The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Neha Dixit-Naik, Founder and CEO of RecruitGyan, Y-Combinator Tech Recruiter on the Current State of the Job Market, Job Transitions etc.

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Neha Dixit-Naik, Founder and CEO of RecruitGyan, Y-Combinator Tech Recruiter on the Current State of the Job Market, Job Transitions etc. Recruitgyan.com Biography Neha Naik is the Founder and CEO of 3 successful businesses including a successful recruitment agency, sleep consultant company, and a data analytics company. She’s an official member of Forbes Business Council, an invitation-only organization for successful small and mid-sized business owners. Neha’s boutique recruitment company, RecruitGyan, specializes in helping hyper growth tech startups build and keep a first-rate team. She implements strategic recruiting and retainment initiatives to reach an average 92% fill rate, increase a company’s hiring rate by 65% and reduce turnover from 54% to 21%. Now with over a decade of experience working with Fortune 500 companies and startups in full-cycle recruiting, Neha shares her insights on tech recruiting and business trends on various platforms.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. The Chris Voss Show. The family that loves you but doesn't judge you for almost 15 years. I think August 30th we go to 15 years. So now I have to start updating that. Over 1,500 episodes. Two to three new ones a day. Five to, what is it, 10 to 15 a week day.

What do you want more from me, people? We're doing everything we can. And we're glad to have you, as always. You guys are the wonderful family. And what other family can give you the love that we can? I mean, does your mom give you two, three podcasts a day? No, she doesn't. At least, I don't know.

Maybe your mom's a podcaster and she does. I shouldn't probably make assumptions. Anyway, guys, as always, refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, youtube.com, 4chesschrisfoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfoss, and TikTok. It's starting to kill. We've got a great AI program that's cutting all of our content, putting it up over there. Check that out as well at Chris Foss 1 and the Chris Foss Show podcast. We had an amazing young lady on the show, and she's going to be talking to us about technology, some of the stuff that goes on with recruiting

in the recruiting market and Silicon Valley and some of the different methods she does to help people deal with humanizing layoffs and dealing with all that stuff. People, recruitment, I think most people have been there

and some of them for decades of experience were with Y Combinator and Fortune 500 companies. She joins us today. Niha, Nick, I'm sorry, let me cut this right here. Niha, Nick, will be on the show with us today. Her company is called

Recruit Guillaume. Did I get that right? You got it perfectly. Yes, thank you so much for having me. So excited to be here. Hello to all the listeners. There you go. And she's the CEO and founder of her company. And she's got an amazing pedigree or resume, as they like to say. She is the founder and CEO of three successful companies, including a successful recruitment agency, sleep consultant company, which is what I need, lots of sleep, and data analytics company. She is an official member of the Forbes Business Council, an invitation-only organization for successful small and mid-sized business owners.

Her boutique recruitment company specializes in helping hyper-growth tech startups build and keep a first-rate team. She implements strategic recruiting and retainment initiatives to reach an average of 92% fill rate. Damn, that's really good. Increase a company's hiring rate by 65% and reduce turnover from 54% to 21%. She has over a decade of experience working with fortune 500 companies and startups and full-time recruiting and she shares her insights on tech recruiting

and business trends on various platforms. We're going to have a great entertaining discussion today. Welcome to the show Neha, how are you? I am doing really well, thank you for having me here Chris, how are you? Thank you for coming, I am excellent, it's an honor to have you as well. Give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. Yes, it's RecruitGyan.com. So RecruitGyan.com. There you go. And do you have any other

things you want to plug with some of the other businesses or activities you want to get in there? Yes, you can also follow my pediatric sleep consulting business at The Sleepy Cub, like cub as in baby bear.us. But I'm just super excited to be here and talk to you about all things. There you go.

So give us a 30,000 overview of your company and what you do. Yes. So my business has different components. So initially when I started this, you know, actually failed med school and then was trying to figure out what to do with life and got into recruitment because I applied to a job on Craigslist believe it or not and long story short started working for a um clinical you know a medical clinic in Fort Worth Texas and helping them recruit talent um and that basically led into me working for you know some of the RPO companies

eventually I was like, I'm going to start my own business, right. And so when I started my own business, the clients that I was just naturally gravitating towards that were coming to me, and I was signing were startups. So you know, kind of started recruiting for tech roles within the startup world, which was awesome, because I got to work with the decision makers directly, and build amazing, you know, processes and systems to attract and retain high caliber talent. And so that's how you know, processes and systems to attract and retain high caliber talent. And so that's how, you know, that recruiting agency came into play. But now what we do along with not just staffing is, you know, a couple of different things. So we also work with people who are looking to transition out of their current jobs, or whether they were laid off or let go for

whatever reason, we help you, you know, with resume reviews, LinkedIn reviews, video resume creation, etc, to help you land that next dream job. And then we also work with people who want to start their own recruiting agencies, because I've done it now, and I've scaled mine, and I know how to do it. And so I really want to empower individuals who are interested in doing that. So I help them do it. And then finally, we work with companies who are, you know, unfortunately having to let go of people. And so we have these amazing employee transition plans where they can work with us to help kind of their employees, you know, kind of go through the transition, right? So it makes for a warmer process, even though it's a crappy thing when you're going through it. But we really empower employers to say like, okay, I know you have to do this, but you can use us to help you transition your employees out so that we

can support your employees who are let go with, you know, their job transition, whether it's coaching, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's whatever review that they need so that when they leave you, they leave with a place of positivity, right? And you also feel good about supporting them as they leave you. There you go. And on your website, people can reach out to you for free consultation. You've got the consulting packages like employee transition packages, smart, start smart recruiting solutions and different things we'll get into. You know, people, when they're first fired, you know, we talked about this a little in the green room, you know, everyone thinks they're the family of a company and there's kind of that whole thing that goes.

