Episode 54: Recruiting with Harry Chen

This week we sit down with Harry Chen, Director of Staffing Solutions at Arraya Solutions. We chat about the recruiting industry, how to standout on your resume, some interviewing tips and more!

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  Pat: 0:31

  Hey everybody. Welcome back to this week's edition of Breaking Down the Bites. As usual, I'm your host, pat. I'm the one driving this bus to wherever we wanna land. Ladies and Jens. You can find me on Twitter at layer eight packet. That is the number eight. Kyle. He's back this week. He's not busy. He's dedicated. Once again, he's on Twitter too at Dan at 2 56. And also you can find the show on Twitter at Breaking Bites pod. Alex is gone for one more week. Technically he comes back from his vacation tomorrow, so we figure we let him enjoy his last day of vacation instead of coming and talking with us crazy. So, he'll be back with us next week and I'm sure he's got all kinds of stories and he's ready and rejuvenated to go. So shout out to him as he finishes up his much needed and much deserved vacation. But, We are still a trio tonight, we have a guest. Kyle and I, we have a guest with us. Good friend of mine, Mr. Harry Chen. Harry, what's up man? How you doing?

  Harry: 1:36

  Nothing much, pat. Thanks for having me on

  Pat: 1:38

  Anytime, man. Appreciate it. I know we've been talking about this for a few weeks kind, getting schedules all locked in and whatnot, so I figured well, now's a good time. And truth be told, we had some audio issues before we hit record. So if I sound a little odd it's because I have, I'm the one having audio issues. Everyone else is fine, but the host is the one that really looks like an idiot here this week. So if I sound a little weird I'll try to do my best in editing to make my sound, my voice sound nice and shiny as usual. And I did have a new mic this week as well. But that is giving me some issues. So yeah, we'll see. So I apologize ahead of time, but Kyle, what's up man? How you doing? You're back for this you'd be gone two weeks now.

  Kyle: 2:18

  Yeah. Well, I mean, we had Easter, right?

  Pat: 2:20

  It's true.

  Kyle: 2:22

  and then yeah. Woo. I'm good. Good. You know, same old here we are.

  Pat: 2:27

  you were working on the wife's car this

  Kyle: 2:28

  Yeah. I've never done suspension work before, but if you hear from me in a couple days and the wheels didn't fall off we did it.

  Pat: 2:36

  so if you've never worked with suspension before, my first question is why are you working on a car?

  Kyle: 2:41

  I had a buddy helping me. He was like, we can do that. We got, I got all the tools I got. I'm like, let's do it. Let's,

  Pat: 2:47

  All right.

  Harry: 2:48

  isn't just YouTube video then

  Kyle: 2:49

  no.

  Pat: 2:50

  it.

  Harry: 2:51

  Because that's how I would've done it.

  Pat: 2:53

  That's funny. Now actually that reminds me, truth be told I saw this a few years ago that. I, it was, I wanna say a father and a son, I wanna say or some sort of relation. They actually built a brand new home, literally from the ground up with just videos that they watched on YouTube. Everything from like literally a dirt plot to people moving in furniture and living like day to day. It is, it's the wildest thing. I was like, man, there is some dedication there. I'd be, there'd be some plumbing or some nonsense, like a wall would be falling over and all this shit. I had never, I could never do that. Oh my God, I have trouble changing the, you know, the paper towel roll here in the house, so it's anyway,

  Harry: 3:37

  Meanwhile, they're living in other car for the

  Pat: 3:39

  it. Yeah,

  Kyle: 3:39

  right?

  Pat: 3:40

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly

  Kyle: 3:42

  If I built the whole thing from the ground up, if I heard a creek, I'd be like, everybody out. It's coming down, you know?

  Pat: 3:47

  it. Like a gas leak. Everybody just vanishes. He's just like, all right, out in the front lawn. Where's the rendezvous point? We'll meet you there. No. Thanks Harry, for taking the couple of minutes here to come and chat. And I figured you know, since this is a show that helps new folks breaking into the industry, what a better guest than a it recruiter to come and hang out. So, Harry, why don't you give a little intro to yourself, who you are, where you're from, and what you're doing. Show the floor is yours, my man.

  Harry: 4:15

  Cool. So, like you mentioned name's Harry Chen. I've been in the it field now for. Geez, lost track of time, like almost 20 years. I actually started in IT. Degree was in, it was in SQL development reports. A lot of really boring stuff that I couldn't do so quickly pivoted within a year found my way into recruiting. Really enjoyed it and kind of, this is where I'm at today. So, you know, eight, 17 years in recruiting. Now I'm a director of our staffing practice at Array Solutions. We provide, you know, IT solutions for variety of mid-enterprise size customers mostly in the Philadelphia area, a hundred, 150 mile radius affiliate. But so that's kind of what we do focus with, like I said, all within the IT space. Really focus on that you know, staffing consulting project based staffing, you know, staffing teams and you know, higher end engineers, et cetera. So, Supporting in whatever business needs, you know, customers need. So that's the skinny of it.

  Pat: 5:20

  Nice. That's the 20,000 foot view. I like it. I like it. So I guess my first question, well, I kind of give a little background to where Harry and I met Harry actually put me at at customers bank where I'm at now. So that's how I met Harry. And I actually met Harry through a friend Kail. We share a mutual friend and I guess you and Kapil go back a couple years as well. You guys are boys and. Uh, he's a, he is a good dude and he kind of led me to you and here we are. That's a full circle moment.

  Kyle: 5:46

  Nice.

  Harry: 5:47

  Yeah. Life is full circle. Yeah. I've known KA for about 10 years now. Worked with him maybe even longer than that. Now I'm thinking about it. But, you know, probably about 10 years worked with him back at my previous organization and, you know, so he's in the area and knows he's an IT recruiter, probably been in the business longer than I have, but you know, there's a lot of

  Pat: 6:05

  yeah. That can't

  Harry: 6:07

  People knowing people. That's what it's all about, I guess. Yep.

  Pat: 6:10

  kind of curious about that. Like, you know, Kyle and I talk about this on the show all the time, like the IT industry, it is very vast, but it's very small at the same time. Cuz you, like everybody knows everybody and you always have a connection. It's all, it's almost like one of those like six degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of thing. Like, everybody knows, you know, who is who. So I don't know I guess I kind of start with, you know, as a recruiter like what does that, is there a lot of like, and I'll kind of equate this to a sales thing, is there like a lot of cold calling that goes on with you guys? Like, do you reach out to, like, do you do like LinkedIn searches and say, Hey, I'm looking for a network eye, I'm looking for a sequel guy. Like, and then just kind of mass, I don't wanna say it makes it sound cheap, but is it like a mass, like LinkedIn mail and say, Hey, I have a spot for you, let me know.

