This is an interesting time to hire and to be hired so today we're going to dive into this area of talent acquisition and really putting your best foot forward dive into this with Mike Acker and Michael Yinger Welcome to advance with Mike Acker the podcast designed to help entrepreneurs business leaders and professionals alike break through barriers by improving their practical leadership skills and increasing confidence in speaking your host is a best-selling author executive coach and founder of the advanced public speaking school and advantage publishing group two companies dedicated to providing an edge for leaders find out more about mike at mikeacker.com now here's your host Mike Acker Michael thank you so much for being on the program with me today welcome mike I'm happy to be here thank you so the whole goal here is to help people advance advance in their career advance their understanding in advance and I think you have a great insight into an area that a lot of people want to know more about where is the whole area of talent acquisition going in the next several years and how does it affect them? yeah a lot of changes primarily driven as we might imagine coming out of covid companies are having to be more focused on what the individuals want and they're taking that into account so this is still really a you might say a buyer's market or it's certainly a job seekers market and this this is likely going to continue for quite some time according to all the stats that I see there's still large numbers of people quitting. There still is a huge gap between the jobs that are out there and the number of people that are available to fill those jobs and so talent acquisition is going to have to be really focused on being presenting to the people what it is that they want to get from the company being very focused around that now technology is helping because it's it's taking uh improving some of the productivity aspects of it and it's still going to come down to that people relationship that talent exhibition is going to have to face because more and more there's the recognition that this whole conversation around bringing somebody into an organization it's really sales conversation you're as a person in talent acquisition what are you doing to convince that person that this is something that they want to buy they want to buy this job they want to come and work for you and so the that whole human relationship creating rapport connecting with people very important and will be for the next several years. you know what you made me think of is just recently someone came knocking on our door and said hey um would you be up to selling your house. you're a real estate acquisition right no yeah yeah we are not interested and so my wife and I were thinking about it and then we thought to ourselves well if we were interested this is the value that we would place on our house regardless of whether it's the current market value this is the value that we would put on it and there is an essence with in essence that right now people need to know their value. yeah and that way they're ready for those conversations any thoughts on that? yeah it's a good analogy and by the way I got one of those letters yesterday so exactly what you're talking about it just tells you where real estate is although we're not we're not going to go into real estate you have to know what you want and you and quite frankly as a job seeker you need to know that the company that you're talking to is the one that's gonna provide those things to you because the the person who's the recruiter is gonna they're gonna pitch you on whatever it is that they have to offer you've got to be prepared to say well okay that's fine except that I want a company that has a vision or I want to know that I'm going to make a difference in my community or whatever it is or I want to work from home you got to have a good understanding of of what your needs and wants are because you will have choices. One you'll have choices within the offer that's being presented to you potentially but also there are different companies that you could go to work for that might provide those things that are more important there was a recent survey came out and said actually um salary is no longer near the top that people are looking more for belonging aspects they're looking for social consciousness. You know so those kinds of things have come crept into the conversation but as a job seeker you have to be prepared with what it is that you want and what it is that you will accept when it comes time for uh to consider an offer. I think it's so interesting because I one of the things I do as a as a communication coach when I'm working with people I help people get interviews and prepare for interviews at a very high level and one person came in and he was he was actually just focused on the money aspect and his personality and his mannerisms is a while back now match that kind of modality if you know what I mean in other words he was very hard skill oriented versus soft skill oriented I'm changing some of the specifics here but it's very interesting you're talking about not only the talent acquisition needs to come in here with people skills and not just the hard facts but really it's give and take it's both sides. yeah absolutely and and you know that the reality is that if you wanted to flip burgers or you know shovel chicken you could get a job tomorrow anywhere the good jobs the kind of jobs that people say they want. You still have to work at it I talked to a CEO not long ago who was advertising for chief operating officer he got a thousand applicants so you've got to know one that you're capable of doing the job and what is it that you expect from that company when the time comes to be in the conversation. it's uh yeah you you hit it right on the head it there's it's a balancing act it's a two-way street company's got to have the right sort of opportunities and you got to know what it is you want to be prepared to talk about that. Yeah very interesting well Michael as we dive into this topic some more tell us a little bit about who you are and why you're a good person to talk about this aspect of talent acquisition and growth and some other areas