And then one day you get fired. And it's kind of a shock to the system. And it's hard to make that transition. Tell us how you kind of help people get over that and maybe some of the psychology of what that deals with. It's really hard not to kind of get attached to this concept of, you know, of course, when you do, when you work for a company, right. And so a lot of times what happens is, and this happened to me, I was let go at my, you know, previous job that I was with, it was an oil and gas company, and they're really struggling. And unfortunately, what happened was that when I was let go, I took it personally,

because to me, it was like, okay, I had spent all this time and energy and building my team, building this, you know, unit that I'm proud of. And I was hitting all my targets and hitting all my metrics and, you know, making a big buck for the company. And then all of a sudden, like what just happened, right? But when I was let go, there was that, you know, oil and gas ebb and flow crisis, right? So basically, they let me go not because it was anything personal, it was a financial decision. However, as an employee, when you're was anything personal, it was a financial decision. However, as an employee, when you're going through that, it's hard not to take it personally, because, you know, when we are working for a company, we get attached, and we feel like we're bigger part of something, right. And so but just know that as an employee, if you are let go,

unless you were told it was for like a disciplinary reason, or you know, if you were not meeting your metrics, or whatever, most of those decisions are not personal, right? Those decisions are actually made because of the company's going through something. So we were talking about this earlier, but a lot of the layoffs were happening because a lot of companies overstaffed during COVID. And so unfortunately, because of that, you know, now companies are like, we don't need these people anymore, right? There's also this inflation going on. There's like potential recession on the way. There is like a banking crisis.

And so, of course, a lot of companies are trying to secure their profits and they're trying to secure, you know, just making sure that they're operationally streamlined, right? And I think that's, that's the biggest thing. So it's hard not to take it personally. But just know that a lot of the times it's actually not unless you were told specifically that, you know, it was personal. But yeah, so the way I like to overcome it, and the advice that I have for you, if you were struggling through that is go back to, you know, your contribution to the company. And just know that there's something better waiting for you out there. I know that sounds really cliche, but it really is true. You know, if I wasn't laid off, I wouldn't have my own recruiting agency today. I wouldn't be an entrepreneur today if I had been laid off. There's a famous story in

my book about getting fired from McDonald's, uh, uh, you know, and becoming an entrepreneur at 18. I didn't really, I didn't, I wasn't, I wasn't like, I'm going to become an entrepreneur. I'm just like, man, I need some money. So there you go. And this is a great time actually right now. I mean, I know it's hard for people to sometimes see that if you've been laid off, but this is kind of like 2008-ish where there's a lot of brilliant tech engineers, tech people. They know their chops.

They're in demand. They get paid really well. And this is a time where those people usually when there's massive layoffs and stuff they come up with the next twitter or the next facebook or the next you know the next big thing and you know we're seeing a lot of this in ai we'll probably talk about some of that here later but uh this is a great time and those people are gonna you know use their talents their skills, which they can use anywhere, to build the next big thing. And even like the VCs in Silicon Valley, they know this.

They're like, hey, it's 2008 again. Let's pick up. I'm sure there's a lot of great people that came out of Twitter's layoffs that might build the next big Twitter. I wouldn't be surprised. Or the next big X or whatever the be surprised or the next big x or whatever the hell it is this week or isn't it called the next isn't it called b now for bankruptcy i don't know yeah people watch your videos 10 to 14 years from now they'll get that joke i know but they do say like millionaires are born in recession like it's just it's a very common

saying and um you know a lot of times even smaller businesses that are, you know, potentially struggling for whatever reason, they are able to pivot, right? And so I think, you know, how much can you pivot and your versatility, I think is a word, will really determine how successful you'll be. So if you have a business that's not working for whatever reason right now, you can always pivot. You can always take your baseline foundation and build on top of that and offer that you can roll out and just try and experiment, right? So you don't have to feel stuck, right? As an employee who was laid off or as a business owner with all the stuff. I like to live in the abundance mindset. I don't like to live in the scarcity mindset. And I think

that's what differentiates kind of what comes your way in terms of opportunities. There you go. And abundance, you know, people that code, I've got a lot of friends from Silicon Valley and we just talked a lot about that stuff for the first 10 years of the show. It's amazing how important that is. So my understanding, to clarify for the audience, you have two lanes that you work with. So you work with companies to help them transition with what they're doing. And you also help them with recruiting, whether it's laying off or picking up people. And then you also work with individuals who've been laid off and kind of help them make that transition and humanize those layoffs. Tell us how humanizing layoffs is one of the things you help to benefit

people. Yeah, so my employee transition packages, essentially what it does is we work directly with the employers who had to let go of employees, whether it was a reorg, whether it was a budget cut, whether it was, you know, they're shutting down for whatever reason, unfortunately. So what we like to do is, you know, the employers hire us to work with the employees that were unfortunately let go or laid off or whatever that situation is. And basically, my team and I go in there and we work with the employees who are let go, we do mindset coaching, we do resume reviews, we do LinkedIn reviews, we do interview coaching, we help them apply for jobs, we help them, you know, craft messages to send to people so that they can start getting

interviews on their calendar. So essentially, it's a support package for the employees who are let go. And the reason that it's humanizing, right, because a lot of times, and we've heard news stories of how like, a dad came home from work on a Friday night and got an email Saturday morning that unfortunately, his job has been eliminated for whatever reason, right. And so again, that I feel like is not the right way to do it, right? I know companies that unfortunately, they have to do it. But I think there's a better way, right? So we offer a solution where if you want to be a company who's known for your humanizing ways of like treating people the right way, then you can work with company like me

and really support your employees. Because what I do believe, Chris, is that the pendulum swings both ways. And there's going to be a time, and the world's a small place, so there may be a time that the people that you let go, you may want to rehire, whether if it's not for this company, for your other opportunity. And so if you burn those bridges, right, you just never know. So this is a really good way for employers to feel good about, you know, their employees who are let go and employees to just leave with a positive, you know, kind of feeling in their mind, like, okay, our company's supporting us as we start this newer journey.

