't the right fit. You know, so it's, it's not, nothing's really different.
[00:52:55] Zafar__Zubin: Now, last question for you, man, and you can get on your soapbox as much as you like here, right? But, [00:53:00] but I want to be respectful of your time. You ready? Hit me.
[00:53:05] Zafar__Zubin: Let's do it. Social media slash influencer culture. What impact is this having on candidates and applicant expectations that you really wish, man, it wasn't like this. I think it's skewing the reality of things. I think even if we look at, you know, how many people become social media influencers. It's only the top percent of of humans who are able to gather that type of following and so it doesn't work for 90 percent of the population, you know, and as much as we think we're, we are the top percent, there's probably 10 other better Zafars out there that I'm just unaware of.
[00:53:42] Zafar__Zubin: And so I think it skews expectations. I think it creates false realities, and it gives them an idea of. It's quite easy out there if you do X, Y, and Z because I did it, you know. And I don't think that's the case. Everyone has their own journey. You've got your own personal journey, which is very different than.[00:54:00]
[00:54:00] Zafar__Zubin: And when someone sort of takes on that journey and embraces that journey, I think that's when they find success is you know, the, there's no map to glory, but I know I can pave the way myself. So I don't. I don't think they're doing a service, these social media influencers, I don't think they're doing an effective service to the people who are really down and out and need support and maybe just looking for some tricks and tips, but they really do a damn good job of creating a false idea of what it can be, what it maybe should be.
[00:54:34] Zafar__Zubin: I don't know. It's tough. Like I said, it doesn't work for 90 percent of the population. No, and this is exactly why, you know, people are like, well, why do you do personal coaching? Why don't you just do a bunch of courses? And I'm like, cause the people actually succeed not there's so much diversity in people and their circumstances and their markets that they're in and the skills that they have and how they think and the background and whether they're married and kids, there's just so much diversity in [00:55:00] the pool that assuming that there's a one size fits all is a huge mistake.
[00:55:04] Zafar__Zubin: There just can't be. You know, there just can't be. And so, that's why I personalize things for everybody. I give no two people, no two students of mine have the same curriculum, no two students of mine have the same coaching, because they're all in different contexts, circumstances, mindsets, beliefs, habits, experiences, all of that.
[00:55:21] Zafar__Zubin: And you've got to work with what they've got to take them from A to B. You know, in my case from A to Z, like I have to take them all the way there. And this is what upsets me about the way the influencer culture is having an infected people is exactly as you said. They, they believe that the influencer is, or, you know, that blog or whatever it is, is the, is the, is the actual answer.
[00:55:43] Zafar__Zubin: Whereas all it is, is a clue to something that may work, but chances are it's not gonna work for you in your circumstance without adaptation. Right. Would, would you agree with that overall summary? I absolutely would. I I echo that and I, and I, [00:56:00] there's a lot of good information out there on social media, right?
[00:56:03] Zafar__Zubin: Like there, there, it's not to say that every piece of information is incorrect, but I think something that you touched on really hits is that personalized piece of it. You know, that information that you're digesting and receiving, how does that apply to you? How does that apply to me specifically? And can I use it?
[00:56:19] Zafar__Zubin: Like, you know, is this going to be functional for me? So. It's just too bad there's no disclaimer at the beginning of a TikTok, right? Saying, you know, this may or may not work for you, but I wish they did more of a service than a disservice because some of these social media influencers have so much power and, and I use power, not in a negative connotation, but in a sense of like, they can do really some good, you know, if, if, if someone went on there and said, Hey, listen, this may not work for 90 percent of the people out there, but.
[00:56:48] Zafar__Zubin: You know, as long as you get started, that it may work. How many more people are going to be receptive to that versus clicks? And this is, this is what it's going to be. Right. So I kind of [00:57:00] think, I kind of think it's partly the, the, the nature of the human mind is we want the quick tricks. We want the formula.
[00:57:06] Zafar__Zubin: We want the one thing that'll, that'll, that'll make it so easy for us, you know, gift wrapping and bow tie for us. And so we naturally drawn to these. 10 things you need to do to become a coder this year. Five languages you must learn. That kind of bullshit, you know? And so we get drawn to that stuff because we think.
[00:57:22] Zafar__Zubin: There's an easy solution and we want it yesterday. I mean, that's the entire reason why the, in the fitness industry in the US, for example, supplements is four times bigger than, than the gym industry. It just tells you a lot, you know, that this is how human nature is. We want the quick fix without the effort.
[00:57:39] Zafar__Zubin: And so the, the, the downside of the influencer culture is in 30 seconds, you can only sell the quick fix. You can't actually sell the whole story. You know, you can't there's there's too much nuance to it. So are you seeing different applicant behavior because of this social media sort of trend the last six years?
[00:57:59] Zafar__Zubin: Or would [00:58:00] you say applicant behavior is unchanged?
[00:58:02] Zafar__Zubin: I think it's generally similar. I think applicants are applicants. I think sometimes specific nuances may change. I think you know, a lot of tactical things that applicants maybe were doing before are not necessarily happening now. I think. You know, a lot of these influencers are ditching the cover letter, right?
[00:58:18] Zafar__Zubin: So the cover letter is not something that people are using regularly anymore. And they're, you know, something that I'm seeing a lot of is, or create a portfolio you know, in lieu of a CV or like different alternatives or like creative solutions, and that's all good and great. But understand that as people who are hiring you, we still need the meat.
