Job Search Secrets with Amy Miller

Jonathan [00:00:02] Welcome to Not Going Quietly the podcast where we inspire growth, beat down biases and get into all sorts of good trouble with co-hosts Jonathan Beale and Britt East.

Britt [00:00:11] No topic is off limits as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose and joy.

Jonathan [00:00:19] So get ready to join us in courageous conversation because not going quietly starts right now.

Britt [00:00:30] Welcome to Not Going Quietly the podcast for outraged optimists and heartbroken healers all over the world where we surface life searing truths in the name of radical togetherness. My name is Britt East, and unfortunately, my co-host, Jonathan Beale, is still on sabbatical. But we have a fantabulous guest today. Amy Miller I can't wait for you to meet her. We used to work together, actually, which is absolutely wild, and I'm so thrilled to have her on the show. She's blown up to be the social media superstar in the recruiting space, and I follow her religiously. I've learned so much from her over the years, and I can't wait for you to learn from her, too. Amy Miller is a long time tech recruiter in the Seattle area where she spent the last decade hiring technical talent from major companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon. With over 20 years in the industry, Amy is on a mission to bring transparency and honest insights to job seekers and recruiters alike through her blog and weekly videos. And by the way, she's absolutely hilarious. Amy, it is so good to see you again after all these years. How the hell are you?

Amy [00:01:41] It's been so long. Honestly, I am doing great. And I have to say, I don't know how many people know this, but this this person who is so outspoken and so vocal and so authentic online is your fault. Do you remember? Do you remember that time that somebody tweeted our company many, many moons ago and I came into your office crying? I'm like, I am I in trouble? Am I going to get fired? And you laughed and you said, welcome to the Internet. And I said, All righty. Since I'm here, let me start some trouble.

Britt [00:02:15] And she burned it to the ground.

Amy [00:02:17] Yes, you created this monster. That's I'll never forget that you gave me such peace and comfort and, like, permission to be myself. So this is, like, absolutely a fangirl full circle moment. This was 30 years ago, so thank you.

Britt [00:02:33] That is so hilarious. I knew that I would be a huge fan of yours from the first day we met at that job because you were so funny and so honest. And I know cutting through all the corporate bullshit, I just really appreciated it. So speaking of which, Amy, what in the hell does a corporate recruiter even do? I've been dying to ask you this for years. What does a recruiter even do all day?

Amy [00:02:58] Oh, what do we even do? Just talk on the phone a lot like email people and don't get back to the lawyers opposed to. We do that. We eat a lot of snacks. Yeah. It's you know, obviously every recruiter has their own unique style. But I would say the the overall guidance of what a corporate could or does. So this is someone who is in-house. So we're actually an employee just like you of an organization. And we are basically assigned with bringing talent to the company. And so like in our previous employer where we work together, I managed internal as well as external movements and applicants and and interviewing and things like that. And there are a lot of other companies like my current organization. I'm focused exclusively on external talent, so bringing people in. So it's a lot of candidate therapy, it's a lot of chasing people around the Internet, it's a lot of wooing and, you know, trying to convince people to do what you want them to do. And. Oh, and let's talk about the hiring manager. You want to talk about herding cats? Yeah, they're all feral. They all they're all over. Do it, baby shot. Okay. So a lot of what we do as well is trying to really bridge that divide between a hiring manager who has a problem to solve. I've got an opening on my team. I've got growth I can't do without people, whatever that looks like, and matching that up with available interested talent and trying to bring those two people together. So a lot of people like to say, Oh, it's like sales, it's like selling houses. No houses don't get up and move on their own. Houses don't decide they're no longer interested in you as a buyer, right? So, no, it's not like selling houses. Thanks very much. But there's just a lot of expectation management and trying to make two people who have their own, you know, biases, personal interests, wish lists, all the things, trying to find the common ground and bring the two of them together. And then you just hope and pray that the person shows up on day one. What's their what's they're working for you. Right. They're your problem now. Okay, we're done. Right? So looking like maybe they should hire this person. No, no, no. I facilitated the introduction of hiring that person. Is there a problem? Oh, they're tough. Farmer. Oh, I totally hired up. That was. Yeah, I take credit then. So that's how we do that.

Britt [00:05:14] That was awesome. And, you know, you teed up my very first key insight to corporate recruiters because I had worked at a lot of small companies and or companies that, you know, for some reason did recruiting through the h.r. Department and you know, with smaller teams. And so in working with you and others as a hiring manager or working with you in corporate recruiting peers, one of the first key insights I realized and you may not have wanted me to realize this, but I realized, oh, and it goes right in with what you were saying. The recruiters have to, on the one hand, close the hiring managers high and the candidates low and keep everybody happy and in the middle when it comes to like salary negotiations or when it comes to benefits or start dates or the job is. So it's like it is so complicated to you're serving twice as many masters, so to speak. You have so much more to juggle. And in terms of personalities like you were describing. So is there any are there any other kind of trade secrets that you think would be helpful for laypeople looking for work to understand about corporate recruiters in terms of how they're incentivized? How they are measured. What could help laypeople kind of feel more empowered in their job search?