Yeah. You bring up a good point. Leaving a company negatively is never the thing to do. You never know. I mean, I've had, I've heard stories of executives that have reached out to people and referred them and stuff. Leaving on a positive thing, even if you have to put a smile on the face and you weren't happy with how it was, it can make all the difference in the world. I've had to sit hiring for my companies in front of people. I've gone through the resumes. You can sense when people are negative about their prior experiences or there was issues there.

Sometimes people tell you right out in the interview. We used to go through a four-step process with our companies to interview people. And we'd all share notes and sit in with each other sometimes. And yeah, people just put the laundry all out there and you're just like, uh, clearly you don't get it, but, uh, making that mental transition is, is important. So if, even if someone's not part of a transition

and maybe, maybe they're listening to the show and they're just like, Hey, I just got laid off by X, Y, Z. It doesn't really work with you guys. They can still reach out to you and get what you're doing. I recommend that you do. We do have a free LinkedIn and resume tool that what we do automatically like reviews your LinkedIn resume. It's a complimentary review. And then from there you can decide to work with us or not. But we actually kind of grade you from zero to a hundred percent. And we tell you

where it stands which is really interesting because i had someone reach out and they were like my resume is amazing and we put them through the tool they didn't grade too well and then as soon as we corrected their resume like literally within three days they got three interviews and so yeah you may think your resume looks good but i know what people are submitting and i see what applicant tracking systems on my client's end see. And so I can really help you streamline. And sometimes putting stuff that you think matters really doesn't matter. And so, you know, kind of creating that shift from it's like, you know, difference between what you think you need versus what you really need.

And there can be a little bit of a little bit of a delta there. So I always recommend like if you're not sure and if you've been laid off and you're like, hey, I'm not, you know, getting kind of the interest that I'm looking for, like your LinkedIn, your resume matter a lot. And it is your first impression. So please reach out and we can do a complimentary review for you. There you go. And it's a good test, although I did take it and I, it said I failed and I do not work well with others. So I should just go start my own company. So, I mean,

at least it was right on the money, but I was kind of, I was kind of hurt feels what I did take it. I'm just kidding people. Um, but we all know I, I do not play well with others. That's how I work for myself.

Um, there are people entrepreneurs and there are people that do really good working with other people. And I love people, but, just not in a close combined space. So there's that. Um, so, you know, LinkedIn is really important too, as well. You've talked about how, you know, making that look good. How important is that to, to what people are looking at and maybe other

social media? I've seen some different programs that employers can use that can actually pull like all your social media. It puts it into format. And so, you know, how important is that to present a good professional image over there? Maybe take down some, I don't know, some cat beans or something or, you know, silliness that you may have over there. And just make sure that you have a professional sort of presentation.

It is very important, right? And I think it's going to get more and more important, especially as companies focus on DE&I initiatives, which is diversity, equity and inclusiveness. When companies focus on retention rates, right? And once you put something out on the internet, it's there forever. We all know that to be the truth. And so it can be a really really scary place and so i am a really big believer in um and you know i think being on linkedin it's not just about what you have on your profile but are you engaging with people like if someone shares an article are you liking that are you commenting that because that increases your linkedin algorithm right so again if you're like hey i've applied to all these jobs on linkedin and like nothing's happening you know i can give you tips and tricks on how to increase your linkedin algorithm because if this needs you be more active, it's like

Facebook, it's going to, you know, give you more content and it's going to give people, you know, show your profile more because it knows that you're active. So it's all about the algorithms and how you play the algorithms, right? But again, it goes back to quality over quantity, right? So don't go be crazy and like and comment for no reason, you have to be very strategic about it. But you have to also have an intention behind what you're doing, right? And a lot of people don't do that. And so that's really where, you know, people start complaining. The other thing about social media, yes, if you have an Instagram, TikTok, whatever else is out there, like threads, I don't even know, I feel like every day there's something new. And

I'm like, I'm still catching up to what was happening last week um but just try if you are looking for a job as a professional please please please like make sure that your content on there is you know like okay it's pg there's nothing crazy we've had crazy stories about how hiring managers have gotten and stalked someone on facebook and seen some weird stuff and they were like, absolutely not right. Like extreme political viewpoints, for example, stuff like that, where you can really people can look at that and say, Okay, no, you know, this is not a good, you know, culture ad for my business. So again, just be really cautious on what you put out there. And as it relates to LinkedIn, specifically, your LinkedIn profile matters because people see it. And I know a lot of people who don't update it, but you should be updating that every three months. I make it a point to go in there at the end of each quarter and talk about

one thing or two things that I've done that like has impacted my clients or my organization anyway. Right. And so make sure every quarter you are updating that because that will be, that is seen whether you want it to be seen or not there you go note to self take my only fans postings down from linkedin there's no only fans for christmas folks if you google that there's something seriously wrong with you um take down my i'm not a flat earther i believe in square earth take down the square earther photos as well. LinkedIn is a very important thing. I loved it for all these years.