  Harry: 7:00

  Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, it's, recruiting is generally like sales. I mean, we are, it is, I would say it's definitely a sales function. We're definitely there's a lot of cold calling to, I mean, you know, depending on where you are in your recruiting career, you're doing more cold calling or less cold calling. You know, of course, if you know a lot of folks, you know, there's probably less of it. If you're, if you don't know anyone, then just like anything else, you're just cold calling away. Right. You know, and then, and same type of thing, like, I think it depends on A lot of it's like experience, right? So if you're new to the industry and you're and I'm sure you guys have experienced this a lot in your careers, but if you're new to the industry, you know, you know the d you don't know the difference between hardware and software. So when you're recruiting for someone, you're getting calls for, you're getting calls from a recruiter that doesn't have a clue what they're actually recruiting for, which I can see where the frustration comes in from the candidate side. So, but then again, that recruiter's working so much harder, right? They're making, because they have to. 10 times more cause than someone like myself who knows. Okay, I can read a resume. Know pretty much what, you know, your forte is or what you're generally pretty decent at, or what at least you say you're decent at and what you're not decent at, and kind of where you focus on and generally have an idea of also like what you wanna do, right? Which is a big part of kind of your next role and stuff like that. So yeah, so I try to keep those cold calls to a minimum these days. But yeah, still cold calling all the time. Several cold calls a week. Now when I say cold calls is probably a tough term for it because I would say it's more warm calls. You know, cause it's a lot of these folks, you know, you have on your LinkedIn that says like, Hey, I'm searching right, or I'm currently looking, or yet, or, we have various databases where people are uploading their resumes and you know, clearly if you're uploading your resume with your phone number and your email, I wouldn't say that's necessarily a complete cold call, but I guess as it's defined, it's a cold call, right? Cause I don't know you, you don't know me. I'm calling you out of the blue. And so it's defined as a cold call, but I don't necessarily know if I would classify it as a cold call. Right. And then same thing, LinkedIn. There's you get a, you get ahold of anyone however you can. LinkedIn messages. I mean, I'll never forget the one time, you know, this is probably seven, eight years ago, but I think Capelle got ahold of somebody through their YouTube channel. So, you know, a lot of crazy stuff. But yeah, just however you can get ahold of somebody Is is just the kind of the way to go. So yeah, there's a lot of that. I mean, there's not a ton of like male. I, well, I don't, but I know there's, I know in the industry there definitely is where you got recruiters that are like blasting out like male merges to like thousands of people. I don't really know if that works. And I guess you played numbers game. It probably works, but it's not really my style. But that's, yeah, I guess that also will work. So, you know, but then again, these days you could do that so easily between your check GPTs and writing, write, having them write your email for you and then mail, merging it. I mean, that'll take a whole 15 minutes these days,

  Kyle: 10:00

  right?

  Harry: 10:00

  right? So,

  Pat: 10:02

  there's our hook, Kyle. There's the chat G p t section of this episode. Every episode, the last couple of months chat, g p t has made its way here and here it is. So

  Harry: 10:11

  I mean, it's like, it's what? Google on steroids, right? Everyone says you Google something, it's just Google on steroids. I mean, it is, and it's not even, I mean, steroids isn't even the right word. It's like steroids. Steroids on steroids.

  Pat: 10:23

  right? Yeah. That's wild. That's wild. I will say I, there's a few. Recruiters that I've stayed in touch with after they've either placed me or I went through a couple rounds of interviews and ended up not getting the job, but we kind of stayed in touch. And, you know, I think it's I think the recruiting side of it, at least the good ones, you know, I think it's more of building a relationship cuz if it doesn't happen right now, they may need you down the road for something and that just gives them more confidence to come back to you cuz they do have that repertoire, that relationship with that, you know, with the recruiter and, you know, everything has a timing aspect to it. As, you know, everything in this industry is timing. Right. Or

  Harry: 11:08

  Oh yeah.

  Pat: 11:08

  a good 90% of it is timing. So, you know, I, you know, I think it's probably, you know, the good ones build

  Harry: 11:17

  401k. And

  Pat: 11:18

  relationships with a lot of people, not necessarily based on. If they can place them or not. Cuz you know, I would assume people jump around and especially in the it, it industry people jump around all the time. You know, the more you build a relationship, the more they're likely to come back to you and say, Hey, I'm looking again. Do you have anything for me? I don't know. Do you wanna kind of touch on that a little bit?

  Harry: 11:39

  That's definitely the case. I mean, at the end of the day, it's, I think that goes, I mean, that it's, it definitely applies to the recruiting industry as a whole, but I think that applies everywhere. I mean, you just making sure you build. With the right people. It's like, you know, I've always told a lot of folks, especially, you know, in my industry, right, it's a lot of this isn't about what you know anymore. It's about who you know. Because, you know, you can have the best resume on earth, but you could apply all over the place and frankly speak, you may never get a response from just applying the places. You gotta have to know somebody that can, you know, give you a little nudge or, and that's why recruiters are kind of out there so that they can, they have those relationships. You know, the hiring managers or whoever it might be, and they can, you know, give a little nudge. So that's where that kind of relationship piece comes in as well, right? So it's all about relationships, is definitely the the, you know, the whole thing. So yeah, it's definitely what, you know, like I said, I always tell folks it's who you know, it's not what you know. But, you know, building relationship's absolutely critical in recruiting just as it is in, as I said, I really think in, in all aspects of life. Cuz you started off in the beginning with just like, It's a small world. It is really a small world out there. There's so many scenarios I feel like I run into where people are talking about that they've worked with from seven years ago, or eight years ago, or even 10 years ago, where they went to school with this person or they played, you know, their kids played, you know, soccer together or whatever it is, right? There's so many people, especially, and like I said, in the IT world, everyone, it just seems like everyone is, I don't think he's, there's even six degrees. I think if you talk about locally, like everyone's connected within two degrees, right? So it is it's crazy. It is really crazy. So it's just like, look, build those relationships. Don't burn any bridges. You know, but that's it's tough cuz I always, you know, and I think that's like for you guys for example, like we kind of talked about it, right? When you try. Build relationships with the recruiters or whatever it may be. Cuz it's a, it's always an interesting concept, isn't it? Like when you need the recruiters, then there's like a bunch of 'em out there. But you can't, there's so many of 'em, you don't know which ones are really good, which ones are bad, that, how to trust that, which ones, and like, you know, it's like, and so I, I talk to a lot of folks that get really frustrated with recruiters and I get it. I completely get it. And so it's, but it's at the same time, it's like, you also need 'em. So I always tell folks, I'm like, you kind of, you kind of have to just feel 'em out and just see which ones, you know, you feel like you can trust just like anyone else. Right?

  Pat: 14:12

  yeah.

  Harry: 14:13

  I mean, I think that's what it comes down to.

  Pat: 14:16

  Yeah. I always find the ones interesting too, like you said, there's, you know, in the recruiting industry there's good and bad, right? And w with anything, there's good and bad, just depends on how hard you look. But I always find it interesting, like the head hunters that I get, that just land in my inbox, it's like, oh, I have a six month contract in Boise, Idaho. I'm like, do you know where I'm at? Like, I'm not moving to Boise for six months. And, you know what I mean? Like, it just, like, I just, that frustrates me of like, I get that they're just mass mailers and that's what I feel like they automatically go in the trash because it's like, look, if you're not gonna offer me a job, either a remote full. Or be somewhere, like we said, you know, we all live in the same area. We're all here in Pennsylvania within, you know, 50 ish miles of where I'm living. Like, you're completely wasting my time. Like, it makes no sense. Or like, sometimes I get those emails where it's like for the for like the state, like out in Harrisburg, We need a level one technician for six months. And I'm like, do you know? Like, no, you don't know who I am. Cause it's a mass mailer. But like, that's what frustrates me. It's like these people that just sent massive, like headhunter emails and just, they cast a wide net and whatever they catch. But they're like, I just get so annoyed. I'm like, oh God. I wish they would just do like a little homework with like, go a long way. But that, I guess that's just the name of their game.