Amy [00:06:49] Totally. You know, I think the foundational, almost universal expertise and expectation is probably the better word, but the universal expectation of any corporate recruiter is that you are going to fill roles. So this is such an interesting, very simple concept. My job is to bring people to the organization. And so if you follow that logic, why does it behoove me to block people from joining the organization? Why does it make sense for me to not look at applicants? Why should I give people lowball offers like the math? A math it. Right. So. So, yes. I mean, the foundational like the one thing that I've been responsible for in literally every job I've had for 25 years is I had a hiring target that I had to meet that might be two engineers a month, that might be 20 salespeople a week, you know, depending on the roles you're working on and the expectations in the pipeline and all that fun stuff. But there is this absolutely universal. Like if you're not making placements, why are you here? Why are you doing your job? And so when we start from that understanding, it's important for both jobseekers and hiring managers like to understand that my goal ultimately is to get the right person in the right spot. Now that has to be done also within certain guardrails. So you as a hiring manager, you're going to have a very specific criteria. You've got a wish list, you've got requirements, you've got I know I need a person who could do a thing that looks like this. Those are the guardrails I have to operate within. So I get a lot of flak and a lot a lot of all recruiters, too, probably. But, you know, we get a lot of flak for like, oh, you should give people a chance or oh, you should, you know, not require this degree or that experience. I'm like, your complaint is with the hiring manager. Okay? They're the ones who said they needed a marketing person who knows how to do marketing. I don't know why that's a crazy concept for you, but that is what they told me. So. So that's the universal thing, right? I got to make placements. There's also that, and especially as you grow in the ranks like a senior client lead recruiter now, which means I don't manage people, but I manage the shit out of some processes, right? Like I own a specific body of work and I own being a part of developing and driving a recruiting strategy. So what that starts looking like is digging into organizational design. Okay, you need to hire 60 people this year. What does that look like? What's the breakdown? Do we have a good batch? So we need to focus on senior talent. Do we have room for junior talent? Do you have the mentoring capability in the training and the ramp capability to bring on junior people? And so we have those difficult conversations. And while a lot of people think, oh, well, that's an h.r. Thing. It absolutely is. But the more recruiting can be at those conversations and having a seat at that table, we can also then inform. Well, okay, you're looking for, you know, really senior people that have really robust backgrounds, but your budget's crap. We got to, we got to figure out a way to solve for that. Right? So we got to kind of make sure you're not walking into a BMW dealership with, like, Honda money. Yeah, because that's not going to work. So so we have also a responsibility to take those labor market insights. We're on the ground. We're talking to people every day where we're getting deep, hopefully in our respective industries. We need to bring that back and help inform what that recruiting strategy is going to look like. And that can be a very tricky thing because the manager just knows I just need a person to do a thing. Why can't you find it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me show you. Let me show you all the reasons why you're tripping over yourself.

Britt [00:10:29] Right, right now. Because I know Amy pretty well. I bet I can trigger her. So this can be. Yes. Next question for fun. So everybody, both.

Amy [00:10:40] Guys flat out sitting down.

Britt [00:10:43] So you talked about and alluded to the fact that recruiters have to look at a variety of resumes. But I mean, how many resumes actually hit your desk if they're all being filtered out by the applicant tracking systems?

Amy [00:10:59] Oh gosh, I forgot about that darn system. Also is an applicant tracking system system because why wouldn't we call it that? Yeah, actually, you know, I do have I do have my friends with me, have sort of an installer who are here to help me eat. Your resumes are good for us.

Britt [00:11:17] That dispels some myths for us, Dispel some myths for us. About the magical. Yes.

Amy [00:11:26] The magical. Yes. I've been looking for it. It's very Quixote just tilting it all those ETS system windmills. So here's here's the reality about the system that we all love to hate. Also worse, it's ever used. Our former employer. Yes. Oh, it's called. It's like a fax machine version of a very popular idea. Yeah, exactly. So you argue that you guys are hideous conversations very loudly carrying across the building. So here's how they work. Right? So first of all, let's let's get grounded in some marketing facts about these things. There are over 200 companies that have some kind of ATS. So you've got your workdays, you've got your two leos, you've got your esims, you've got your breezy h.r. You've got big, small enterprise, small business. You've got all kinds of versions of this. And there are literally, i think last time i looked 232. So I feel comfortable saying more than 200 providers of some sort of system that does this. Okay, so that's fine. So now you take one of those systems and you implement it. And I will tell you, I would walk into it and be like, Hey, Toledo has this feature. Can we turn that on? And they'd be like, No, InfoSec does not allow questions or filters or ranking or whatever it might be, whatever the feature was that I wanted. Okay. So once you have the system, you now are implementing it, and depending on the size of your organization how much money you're willing to spend, there are so many variables here. You are going to get a system that may or may not do what the marketing slick says it does. The PowerPoint leads to a lot of discussion because they'll be like, Oh, me too. Leo said that they do this. Oh, I'm sure they sell that. And I'm also sure we didn't buy it. So I you know, I don't know what to tell you. I can only tell you what I personally gets a lot going into it. Okay. And how about works? So now you have 208 yes's, infinite number of configurations and the way that they're set up. I actually use two Leo as an example at three different companies over the course of my career, completely different experience every time. So I had to relearn how to use it, even though I use it twice before because the configuration was different. Okay, so that's fine. So the general idea, what is it? It's for why do we have them? You know, a lot of people want us to go back to, like, fax machines and file folders. Fine. Anita Yes. Receives information usually through an upload. You filling out an application, you're attaching your resume, you're doing the thing. Ideally, that information is now able to be passed, and passing means that it's reading your information and my dog is trying to make an appearance. So parsing means that is is reading your information and then hopefully putting your name in the name field and your employer in the employer field and things like that. So people get mad about that because it doesn't always work, right? I can't tell you why. I don't know. It's an optical reader thing. Okay, fine. So now the information is in there. I see it all. I have no hidden folders. I have no secret cave that I am sliding them into. I see them. And I'm telling you, the biggest complaints that people have about ATS are about the hiring process or about the lack of visibility or the lack of response or any of those things. It is the little snot behind the keyboard. Okay, It's me not doing my job well or not, you know, paying attention to my pipeline or what. There's any number of reasons. And they are 99.9% of them are human error. They just are so system. You know, the information comes in the system. We are then able to look at it, forward it, reject it, do any number of things to it. And you know, there you have it. So I'll stop there because I just threw a lot at, you know, on and on and on. But I mean, I want to answer specific questions if there are. Yeah.