We built 130,000 group over there before Microsoft really ruined groups. Video is still there, but it doesn't grow like it used to. They did a whole year where they locked them down and then the spammers could run through them as they were doing some re-software thing. You know, the newsletter over there is really popular. How important is like, it seems like everywhere on social media, everything's a brand now. Everyone's a brand and you know, we're a brand, whatever, Chris Voss, but people need to see themselves as an individual professional brand and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, and that's why I'm asking for your input. How important is it to kind of have a history on LinkedIn, even though you're not searching for new jobs, but to be over there

building your brand, talking about what you do, your thoughts professionally, professional thoughts, not your only fans, keep those on there so that you can have a chance for other people to see you, see your resume. There's always recruiters looking all, you know, they're searching. They search me and they're like, hey, you want to work for companies? I'm like, have you seen me lately? And how important is that? And why is it important to really think of yourself as a brand and making it so that that makes you easier to be mobile and transfer jobs? Well, I think, you know, one of the things that I want to talk about, and this is something that I struggled with, is we get uncomfortable kind of selling ourselves.

It's just you feel awkward almost. Like, oh, I don't want to talk about myself. Like, it's weird. But you know what? It's unless you have your brand, and unless you are comfortable selling your skills, your achievements, you're not going to kind of ascend that career professional business ladder, whatever it is that you want to call it, right. And so it is the part of uncomfortable that unfortunately, you have to get used to, to get to the next level. So that being said, you want to always make sure that your LinkedIn profile is set up so that no matter who sees it, they can say, oh, this person,

you know, could be a good fit for this role at my company, or, you know, this role for the other other people that I know, just know that the world is a small place. And even if you're not a good fit for the person that's looking at your profile, they may have somebody who's looking for somebody exactly like you. And that may be your dream job, right? And so I always look at it at that standpoint. So building your personal brand. And I always say like, if you can do one or two posts on LinkedIn per week, it's really not that much, right? You can reshare a blog article that someone shared, you can reshare a clip, you can write, you can do a little polling question on, you know, like, hey, I'm working on this thing at work right now

What do you guys typically do in this situation? Just pull people but it again shows that you are active, right? And so you're not just some person like who has a LinkedIn profile that hasn't touched it in a very very long time So you have to start building that brand because as when you start interviewing people are gonna come to your LinkedIn They're gonna see what you're up to they're gonna see what blogs you're sharing They're gonna see what you're commenting on you're seeing they're to see what blogs you're sharing. They're going to see what you're commenting on. They're going to see what the types of likes that you're doing, right? And so again, that makes a huge difference. People now start seeing you as someone who has opinions, as someone who is a professional, someone who cares about their professional development because they're sharing, you know, noteworthy articles

with their network. And so that makes a huge, huge difference. It's going to really skyrocket your visibility and it's going to allow the right opportunities to come to you just by doing these small, I like to call them 1% shifts. There you go. And there's a lot of stuff you talk about on your website that's really interesting. You have Compass Leadership Method, Compass Leadership Method, Cohesive Culture Method, First Imp first impression system where you help people. Talk to us a little about that because we always talk about with leadership, anyone can be a leader. And what we just talked about here is positioning yourself in branding to be a leader that someone can see, hey, if we bring this person on, not only are they a good fit to be an employee, but they're a leader that has management sort of potential. Yep.

So I have three pillars that I really abide by, right? And these three pillars were created with my experience working with, you know, over a hundred startups and established companies. And the first impression systems, I'll start there. It's basically for startups, your branding, their social presence there, you know, because a lot of times startups struggle to find high caliber talent because they're competing with enterprise level companies enterprise level companies everybody knows who they are you know we can list out about 10 of them because we're using those products every day but when you're a startup you're really struggling to you know kind of make that name for yourself so unless you have a solid online presence a good interview funnel um you

know people that are actually talking to candidates and humanizing the interview process, you're really going to struggle to attract high caliber talent. The second method is the cohesive culture method, right, which is attracting people to your company that are aligned culturally, right. And so, again, if you're a startup, and you are going to recruit people, and they come from really big companies, and they're not used to kind of multitasking and taking ownership and, you know, they kind of want their job to be white and black, so to speak, right? And they're uncomfortable with the grays, they're not going to be a good fit for your startup because you know, as a startup, you need

people to wear multiple hats, you need people to take those initiatives, right? So are they going to be a good cultural add to your business. And then the compass leadership is all about transparency and the leadership kind of rules for the organization, right? So is the leadership team transparent? Are they honest about what's going on? Are they focusing on DE&I initiatives? Are they focusing on the employee well-being, not just from, you know, like, you know, professionally, but personally, right? What are some of the benefits that they have? Those are the things that is going to, you know, lead to not just attracting high caliber talent, but retaining them, right? Because what you don't want to do as a startup is keep burning cash on hiring, oh, they left, or we had to let them go. And then, oh, let's hire again. Because now, instead of focusing on your objectives and your goals, whether it's building a product or

service, raising more funds, selling and being profitable, it's now going to pivot to hiring. So you're going to continuously be in that weird, you know, kind of cycle where you're like hiring, oh, wait, that didn't work out. Oh, I have to hire again. And when you start doing that, then your attention is naturally divided from what you need to be doing. And then everybody starts to feel burned out, right? Like, I mean, it's miserable when you're at a company and people are, you know, are being let go or, you know, people leave because it's not a good fit. Then the people who are there have to take up that load because deadlines still have to be met. So it just becomes this crazy catch 22 situation. And that's why I have those three pillars that I really strongly abide by. There you go. And it, you know, that's important.

I learned that we learned this the hard way in starting my companies years ago. Hiring well and taking the time to hire and doing lots of interviews and being very strategic in it and having a game plan makes all the difference. I would guess, you know better than I do, but for me, it was 95% of the game in reducing our turnover, our problem employees, you know, you hire somebody and they have some real toxic behavior, um, which usually was me. Anyway, I'm just kidding. Um, we've all seen me, uh, but, uh, you know, people that would come and steal from the office. Uh, there's a, there's a fun, famous story. I think it's in my book. There's a fun, famous story of, of, uh story of where I'm sitting in my CEO office, which is this very large office and it had couches. So it was kind of an oxymoron.