  Harry: 15:34

  Yeah, that's the, it depends on the organization and then the way how it all works, right? Because you have organizations that just have tons of recruiters out there, and it's purely a volume game. So it's just, let me blast as many people as I can, because then I'll get more responses. And it's like, that's not how I operate. And I think that's how I have the team operate because I think that's completely inefficient. But hey, look, every, to each their own, right? I mean, they every organization runs their their strategy a bit differently, right? Plus like a lot of those mass mailers that you're getting in where, like you said, like, Hey, I'm gonna give you something in Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh's in Pennsylvania, so it's gotta be pretty close to you, right? But, of them are also coming from what they're probably overseas too. You get a lot of just like, I mean, a lot of outsourced recruiters that just, they don't have a clue. You know, obviously the distance. I mean, you could chat G P T and I guess, or Google it, but that takes some time too.

  Pat: 16:30

  Yep.

  Harry: 16:32

  But

  Pat: 16:32

  And for you wondering, Pittsburgh is about six hours west of where Harry, Kyle and I are. So just for a little geographic lesson

  Harry: 16:39

  Right? Right. Right.

  Pat: 16:41

  I, for 1:00 AM not traveling six hours, one way to go to a eight hour job. So

  Harry: 16:46

  Yep.

  Kyle: 16:47

  So I was curious, I don't know if we, if maybe I'm hitting this too soon, but. Yeah. You said you've been doing this a while now, and I'm curious how like the job trends and the length that people stay at a certain job have changed throughout like your career so far. Like have you noticed people like, Hey, you know, I'm a lifer and now it's like people are like, oh, it's two years and I'm on to the next, you know, like, how's that been?

  Harry: 17:11

  I think in general it's that the tenure of folks working at, in an organization is definitely shortened as a general rule right now, that doesn't, you know, you have some folks that enjoy, you know, they have some really good folks in some organizations and they stay for a while because there's, they get promoted and there's a lot of growth. They really like the team or culture or whatever it may be. But if I if to answer that in a completely generalized statement, I think it's definitely shorter. I mean, I just think, and I think it's definit. You know, like there, I can go into a little bit about this, but I mean, you got into like, you know, my parents' age or our parents' age, I should say. Right? I mean, like my, it's funny, I'm looking at Pat's shirt. He's got a Norfolk Southern shirt. So my, my dad, which is crazy, my dad works for Conrail, so that's why,

  Pat: 17:59

  Oh, no

  Harry: 17:59

  Conrail was acquired by Norfolk Southern years and years back. But he worked for Conrad's entire career. My mom worked for the city of Philadelphia her entire career, you know, both 30 years, whatever it was. So it's like, I don't know how much that happens these days. I just, and you know, I would say that happens, you know, ver definitely much less than it did before. And I think it's probably trending that way where folks are staying at their organizations less and less. I mean, I think I read some article out there, like if you and I don't. I'm not condoning people do this cuz I also think it's a difficult, and it's a, and I think at a certain point you're gonna hit a kind of a max capacity here, but I think I read somewhere, if you change jobs every two years, your gross income over your career or whatever it will be is like, you know, will be significantly higher than if you stayed at the same organization for, you know, 20 years or whatever it was. Right now, I don't know anyone who's doing that methodically like two years and I'm going somewhere else, I'm going somewhere else, I'm going somewhere. And like I said, that's got, that has to ultimately stop somewhere. Right? But but it, but there was some article somewhere that I read about that that, you know, if you do change jobs every two years, you technically will significantly increase your take home. Now, I don't know, like I said how long, how that would last in a extended period, but definitely within a vacuum of. You know, whatever you want to call it, six years, eight years, 10 years, then you probably can make it, make a case for that.

  Kyle: 19:33

  Okay, now now I guess that then kind of jumps me in my next one. And this is more maybe just like a personal experience thing. So have you ever placed anybody like tier one and then they are like a repeat visitor. They come back and they're like, look at all these skills I got now. And you like, you feel like a proud popper. Just like, oh look, you've grown and you get to hand them off to something else.

  Harry: 19:56

  Yeah, I mean, we get. We get that. I, that happens. I do see that, but it doesn't all organically flow through me. Right. So like, to give you like an example, right? I, that happens all the time where I stay connected to folks that are tier ones and then they be, you know, they get their ccna, they moved into networking or they somehow went into security or whatever it is path they went to. And I still stay in touch with 'em. And I usually like, you know, fall 'em away, congratulate 'em sometimes, like I'll work with them again years, like a years down the road or whatever it may be, right? In most cases though, I won't, it won't be one of those scenarios where it's like, okay, now like, Congratulations, son. We're gonna move you on to your next, like, move, right? Because they're at, because they're probably doing well with your current organization. And you know, just from you know, o obviously from a, a business perspective, I just, it's not something that I do where I pull you out of your current organization that I put you there. Cause I have a relationship with a client as well, right? So it's not, it's bad business to do that. So, you know, so in general, that's that's, that doesn't happen a ton, but yes.

  Kyle: 21:01

  Okay. Okay.

  Pat: 21:03

  See, there you go. And I'll kind of just talk from my personal experience as well. And for those of you that listen to this show, you kind of know this, but I've had, I wanna say six jobs in the last. 10 years. So I am basically what Harry said, like the job hopper for every two years. And I'll tell you like my salary has tripled due to that, due to moving around. So, you know, Harry's right? With, you know, the two years and off you go, or three years and off you go. That sort of thing. Like you, you're gonna, you're gonna increase your salary more as you job hop than you would waiting for a raise at your current place, no matter how hard you work. It just doesn't happen that way. Right? So, and Alex isn't here to take credit for this particular phrase, but, you know, your next job should always be your biggest pay race. That's what it comes down to. Plained and simple, right? So he's the one that coined that and told me that years ago. So, that's just what it is. So, yeah I would agree. I think the IT industry moves incredibly fast, both from a technology perspective and from a people perspective of just moving around and. You gotta get paid, you know, and the quicker you get paid, the better off you are. Right? So I just, that's just what it is. I feel like that's just kind of where it is as an industry. Cuz on the other foot, right? If those companies had to make cuts and whatnot for whatever reason, they're not gonna think bad. They're not gonna think bad or twice about cutting you loose. So if you have a better opportunity come your way, you don't feel bad about cutting 'em loose. That's just what it is. And I, it sounds kind of mean to say, but you know, it just, it is what it is, right? They're, they gotta do what's best for business. And I think personally, job hopping or at least, you know, interviewing for a job, it's a business transaction at that point. You gotta take all the feeling out of it. It's literally a purely a business perspective. Okay? I'm gonna do this task for you. You're gonna pay me X amount of money and like, that's it. Like, that's what today's business world is. It's a truly, they've taken all the emotional feeling, been in a company 30 years, retire, golden watch thing out of it. They've literally taken it all gone. So it's like, look, if you got a different, if you got another spot that's willing to pay you more and it's worth it, or whatever the timing aspect is, I, you know, go for it. You know, it's just, it is just a different world today. I guess. That's probably my

