When you've been job hunting for over a year and you are a recruiter, there's a whole other side to this process that candidates don't see.
In this episode I chat with Kray Blanding, who is a recruiter that was laid off in February of 2023. He's still searching for his next role. You'll get a glimpse into life after his layoff, what's important to him when working with recruits for potential jobs, and a different perspective on the use of AI in the job hunt.
Connect with Kray on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krayblanding/
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @rebootloadingpodcast
Interested in becoming a guest? Email me: rebootloading@gmail.com
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to follow along and hear more engaging conversations.
When you've been job hunting for over a year and you are a recruiter, there's a whole other side to this process that candidates don't see.
In this episode I chat with Kray Blanding, who is a recruiter that was laid off in February of 2023. He's still searching for his next role. You'll get a glimpse into life after his layoff, what's important to him when working with recruits for potential jobs, and a different perspective on the use of AI in the job hunt.
Connect with Kray on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krayblanding/
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @rebootloadingpodcast
Interested in becoming a guest? Email me: rebootloading@gmail.com
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to follow along and hear more engaging conversations.
Hi, welcome to the Reboot Loading Podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie. On today's episode. Yeah, thanks. How are you doing today? I'm alive. Just finished watching the Formula One race that happened last night. Carlos Sainz just won, for those of you who know, so you'll now have an idea of timeline, but yeah, it was fun. Awesome. So we are here today to talk about some fun things in the world of layoffs, in the world of trying to find a job, advancing your career, all of the things. You had mentioned that you got into recruiting about seven years back. Do you want to tell us about how that fell in your lap? What have you done? Yeah, there's a little over eight now, seven years when I was laid off. But yeah, I kind of just if you ever talked to a bunch of recruiters, it's kind of the gambit of how they got into it. But almost all of them fell into it like it wasn't what they wanted to do with their life, they just kind of ended up doing it. And that's how it was for me. I I've always been a tech guy. My dad worked at Microsoft back in the day and I kind of just hung out with them. So I've always been tech savvy. And then I had a company, I was at a job called Quozles, like a project manager, but I worked there. So that was my initial tech background. And then I ended up leaving and doing car sales and debt collection, which is a very unique background. And I have a buddy of mine who I sat next to at a Sounders game. We became really good friends and he basically turned to me one day after hearing me complain about debt collecting and how much it sucks. And he goes, you know what? I'm tired of hearing you complain about this job. My company is hiring a junior recruiter. I'm going to recommend you. We're going to get you into this industry and the rest is history. I interviewed, got the job and never looked back. So kind of just fell into it. I'm really excited to be talking with you because I know within my own experience with job hunting and working with recruiters, it has been kind of an up and down. And we've talked about this before on the show with candidates and how different recruiters go about that whole experience. And what is your favorite part about being a recruiter? And I see that you said you specialize in candidate experience. What makes that special for you? I specialize in the candidate experience, primarily just because that's the thing I feel most people miss. Recruiting is a weird industry. It's kind of like car sales and the aspect of a good car salesman stands above the rest, right? but everyone has a bad view on the industry or the career choice as a whole, right? Like there's the concept of, oh, use car salesman kind of thing, right? It's the same thing. Oh, it's a recruiter. All he's trying to do is make a commission, blah, blah. And I really try hard to buck that and basically say, no, that's not me. Whenever I'm interviewing with companies or talking with people about potential jobs, I'm always talking to them about my job is to Be a matchmaker. I want to put somebody in a job that they love. It's a sale on both sides, right? I'm selling the company on the candidate and the candidate on the company. And I want both people to agree. If I'm sitting there and I'm just putting butts in seats, I'm not happy. I don't feel like I'm doing a good enough job. Anybody can do that. Where I really want to make a difference is putting people who want to be there. Sometimes you miss, sometimes you don't. It's the life of the gig. But that's why I say, candidate experience is so... key for me is giving them that feeling that I'm an individual who cares. I like hearing their stories. I like taking people out of companies that they hate, but in companies they love. That's what makes my job great. When I talk to a candidate six months after I place them in with my company. And they're like, wow, man, I'm so glad I'm here. It's the best job I've ever had. That's what I get excited about. That's what makes me go, yeah, okay. I did something right there. And, and that starts from the moment you and I have an initial conversation as a recruiter, long-winded way to say I'm just good at it. I like to talk to people in your explanation of it. And that was one thing I was going to say is I feel like being a good recruiter and the characteristics that I found with recruiters that I've worked with that. really felt comfortable with is they weren't just trying to fit you into a particular role just to get like another number in there or just to make you feel like they actually care but then turn around and you don't hear from them or you get ghosted. I think it takes a special skill to be able to talk to people, really get to understand what are their goals, what are they looking for, and trying to match them up. And I can tell from how you're talking about it that that's something that you do enjoy. And I think that, yeah, And it's the honesty side. I will always approach a recruiting gig from the side of honesty. If I, if a candidate comes up to me and they're like, wow, I had a company that did blank and I just really don't like that. And my company does that. I'm going to flat out say, Hey, I'm going to give you the heads up right now. My company does this, right? You know, maybe they're like, I will never work for a company that doesn't offer unlimited PTO. Well, my company does. Like, we've got two weeks vacation, and this is our methodology, and here's why we have it. If you don't like that, tell me now and we'll stop the conversation. We'll end as friends. And if I ever find a role that does have that for you, I'll write you in my notebook. I'll put you in my little black book and I'll reach back