Employees would wander in and sit and talk every now and then. And we had an employee who'd been with us for a few months. He comes in and he goes, hey, man, we had like, I think, four offices in three different states for that company. And he comes in and sits down and he goes, Hey man, you know where to, you know where to get a really cool stuff for your home office. And I'm like, what,

where, what, what is this? And he goes, he goes, Hey man, there's this room in the company that, uh,

that has like staplers and like tape. And like, this is a true story. Staplers, tape, and just like printer stuff and everything you need. There's a, there's a supply room. You just go's tape and just like printer stuff and everything you need. There's a, there's a supply room. You just go in there, you get what you want, take it home.

You can set your whole office up at home. And I'm sitting there going, you know, I'm CEO of my company, even though it's a C-Corp, I own 51%. And I'm sitting there going, is this like a Canada camera prank that we're going on? And I'm like, are you for real? And he goes, yeah, man, you can just go back there. And I go, so you're stealing from my company? Yeah. Products from my company?

And he goes, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't stealing. He goes, this is a big corporation, you know. It's just a big thing, you know. You're not stealing from anybody. And I'm like i own 51 of this damn corporation and all of our other corporations i go you're stealing from me that's 51 of my money and my agency is to protect this corporation because it's a living entity according to the you know tax base uh and uh you're basically in business i can't believe

you walked in here and had this conversation this shows what a dentist is he literally had the hardest time getting it because he's like no it's a corporation nobody gets hurt here but that's an example of bad hire that's kind of classic and so it's really important that

companies take the time to hire it makes a huge difference what are some other things you're seeing in the market with AI? And there's a lot of things going on crazy that way. How is that impacting job seekers and also job hires? Yeah, I think, you know, AI, I think, has unfortunately, for a lot of people, has, well, I mean, okay, let me take you back. A lot of people that I've talked to at the very beginning of when this whole Chad GPT thing happened, right? Was like, oh my gosh,

AI is here to take our jobs away. Again, leading into that scarcity mindset. But what I always tell people is AI is your chance to uplevel your skills, right? Like how do you work together with AI to, you know, have better time management, prioritize your day, and really let it do the grunt work right that's what it's here for essentially um and so for job seekers there's so much you can do you can make video resume using ai you can you know redo your you know actual resumes you can help it you know help tell it to help write your linkedin profiles that's like actually looks really good and feels really good obviously humanize it like don't just copy and paste stuff i'm against that too but you can do that to kind of up level yourself. And then for employers and

companies, right AI, you can use it for recruiting, you can use it for streamlining operations, you can actually have AI and this has been around, but like have AI tools source for candidates. If you're looking for an engineer, for example, you can use an AI functionality to say I'm looking for someone with this years of experience at this location, you know, I want them to have this specific skill set, and then it'll pull up profiles based on kind of your qualification requirement, right. And so again, it gets rid of the grunt work. But I do think that people are still going to be needed. I mean, it is human resources, right? It's not AI resources. And so people are still going to be needed. And, you know, AI is going to be great to get up level and upskill us and eliminate some of the

tasks that are monotonous and manual. But at the end of the day, it's our job as people to really help help use AI to help assist us instead of letting take over everything because I know people who are like, I'm going to let AI do everything. And that's not the point, right? It's the point. The point is we have AI so that we can be better humans. And so that's kind of how I approach it is now that I'm not doing the gut work, I have more energy.

I have more time to go out and do the things that I want to do. And, and, and positioning yourself with, uh, you know, learning AI and getting involved with that. It's probably a good skill set for people to maybe get involved with what's going on with ChatGPT. And there's so many other services now and so much of a frontier of AI. I imagine there are a lot of people in the job market that are brilliant at doing coding and technology stuff. Clearly, I'm calling it technology stuff because I'm a layman in the business. He knows nothing.

But the people that build these great software that we have in future AI projects, are you finding a lot of people are starting to turn their focus and attention, especially resume-wise, towards looking for AI jobs and things like that? You know, yes and no. I think there's definitely a subset of people.

Like, you know, when blockchain was like the new and hot thing, we saw that, right? Where a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, I want to go into blockchain now. Like, I want to do everything in blockchain because that's what's... And I think we're going to have those ebbs and flows when the new technology comes

and everybody's like, oh, what's threads? Let me go on threads. And then, you know, like... That was a cool week. Yeah, for like two days. And then you're like, what the heck? You know, like, what's going on? But everybody like, oh, my gosh, I remember when it came out side story. And I was like, what is threads? Like, it took me like a good week to really catch up. And I was like, I'm not even gonna bother. But I think that's what happens, right? When there's something new and exciting. And then we all just like kind of try to gravitate because we don't want to have FOMO, we don't want to miss out on what's happening,

right? But then of course, there's also other up and coming industries, like there's clean tech, right within the environmental arena, we have med tech, farm tech, biotech, I mean, there's so many different technological sectors, besides AI that people are still interested in. But of course, when something new comes up, you know, Chris, people are going to say, okay, I'm going to try this out and see what happens. Right. So you do see that shift, but I think it's going to normalize. Like there's going to be a little bit of a, you know, like a, whoa, like this is exciting.

And then it's going to kind of taper out again and people are going to go back to their, their regular lives and their regular interests, so to speak. Or whatever new shiny thing pops up next week. Whatever is next. I think it's going to be here for a while. It seems that I don't think it's week. Yes, whatever is next. I think it's going to be here for a while. I don't think it's going to blow up like it, or I think it's going to collapse like NFTs seem to have done. It's going to be here for a while.