  Harry: 23:26

  I think it's, I honestly think it's always been like that, right? It's always like, it's just bus business is business, right? Like c like companies are gonna do what's best for their bottom line and their shareholders, right? That's the reality of it. And I think in the past there was a bit, you know, I, maybe there was, I don't know if there was less layoffs or whatever it was, but maybe it was just, it wasn't as public as maybe what it was, is it in, in that scenario, right? So you just, you didn't hear about it as much, but at the end of the day, like you said, they're gonna do what's, it doesn't matter. They're not, they're gonna do what's best for their business, their bottom line, their shareholders, all that other stuff. So it's all business transactions. So yeah, you're absolutely right. I think, but there's definitely. I think from a employee side there's still some type of, you know, you still have to have some type of cautious approach, is maybe the best way to put it, right? Because unfortunately, right, you still have, you know, you have the job hopper thing, right? So if you hop too much, you kind of get a negative, you know, you know what, whatever kind of a scarlet letter slap to you, right? Where it's like, Hey, look, you're the job hopper and here's the, there's maybe some risk here, which frankly speaking, it's then a business decision as well. Cuz then you have a, you have the next company or employer, whoever it is that sees. And that's a, that's becomes a business risk that they say, do we want to take, or do we not want to take, right. Because we take this risk of do they, will they stay or will they not stay Right. And that could potentially harm you down the road. But it, and it could not, right? It doesn't, it really just depends on the employer and the whole thing. So I think there's always, you still have to play it with caution, of course. Like I always tell folks it doesn't matter however you approach it, just stay professional with everything and for the most part it should be fine. I mean, with your, within the tech career though, some of that job hopping, per se, is a little, unless it's really erratic is is really. It's not as detrimental, I think. Right? So if you're in other role, like, okay, so for instance, if I'm hiring a recruiter, if I'm hiring a salesperson or something like that, and you've job hopped I won't even probably talk to you, is the reality. Just because. You probably haven't been able to stay at an organization long enough to prove enough value that, you know, if you've only been there a year. Right. But like in the tech field, like with what you guys do what you guys deliver is so black and white, it's, you know, I either know I can do it or I can't do it. Right. But from a sales perspective it's much, there's so much more gray areas in there and so I look at that a lot different. So a lot of that job hover depends also on probably the type of, you know, industry you're in. And that's also why in the tech field too, I mean, you know, I don't know how much you guys have heard, like this has been term terms been coined, you know, for the last like, two years, right. The whole, we're in this like, gig economy, right? So you now have like, I dunno if you, have you heard of like Fiver or freelancer or, right. So you now have all these, you know, all these Consultants doing side gigs and all this other stuff because we're in this gig economy where it's just like, I think a lot of people have realized like exactly what you said, pat, like it, it's you know, the whole 30 years at the organization, we give you the, you know, we give you the watch, we give you the clock after the 10 years. I, I think they're just like, look, just give me a task. We're gonna negotiate a pay that you're gonna pay me for this task, and we're gonna agree to that. When I'm finished the task, I'm done. I'm gonna move on to my next gig. Right? So, so you have a lot of that going on, I think, these days, and I think there's, what I've seen is there's more and more you know, in over the years, there's more and more what I would say you know, I call 'em independent consultants, right? Where folks, you know, I talk to a lot of folks who are just like, look, I'm not gonna. I'm, I think I'm not gonna work for an organization, I'm just gonna work for myself and just pick up contract gigs for, you know, six months, 12 months, two years, whatever they want. Right? But I don't need to get paid by them. I'm gonna just bill my time out. Now it's a tough decision because you gotta go find them and you gotta, of course, there's a lot of variables with that, a lot of risk with that. But at the end of the day, if you're good and you can, you're, you have some flexibility and you can do a bunch of different things. There's some value to that. Right. So, you know, I've seen a lot more of that today though.

  Pat: 27:52

  No I think that's interesting. I think it's I think it's a, it's an interesting thing, especially you mentioned the fiber thing. I actually signed up for fiber I don't wanna say like a year or two ago. And Upwork is the other one,

  Harry: 28:02

  Yep. Upwork is a big one.

  Pat: 28:04

  that I've done. And I haven't gotten any gigs on either of them, just cause I haven't put the time in then to kind of, you know, whatever. So that's kind of on me. I thought it was maybe good for some extra scratch or whatever. I got one nibble on fiber and it was some guy that I forget, he was a director somewhere that he needed some like, like basic stuff done or whatever, X, Y, and Z. And I was like, oh, okay. I can, you know, I can do that and you know this, you know, this is the avenue. We'll probably go like this is best practice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like for some reason he like, he was like, oh I know what it was. He obviously, he didn't want to pay me what I thought what he was asking was worth at that point. And then he's like, ah, he ended this quote will stick with me for whatever reason. He goes, ah. He goes I've I've gotten a lot of people reaching out to me to do work and I know what I need specifically done. And he goes, I don't want a bunch of, he goes, I don't want to pay a rookie to come in here and learn stuff on my network. I'm like, dude, like. My credentials are in my profile. Like I've get, like we've had conversations that, you know, I'm not like, I'm not an idiot when it comes to this stuff. And he's like, I don't want some rookie coming in here and working on my network for free and getting experience for free. I'm like, dude, I gotta go. Like, I can't talk to you. Like, I was like, yeah, it's like just some like weird stuff that goes on out there. What whatnot. But I could totally see the gig economy kind of being that, that

  Harry: 29:25

  Well, so

  Pat: 29:26

  because So go ahead.

  Harry: 29:28

  yeah, I was gonna say I think it needs, I think you need to, it, it definitely needs to be refined a bit. It's a bit wild west ish out there right now. And that's,

  Pat: 29:37

  gonna say that it's perfect.

  Harry: 29:38

  that's what I meant to, that's what I was gonna ask you is. Like, you don't have to, you know, you don't have to tell the, you know, say the customer or say who it was. But was it like a company, was it like, like actually a company? Were they mid-size, small size, large, enterprise size? Or was it just like a random guy that, that owned like you know, like a coffee shop or something like that? You know what I mean? So I

  Pat: 30:01

  Yeah, I think it was mid-size. It was more mid-size. I think. I can't remember the guy, I can't remember the specifics, but it, he had a director title to him. It did sound mid-size now they were using ubiquity. And me personally, I just think ubiquity is like prosumer stuff. I don't think it belongs in the enterprise type suites, but a lot of people swear by it. Right. A lot of people love the ubiquity stuff. It's, you know, it's a poor man's HP Aruba switches. Right. That's what I think it is. So like, you know, so like he did have decent you, he had stuff in there now whether, you know, whether it was good or whether what he wanted, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, but it was I think it was like a mid-size thing. So like he was just, I think it was just very particular. What he was looking for. And I don't know if I like flagged a key word that he didn't wanna like, you know, this guy's a whatever. He's like, yeah, I don't want some rookie coming in here. I'm like, all right dude, I'll show you a rookie. Like, you know, it's just weird to, I dunno, it's just weird. But I, yeah, I, you know, I think the gig economy is a decent way to go, especially if you have a spouse that that works full-time and has decent benefits that can bring you on and you don't have to then pace for your own benefits. Like for example, my wife's a public school teacher, she teaches second grade, so, you know, she's got the teacher benefits, which historically are pretty decent, right? It's not like they're, you know, scraping the bottom of the barrel over there in the public education system. But you know, so technically I could do just a contract and float from contract to contract because we're all covered under her insurance anyway. So, you know, if you have that flexibility of somebody who already has. Benefits, then you could literally just do the contract and just go straight for the money and then you're, you know, you're ex, you're earning an extra scratch or whatever it is. So, you know, there's multiple ways to skin that, you know, skin that cap. But I know a lot of people that are doing the fiber and the Upwork and that sort of thing to, to kind of make an extra, you know, do an extra gig. And, you know, as long as you take the taxes out for it you're good to go there. Charlie Brown. So it's all

  Harry: 31:59

  Yeah. Yeah. And when you, when and when you were doing that, so like the fiver thing, when you saw that, like for example, like did you, was that, were they giving you like a, were they, would you guys have a negotiated or obviously you didn't, it didn't go through, but was it planned to be a negotiated rate for a deliverable or were they gonna say, Hey, we're gonna, we need you for an estimated 40 hours and we're gonna pay you X dollars an hour for that? Like, is that,

  Pat: 32:26

  it was like a flat rate. So like he basically put out in his ad, I need X, Y, and z.