we'll get into? I've been in talent acquisition now for about 20 years and had worked for a number of companies primarily in the in the outsourced recruiting space I've done just about every job that you can do I'd I've been in sales, I've been in client delivery, I've been in product management sourcing, uh the whole gamut and recently I took on being a co-founder for an HR tech startup we have a product that evaluates and ranks resumes making it easier for the recruiter taking some time out of the process etc. so all those things really has me see the industry as a whole. where the industry's going, but also see it from both sides what you know what what's the job seeker side but also what's the company side who's looking for that whether you're in sourcing your, whether you do your all your talent acquisition internally, or whether you've outsourced it to some company there are some common things that you need to look at. I think to be successful in terms of of uh uh talent acquisition as a process I think one of the ones that really is important is the whole aspect of hiring bias and I mean we're all aware of what's going on with a friend's tv show right and the the uh the one of the writers is like oh my gosh I didn't hire very diverse group and she was biased towards a certain group just because of the 1990s and where she was at in that point in time but now she's like I would do things different so everybody's being aware of this and wanting to make sure that they don't have a hiring bias towards anything. so talk to us about how does hiring bias affect us and the long-term effects of hiring bias in organizations? I look at hiring buyers in in two ways there's explicit virus bias where you're only hiring people because they look and sound a certain way and that's the way you're doing things. Then there's the unconscious bias where you look around and realize that everybody looks like you and you didn't intend it that way but that's the way it turned out. so there's you know the unconscious aspect to it the a lot of the statistics that are out there now look at when you talk about the long-term impact of of bias in the in the hiring process they don't look so much at the companies that exhibit bias. What they do is they look at the companies that have exhibited this tendency towards inclusion and diversity DENI and what they found is that if you've got a diverse workforce. One your employees are more engaged because employees prefer to work in a in an environment that is more like their society or their geography that they're just more & more comfortable. Two they're more productive at a two and three times clip there's better cash flow and there's better profitability so that's what companies get when they choose to be diverse and they work towards mirroring society mirroring their customers and so forth. Companies so you could look at it the opposite direction companies that don't practice like that they tend to get uh they tend to get a reputation and so that reputation impacts not only their customers but also the people who apply for jobs so they don't do as well so there's there's clearly documented evidence that shows engaging in a diverse process in looking for a mix of employees that have the skills and also mirror your society that you're working in is a positive thing in terms of organizational performance. That's you know it that those aren't my stats those are the stats that are out there that they're readily available and then just a question of you know what do you want to do about it and you can you know technology can help a little bit except that you got to be careful with the technology because who built the technology and how's the technology thinking about what it you know the input that it gets right because the AI systems will just talk about artificial intelligence for a minute they get their results or they they they learn based on what they're told what the feedback is and so you can program unconsciously AI to be picking things that you maybe you you didn't want to do. so you gotta you gotta balance that and even if the AI is finely tuned and it is finding the appropriate resources and they're they're coming in there's still probably a person interviewing them and that's often where the breakdown is and so a company has to look not just at technology but also their internal processes to ensure that they're not perpetuating unconscious bias by the the nature of who's doing the conversation with the candidates and who's making the hiring decision. It's nowadays it's the recognized bias can be borderline racism like yeah I'm just bringing people in who are fitting this or sexism or whatever isn't right so I could have just an ism attached to it but is that unconscious I'm sure that when they were looking for the six actors for friends they weren't thinking we just need this type of group right here. yeah. but it was an unconscious bias towards the industry at that point in time so how do we fight that how how do we overcome that and I think that's that's easy for us as parents with our kids it's easy for us as employers it's easiest for us employees there's unconscious biases I grew up in Mexico so I love speaking Spanish I'm always drawn to people who speak Spanish there's a bias inside of me that I want to speak Spanish and if I'm hiring two different people one happens to be bilingual and one happens to just speak English I'm biased towards that even if it doesn't need Spanish speaking so how do we how do we fight that how do we what do we do with that? Well, there are two elements to it I think one is you have to have a plan that you're working towards uh we had a client several years ago and our objective as the outsource outsource company was to present a slate of candidates with a certain percentage of demographics and they came to us after they did some analysis of their people and said well you know we're not hitting our diversity goals and so we together looked at the process and we realized we were presenting them in excess of their request in terms of a mixture of candidates somebody else was making a decision on who to hire and so that we were able to pinpoint that it wasn't the input process it was the selection process. So you