And we're all just going to eventually be answering the Skynet, the Terminator. So we've seen the movies. On remote work and flexible hybrid work, what are some of the trends you're seeing it's been kind of interesting to see the you know the development over covid where everyone's like nah go work at home if you want to move to iowa and and uh get a farm out there you can still work for us in san francisco you know all over the country there's been issues with this and then now we're kind of at the great clawback stage maybe you can the great clawback um what are you seeing with the battles over remote and flexible hybrid work

setups um is it getting better is it getting worse is uh i don't know i would say that you know companies are definitely making a shift towards back in office or hybrid remote and i think it's because a lot of companies have invested in real estate and they're like or not real estate but also like rental spaces and office spaces and all that right and so they're like okay like and i think there's also companies are like okay like people work better when they're in office you know because they can like separate like the work and whatever but then what companies that are going back to you know fully in person they will see some attrition because there's also companies who are going to stay remote because they want to retain their talent. They don't want to let go of their talent. And they have seen that regardless of where their candidates work from, they're getting deliverables on time.

They're getting their stuff done, you know, high quality. And so they're going to say we're going to stay remote because we don't really need to invest in infrastructure or anything like that. And so the companies that are going back, you know, full time, you know, in person, they are going to start seeing some of those employees go from there over to the, you know, companies that are still going to be fully remote or partially remote, at least. So we will definitely see that trend. Um, I do think more and more companies are going to start going back into office though, just because it's like, you know, the team morale, the camaraderie, the culture, all that stuff is a little difficult to build when you are all remote. Yeah, it is. It is. And we've had lots of authors on that have talked about remote work. Uh, it's kind of funny now to look what's, what some of the titles of the book, I see

someone did remote incorporated remote work. Um, and I'm like that book, I i don't know is that going to fare well uh do you find that some people do you find that there's some benefits people are offering maybe between pay and benefit packages uh where they're still offering remote uh but they're they're kind of using it as like a balance system where you're going to get paid more and taken care of more if you come back in the office has that change happened yet you know i haven't paid more and taken care of more if you come back in the office? Has that changed happen yet? You know, I haven't seen that happen,

but I do know that, you know, companies who are, um, you know, kind of enforcing back to office, they're paying for parking. They're having like taco Tuesdays where they get like taco trucks on campus

for Tuesday. Um, I know some of the companies are doing like, you know, dry cleaning pickups and, you know, stuff like that are having deals with local daycare. So their kids can be dropped off at the daycare next to the office. I am seeing a trend in that specifically.

I don't know that they can, you know, justify the difference in compensation because then, you know, we run into the issue of women and you're being discriminated. And then it's like discrimination and so i haven't seen that specifically but i know there's like from a non-monetary benefit standpoint there's definitely more benefits given to people um some companies um who are you know coming into person like we'll pay for your parking we'll pay for your mileage or you know whatever that looks like um but yeah i have seen that trend there you go i'm gonna send you my resume because i want to any any, any company that's hiring for Taco Tuesday, I don't care what it pays. I will, I will show up for Taco Tuesday.

I don't know, 80 hour work weeks, sign me up. Taco Tuesday as long, you know, any, I would rather have Taco Tuesday than pizza time. So there you go. I love how people reel about, uh, we just got pizzas. Hey, you want to raise? Here's some pizzas on LinkedIn. So that's good. Now you said you help other people set up their own recruitment agencies.

Did I hear that correctly? Correct. There you go. Expand on that. How can people reach out to you and what do you do and help them set up? Is it a franchise situation, et cetera? No, it's not a franchise. It's basically if someone comes to me and says, hey, I want to be, you know, my own boss,

like the both of us. And they're like, I want to have my own recruiting agency, have sales and HR recruitment experience. And I want to build a team and I want to build my clients that I can scale, right. And live the life that I want to live. I have an amazing like coaching slash like dashboard slash tools, contracts, everything that I give you to start your own recruiting business. So basically empowering you to start your own agency and you get to work with me directly. And so we help that set, you know, help you set that up, which is, you know, really exciting because I, like I say, like recession is a really good time to build your recruiting

agency because when things turn around, you are already ready to go, right? Like you're not having to then worry about the infrastructure and like, oh, I need this tool and I need a Calendly account. Like all that's ready to go and you can literally hit the ground and start getting clients. So I think that's the biggest thing. Yeah. There you go. Maybe I'll start a recruiting agency so I can get a pizza truck or so I can get a pizza truck. Or so I can get a pizza truck. There's probably a pizza truck. Taco Tuesday. Taco Tuesday trucks. I just want...

That's all I'm after at this point, if you can't tell. I like tacos. Who doesn't like tacos? I think we should create an island for people that don't like tacos. Yes. I think discrimination is bad, but I think there's a choice we have to make about the quality of human beings that don't like tacos. I agree.

Is anybody allergic to tacos? Is there a taco allergen? I't know i mean maybe if you're like gluten-free then you can't have the well you gotta have gluten-free tacos yes you can give the corn ones right because corn is technically gluten-free there you go i need some that are fat-free though yeah there's that but i don't think they make those uh but maybe ai will make that technology from um so uh what else haven't we talked about that we touch on could you do so much uh no i think that was it we haven't talked about our favorite ice cream flavors what yeah we haven't what's your favorite ice cream flavor uh i mean i i used to go to in and out and i have them do the napoleonic shake or napoleon i can never say it right. They just correct me.