  Harry: 32:32

  Done?

  Pat: 32:32

  then I said, okay, I can do X, Y, and Z and like as part of your profile, you have to give a dollar range on what you charge per hour sort of thing. So then he basically said, now can I get you for X? And I was like, no, like what you're asking for warrants my rate. And then that's where the conversation started to kind of fall apart. So yeah, like he broke out what he needed in his sort of, you know, call to action or whatever that, whatever the hell they call it. But yeah. And then it's, you know, but there are things over there like I, I think there are things of like, Hey, I can need you for, you know, again, like you said, Harry, 40 hours or, you know, whatever it is. And then, you know, but a lot of it's just one and done project sort of thing. And then you kind of give 'em in your thing, say, Hey, depending on what you're looking at, this will probably take me 25 hours or whatever it is. And then, but there are, like I said, there are folks that just say, Hey, I'm gonna need you for. 60 hours over the next two months or whatever it is. And that's the negotiation kind of goes from there,

  Harry: 33:30

  So you're dictating the level of effort, is that right? Is that how you would see it? Okay. I'm just curious on how that works. I haven't I've tried to use that on my side as like a as like a, as a customer, I would say, right? And I haven't had a lot of success for a couple reasons, but I was, I'm just more curious on how that works. Like I said, I think there's definitely some opportunities for those organizations to, to maybe fine tune that process a bit. But I'm just thinking like from your side, if you take on a, an engagement where you have a deliverable and whatever that deliverable is, you know, set up you know, small networkers, you know, Hey, we're refreshing five of our switches, can you come ref replace those? And some of those may be a bit more clear cut, black and white. But in, in a lot of scenarios, and you guys have probably seen this, right? You're like, oh, this probably, this could take me 10 hours, but if your network's completely jacked up, this could take me. Three weeks. Right, exactly. So there, there's a huge gray area there where it's like, how do you know that without, you know, and how do you commit to saying, Hey, I can do this without really understanding some of those, like, you know, I guess you wanna call it assumptions. I don't know what they are,

  Pat: 34:41

  Yeah. Then you kind of walk in. Yeah. You give 'em a price, they say, yeah. Then you walk in there, it's like a billion skeletons in that closet, and you're

  Harry: 34:48

  Yeah. It's all duct taped together.

  Pat: 34:49

  hours and I've, you know, I'm only charging 'em for 40, you know, some dumb shit

  Harry: 34:53

  Right, right, right. Exactly.

  Pat: 34:55

  I get it. I totally get it. So I guess kind of pivoting there a little bit like what do you look for in. Like resumes to say, okay, yes this person may be a good candidate. Like what, you know, is there sort of, I don't wanna say red flags, but is there like keywords that you're looking for, is it based on job or based on what the client is looking for that you kind of do your best shot? Like what does that

  Harry: 35:17

  Yeah, I mean, like for me, everything's based off of what the client's looking for. There's no, resumes are funny. It's a funny thing because like I've always said, there's gotta be a better res, a better way to do a resume too. I can't think of it exactly today, but there's gotta be a better way to do the resume. The resume's been around for what? like,

  Pat: 35:36

  A billion years.

  Harry: 35:37

  know Exactly. Since like they, they were writing resumes on like stone blocks, right? Like, it's like,

  Pat: 35:42

  Egyptians were like, Hey, that could be king. Here's my resume.

  Harry: 35:46

  Right, right, right. Exactly. So like, they've been around forever and nothing's changed. And you, and like here we are in 2023 with chat G B T writing our resumes for us. And you have, you know, you literally just have, it's still. Whatever it is on a piece of paper, like your experience on a piece of paper again, and it's just like nothing's changed with that. So I, you know, but anyway I'll digress from that. In any case, from a resume perspective you know how from a recruiter's, employers, the whole thing, when they look at resumes, I think the average recruiter looks at your resume for like three seconds, right? So what you put in there is, like, some of the stuff in there is, doesn't even really make sense. So for me, I think a big part of resumes is most important stuff at the top, right? Because you, I. So the whole one page resume thing, I also disagree with that cause it's like, look, if you have 15 years of experience, how do you put it all on one page so you can put it, now, I don't think it should be 12 pages or even seven pages or six pages, but I still think you can have it to be three pages to kind of explain your background. But you, but your most important stuff is at the top, right? So like the things you did 10 years ago, it's not that important. So you can, I don't necessarily agree with like throwing it out there, but just put like one or two bullet points there. Hey, I was a desktop tech 20 years ago or 15 years ago cuz that's how I got into the industry and this is what it's, right. So, but from a resume perspective, I do think it's like, put all the stuff that's important at the top, especially as it pertains to what you want to do who you are and what you want to do, right? So don't list skills. Like, sometimes people get so caught up in this. Like, I wanna put every skillset I know I have, I can learn, I can spell and I want to throw it all in there. And it's like, I have 50 skillset sets. And it's like, the truth is, first of all, you're probably not great at all of 'em and you probably don't want to do 80% of 'em, right? So it's like, why are you putting all that stuff in there? So it's like, focus on what your core skill sets are, what you wanna do. Right? And those should be at the top, right? Okay. These are my general skill sets. As you, if you have some really critical certs, like you have, you know, CCMP and ccis, whatever, it's throw them at the top that's important. And then just drop right into your first experience, right? Your most recent experience of what you're doing. And then that way it's that, you know, you have it structured that way. I'd say structure is the most important though. You have the structure there and then you have, you know, like you have you just have like, you know, your experiences, your most recent one should be your most important, and then that should have the most meat to it. And then it should, you know, dwindle down as it as your as you go further back into your background, right? Because some of that stuff is, it's less fresh, it's less important, maybe. You know, so I think that's the way I would approach it, you know, and I think you. A little bit cautious sometimes. This is that job hopping thing. You gotta be a little cautious with how that's written now too, because if that looks like you know, you just have your first two pages and there's like six, you know, jobs like you mentioned. Right. You know, I think you gotta be kind of strategic on how you how you have those broken down and things of that nature too. Cuz same thing, it's just at first glance, sometimes some people look at that, they see it and it's like trash. Move on to the next, move on to next, move on to the next. So, you know, what you're trying to do is just maximize you're trying to maximize that time that someone's reading your resume. So they may look at it, most people may look at it only for three seconds, but if it looks good at, in those three seconds, I may give you 10 seconds. And then if it looks good at the 10 seconds, then maybe I'll read the whole first page. Right. And then I'll be like, okay, now I'm really digesting cause I'm using my time. But a lot of times like, all right, well, nope. I'm just like swapping through. It's almost like, like, like, was it Tinder? Right? You're just like, SW

  Pat: 39:49

  right, baby.

  Harry: 39:50

  swiping. Right, right. Or swiping left. What? Swiping left, left, left. Whatever there is. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's that. They came around, right, right. When I met my wife. But it's, you know, I know you get the gist.