have to pay attention to the numbers you have to have a plan. so you have to know what you're shooting for yeah there's another side of there's another side of this is okay say you're you're at a certain demographic today and you want to be at a different demographic are you going to fire people so that you can hire people to replace them that meet your demographic are you growing enough that you can hire and and grow to the number that you want to achieve that you know there's those kinds of things you have to think about but then the the the other side of it is you have to provide training to the people who are making the final decision to help them recognize just what you said help them recognize that they have an in an inherent bias and how do you get all get over it you can do it through different kinds of interview techniques uh you can do but clearly you got to be measuring not only what you're trying to accomplish but how you're accomplishing it so that everybody has visibility to it there's a lot of commitment to this. It can't just be you know handing down you know here's your here's your goal go go for it see ya because it's going to take time and effort to get past those unconscious bias to where people are really looking at the candidates who can do the job and they're not concerned with how those candidates look. That's the journey's never over because you know the the sort of societal mix is going to change over time it's it's paying attention to it and putting the you know the right emphasis where it needs to be so that people are paying attention to their bias you know sometimes it's as simple as you just look around and realize everybody looks like you well. You know and quite frankly that could be geography we had a client had they had a call center in one of the northeastern states and they were concerned about the the the demographic mix of their call center and we said to them well you got to relocate somewhere where you're going to find the people that you say you want to hire because you're in a neighborhood where they're all the same. That's you know they're those kinds of things very real issues right if you if you want to have a diverse workforce and you locate somewhere where there is no diversity well how are you going to get a diverse workforce in that kind of an environment are you are you a you know a hospitality company and so you have a lot of certain demographics particularly at the entry level and so your overall numbers look really great but then you start looking at the layers. oh yeah and you know it so you got to pay you got to pay attention this is this is why these these de and I jobs the people whose entire focus is DENI they're getting to be pretty significant in the organization to help the senior leadership really understand where they are how they can get there because of what we talked about a few minutes ago the very real results that come from having a good diverse organization. Very interesting, yeah so there's the great results that come from it and very interesting you have the numbers there and I'm sure that there's some places that you can point people to at the end as well on that and then you have that process and I love the plan aspect you got to know what your plan you're not going to get something that you're not going to fall into success most time right and then you're going to have just that training to be aware very interesting now talk to me as a person who is looking for a job whether I'm Hispanic female whether I this or that what should I be doing because if I what if I what if I'm worried that I don't fall into the bias of the higher what can I do to increase my chances of success? one of the keys is the the sort of the onus is on the company to write a job description that's that's encompassing that's inviting on the part of the job seeker pay attention to the job description and I mean I just put it bluntly try not to get turned off you know if it's all he pronouns and you're a woman who's applying for the job you know do you want the job now this might be this might be a little trigger for you that says this is this might tell you a little bit about what this company is so pay attention to the job description and you know in some ways it's you know be broad in your consideration of where you're looking to work but do your research. It you know it doesn't take much to go in and find out some of the the public stances of companies and is that a company you want to work for? Are they supportive of these kinds of goals? Do are they supportive of the community that you represent? it isn't it isn't that hard to find out a company's brand these days uh by doing a little bit of digging that's gonna that's gonna help you in terms of making the right decision in terms of making yourself visible the the challenge there is it you know sophisticated companies know how to target demographics by where they place their jobs or where they're looking for people and you know you want to make sure that you're well positioned and those kinds of things but you know some companies are still just they're you know just sort of blanket they're not paying particular attention to certain communities and so you just you if if you want to be considered across the board you just got to have yourself out there in in all the places where people are looking for employees. Very interesting yeah I like that don't don't pigeon yourself don't pigeonhole yourself in the process and and put yourself out there and do that research above and beyond knowing that value aspect knowing the market value let's switch over to something a little bit. why is focusing on employee experience feedback going to be really the way forward in business? There's a whole field of thought around employee experience it's another area that really is coming to the forefront in in HR if employees are having a good experience they're more productive I mean it's it's really as simple as that part of that is the environment some of the stuff we've been talking about and part of it also can be the technology. uh You can you can be the most encompassing um embracing inclusive environment but you put your people in front of a screen with 14 different systems and none of them