Britt [00:15:57] I think the big thing is that people have. Okay, let's back up. The Internet is filled with a lot of shysters. I'm sorry, Amy, and I can't fix that for you. And not everybody is exactly honest. And so there's also there's a cottage industry out there about people who claim they're able to, quote, unquote, beat the atlas. But what you what I want everybody to understand and Amy will dunk on me wherever I tell lies, is that the ATS is really dumb. There is no nano bots. There are no bots in the ETS. There's no I mean, believe us, we've worked with them. It's like a card catalog, basically. And it's, it's it tracks applicants. That's it. It's not filtering you out based on any criteria at all. It's, you know, all of that is done. Yeah. All of that is done at the human level, like Amy said. And so what I it's so easy to feel disempowered as someone looking for work, even if you already have a job. And I what I think the moral of this episode is likely to be is that is to focus on those aspects of your job search that are that you can control, that are empowering. Whatever the ATS is, you cannot control it. So stop trying to pay people to write, you know, help you beat these things. And, you know, Amy, what did I get wrong? What kind of lies did I tell about the ATS? Is it is it filled with little bots and AI and nanotechnology?

Amy [00:17:32] And they're right then nanotechnology. That's that's exactly it. You know, I think the closest thing that we would have to anything like that is filtering. Yeah. So there are filtering, you know, there's decision trees. That's a possibility. So I will say that we have something that we call knock out questions like, Do you have a visa? Have to be, yeah. Do you need work authorization and do you have X number of years of experience? Do you have this degree? And that is literally the closest I've personally seen to any kind of like AI or AML or and it's basically a frickin yes no decision tree. Exactly. If yes, do this, if no, do that. But that is actually set up by a person, usually me or a recruiter. And we have to go into our requisition and hit those buttons and create the workflow that says, okay, you're going to do this or this. The other thing we get in trouble for a lot is like two a AM rejections. So you applied at nine in the morning. Okay. And because I'm a big believer of like every day I'm going in and cleaning up my buckets, I don't want to miss anybody. I don't want to get behind. I see your resume have to I disposition you. I have a 12 hour delay on that automatic email that's going to get sent to you when I hit the button that that was me hitting the button, which means you can add it to AM. This is somehow proof. That my friends Sherman and Stella of the parts have actually done this. And it wasn't me. And I'm just like, okay, I can't make you happy. I'm rejecting you too fast. I'm rejecting you too late at night. I'm rejecting you too late in the process. Yeah. Like, help me help you. Yeah. So that that's a big issue as well. Like, there's no way to do it, right?

Britt [00:19:30] I think people can just are unwilling to believe that somebody sitting down and reviewing these resumes. And what I would like to tell people and maybe this is going to get me fired as a hiring manager is after a while you just get really good at it's really fast and it's like, you know, you have criteria in your head and you can go through 100 resumes in the in a pretty fast time. You don't need nanotechnology to help you do that. And there's, you know, like you said, knock out questions are there's systems there's there's there's things to help you cover that ground. So I promise you the recruiters are reviewing everything. Amy explained that at the beginning of the episode, they are incented to do so. Is that right? She's not.

Amy [00:20:12] Yeah. And that's that's the other thing a particularly with corporate recruiters. Yeah I know that the agency side has a slightly different perspective because they are paid, you know commission based typically I've been in that world and so there is kind of this idea that, you know, an agency recruiter doesn't like direct applicants because they didn't have to go drag them kicking and screaming from under a rock and justify their big fat fee or whatever, either so much more than in terms of finding a candidate. That has to happen. But we'll argue about that another time for me. There ain't nothing tastier than low hanging fruit. Exactly what to work here. Exactly. You applied on purpose, right? Holy shit. Let me get on that right away. You know, when my husband called me up after, you know, how many years since we broken up back in high school, I was like, Hey, how's it going? I think I'm going to wait. I was going to sleep on that. No, come on, let's go to dinner.

Britt [00:21:06] You know, especially when you think about stuff.

Amy [00:21:08] Interest. I mean.

Britt [00:21:10] Especially when you think about the horrible websites out there that you have to jump through as an applicant candidate to, like, even submit your. I mean, it's like somebody did that on purpose and actually finished the job. That's gold for going to review the.

Amy [00:21:25] Raspberry Pi Christmas. I'm totally looking and I'm looking for reasons to say Yes. Yes. Okay. I'm looking for like, okay, you into all this trouble you had? Actually, God bless you. You actually want to work here. You best believe I'm going to trying to figure out how to make that happen. Right. And even if it's not for the role you applied to. Right. All the time, I'll be like, okay, not this one, but hey, I got this other you know, we're constantly looking at it through that lens. And my priority and this is a corporate recruiter thing, right? Yeah, Yeah. I mean, well, different. Yeah. Yeah. My priority is to get jobs off my fucking desk.

Britt [00:22:04] Exactly.

Amy [00:22:04] I don't want to keep working on this role over and over again. I want to hire somebody and get on with it and go do something. Yeah. Yeah. So that's our priority. And so for a job seeker like, tap into that pain, if you yourself can be the person that solves my hiring problem, or you have a friend that can do it, or you, oh my goodness, please help me.

Britt [00:22:28] And it's it's so empowering when you realize the industry is actually aligned the opposite of how you thought and that recruiters are actually your best friends from that perspective. Instead of thinking they're out to get you, you're instead of buying into the marketing out there that you're seeing on social media in particular, that plugs into your fears. If you understand, if you take some time to understand how the industry works and the set of incentives, you don't have to believe. Brit Namie You can just think through logically. As a business person, the set of incentives that are in place. It's just very logical and I think it becomes very empowering. So, Amy, my question to you is from from the from the candidate lens, does it mean that it's bad, quote unquote, to use keywords if applicant tracking systems are not scanning them and magically passing them out? Does that mean I should avoid all the acronyms?