  Pat: 40:02

  No, I think that's important. I think, and I was curious on the one page thing, like what your thoughts are on that, because you know, I'm sort of in that boat of like, look, I've been doing this since high school and I've literally the only ever done tech in the professional world. I've not had another job ever. So like, you know, I've had 10, 12, whatever they are, whatever the number is now. But I'm, yeah, I was curious on the one page thing. I think what you said makes sense as far as, you know, obviously the important stuff at the top, cuz there's so many resumes out there and so many candidates for X, Y, and Z jobs, right? So you have to sort of stick out or don't have to sort out, you have to stick out in order to get the time. Or I should say, You know, the right eyes. The other thing I wanted to mention too, and I've come across this a little bit as well, necessarily not in the, it's in the recruiting world, but not through a, not through an agency such as Ray or Court or Robert Haff or any of those other staffing places, but like I've had place, I've had interviews for places that the HR person was the sort of gatekeeper in your first call to make sure you're not like a serial killer sort of thing. And then if you impressed them, then they got you onto the hiring manager sort of thing. But I've always found that as a disadvantage because the HR person has no clue what you're talking about from a tech perspective. So like, I've had frustrations with that of like, you can tell that they're reading off a paper, like you can tell that they're reading off bullet points to be like, do you know O S P F? And do you know, Erica, and I'm like, no it's E I g R P. You spell the letters out, lady. You know, like it's one of those things. So like, you know, but I, you know, you had that conversation and then you never hear from them again. But it's like you didn't really get a fair shot because the person on their end, other end that was talking to you has no clue what your day-to-day is or what they're actually hiring for. So that, I've always found that a frustration too. And I've had the, a couple times like that. So, you know, I can appreciate the person that I'm, or the person that's reaching out for me for a job, knowing what the job, at least to a core perspective or at least a 50,000 of a view, like knows what that job entails and I can at least speak intelligently to it to hold the conversation.

  Harry: 42:14

  Yeah. No, absolutely. I can speak with some of the HR stuff because I, well, I was told if you're not, you know, if you're not gonna say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Right. So,

  Pat: 42:25

  I love it, Harry. I love it.

  Harry: 42:26

  I'm not, so, I, the HR piece, I can't really speak too much about. I just I, you know, and I think it goes to you know, the same thing like you mentioned before, right? There's a lot of good ones, a lot of good, bad ones. So there's folks in between, I think in general though, I think everything I've heard, what I've heard is just HR folks don't really like recruiting for it people either for the same reason, right? They don't know how to talk to 'em, they don't know the language, they don't really know what they're looking for, which I think lends itself to more recruiters in the industry because that's where, you know, cuz and that's, they are the gatekeeper. And frankly speaking, you have hiring managers that are super frustrated with their own HR teams. And that's, they tell me this all the time, which is why we get involved in it. They just say, Hey look I needed somebody. A week ago, and hrs been looking for six weeks and I haven't seen anyone yet. So it's like, are they rejecting everyone or are they just not even looking at it? I don't even know. Right. I and I, and that's why I said, I don't know, I don't know exactly what goes on in that HR field there, so I can't speak about it. But that's also why I do know that there's a lot of hiring managers that, that would just reach out to us directly and say, look, we really need somebody. Can you help this, turn this around within, you know, a week. Right. And that's where we come in and get going. And, you know, we can also have those conversations and talk through, you know, strengths, weaknesses, where you would fit, where you're, you know, what tools you have and, you know, whatever it may be.

  Pat: 43:57

  No, makes sense.

  Kyle: 43:58

  So now you said you kind of just glanced through the resume a little bit and whatnot. How do you. Get like a good feeling of somebody's actual technical ability or whatnot before you place 'em to know that it's not just a bunch of fluff that they threw on the page and they're like, look, big words. It lots of like acronyms and stuff, you know, and you're like looking at it, you're like, how could one person be this good at everything, you know?

  Harry: 44:24

  I'll tell you what, for me, Elise, and this isn't the same thing, like this is really it really varies. Recruited recruiter, but for me at least, I think the way your resume's written, I think if you re if I'm getting through it and I get to that three seconds now I'm at the 10 seconds, I'm maybe reading all your first experience. I can get it and I, and then I'll glance through like what you've done and get a summary of what you've done in the last, let's call it three to five years based off of what you've done in your experiences. I'll usually get a pretty good I usually can. Then just from that idea, from that re you know, reading of that, have a pretty good idea of like kind of what level you were at based off of. How, like some of the things that you've done, most people in their resume will write, well, they'll put the things that they've done right. They're not just copying a job description and throwing in there, even though I have seen that plenty of times. But like they'll put specific things, right? Design and implemented the solution or implemented whatever it was for a, you know, multi site, you know, campus or whatever, you know. So that usually in how things are written, I can get a general idea of what your skillset is like, you know, or if it's just like, Hey, I did more administration stuff. I was taking tickets and I was troubleshooting this and I was on call here providing good customer service there. So you have a general idea in that sense from reading through their backgrounds, especially cuz if you. 10 bullet points in your most recent experience, and seven of 'em are around end users and customers and you know, administration and taking tickets and stuff like that. And then the one you have, maybe one or two that say, you know, helped with some implementation than, I'm gonna assume that your most, you're more administration or whatever it is, operational support than you are engineering, design, et cetera. So just to give you like a, an a live example. And then from there, of course then the next step is of course, you call me, talk to 'em. And then there's, you know, and then you start asking 'em just general questions around, I don't know. I think my, what I always start with just like, what I like to understand is where, what somebody does and what they, what their responsibilities are and what their team looks like and where they fit within that team. Because, you know, every organization runs things a little bit differently. So you have your, like you could be a network engineer at Comcast. But you're just doing one thing over and over and over again, right? So it's just like, tell me about what your team does, what your team's responsible for, and who, how many folks are on that team, and where do you sit within the team? Is it just like, like in your case, if we're talking network engineering, is it three network engineers and you guys all support everything? Or do you guys, is one person the wireless guy and one person's the firewall guy, right? And where do you sit within there? So I think usually that's h how I start. I try to get an understanding of who you are, where, what your skillset is, what your current team looks like, and where you sit on that team. Right? So and what the team, so what's the team do as a whole, and then what you do. And I think that helps me paint a really good picture as to at least what you're currently doing without getting into some of the wildly technical things. Right. And then I'll, and then I can ask like higher questions. Okay. So if you have this team of three folks, and then I may say like, okay, well if you're doing if you're gonna redesign the network or do it in implementation, how is that done? Who does that? Is that someone, do you bring on an ex external consultant? Is that something you two, three folks, whatever it is, and you guys just, you know, sit together and whiteboard it and just do it and just kind of implement it together. Right. And that'll give me, once again, kind of gives me a good sense of like how much you guys own, how much you own as within the team and the organization. So that, that generally is where I kind of how I stand there. Right. I just, I kind of make the assumption that you were hired, you can do the job and you have the technical skills to the job. So I just need to understand what general, like where your level skill set are. And I, and you know, I'll ask folks. I think most people. Are not trying to oversell themselves too much because it's not gonna look good either. Right? Right. That's the reality. Like you, you come in and say, Hey, I'm a, I'm, you know, I'm the and I can usually sniff that out pretty, pretty pretty good because, you know, talk to some folks and they'll say like, you know, they're the best thing can slice bread, they can do anything they invented, you know, B G P and all this other stuff, right? Like, so it's just like, you know, I'm like, okay, like if that's the case, like, you know, I either completely lucked out here or I'm, you're, you know, you're probably not.

  Kyle: 48:49

  right, right.