talk to each other and they're having to move data back and forth they're going to get turned off it's going to be a bad employee experience. So there are a number of different ways to deal with that you know are you open to people working from home once in a while that's part of employee experience and so you know I'm not I'm not suggesting that there's there's a particular way to be to achieve good employee experience the way the the the way you should move forward is you should be talking to your employees what is it they're looking for I was talking to a CEO of a small company who during covid had taken advantage of the real estate situation and had bought a new facility and had built it all out and was so excited to welcome everybody back to the office and they said no thank you ma'am they wouldn't come back to the office she didn't talk to him she didn't she didn't understand that some of these people had moved out of state they were still doing their job but they they found a cheaper place to live they were they had had to make arrangements around child care. Yet the key to employee experience is you really have to be talking to your employees to understand what is it they want you know maybe maybe they they don't want time off maybe they want more money that you know every environment is going to be different because the kind of culture you've created the kind of people that you have working for you it's talking to your employees first so he gets back to the plan it and then make a plan that achieves those ends. Because that's what's going to improve the employee experience. Yeah I love that you're you're saying talk to them please because there are some generalizations that are going out there hey people want this people want right that but your people might not want that I mean think about this as you're listening to this as you're tuning in to watching what is it you want that is actually maybe something that the organization you work for does not provide? and what is something they provide that you don't care for? for example I know somebody who works for a company that is very children-centric but they don't have kids and they don't have plans for kids so they do all this stuff for kids and they're like that doesn't really bother I mean I don't really care and then I know another person he runs a company and he said look we're not going to do any of the social conscious we're just going to pay you and we're going to pay you well and you go to the social cost consciousness. So if you want to come work for a company that's saved in the the turtles or whatever it might be that's not us but we'll pay you well and you go do that very interesting to understand what the company wants and what the employee wants and really that conversation which is really just a communication issue. It's communication it's it you have to it's asking the question right I think if nothing else what covet in particular has taught us is you just can't assume. That you know there's there's no benefit in assuming because you know what's what's the chances that you're going to assume correctly if you haven't done some research if you haven't had that conversation with your folks to understand what it is they're looking for it's just and it's so simple you know you you have some town halls you do some surveys you're gonna find out pretty quick what people want and and then and then you can decide how can you meet it do you want to meet it I mean that you don't know that you might you might be throwing money at some solution that nobody cares about I mean your example is very interesting we don't we're gonna pay you and then you can use your own time to go do your causes and we're gonna and we're gonna pay you more you know we're gonna pay you better than you would get if you went somewhere else where you had this built into your organization and that might work for some people yeah absolutely but you gotta ask the question yeah. I thought that was really good I mean that kind of thing would work for me because my wife and I are invested and we would like to be thinking about where we want to be involved in the community so puts an onus back on us so for me I didn't work for them but for me I like that you know once I had an organization that did an extra day event for their staff and it's like they mentioned something good but I was like oh that's like time away from my family yeah yeah and your cause may be different than someone else's cause yeah yeah you know it's it's uh there's nothing wrong with having that sort of mission-based component to your culture it's you know one you better be upfront about it so that people understand that when they're interviewing with you but two it should also be reflective of what your current employees want. If you want to maintain a good employee experience okay so we have people who are listening and watching right now who are thinking okay that makes sense I think yeah employee experience okay I'm on board I'm with this what do we let's talk to the two different groups here we have managers and we have leaders we have CEOs we have business leaders who are listening so what are some simple systems that they can put in place to get this and then on the other side of the employee how can they provide this even if there isn't a system to give it? Interesting in terms of the first group the key is understanding what it is the employees want. You can't put anything in into place until you understand what they want in the first place. Right what's their system to get that like old little comment boxes probably don't work so well? yeah well there are a number of fairly sophisticated survey tools that that make it easier there are companies that specialize in gathering this kind of information I mean you go out and hire a consultant there are consultants in the employee experience space will come in and they'll look at your systems and they'll look at what you're doing and and give you a readout all of which includes a component of talking to the employees but simple survey is the place to start depends on how big you are right if you got 50 people do a survey in google right you know and and if you got more than that then maybe you need to go to SurveyMonkey