[00:58:35] Zafar__Zubin: Bones are cool. You can style them up as much as, as much as it looks nice and aesthetically will be beautiful. And we'll appreciate that beauty. You know, it's not the same. You won't be like, yeah, this looks really cool, but the meat is important. And I think the meat, a social media influencer can't provide, you've got to figure out what your meat is and put that in what would you say is the meat in this example, like what is it, what is the substance that, and not just the lipstick, you [00:59:00] know, what's the substance.
[00:59:01] Zafar__Zubin: I think the substance is really being, being able to use data around specific projects that. You have completed that you want to highlight, right? If we continue to use the career changer example, which I know a lot of your students are it's about, okay, cool. If I'm not able to fill a five page CV of buzzwords and jargon and all this technology that I think will get picked up by this AI ATS I'll have real projects in there.
[00:59:25] Zafar__Zubin: Have real things, real links that people can click on or, or they can go to and they can see demonstrations of your ability, whether that's GitHub contributions, I think as someone who is career changing, and this may be the, if there's one caveat to take from this whole chat, it's GitHub contributions, especially as a new engineer.
[00:59:43] Zafar__Zubin: That's what's going to get you noticed by recruiters is cool. Okay, cool. You've, you've changed your career. So a lot of people do it, but are you actively developing yourself? Then GitHub is the easiest, most public place to see that. And if a new developer is not. I, I [01:00:00] wouldn't take that chance on that I know maybe some recruiters, maybe they will but I just, I know a lot of my clients spoke, and so I would be doing you a disservice, getting you excited about a role and then ultimately you get declined because I probably knew from the, the jump that you know, it's just, it's not there.
[01:00:14] Zafar__Zubin: So that's what I would do. Let's say your CV is not a lot of bones, no meat that, that let's create some meat through there, you know, let's put some of that GitHub contributions in there. And let's put some of the projects that you're in there, even some side hustle stuff, you know, you talked about at the top of the hour, like a side project that I'm coding on, like, put that in there, you know, like, I want to see what you're doing and I want to see the type of work that you're doing, because maybe something sticks, maybe something sticks, but if you're not putting it in there and your resume is all jargon and buzzwords and, and things that you think that the recruiter is going to get excited about, because you looked at the JD and, It said we want AWS, or we want GCP, or we want Azure, and we want DevSecOps, and we want this, this, this, and, and you're like, yep, this is what I'm putting in there, but you're not able to [01:01:00] demonstrate how that works.
[01:01:01] Zafar__Zubin: Maybe you get an interview, but you won't get a job. So, so that raises an interesting point to loop back to what you said earlier the hiring side, you know, hiring managers, they're always, the clients are always looking for unicorns. I mean, no unicorns exist. So, you know, there's a popular trope about, oh, you know, you want just, you know, a beginner with 10 years of experience, you know, you're looking at a few levels over the five years of experience and all that stuff.
[01:01:21] Zafar__Zubin: Right. So let's break it down really real. And then I'll let you go, man, but it's, If, if there's somebody who looks at a role and I noticed this, especially some of my female students, they tend to over disqualify themselves much more than the male students will, but you know, there's a role let's say is listed this laundry list of 10, 10 buzzwordy skills and tools and frameworks and, you know, sort of client providers or whatever.
[01:01:42] Zafar__Zubin: And let's say a person knows three or four really well and doesn't know the other seven or six or seven of them. Would you say that they should pretend or at least throw all those words into their resume and learn a little bit, or would you say It doesn't matter if you don't know the six or seven, just go really deep on the three you do know [01:02:00] and really make that stand out.
[01:02:01] Zafar__Zubin: What would you say? I would be more likely to choose the latter versus the former. But I would address my lack of ability or skill in some of the required stuff. And demonstrate how I'm learning that so you know, it's easy to say, Hey, I don't know JavaScript, but you know, I'm willing to learn versus saying, Hey, you know what, I'm working with Java today.
[01:02:22] Zafar__Zubin: I'm very good at Java. I've worked with Python. I'm learning JavaScript, and I'm learning node on the back end. And here's a demonstration of how I'm learning that because again, you know, these hiring managers, not only are they hiring you for your skills, but they're seeing you. How is that skills going to translate when I bring you in into production?
[01:02:38] Zafar__Zubin: Okay. So yeah, I need to be able to see and let's sort of look at it from an engineer perspective. How do I take it from gathering requirements and getting the top end to then filtering it through all the way, right? So sort of same thing. 100%, 100%. And I think on that note, we can wind it up because I hear your kids calling you and it's time for you to go.
[01:02:55] Zafar__Zubin: Yeah, I was going to say, there you go. Yeah, you might, you might hear my son in the back. I think he knows that it's time [01:03:00] out, but I'm sorry. I'm going to run. I know, man. Sorry. I kept you back late, dude. I kept saying, I'm going to try and let you go. And the problem, I blame you because you're interesting and you know shit.
[01:03:08] Zafar__Zubin: Now, what can I do about that? Right. So yeah, listen, I'm not going to give you a hard time for that one. I'll let you pump my tires anytime, man. Man, Zafar, thank you so much for taking out the time from your day and away from your family. Please express my gratitude to your wife and your kids as well. And thank you so much for sharing your perspective.
[01:03:25] Zafar__Zubin: It's, it's been a real pleasure, man. And I really hope people understand where you're coming from and hear you on this. Cause it's really important to thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right, man. I'll let you go. Have a great weekend. Take care. All right. Bye.
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