Where they mix strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. Is that my favorite? I don't know. I like that, but I like ice cream sandwich. Oh, ice cream sandwiches are good. Those are my favorite. I remember getting those as a kid. I still do that. I buy them for my kids

and I secretly eat them when they go to bed. You know, the problem is I've eaten way too many of those. I think most people have seen me and gone, yeah, he probably needs to cut that off. So we, we cut off the ice cream and ice cream sandwiches,

plus they kind of a lactose thing. So, uh, we try and stay away from that because no one wants to see that nuclear display of fireworks. Um, nuclear display of fireworks um nuclear display of fireworks i think we'll add that to the show the christmas show the nuclear display of fireworks

whatever we'll leave that off the show um so uh it's been wonderful to have you on this is very insightful um and and and and it's going to be very interesting how things go because uh let me ask you this i have one final question for you. One of the things that we're seeing in this environment, my understanding of the job market, so I'll have you clarify it because I don't know much. I just see a thing here and now. But my understanding of this market that we're in is a lot of the boomers and some of us Gen X people, because we're the coolest generation, of course, have left the job market permanently early because of COVID. Especially boomers, they just went, COVID? Yeah, we're out of here, man. And one of the issues that it looks like we have, because I had a mortgage company for 20 years.

I'm used to seeing massive layoffs in the market and M1, M2 policy, Federal Reserve stuff. I've been very familiar with all that stuff, too familiar for most of my life. I have watched $400,000 in portfolio mortgage values disappear overnight because on Greenspan decided he wanted to blow out my money with a half point increase. One of the things we're seeing right now is it seems like the job market has shrunken to a level where even though we're in a recessionary thing and the fed's doing everything we're in a new kind of reality of recession where the jobs don't fall and there's so few people it's very competitive and in fact some of the things i've seen from i believe the new york times has covered this or wapo washington post where um for about every seven new seven people that are leaving the job market from the boomers and these people are very experienced in trades

they're very experienced in what they do that knowledge base is leaving and there's about one person that's replacing every seven that are leaving and even then that one person is very young very new which is fine, but they don't have that wealth of expertise of 40 years of working. And so there's a real challenge there. And there's probably going to be a fight. We've had doctors on that have talked about, there's going to be a very small amount of doctors. I think the pilot business for pilots and airlines right now, they're really struggling because they don't have a lot of pilots coming in the business.

Is that a good, accurate barometer? Are you seeing that in the market where the fight over good employees is going to become even tougher? Yep. And that's why we have a talent shortage right now, especially in the tech world, right? Is because, you know,

it's really interesting to see that. And I always tell people, the biggest problem that companies have when they're hiring and not is not, you know, who to hire next, it's really like they usually know, but then it's hard to find that person. And so a lot of times they're having to up level their current employees by, you know, having them do certifications or courses so that they can up level their skill set, because there is a true talent shortage in the market right now for highly skilled individuals.

So I will say that trend is unfortunately, but definitely true. There you go. There you go. And I don't think it will get better. I mean, because our population isn't growing. We're on a bit of a decline. Yep.

And so companies need to take note. Employees need to take note uh uh employees need to take note um and searching for you know is it true a lot of the gen xers you know they're the people who are going to be the next big or if they're not already i think they're on the cusp of it or they're here where they'll be the largest uh employee base and they seem to want things that are a little bit more life purpose oriented. It seems they want to have more fulfillment other than just get handed a paycheck every 20 day or every two weeks. I don't work for other people. Can you tell?

And they want taco trucks, damn it. So I guess that's what you're saying. Yeah. I would say that a lot of people now are more concerned with like some of the initiatives with the, like they want to stand behind a purpose. They don't want to just find a company right like want to like okay we're going

to save the world by cleaning the oceans we're going to save the world by going to the moon like what are we doing that's going to save the world and so very much that from that attitude so yes we will see that trends and this is why companies are you know really open about you know their mission their values and their vision right so that they can actually attract people who really care about those things. So it's not just about the paycheck anymore. It's more than that, you know, which is a good thing. But sometimes it can also be really hard for employers to find people, right, especially when they're starting out, and they can't really support all the benefit expectations that they have. But yeah, I think we'll definitely continue to see that trend for sure.

There you go. It doesn't look like it's going to get better. And we're not making more people. So we really need people to start breeding really quickly. Like everyone just go out and breed today. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that. I mean, some of you have the ability to do it.

You're married and whatever. So we need at least one more kid out of everybody by tomorrow. Okay? Everyone get to work right now. and then there's soccer tuesdays um but uh yeah it's it's gonna be really interesting and we may be dealing with inflationary measures because with a tightening job market you know you have to pay people more we've it's so interesting and funny how geez i remember 2019 everyone's like, no, we can't pay $15 an hour. No way. The world's going to end if we do.

And now when I go out, people are like, hey, it's 1820 and all sorts of craziness. I've seen restaurants that are paying. They're like, hey, we'll give you $100 gifts or do you refer people? I'm like, geez, I'm going to stand on the corner and start picking up people for $100 gifts or do you bread? I'm going to get me a sign. Hey, do you want to work for this restaurant

over here? They're going to feed me if I, but what about diversity hiring? That's one final question I'll get in here. What's, what are you guys seeing? What's going on with the diversity gaps, hiring, diversity, inclusion processes, et cetera, et cetera. I would say there's again, a shortage of diversity hiring in the tech world, only because I know that during COVID, a lot of women had to take the backseat and stay home with the kids because what else are you going to do? And so we saw that. We saw a sharp decline in women in the workforce for a little bit right after COVID. I think it's trying to kind of normalize now for sure. But I think in general you know we need more people um that are diverse in you know learning about stem and learning about you know engineering and science

and technology and math and you know all that stuff and that's really how we're going to see the rise of you know diverse hires in the work uh workforce so there's definitely kind of a scarcity there for sure um but i also know that companies are have initiatives specifically related to diversity hires. So they say, okay, we have, you know, x number of hires that we have to have a diverse pool of candidates, right, which I really like when they do that. And they set those goals, because then you have to meet them, right. And it also kind of allows us recruiters to start the sourcing and recruiting all those positions early because we know that they're diverse hires and they may take longer because we have a limited pool of

people to work with. So really setting those goals and numbers. I see a lot of companies do that. There's a lot of companies that say they're doing it, but they don't do it. So please, if you're going to say that you're going to do it, do it. Wait, companies are doing PR spin? No way. A hundred percent. But I think most of my clients honestly are really, really good about it, which I love. But I have seen companies pretend like you're measuring it and you're doing something about it, you're not really, you know, pro D and I, I always believe that you need to have the data to tell a story about your initiatives. So I'm really big on that. But yeah, I definitely see there's a lot of companies making that initiative for sure. There you go. I mean, I learned a long time ago being a CEO and where the buck stops here is I don't have all their answers. I don't have all the right answers.