Amy [00:23:26] I mean, so it's such a great question and you're probably going to hate the answer, but I'm going to try to provide the context around my answer. And context is the key. So there's a couple of things that happened here. So most recruiters that I personally know and certainly how I personally operate as well, we will just do a quick scan. We don't trust rankings and filters and we've seen too many of that go awry and skip great people or try to feed us people who are clearly not a fit. So we there's a lack of trust and so we just get in and do it ourselves. That's a choice we make. Now, there will be some recruiters who may rely on a control. Maybe they are getting in there. Like, I just want to see anybody who has Java on their resume, and that's fine. That's an approach. Some recruiters may do that. There may also be recruiters who will do like a Boolean string if your system set up that way, where they're going to look again for those key words and phrases, we got to see machine learning. We got to see SMB marketing, whatever it is, right, depending on the role. So here's the thing I learned a long time ago that if I sent my hiring managers a bunch of resumes that had a bunch of keywords like skills sections and, you know, bolded phrases and things in my hiring, just like. I don't know what this person's done. They threw a bunch of industry buzzwords on there, but I can't tell what they actually did. Right. What are the accomplishments? Well, you know, so there's a balance there. So our keywords important. Oh, yeah, for sure. I'm going to want recruiter. Hiring manager. I might even put Etsy on my resume. I don't know yet. That's kind of, you know, a trigger work for me. But, you know, I'm going to have those industry relevant things on my resume, but I'm going to back them up. I said recruiter because guess what? I recruits and that looks like my accomplishments. So keywords without context are useless. Keywords plus context is the key.

Britt [00:25:33] I agree completely. If you're a candidate, think of it from the hiring manager of the corporate recruiters perspective. When people who are reading tons of resumes at a time, if you come to a section, especially at the end of the resume, that's a laundry list of bulleted list of technical acronyms. Just because I work in corporate technology, I'm going to skip that. It's like I don't like it's just like you said, it's just random stuff that tells me nothing about your accomplishments. But if you are organically infused them as part of your, you know, your detailed storytelling backed by salient data, then keywords are imperative. So like you said, context is key and I completely agree. So it's like from the job seeker perspective, it's like you have to do some thought instead of looking for path of least resistance in easy answers from the trolls online or, you know, people who are going to pay $50 and help you write your resume. You know, there are tons of brilliant resume writers out there and best come through referral because there's a lot of shenanigans as well. And but really, at the end of the day, you have to advocate for yourself and nobody's going to understand your industry, your role, your accomplishments, your achievements, your context, the teams that you've been on more than you. And so there's no really way to bypass that with laundry list of keywords or hiring a coach here or there. You really have to do that own soul searching yourself. And that brings me to my next question. Then on the other side of the equation, how do you feel about cover letters? So I know all the triggers.

Amy [00:27:21] My current organization does not accept cover letters. Then we state that very specifically on our career states. So please take that as your indicator that Amy Miller doesn't care. So I was following company policy.

Britt [00:27:39] But it's in cursive and it has its in cursive and it has emojis on it.

Amy [00:27:44] But is it on Ivory card stocks or Rosewood Perfume? That's what I really want to know. But we have to think about the history of the cover letter. Okay. What was the purpose of the cover letter? How did it get its name? So I got into recruiting back in 1998. Yes, I was about 12. Curious. Okay. Maybe a little older. But this is back in the day where we were actually faxing resumes. We were mailing them. We were responding to newspaper ads. So the intention of the cover letter was literally the letter that covered your resume got slid into an envelope. And it was your introduction. It helped me. The recipients of your resume go, Oh, they found my job on this, you know, this newspaper, and they're applying to this specific role. And here's the things about them that make them a fit, and I should read the rest. So the purpose of the cover letter is basically obsolete. You are applying to a role that already tells me you're interested. Which specific job you think you're qualified for. When you applied like those kind of time stamp things and data that are included as part of your application process or even sending me an email and emails, the cover letter A text might be considered a cover letter if it's introducing the resume. So frankly, cover letters are obsolete with the exception of archaic companies who still think they're important or certain types of roles, like a communications type role, a marketing type role, where maybe the way you communicate is an important part of the vetting process. That would be the only time I'd be interested. But I absolutely have zero desire to see a cover letter from a welder or a hardware engineer. None at all. Please do not send it to me.

Britt [00:29:30] Yeah. And again, it's just like think through it as a candidate from everybody's perspective and of course, follow the instructions, because that's where companies are trying to help you out. We want to love you and embrace you. It's like going on a first date. We don't want to. We want we really do want to let you know time is money and it's like we don't we really like Amy said earlier, we don't want to sit on this job requisition forever and ever. So it's like we're trying to tip our hand and show you how to be successful in the application process. And some industries, like nonprofits particularly and crazy places, require it. But by and large, it's like and then don't spend money on writing the best cover letter and stuff. It's like there's so many templates out there and it doesn't. We are so precious and we were so pennywise and pound foolish in our job searches. It's like, fine, you know, there's way better places to to apply your your efforts. Okay, So you got your resume in place. You you ditched the cover letter. Now, how do you get Target your submission? Do you just cold call by applying online. Do you do. Do you try and start the hiring manager? Like follow them around town and, you know, slip it in their purse at Target? You know, how do you what's the best way to get a resume? They really seem.