or or maybe you need to go to something that's a little more sophisticated. All those those kind of tools exist and then they can you know give you a readout on where you are so that's that's what you've got to do then you then you've got to make sure that you've got the wherewithal to actually put those suggestions into place. You're going to have to evaluate them you're going to have to decide which ones do you want to do and which ones you don't and then how do you pay for it all those kinds of things are going to come from the senior senior leadership then at you know the second group you know how do you how do you get people to take advantage of some of these things was that was that your question that's kind of what I heard Mike Yeah for the employee so if you're an employee and there is no one's asking you? yeah yeah well so so that's an interesting interesting challenge if no one's asking you well then how much does it matter to you you know you can always vote with your feet and go find something else. or you can raise it up and see what the organization is willing to do are they willing to take this on and at least again begin asking the question. That's the how strongly are you invested in whatever this particular change is. um and you know you hear anecdotes of people who you know uh the the one I shared about that you know no one would come back into the office you know there's been some large companies I'm not going to pick on tesla but I'm going to say tesla put out an announcement not too long ago that everybody's going to come back into the office it wasn't exactly what he said it was more all of our factory people have to be in the factory because that's where work gets done is in the factory and so if you work and support somebody in the factory I expect you to be in the office as much as they're in the factory because that's how I want to see support well it may be a tenable position it might work for for their culture. But you know you the the employees then have the choice uh Virginia again this is not a political thing 300 people in the Virginia state government quit over the last few weeks the predominant number of those who gave a reason for resigning said because you're making us come back into the office well but maybe maybe to do the work you need to come into the office and so that's not the right job for you. you know there are all those all those kinds of things are at odds and it's are you having the communication in the first place. Are you having the conversations so that people understand why you're doing what you're doing how it impacts them and then what their choices are and it may be that people choose to leave because you're going in a direction that isn't the way that they want to go well that's that's okay too. A lot of this is is like dating in high school kind of talking and figuring that out and I really say like dating in the younger stages because it's it's not life long there's like not as often when you don't have kids at that point in time most time right and so there's not as much overall responsibility and you can pick up and leave a lot of times in these different jobs especially if you position yourself well so that's my encouragement to people even as you listen to this is position yourself well so that if something doesn't line up you're able to move on to something else you know I was just talking to somebody recently Michael that I'm thinking about this I'm keeping everything vague as I was talking to this person there's their experience is not fantastic and they're not loving it and there's not an opportunity to really share that with their employer and I said well because you're relatively new in this role stick around for a while develop your value develop your value develop your soft skills develop your communication do your best so that you can get a recommendation. Then when you cross that threshold of I was talking to one person it's about about a year you don't want to be flitting around a whole bunch of less one-year jobs a year and a half then your value is higher and then you can go choose someplace that employee experience matches what you want. I like the the sort of coaching that you're giving I think that sometimes organizations grow on people sometimes in a negative way right you know long enough and you realize that you know this this was a mistake and I should have left and you know it may be that you know you're in there you were looking for a certain thing and it isn't they don't have exactly what you have but you know you could the dating analogy is not a bad one there's a certain maturation of the relationship that has to go on because remember in those first conversations everybody's on their best behavior yeah they're telling only the stories that you want to hear and that's certainly true of the recruiting process of talent acquisition you know the the uh by and large the person talking to the candidates going to be telling them all the good things that the company's doing and all this and that and the person answering questions all it it everybody's really on best behavior in those first stages and it if it's a long-term relationship you'll find out and you know again you don't want to flit around you know that's that's also some good advice but you know give it a chance maybe it'll work out maybe it'll be it'll be okay that you know you're getting you know what you need as to a certain extent and you can pick up the balance somewhere else or maybe it's just it's just untenable that this is just not the outfit for you to be in okay make that decision and move on. Right and and make that decision fairly soon if you know you're not going to date that person don't go on the second one. Yeah that's right that's right and so it's not I mean and and that's where research comes in right once once you've made the commitment of joining a company a lot of your options go away you can't you one you you've perhaps lost the ability to ask questions that you could ask during the recruitment process yeah but but two there is that whole thing that you know you're somewhere for three weeks and you realize this isn't the company for you maybe you should have done some research before to tell you that um