  Harry: 48:50

  So,

  Pat: 48:52

  No, that's funny. I guess, my next question, I know we're kind of getting close, but I'm curious to see, I'm curious to get your thoughts, Harry, on like, obviously the news of the last, I don't wanna say. Six months, eight months, maybe even a year, depending on how far you wanna go back, is the big tech and the layoffs and that sort of, sort of swing that we're in right now. And everything is cyclical. I'm sure you've seen that from your years. Right. But, you know, and people wanna say, oh, well, you know, big tech and they're, and everybody's sort of laying off and shrinking down but as Alex and I said a couple weeks ago I mean, look at all the people that they've hired in the last, I don't wanna say three to five years through the pandemic and the whole deal. I still think they're in the black as far as like they've hired way more people than they've actually fired. But you know, You never get good publicity when you fire people or when there's mass layoffs, right. That's just the, that's just the long and short of it. But I think they've, I think Facebook is still on Twitter and all those big tech companies, they're still, they've still hired more people by far than they've actually fired. Now I'm not saying that, you know, the firing is good or good for public image or whatever, and there's always that discussion of, you know, big corporation evil. I get it. Like, so, like what are you see now with like, some of the way the industry is now and where the waters are, and is there any sort of any sort of thoughts you can kind of give me on that? Or what? Some, if somebody's coming right outta co or like, I would say if somebody's gonna ready to finish up their degree in the. Six months to a year, and now like, they're kind of nervous. It's like, oh, you know, the job market isn't that hot, because two years ago it was booming. Like I had a billion people knocking at my door and I had my pick, right. So now it's not like that anymore. So any kind of insight there as to fu Like is there any trends that you can see or have seen or anything like that?

  Harry: 50:42

  Yeah, I mean, I think like, so what you mentioned with the it's all cyclical, right? So this is just. the, we had the two, we had the insane two years where there was no one unemployed and everyone, people were getting wild offers for to go to another organization. They were, I mean, they were overpaying out, out the nose because they had to. If you really needed someone, then you have a lot of these layoffs, which is in big tech. But the reality of this is like, in especially we're talking the tech industry. I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna speak for, you know, employment as a whole, but the tech industry is still, unemployment within tech industry is probably, it's never really gone, you know, above like 3% or something like that. Or two, two and a half percent. Like unemployment tech industry's always been low. It doesn't matter what happens, right? And everyone that got laid off at Big Tech, they're gonna find something somewhere else pretty quickly. I've talked to some folks that were laid off from Facebook and Google. And they're not, I mean, like, I in general, they're not even really that pissed. They're just like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna take some time, gonna figure out what I want to do. I got a bunch of people knocking on my door for opportunities. So, you know, I think in general, like they're gonna find something else. There's a lot of folks hiring. There's always, you know, if you look at, I don't have all the statistics, but if you look at like the open number of IT jobs out there, you still have an insane number of IT jobs out there. So I, I just don't think that I don't think that I think it's just news is, like you mentioned, it's just news and it's not good news cuz they gotta talk about layoffs. So it's not good news, but how it impacts folks directly it's just, I think what'll happen is compensation will level off a bit, maybe even go down a little bit over the next couple years. Cuz I just think just like everything else, I mean you look at like the housing market and the hou, I mean, what a car, a carton eggs is like eight bucks now. But like, you know, it just can't sustain that. So, you know, I think in general, right, I think in general that, that part may kind of, stabilize a bit. I do think you mentioned kind of coming outta school, come grad. I think that's where in this time you're gonna get hit the hardest. So if you're just graduating right now, I think that's where you're getting hit the hardest because the problem is you're gonna come right outta school with little to no experience and now you're competing with some people that were laid off that have experience. So I think that's where you're gonna have to really step up and You know, kind of differentiate yourself a bit as to why you know you might be better than the next person. So that's where I think it's gonna be a little harder than it was a couple years ago, you know, coming outta school without much experience. I think the challenge also is, and I, cause I've talked to some folks coming outta school, I think, I don't know who teaches this, but I think the reality of tech kids coming outta school, the salaries some of them are asking for are like, I'm like where are you getting these expectations? Right? Like, you know, it's like you, you're 21, like when I was coming outta school, you know, my expectation was I just wanna work and gimme some type of wage that isn't completely offensive. And that's fine cuz I'm used to working prior to this at, you know, I worked at, you know, the local, a local rec center, right? But I was making like,

  Pat: 54:13

  Yeah.

  Harry: 54:13

  Eight bucks an hour. So it's like anything above that is great. Right? Just I'm starting my crim 21. I don't need, I don't need much more than like beer money and like, I'm not eating great food, so it's not a big deal. But I don't know where you get like I said, I get a lot of I think I, I get a lot of kind of grads that are coming outta school. They're graduating the next couple months and they have this expectation like, Hey, I'm looking, I'm targeting, you know, 70 and 80 grand. And I'm like,

  Pat: 54:38

  Yeah. Like,

  Harry: 54:40

  okay. Like, look, I'm not gonna tell you I, and look, it's not my place to tell you what you're worth or what you can get or what you can't get. You know, and there's, because I'm sure there's plenty of kids that graduate that can get something like they, you know, depending, which it's just I think I hear it a lot and I'm just like, man, I don't know where Some of those expectations are, and maybe that's not the right thing to say because you should, like, you, so on the flip side, someone will say, look go. If that's what you think you're worth, target what you're worth. Right. So, and I don't disagree with any of that. That's why I said I don't think there's anything wrong or right with that, but I do think coming outta school, you do have to today is gonna be a bit like, a bit harder than it was two years ago. So that's, those are the folks that are gonna have that are gonna feel it. But I think people that are laid off, or people that have been in the industry or whatever it is, I really don't think it's gonna impact them that much.

  Pat: 55:30

  Yeah, I think I, I think that's right. I think it, it's interesting, right? You have people that are, were at Facebook and Google and you know, Twitter and, you know, all these places, PlayStation, things of that nature. And then they, you know, I would assume they're given a severance package to, to walk away and say bye, right? And that's what gives them the ability to take a few months off and, you know, recharge their batteries and, you know, kind of open their options and things of that nature. But like, honestly, let's be real with ourselves. Like, if you have Facebook or Google or Twitter on your resume, you're not waiting long for a new job. You're just not, that's just not the world we live in. I mean, come on. Who wouldn't want somebody that was an ex, that was an ex Facebook or a Googler at their shop? Bringing some of that flavor to their. To their new role that's just, that's, you know, to make it seem like these poor people never bounce on bats, you know, bounce back on their feet again. It's just stupid. Like that makes no sense. Like, come you know who you're talking to here. Come on.

  Harry: 56:26

  yeah.

  Pat: 56:27

  I find that interesting.

  Harry: 56:29

  Yeah. And that's, it's funny cuz you see on, I see that on LinkedIn now that's like the new trend, right? Where it's like, On their titles, they'll say like, X, Facebook, X, Microsoft, and they'll put all, they'll line 'em all up, X, Facebook, X, Microsoft X, Twitter. And I've seen like some of the folks locally around here, you know, they'll say Comcast X Comcast on there. I don't really know if that's like helping at all, but but I've seen it, like I said, it's just a trend. I've seen it I've seen Xis X that, so I'm like, you know, I guess at the end of the day it's not gonna hurt. But but yeah, I have I've, that's the thing I've seen on Face On not Facebook, on on LinkedIn a lot these days.

  Pat: 57:08

  Yeah. I mean, not to rag on Comcast, but there was that video going around a few years ago where the one guy taped the, in the the Comcast installer sleeping on his floor. He was waiting so long on hold to get the mode activated. Like the guy, the actual installer, like fell asleep and the customer's home and he's like, here's my Comcast guy. He's like, you know, the phone and all. It's like, okay. That kinda thing. But no, I think, Kyle, you have any other questions? Anything you kind of wanna spit at him?

  Kyle: 57:35

  No, I mean, I mean, like I said pat said in the beginning, we're just trying to help people break in, so any tips, tricks, suggestions, anything you got?