Amy [00:30:53] Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. You got to roll it up and you got to tuck it in a bottle of whiskey. There you go. You want to put it in some plastic purse and then leave it on my porch? That's the key right there. I just gave you the secrets. We're done. Okay. You know, the reality is and this is the I know that this is like a marketing tagline, and nobody really means it. But I see these influencers all the time. Say, learn how I land 17 more companies without ever applying. All right? I'm like, No, you did not. You know why? Because we schedule interviews in the eighties and we cannot schedule you if you're not in there, so quit lying. So what I think is that. But how do I get my resume in front of the right people? So first of all, getting yourself in that database attached to the rack. There's no there's no reason not to. Exactly. Right. Like, just do it. Get it out of the way. Ripped out, Band-Aid off. But do feel free to follow up. So this is my approach. I have a three part or three way networking model that I personally use when I'm in job search mode that I tell all of my coaching candidates, all anybody who will listen to me, I talk about this. You want to reach out to the recruiter If you can figure out through LinkedIn, like, okay, well, I'm a hardware engineer and Aimee's looking for hardware engineers and okay, yeah, she talks about this kind of technology. Yeah, she's the person I want to talk to so you can reach out to me and say, Hey, I've applied. Here's the email I used to apply. Here's the idea. I apply to whatever, and you're giving me a heads up and I've gone out and like, found people that, you know, we haven't got to yet or I've even in some cases been able to be like, Oh yeah, we just sent your résumé to the hiring manager, Let me go get an update so then I can go call the hiring manager. Like, Hey, this person I sent you yesterday, they just called me. Let's get, let's get going, let's move. You know, they're excited. So that's an approach. Find the right recruiter. Let them know, Hey, I took these steps. I'm interested. Second person, potential peers. So these are people who have the job that you're looking to get into. Special points. If you actually know these people, if you can tap, you know, friends, former colleagues, things like that, that maybe work at the places you want to work, they can go put in a good work and that can be anything from an official referral. Like if you haven't applied yet, you're just testing the waters. They can refer you or it could even be, Hey Brant, we worked together ten years ago. I saw a job at your current company. I've already applied. Would you mind putting in a good word? I'll do that all day long for people that I know. And I know that my engineering partners and friends will do it as well. So they'll actually, you know, come to my desk or call me up, be like, Oh, hey, my friend Bob just applied, go check it out. So that's great. And then the third person is, of course, the hiring manager themselves. Right? And you know this as hiring manager, ain't nobody feeling the pain of an open position like the hiring managers. It's not even that it is for me. It's like, that's So do you want to tread a little carefully here because you don't want to waste anyone's time or set up any bad blood here. But if you find a hiring manager who is active on social media, who is talking about, hey, I'm hiring, here's a role that my team just posted. Tap into that. But again, you have to do it. All three of them. You have to do it with intention and data. Hi. I'm really specifically interested in this role here. Here's the steps I've taken. I've applied, I've done whatever, and here's how you can reach me here. Here's my availability to answer questions, things like that. So we want to find that balance between giving someone homework. Hey, Amy, here's my resumé. Go find me a job and giving someone an update. Hey, I've applied. I'm here. I'm available. If you have questions, that's a much more. Interesting message. I really want to hear that one.

Britt [00:34:55] Yeah, I love that. And, you know, I think that if you get in the habit of solving problems for hiring managers, you're going to have a long career and be well rewarded. And that signals that as part of the hiring process, if you're already solving my problems and you're not even being paid yet, I'm probably going to be real excited to bring you on board where I know you're going to solve even more problems once you're financially incented. And there's an art to it. Like you said, everybody's got different styles and you have to really know yourself and know your story. So and know when to be discreet and when to be bold. And part of that is.

Amy [00:35:33] Absolutely.

Britt [00:35:34] Is is leverage. You know, it's one thing to be looking for a job while you are happy and well-compensated in your current job. It's another thing to be looking for a job because you have to turn a buck. And so you have to really understand your situation and the leverage. If I have a lot of leverage, I'm going to be very differently potentially than if I feel like I have very little leverage. And so I really love that. Okay. So now you've got your resume reviewed and the recruiter and the hiring manager love you and they invite you in for an interview. How do you as a candidate? Start to separate the signal from the noise. You know, as a candidate, as a job seeker, you're inundated with so much information the moment you walk into the door. Let's say let's say it's an in-person interview in an actual office, because we have to stipulate that these days. And you just you you just have to you're flooded with so much information around the gate. So how do you separate, you know, the so that you can make real decisions, for instance, things about culture. You know for so long. Yeah, we've we we used to say, you know, maybe this was in the nineties or the audience like we would hire based on culture and really what we've come to understand in the past decade or so is in a lot of ways that's a form of gatekeeping and keeping, you know, a white cis male supremacy system intact and keeping women out of positions of power, queer people, people of different races, different physical differences, all, all of that. And so as a job candidate, I can't necessarily control the culture of the company, but I also know that there's going to be some marketing that I'm getting. It's like a first date. I'm getting the prime rib personality out of the gate where I know there's probably some gristle down there somewhere. So it's like, so it's like, how do I suss out the gristle? What do I do in the interview to feel prepared, but also to extract the information I need to make the smartest decision possible.

Amy [00:37:45] Absolutely. So there's a couple things. So first of all, the power imbalance is is a little skewed towards the company at this stage. That's number one. Right. And so that's just a harsh reality. I don't like it. You don't like it? Will change it someday, maybe in our children's lifetime. I don't know. But you have to walk into this understanding where I'm at, the process and what it takes to get to the next stage of the process. So the purpose of the interview is to obviously get an offer. Once you have that offer, and this is what I do, oh, I'm all happy and smiley and the nicest person you'll ever meet. But once you make me an offer, I'm like, All right, let's get down to business. I got question for you. That's exactly it. And I want to go to lunch with the team. I want to tour the building. I want to really like this is my opportunity now to dig in to some of those things that I maybe didn't get a chance to cover or uncover during the interview process. Now, I don't say that to encourage anyone to not be bold during the interview. You should be, because ultimately we want to hire you. And the you that we interviewed is the you that we expect to show up. So if you try to, you know, twist that up too differently and too badly, we might be like, what happened to the interview? That this person is a little crazy, what's going on? So, you know, there's a balance there. But I think it does start with knowing your own personal boundaries. Yeah. And I've had people, you know, women, people of color, you name it, people not the white cis male, Right. Who have pulled out of interviews or turned down offers because they only met white men during their interview process. So we need to be mindful of that as organizations and as recruiters and hiring leaders of are we showing our best self, Are we putting on the right attire and doing all the things before the date? Right? So that we have to be very intentional of that. But for the job seeker and this is where the recruiter being your advocate is so important. So hopefully you had that time to, you know, through the course of the interview process, in the phone screen process and all that, you've gotten to know your recruiter a little bit. As much as you can be transparent about these things, you should be ask about employee resource groups, ask about support for facets of your life that are very important to you. Look at the company's social media, look at their Glassdoor reviews, and a lot of that, you know, again, separating the signal from the noise. So you have to take a lot of those things with a grain of salt. Right. But looking at trends is such an untapped skill. One person's mad at the company and said the CEO's garbage. Okay, that's a data point, right? If you now have a trend where 72 people over the last six months have said kind of the same thing, yes, there's probably something going on there that may not want to be a part of. So really looking at trends in the areas that are important to you, talking to your recruiter, talking to people you might know who are at the company or who have been at the company, but always, always running it through the filter of does this make sense? Like, is there a little Occam's Razor action I should be applying here? Like, what's the simplest explanation for this terrible tweets or this terrible Glassdoor review or what have you? So, yeah, doing your homework is critical.