because leaving after three weeks is you know it's not a good thing it's going to make getting your next gig that much harder you know it's it's you and are you really thinking about where your career is going if you're making decisions you know sort of on that short-term basis right right there there's a little bit of that take taking into account it's your career and let's not let's not kid ourselves the most altruistic company in the world doesn't exist to make you successful in your career if that happens then that's a a win-win. Companies exist to enrich their shareholders and service their customers and make money we'll leave the not-for-profits out of this conversation for a minute because that that gets a little more complicated although not-for-profits have a mission and their objective is to achieve their mission you got to take accountability for what is it going to take for me to be successful what is it going to take for me to be happy and if this isn't where it is then I need to go find it somewhere else. That's that you know companies are you know they they're not architected to help you. yeah you have to be prepared to help yourself and it doesn't mean that help isn't available. I don't want to be too negative a picture but it's it really is it's beholden on me as the individual to take charge of what happens in my life. I love I love that everybody needs to hone in on what Michael just said taking charge I've even realized that at different times that victim mentality comes up to me it comes into my mind and you know I'm just a victim of the circumstance or whatever might come up but it really doesn't gift you doesn't get you anywhere and that take charge don't wait for somebody to else to find you the perfect job go put in the time I know one guy he really wanted a specific job at a certain income level and he treated it like a job and so for eight nine hours a day he worked on getting a job and sure enough he was able to land a great one now let's pivot right here because I think it's really interesting at the very beginning I said who are you to speak into the situation and you mentioned a startup and I know that you're doing consulting for people as well and you're working with people so this is your area but What is it that you're trying to accomplish? and why is this why is this needed in today's marketplace? We have a tool today that looks at the resume and evaluates it based on uh objective criteria. and it does it quickly so the the intent of the tool is to improve productivity. Particularly at the front end of the recruiting process uh there there are still situations where jobs people get hundreds and hundreds of jobs I talked to one talent acquisition leader uh they were recruiting a recruiter that's what they want they needed a recruiter they posted the job in 36 hours they got 700 applicants and and then they said and then they cut off the the job posting and I said well what'd you do then she said three of us four weeks evaluating all 700 resumes I said okay well what's wrong with that picture and she said you know we probably wanted number 701 and that's the way most of the tools work today you know you get you get some people in you evaluate them you go forward you don't have time to evaluate all of them or if you are evaluating them. particularly if you're doing it in some sort of a manual perspective you might look at the first 10 candidates the same remember recognizing that resumes are all different and and how people talk about their careers all different so the first ten but then the second ten are they the same as the first ten and by the time you get to 50 are you even paying attention to the same things as you're paying at the beginning well we eliminate all that we give you a an objective process to evaluate all the resumes oh you get another hundred let's just add them into the mix and now evaluate all of them again oh you go to the hiring manager the hiring manager says you know there's something else I'd really like to do. Re-evaluate them all again so we're our focus is making is is enabling the recruiter to spend more time with those conversations with the candidates with those conversations with the hiring manager so that they know they're looking for the right thing and they know they're talking to the to the right people and they're not spending all their time just shuffling through paper That's good because it seems like I mean I've never I've never posted a job that had that many applicants but I posted jobs for people and I've had a couple hundred applicants yeah sure and I mean I my criteria I was actually working with one of my clients and he was scaling his business and so I uh jumped on as a provisional consultant helping him hire and so we posted and we got I don't know I probably went through 100 but there was I had a selection criteria that easily made it get through about 50 and just throw 50 away and then I went down to narrow so it wasn't super difficult in that type of situation I didn't have to have 50 interviews but it would be interesting to have something do that for me especially if I was doing a lot more um on the flip side how do I get noticed out of 700 resumes I don't know if that's your in your room it's relevant? Yeah no no it's it's totally relevant that the way you get noticed is you actually have things on your resume which reflect what the job description asks for now I'm not suggesting that you add things that you don't have that and you know it it's and and and so if they're if they're five criteria and you meet four of them does it mean you're not going to be considered no it doesn't mean that and if your resume doesn't speak to the job description then why are you even applying I'll give you an example I posted a customer success director job I wanted somebody with experience with SAS software and in the um recruiting space and they understood applicant tracking systems the most qualified person I got had been selling lawn care services for nine years so I had no qualified applicants that was that was the bottom line. but you know here's this person who who you know has had nothing to do with software maybe they were using excel in their job has had nothing to do with customer success