  Harry: 57:42

  Yeah, I mean, look, just do what you love to do. Make sure you find your passion. You go do it. Cuz at the end of the day, that's, you're gonna, people are gonna see that. You're gonna be really, you're gonna, you're gonna excel at that. And just go try talking to people. Meet. Go out, go to events, whatever it might be. Cuz you know, it's not what you, it's not what you know it's who you know. So, and when you meet the right people and you can portray that kind of passion for what you want to do they'll give you a shot. I think that's, that would be my biggest advice for people trying to break in the industry. People trying to move into, like, I, I get it all the time. Well, how do I get into networking? How do I get into security? How do I get into this? And it's like, well, what are you trying to do to get into that industry? Right? And it's like, well, I'm talking about it. Well, okay, that's not gonna, you know, well, what else are you doing to try to get into that industry? Right? What, how are you trying to get into networking? Are you studying for something at this point? Maybe you should be building a home lab, playing, playing around with some of that stuff. You know, some people just, I think there's a thought process of, Hey, I go get my Net Plus or CCNA and all of a sudden I'm gonna get hired for a networking job tomorrow. And I think it's like you, you know, I think you gotta try to put in a little bit more effort around. Well, if you really wanna get into networking, but you have no experience, well, you know, put some, like why do you wanna get into networking? And it's just, there's not, you don't really get a lot of solid answers on that other than right. Maybe there's more money there or, that's just what I think my next part of my career is. But, you know, I think what we'll see is you see a lot, I talked a lot of folks are like, look, I, this is what I really wanna do. I don't have experience with it, but built my own home lab and I did this and I can talk about all this other stuff. Cause a lot of this stuff, you can get freeware for a lot of stuff these days are, you know, testing all out. So that's what I would say, just

  Pat: 59:34

  Yeah,

  Harry: 59:35

  about it. Make sure you enjoy it. Right. Because if you don't enjoy it, you're not gonna be in there for a while.

  Pat: 59:40

  yeah. It's a long, it's a long road ahead if you don't enjoy it.

  Harry: 59:43

  That's exactly right.

  Pat: 59:44

  And I think you would agree with this, Harry, from just you being in the business and kind of where we're at, but you know, it's a, what have you done for me lately? Business, right. I think it's you know, people only remember you for your last, you know, screw up if you will. So, you know, you could do 10, 10 things right without any hiccups. The last, you know, outage you cause or issue that you have or whatever. People, that's what people remember. It's just it. So you have to have tougher skin in that aspect of it. I think some in just, I think some avenues in it Are a little more business friendly than others. I wanna say like, you know, for, and I'll say this cuz I'm biased towards it. I think the network portion of it is the bottom of the hill. Everyone always blames the network until you prove that it's not the network so just be aware of that. You know, you've mentioned the home labs. We preach home lab here all the time. If you don't have experience like on paper, like in the actual wor you know, business world, you know, a blog or YouTube channel or something to, know, kind of, you know, do your studies on, or I should say, you know, prove that, you know, you've done this X, Y, and z. A blog is a perfect example. Everybody and their mother has a blog, you know, nowadays. So, you know, doing that, right? So something you can document, Hey, I've done this and I've learned this. Because X, you know, that kind of thing. So I think that's big. So, internships is another big one. I don't know Harry, how many, if you do any internships or whatnot, but that's a good a good way to kind of, you know, get your feet wet into the business world and kind of, again, meet people, network and in the sense of not it, networking, just network in general with different people and talking to everybody and their mother, I think that helps. It goes a long way. Cuz again, we're, you know, we're six degrees from everybody here in this industry. It seems like a, you know, that kind of thing. So that's an interesting thing. So, Harry, anything else you wanna touch on? If not we'll get outta here and get outta your hair and get ready for the Monday morning. My brother

  Harry: 1:01:39

  Yeah, absolutely. No, all good. It was great chatting with you guys. I mean, it's it's good hanging with you guys, so, but no, it's good time here.

  Pat: 1:01:47

  Harry, do you wanna give out your LinkedIn or socials or anything like that? Plug anything people can find

  Harry: 1:01:51

  really have, yeah, I don't really have a Twitter or anything like that. I have a LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me. You can just search my name. Harry Chen. I think I, I don't even know my I can, I'll check in now. What is my thing? Oh, it's just Harry C. Chen, so it's LinkedIn slash Harry C. Chen. But if you search my name, it'll pop up. Feel free to connect with me. You know, and look, just going back to what you said, pat, it's a small world out there, so connect with everyone. People are, in general, people are willing to help out. You know, they're not, if you're, you, reach out looking for some help, most people will at least give you a couple minutes, give you some points in the right direction in general. So feel free to reach out to me if I can help out. Happy to do so.

  Pat: 1:02:30

  Rock and roll. Awesome. Well, thanks Harry. Really appreciate a couple of minutes, man. This has been great. I'll also let everyone know Harry is a major craft beer drinker such as myself. So, if we wanna talk about craft beer next time Man, let's do it. I love it. Let's

  Harry: 1:02:43

  Yeah. It doesn't sit as well as it used to when I was younger, so I can't drink the eight or nine at a time, but still love them.

  Pat: 1:02:51

  All good, man. All right, buddy. Thanks for joining this week on this episode of Breaking Down to Bites. Really appreciate everybody taking the time and giving us an hour or so, right around an hour, maybe a little more, but till we get edit, it'll be just around an hour or so. Make sure to visit our website, breaking bys pod.io. You can subscribe to the show on your platform of choice. All the links are up there. Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast Stitcher. Or if you just need a plane, RSS feed, that's cool too. That's up there as well. So you never miss a show. Throw us a rating on Apple Podcast. That's where the majority of our listens come from. Our stats at Buzz Sprout tell us that. So shout out to Buzz Sprout for keeping some really good stats on us. So, also another note, we just crossed 7,000 listens as a show. So appreciate every listener, every guest we've had, everybody that's contributed, follow, start Twitter, you know, everywhere. So we really appreciate everybody listening. That's really cool. So when we started this out, never thought we would like be this far. I think we, I thought we'd do like 10 episodes. We'd run out of content and that'd be quitting, but, you know, here we are. So we really appreciate everybody listening and getting us over the 7,000 threshold. So, I dunno, we made to do a giveaway, Kyle, for 10,000 and that doesn't seem to be that far off. Thoughts about that in the future, maybe we'll get, do a little giveaway action

  Kyle: 1:04:04

  I like what you're,

  Pat: 1:04:06

  10 K lessons. So we'll see. Stay tuned for that. Te tell a friend about the show, right? So again, we just talked about networking and talking to everybody, you know, right? If you like us, give us a shout to a friend or two. Obviously the more ears we can reach the better our numbers look and the more people we help. So that's cool too. So again, all of our socials are out there. They're in our in the show notes LinkedIn, Twitter Facebook. There's a Discord server out there for everyone to come and hang out. The invite to that is in the show notes. The survey's still hanging out there. So there's a, I think there's like nine or 10 question feedback survey. So that basically just it's completely anonymous. We don't know who you. It just aggregates answers for us and gives us pretty pie charts and percentages of just whatever the questions are out there. So it just helps us refine the show and tweak and tune. So we always give you guys and gals what you want to hear from us. So again, Harry, thanks man. Been an awesome time. Really appreciate it. We'll have you back for that beer discussion for sure. And then, uh, that's it everybody. We'll see everybody again next week. Thanks, everybody.

  Kyle: 1:05:07

  All right, so long.

  Pat: 1:05:08

  Let's see.