Britt [00:41:06] Yeah, I love it. And you know, it's also, again, knowing your situation, we all make pragmatic choices on a daily basis to whether it's to closet ourselves in certain ways, to not reveal certain aspects of our lives, to take it to take job offers that we know probably aren't going to be our dream situations, but we really need them. We all make those choices. On the one end of the spectrum. If I feel I'm in a current employment situation where I'm being well compensated and and have growth opportunities and I feel pretty engaged, I'm going to drive a really hard bargain through the entire process. I'm going to be a jerk. And there's a lot of companies in the tech space that have that kind of bro culture that really like that. I'll just be really honest with you and that really think, Oh wow, that person's going to be, you know, they're so bold and they say, because I don't need the job. And so, you know, like you were alluding to in the interview, if I if if I'm only meeting candidates who present straight, I'm going to ask for some queer candidates and queer interviewers or people of color. And I'm just flat out, you know, because I'm here to take one for the team, you have to convince me to take your job because I'm already gainfully employed and happy. And so now I'm going to do this as public service and shine the light on or, you know, I had a guest on the podcast not too long ago who taught me something that I absolutely love. Now, this is bold. And she was like, you know, if they ask for rough. Francis. Then you ask for references back, you know, And so it's like, all right, so, you know, here I am. She's that yeah, she's a black woman. And she is like, you know, okay, if you're asking me as a black woman and not understanding our nation's history, if you ask me for references, that's great. Now I want to hear from three people of color, and I want to be able to talk with them at length. And so, again, we can't all because not everybody is going to respond well to that behavior. So we have you have to really know yourself and know your situation. You're not always going to be able to be that bold. But I really, more than anything, I want the listeners today to feel empowered and to know that they yes, as the cliche goes, they can interview the company just as they are being interviewed by the company.

Amy [00:43:31] And people actually respect that.

Britt [00:43:34] People actually respect. And you said it really well. You said it really well about tact. And especially once you have that offer, people don't understand the entire equation flips and all the leverage is with you. And if you haven't been a hiring manager and or a corporate recruiter and seen the pressure now to get the sign on the dotted line, that happens. You you can negotiate a lot at this point. So, Amy, my question to you is I've gotten that offer and now I'm talking salary for the first time. Oh, crap. I completely shot myself in the foot. I how did I mess this up? When should I really be talking salary?

Amy [00:44:19] Exactly. I got to tell you, I've made it a practice over the last few years. I just go first as your recruiter. I get on a prep call. You know, we we have a sourcing team, so they get the candidates right and get them to this as part of the process where they're now coming on site and they're doing the interview. And at that point, I'm introduced as their lead recruiter slash closer. And one of the first things I do. You may have had conversations about Trump already. He probably talked to my sourcing partner, maybe shared some things. Let me tell you what this is going to look like. Here's a baseline offer. I am personally promising you that if you are qualified for this role and level, your offer will not be less than this. You haven't even interviewed yet. We are having that conversation because I want to set that groundwork that first of all, I don't play with people's money. Yeah. Secondly, I'm not going to bullshit you about money. And third, making you a promise that unless something changes drastically, like we have a level or a different role or something happens, I guarantee you this is the baseline and I want people to be comfortable with a threshold. There is solid footing under you that says this role will pay. At least from there. I'm going to tell you to go do some homework. I'm going to tell you if you're in tech, go check out levels, notify us. I'm going to tell you to do, you know, look at and again, signal from noise. Right. You got to look at all those sources. You got to follow the trends. You got to see what makes sense. And I want you to think about what is your yes number, because let's face it, there are three numbers that live in our heads. There's a number that I will begrudgingly accept because I got to eat right. There's the number that, you know, I might feel good about if we can do a little back and forth and get there. And there's the number that will make me run out of my house right now, straight into your arms and start the job tomorrow. Yeah. So we want to get as close to the third number as we can, but knowing that we're probably going to be somewhere closer to the second. And that's okay, because I do understand there are going to be ranges, there are going to be caps to these things. I can't go write everybody $1,000,000 check. It's just not sustainable. What I can do is be very, very transparent with you from the start. And again, this goes back to just follow the common sense. It does not make any sense for me to intentionally lowball a candidate exact. All I'm doing is ensuring that that hiring manager is not going to trust me. Because when you come back to me and six months ago, well, Joe left for a better paying job.

Britt [00:46:49] Right.

Amy [00:46:49] And I'll be like. Maybe we should have paid more. Exactly. I mean, it's just stupid. It doesn't make sense. And so that's and it's funny because right now, I think the last time I did the math, about 70% of my hiring managers were originally my candidate. So when we negotiate offers, I'm like, Look, I just want to remind you, three years ago, remember what I did for you? Yeah. Guess what we're doing for your new person. So and so. And I get away with a lot because they're like, Dammit, she's right. Think, you know. But I am all about helping people secure their bad. But that's why we do this. If I was going to volunteer, you think I'd be doing this shit? I got to play with my dogs. I'm going to go run an animal rescue. I'm not doing this. People are terrible. Give me a lot to put up with them. So I respect that from every other field and industry like you all are coming to work because you're exchanging your labor and your skills and your emotional labor for money and I want you to get as much money as you can get. So in a perfect world, you're having those discussions early. You have a recruiter who's willing to be transparent and who's willing to talk with you through those things. But I will tell you, and I will die on this hill. Your first number is not your last number. If a recruiter pushes you and they're like, We can't move forward unless I know your expectations. Okay, I need at least a hundred K Okay, fine. Moving on. We do the interview. Well, you know, we can, we can do 105. Well, let me tell you what I learned. So this interview process you all are asking for a lot. I've done some research. Don't come at me with less than 120 or whatever it is. Right? And that's okay. Nobody is writing this down in ink. This is written in pencil until it's on the offer letter in. Exactly. So feel comfortable changing your mind. I don't care what you said in our first conversation, you now have more information that is perhaps giving you a different answer. Now, it might go the other way. It might be like, Holy cow, your benefits are amazing. There's tons of equity, there's whatever. Yeah, I can give up some bass because I'm getting all this other stuff. That's a decision you get to make. I wouldn't make it, but you can make it right. But the bottom line is that you are your own best advocate and God willing, your recruiter is your second best advocate who's right alongside you, making sure that you're securing the back.