I don't have all the innovations. I ran dry of that after about three years and I'm just like, I'm out of ideas. Anybody got any ideas around here? Cause I got, I got nothing. The tank's empty. And, and ideas, innovations, uh, changing of companies, you know, there's a lot of, um, you know, I think Kodak, there's a story of, uh of uh someone developing i think it was a kodak they developed digital film an employee did or a department did and they're like hey we should

do this they're like no no i never want that they love developing film and going to you know photomat or whatever uh we know how that turned out uh so you know there's there's all sorts of you never know who's gonna have the right idea i. I believe that the CEO of Google was born in, I think he was born in a dirt hut on a dirt floor in India. And look where he is today. There's no corner on the market of great ideas and great people. Steve Jobs, his father was an immigrant. You never know where brilliant ideas are going to come from and you need to be open to them. And it's just so important to, you know, everybody, everybody, I want to, I want to say everybody has value, but I've met a couple of people that don't, at least in my opinion,

but most people, everyone has value or can have a development, I don't know, or if they behave appropriately. There's some people that don't, but I think we have places we put them called prisons for the sociopaths. And one thing, other thing I'll throw in here, I know we've gone long, but it's been such a great discussion. The best discussions are long ones. Do you see, like my gym has a thing now where you can drop off the kids and I'm actually doing this roundabout so I can set this joke up. So there's a self-interest here but they have where you can drop off the kids which i i i don't do i just have my three-year-old spot me on the bar and so he helps i'm like hey man it's 100 pounds give me a break lift that thing on there and let's go buddy um and he's just like daddy

poop in the diaper no i, I don't have kids. But do you see more employers? Maybe this seems to be because child care has gone out of control. Oh, my gosh. And it makes it so employees can't go to work. You mentioned a lot of women have had to go home to take care of the kids. I know some dads have. People told me their child support or child support, their child daycare bills.

And I'm just like, holy crap. Do you get Taco Tuesdays for that? So do you see companies maybe trying to internalize that where you just drop your kid off at work? I would say that the mid to enterprise level companies definitely have. I know there's a lot of companies here in Houston in the oil and gas sector where they have daycares either as part of it or like literally attached to it. And usually it's attached because of like FDA regulations around safety, around equipment, all that stuff. But very, very close where you like drop off the child, you park your car and then you go to your office. Right. So it's either internal or it's right next to it and adjacent.

But then I've also seen, you know, companies, like smaller companies make deals with daycares, we're like, hey, we have an employee here, if they work for this company, can you honor like a 20% or 25% discount, right? And then they'll somehow start like a referral network. I've seen that a lot. I see that our current daycare offers that too, for you know, certain medical workers that go to this local hospital that's just 20 minutes where they are getting a discount if they drop off their kid at our daycare um and i think that helps a lot because it's also really good for the the daycares business right they're getting you know um kids like you know repeat clients so to speak because one person's

going to tell another person who's going to tell another person and then there you go you have a carpool um and so i have seen that that trend for sure and i know that a lot of people are being very open-minded about like now people having kids and you know just knowing that daycare comes you know once you have kids if they're not you know go back to work and stuff like that so i have definitely seen that a lot of companies also offer like fsa hsa benefits where you can use that for you know paying a nanny or, you know, help any type of health saving spending, et cetera. There you go. And one thing we should probably

address to the market is discrimination against dog owners. I have two Huskies and those are my children. So I think we need to have more support for employees that have dogs and like there should be, you know, daycare support for kids and there should be like dog support for things then at least i can you know my dogs sleep under my desk while i'm working so they i should be able to bring them in the office to do that as well i'm sure that a lot of companies actually do that they have a bring your pet to work day they have it's like a lot of a lot of companies are trying to do that yeah the only problem is usually wives bring their husbands for bring your pet to work day. So there's that.

Marriage joke there, people. That's what that is. This has been really insightful and very informative. Thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. And thank you to all the listeners. There you go.

We've had a lot of fun. Give us the dot coms for all your stuff so that people can go find you on the interwebs and get to know you better and reach out to you. Yep. So I know Chris is going to plaster this all over the place, but it's RecruitGian.com. Neha Naik at RecruitGian.com is my email. And then you can find me on LinkedIn as Neha Dixit Naik. So reach out to me, connect with me, whatever it is you're looking for.

I love to network. I love to talk, obviously. Let's do a coffee chat or even a happy hour chat, whatever time zone you're in. But again, it was an absolute honor and pleasure to be here. And yeah, just super excited to see, you know, how it goes.

There you go. I'm actually going to start a new zoom business called a virtual taco truck. Yep. There you go. So there you go. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for tuning in as always. Refer to show your family,

friends, relatives, because you want them to be smarter too. And then that way, when you go to Thanksgiving dinner here coming up at the end of the year, you won't have to look at them and be like, do you read anything? Anyway, guys, we love you.

And thanks for being part of the Chris Voss Show family. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrissvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrissvoss. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter. Gross like a weed over there. And it's so important to be over there. Also go to TikTok, chross1, etc, etc. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

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