and yet they felt like they were qualified to post. So you know don't don't kid yourself there will be people who have the qualifications you can see this on LinkedIn I know not everybody's on LinkedIn not all jobs are on LinkedIn and LinkedIn will tell you your top 25 in terms of what's on your LinkedIn profile and what the job is asking for or your top 50 or you're a top candidate if if your experience doesn't reflect what the job is looking for you're going to get overlooked whether it's by a computer that's doing an evaluation or it's by a person that's doing the same thing doing an evaluation that's probably the the single most critical thing beyond that it's can you make a connection with somebody at the organization that might get you noticed if you don't know anybody. You probably can figure out who the recruiter is and certainly you can with LinkedIn you can figure out who posted the job and just make a connection that's going to raise your profile because of the at least there'll be some name recognition it's this a process getting a good job you got to do some work you got to put in some time you talked about a guy who would spend eight nine hours looking for you know to find the right job eight nine hours a day okay yeah you know if you've got certain things that you're looking for you're gonna have to not only go out and find where that exists but but make sure that you really do match what it is that they're looking for. If if you don't care for a job then you you can do that whole just apply right right just send this one right over here I've done that before but a long time but a couple years ago I saw a job that was interesting I had a I had a resume uploaded Michael and I didn't really need the job I didn't really care but it was just like well if it happens it happens click apply and sure enough no interest you know the the automated software picked up that it was not a good fit and moved me out which is a good thing but I think that's a great reason to do what you're doing there are a lot of people who are just click apply click apply yeah there are and your software is going to take out of those 700 it's going to limit it down to more relevant ones and I think that's fantastic. The the other thing that you as you're talking one of the things that I've done I'm not in a spot where I'm looking for jobs so I don't have this right now but is that master resume where it has every single thing it's you know normal resume should be three pages max two pages really and the uh but have a master resume that's six pages long that has all the different skills and then you apply and then you take out certain aspects and you plug and play that's that's just my kind of feedback I've given a couple people is that something you resonate with as well. Absolutely absolutely right it's it it's probably the simplest where the alternative was you create a resume for every job that comes up which is which is difficult right right it's you know if you have everything in one place it's a lot easier to take out the things that aren't necessary than it is to try and add in the things that that you forgot to put in the first time did you forget or are you just adding in things we had we had just a short story we had we had one resume and and what our our system does is it picks up the you know it's looking for things in the resume and this person scored very well in this one area and so I have a feature that I can click on it and it'll show me where it appears in the resume and I couldn't find these words anywhere on the resume that that we were looking for the skill set there was this little tiny green box down at the bottom which is usually it highlights it in green when it shows that I took the resume out I highlighted all the text and I changed the color of the text to black what this person had done is they had pasted their resume on top of the job description that way they had all the words covered well you know systems are going to figure that out I'm sorry you know oh that is hilarious trying to trying to you know weave your way through and okay good good I hope I don't give anybody any ideas because it doesn't work it doesn't work That's like that whole classic thing I don't know if um people try to do more on websites but same thing you know be a black background and they'll put black font there so that SEO pixel is yeah exactly and and the the spiders are too smart for that yeah yeah yeah it worked out they're looking for relevance they're looking for relevance they're looking for proximity all those kinds of things it's uh you know it's an interesting game that people think they need to play you know that is fascinating don't do that though so that's don't do that everybody Maybe you shouldn't be applying for the job if you if you got to play that kind of a game maybe you should be looking to look at doing something a little different that's you know simple advice That's a cool feature though that you've added in your program that click here show me where that is because they see it within the context exactly right executive communication coach oh that was with this and this and this oh exactly team leader oh that was a long time ago or whatever yes so hey Michael this has been so fun where can people find you where can people find more some of the resources and such that you're talking about here? sure I'm pretty easy to find email is Michael resumesiv.com and our website is resumeciv.com pretty easy to find on the web I'm on LinkedIn twitter Facebook mike Yinger easy to find as well and happy to connect with people and and answer questions and see where the conversation goes perfect and we'll put that of course in the show notes in the YouTube notes as well and is it S-I-V or how do you suppose how are you supposed to sieve I was going with like civilization sid meier from the 1990s so I was like civ dates my video game playing day when I think of well you know there's something anyway hey Michael this has been great though really appreciate thanks for being on the show thank you very much and to all our listeners and to our viewers thank you so much for tuning in with advanced with mike acker and Michael Yinger. 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