Britt [00:49:15] Yes. Yes, absolutely. And also the hiring manager I'll never forget at the company where I mean, I work together actually, I had a unique experience where I heard the hiring manager prepping his boss for the final interview. And that would turn out it was such a light bulb moment for me. Less about the details of what was said that wasn't that interesting. More about like, Oh, he's incented to love me and hire me and embrace me and bring me on board. Oh, and just and then just like the recruiters are, if you think through this logically, as a candidate, there's so much working in your favor. But if you if you hide in denial and desperation, if you are too scared to negotiate, you're going to be leaving money and opportunities on the table that it's hard to recoup over the course of your career. I know it's hard. And none of what I love about Amy, about what you said, is because because none of this happens in a vacuum and there's so much systemic disenfranchisement of various people that have been purposely excluded from positions of power that there's, you know, at the legal level, you know, all these state and federal laws are dynamic, but there are certain places where you were required to follow certain guidelines. Then there's industry, ethical standards, norms and best practices, whether it's the recruiting industry or the business category of the company you're applying to. But even above and beyond that, from the recruiting side, from the hiring manager side and certainly from the job applicant side, I just I promise you, you're going to be better off if you talk about it as early as possible. And there's all sorts of subtle ways to force the conversation. And one of the great things Amy has, because she lives this every day, is she has a wealth of resources and templates on her website and will give you links to everything in the show notes so you don't have to scramble to write that down. But then also daily, she's going through various hot topics on LinkedIn and stuff on and on, on her socials, and she has videos on YouTube so that you're not you're not in this alone. You're not working with a blank sheet of paper. There's people who've gone before and and, you know, can you can benefit from their wisdom and expertise and their training. And then if you think through it logically and stay focused on those things that you control, hopefully you will you will feel more empowered. But, Amy, you said something really key in this. We may disagree on this a little bit. I don't know. You'll let me know. Everything is negotiable. I promise you, if you are the one person the hiring managers decided in the world that can do that job and the company has money and yada yada, they will give you whatever you want, basically. Now, those situations are very few and far between, obviously. Yeah, but it's a range. And so if you understand like, sure it is that they may not have $5,000 more per year allotted to this position than that that I need, but maybe I can get a new computer or maybe they'll pay for do cell phone reimbursement, or maybe they'll pay for continuing education, or maybe they'll be there'll be some different bonus structure or maybe there'll be more paid time off. Whatever it is, it is negotiable As long as it makes its way into the offer letter. Take it from me. Don't believe any kind of vague promises. I've been victimized by that over and over again. What's in that offer letter? It's not. It's not a contract, but it's like a gentlemen's agreement. What's in that offer? Letter is key. And if it's and you work on that offer letter and you send it back and forth until it reads exactly how you want as a candidate.

Amy [00:53:19] Absolutely. Absolutely. I and that's the thing. Like I know a lot of recruiters who will just flat out refuse to send an offer letter until a candidate verbally accepts. And I think that is just such garbage behavior, because my thought you've earned this offer letter regardless of what you do with it. You want to go shopping around, you want to go make a paper airplane out of it. That's none of my business. You've earned this offer letter and you're going to get it. And so this is such a key thing to talk to your recruiter about because there's going to be variables, right? Like is a is a company the size of Microsoft, 100,000 employees going to create a new PTO package just for you know, is your new manager going to let you take some off book time that you've already planned six months into your first year? Yes. Now get an email that says that you're right because you want to kind of cover your ass later in six months when you want to take that time. But yeah, there are always interesting ways. And again, company size plays a part here and policy in those kind of things. Startups can do whatever the hell they want, but you know, it's always no if you don't ask. But the guidance is to go in asking for the right things. And and frankly, here's the here's my biggest pet peeve when it comes to negotiating. Biggest pet peeve. I will get these lengthy emails. Oh, Lord. Well, based on my.

Britt [00:54:41] Oh, God.

Amy [00:54:42] 72,000 years of experience and my knowledge of this thing and my background doing and I'm like, Babe, we just met 7 hours interviewing you, you have not told me a damn thing I don't already know about you, so I appreciate the enthusiasm. Perry No. Yeah. Let me tell you the magic words. Amy This is the offer. All except exactly the explanation. I don't need no background.

Britt [00:55:10] Time is.

Amy [00:55:11] Money. I need to know that your mother said, Just tell me your fucking package. Let me see what I can get. Well, then we're also precious. And I say that in just. Yes. I don't care about it. I don't want to make anyone feel bad who's doing it right. But. But there really is this this unfortunate, like, conventional wisdom that says you got to, like, rewrite your entire story, like some terrible Lifetime movie script to get what you want to see. So we saw the movie. We love the movie where we're trying to buy the movie. Right. So that's where that's where we're coming from. But yeah. Ask for what you want, but also be prepared to walk away if you don't get it.

Britt [00:55:52] Exactly. Again, it's all about negotiations are not about trust. They are about leverage. So like you said, this is the this is the number I'm willing to accept. I don't need a heart rending story. I don't need pictures of your puppies, although that would be nice, actually. Send me the pictures of your puppies. But I don't need this. I don't need the heart rending story. It's just like short, simple, sweet. And of course, the earlier you do that, the better, because I don't want to feel jerked around either. If there's some big surprise. That's the oh shit moment that we've all had. And like, how did this happen? And that's when heads huddle and, you know, people get really upset. So that's where you need a story. If you changed along the way, there needs to be reasons why. And again, it's not about tear jerking. It's about your understanding of the expectations and how you can be successful in the role. It's not because you want to go on vacation next year because your dog died. You know, it's purely the mechanics of your changing understanding of the role. But if but like you said, yeah, if if you don't ask it, say no.

Amy [00:57:06] Yep. So. And how you ask? Oh, yeah. Is important. Because I tell you, I've had people who were like, very, you know, almost angry, you know, and, like, really ready to fight and putting their dukes up and like, well, I'm not going to do anything for less than blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, simmer down, man. Like, you know, simmer down with me. But if you're just like, Hey, this job seems great. I'd love to work for Brett. He seems super cool. I just can't justify it for less than this. Got you. Let me go talk to Brett. Right. And then we have that conversation. So it's. You're going to work with these people? Yes. These people are going to be a big part of your life. Do you really want to start out from an aggressive posture of like, I know that Amy's going to screw me over and I'm not going to let her know because we're going to work together, Right? Right. Yeah, we're on the same team.

Britt [00:57:58] Like, no, the opposite is also the opposite is also true, though, because I've been in situations where you could tell the candidate was like, because we're going to work together, I want to be super nice and compliant now and I'm sure I'll be more rewarded one day down the line. So it doesn't have for people, for people conveniently remember the bad stuff and forget the good stuff. So unfortunate. And that's why it's an art. And so it's like beware of the extremes and find a style that resonates with you, that's authentic, that's real, and no must know. First, you get to the good stuff right away. You don't kind of take us on some long winded story. You get to it right away and you have solid reasoning why people actually respect that. I found and nowadays, because so many people have been trained properly, they expect it and a certain degree. And if you don't do it, it can be a little bit of a red flag like, Oh, what's going on? So you you are empowered to negotiate. Please ask for what you want. Nobody's going to ask for it for you. You know, it's it's really up to you. Nobody's going to understand your situation better than you. Nobody's going to understand your leverage or lack of leverage better than you. You have to make the pragmatic choices or the idealistic choices. Nobody can do that work for you.

Amy [00:59:27] Amy Totally agree.

Britt [00:59:30] Amy, what gives you hope.

Amy [00:59:32] About this guy that we need around to say no to? Are we can.

Britt [00:59:36] Say brown tea with beer? We'll get real.

Amy [00:59:40] What gives you hope? Love it. Yeah.

Britt [00:59:42] What gives you hope about the recruiting industry? The corporate industry? It can be so easy to be kind of like doom and gloom. There's so much B.S. and so much bad things. But what gives you hope right now, professionally?

Amy [00:59:57] I mean, it's so tough. What gives me hope? I mean, recruiting us in a tough season. We're hearing layoff announcements every day. I might be calling you a week from now, whether it be myself. It was me. It was my turn. Help, you know. And God knows I run my mouth on social media now on a list somewhere. You know what gives me hope is there are so many new voices saying what you and I are saying. Yeah. I have felt for a lot of years that I've been screaming into the void. I worked on this weird, like, 80 spot nonsense. I'm the only one saying it and everybody hates me. And I'm seeing other recruiters get bold. They're standing up for their candidates. They're standing up for their clients. They're standing up for what's right and what's ethical. And, you know, every company is going to have their own processes. We can't always control or change those things. But I see so many recruiters just stepping into their power. And I fucking love that, you know, because this is this is the this is the hierarchy candidate. First we got to take care of those people. They have opted into a conversation with us that they did not have to. We need to do right by them. We've got to take care of them. Company is next. Am I doing the right thing for my bigger organization? Is this person going to be a value add? Is this the right time? Is this the right entry point? Then forgive me, my friend, then the hiring manager. Oh, I love you and I care about you. You know what I mean? But I have to look at this bigger picture. I have to make sure that you and I are collectively doing the right thing for these other two people. Right? Are these other two interested parties. So I'm seeing so many recruiters speaking up, speaking out. That gives me so much hope because there is, you know, social media and the Internet has made us pretty bold when some of us maybe shouldn't be. Yeah, it's in my face. We have a different conversation right here. And so we have to find the balance, like when to shut out the noise, but also when to be really bold and evangelize for the people that matter to us. So again, those candidates first and foremost, and then of course, the broader group of people that we work with and then our blessed hiring managers.

Britt [01:02:17] Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Amy, I can talk to you all day. It is so great to reconnect and I know it's fun. I really hope I really hope everybody listening checks out your socials and your blog. And of course, we'll have all the links in the show notes. Like I said, it's excellent. And I've been following Amy for years and all that, and it's just such good advice. There's so much you can do to get empowered. Look, we don't know what's going to happen with the macro economy. We're on a knife edge. We don't know. And it's very industry specific, like Amy alluded to. Don't stress a lot that, you know, stay in reality, watch the news, but work on those small things. You can control and focus on that. The rest. The rest. There will be times when job ads aren't real or, you know, some you know, you'll hear about people who magically get hired, where jobs not posted and all that kind of crap that that happens from time to time. But but that stress about it. You cannot control that worry about the things that you can that's that's really I think what we want you to take away from this episode. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. We really appreciate you. You've made it through another episode of Not Going Quietly. Special thanks to my featured guest, Amy Miller, who is just a fantabulous recruiter no matter what her T-shirts say. The world's okay best recruiter. That's such a hilarious T-shirt. I love that everyone. And it's such a great voice.

Amy [01:03:52] Over delivered. Yeah.

Britt [01:03:53] Such a great voice out there. I'm so thrilled that that you know, that you're being so bold and taking up so much space in the world and speaking to so many troops. It's really it's helped me and I know it's helping others and then you providing so many great resources. So listeners, please check out Amy's socials. You will be the better for it. And thanks again. Amy Miller Thanks, everyone for for watching and listening. Take care, You guys. Have a great day. Bye bye. You've been listening to. Not Going Quietly with co-hosts Jonathan Beale and Britt East.

Jonathan [01:04:31] Thanks so much for joining us on this wild ride as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose and joy.

Britt [01:04:39] Check out our show notes for links, additional information, and episodes located on your favorite podcast platform.