out. And I have noticed that so many times somebody will say, this is a hard no for me. And as soon as I come up to them and go, okay, great. Well, here's your, here's your off ramp. They'll go, uh, you know what? Maybe I want to stay on a little bit longer because I'm being upfront about it. Right. Like, okay, I get why you're trying to say what you're saying. And then you got to remember a lot of these individuals, because I did tech, I did software developers that are senior level and above, they're super smart people. Half of those questions are gut checks. They're culture checks. I used to have long hair. In fact, my LinkedIn profile has long hair and I don't care if I cut it. I currently have short hair. One of my favorite questions to ask companies when I had long hair is, do you require me to cut my hair? I don't care if you do. I'll probably cut it if you ask me to, but that's going to tell me a lot about your company culture and what your company cares about as individuals. Right. And that's the type of thing that I really enjoy about that customer or that candidate's candidate success candidate experience is giving them those honest points of feedback and giving them the opportunity to offer him. I don't want to be pulling somebody through the interview process kicking and screaming. It's a lot of fun experience for anybody. And degrades trust on the hiring manager side, it degrades trust on the candidate side. It's just not fun. So give them those offerings. Give them those, I'm allowing you to say no to me with no guilt. And you'd be surprised how many people both value that and then decide, you know what? I'll keep going. I've actually had to stop an interview myself because I didn't feel like I would be a good cultural fit during the interview process. And being laid off, it's like you don't really do that. You kind of want all the opportunities, but that's something that's really important for me is to having that good culture fit because you can look really good on paper, especially working in tech. You can look good on paper. You can have all the accolades. You can have all of the certifications and whatnot. personality fit, the way that you can mesh with a team, that can just basically cause everything to crumble. I would challenge that a little bit actually. And here's the reason, diversity in thought and diversity in culture and diversity in the approach to a problem breeds invention and breeds creative salt, problem solving and strengthens organizations. Um, in recruiting and it's something that we have to fight with hiring managers all the time. Hiring manager go, I want a culture fit. And I go, no, you don't. You don't want a culture fit because that's just another yes, man. Right. Great. That's just another wet white tech, bro. Cool. What does that bring to the table that brings nothing? Right. All it brings is another pair of hands to type more code. What you want is a culture ad. Yes, you want them to be able to get along with everybody. I'm not saying that. I'm saying have somebody who can kind of come in and challenge the status quo correctly and appropriately, right? Don't bring somebody who's in going, yeah, I built that the same way every single time. So sure, I'll just do that again. Yeah, you're the way you're building. It's perfect. No, you don't want that. They want to go, hey, have you thought about blank? And I think that's the tricky piece is finding that mix. And I know where you're coming from though, where it's like, hey, I don't want to go into a company that I'm just not a fit for. And like, wow, they view the world very differently than me. But a good company will want people who view the company different and they'll build an inclusive environment where that individual can still feel valued and still feel like they're an important part of the team and heard. Right. And that I totally get where you're coming from because for me, It's not that you 100% have to fit into the culture, but they have to be the co part of the culture has to be that they have to be open to receiving the recommendations or from my side, I really enjoy process improvement. So it's important for me to be going into a company that is open to receiving my recommendations and not being, you know, like on the other side, a yes, man, and just saying. all the things, but it's just more of, are we going to fit together that we can work together? Well, if I'm giving suggestions that you're actually taking them into consideration, because I would have a proven track record of making things better, but it's important to kind of have that relationship to where they're open to receiving. Yeah. And those kids, that can be so hard. That can be so hard to try and like ask those types of questions. because you're sitting there going like, wow, if I ask this question or if I challenge the hiring manager, are they going to view it as insubordination and I'm not even in the company yet? Or are they going to look at it and go, wow, this person's really going to change the way we do things. And I don't want that at that moment. Right. You want somebody to rock the boat when the storm's already raging, right? Especially with right now the way the economy is, specifically in the tech space. Yeah, definitely. And for you, you've been in this laid off world a little over a year now. And when that happened, so when you got the news that your position was being eliminated, did you have any idea that it would be going on for this long? No, I thought it'd be out maybe three, six months at most. In fact, that's what everyone thought. I talked because I'm in the recruiting world. I know a lot of recruiters who have all been trying to get me jobs. I had four different companies. that have gotten to the point of potentially making an offer who had my role disappear right before they were ready to make an offer. Just due to changing circumstances. I had one company where I was talking with a hiring manager and who I'd worked with before. And she was like, yeah, I've got a role for you. I'm going on medical leave. I'm going to come back. My hiring manager, my manager said, I'll have an open rec. I've already prepped them on you. It'll be a super quick process. We're good to go. she gets back and she gets back from leave to find out her role was eliminated and they're pausing all hiring. So it's just kind of the way it is right now with the way that the feds set up and I don't want to get too political, but it's just kind of the way things are and the industry, specifically the tech industry is super beat up. And because of that, the market is flooded with recruiters, really, really freaking good recruiters out there. And they're just all over the place. That's something that was surprising to me. So when I was laid off and turned to LinkedIn, I didn't really ever go on LinkedIn unless I was looking for a job or we had a pre-conversation talking about, you know, you would go on and like post or see someone who's having a anniversary or something and say, Hey, but once you get laid off, it, it becomes a whole different playground. It becomes your Facebook. Exactly. I just, it was shocking to me because I was seeing a lot of people and talent and recruiters that I've known that have gotten me jobs in the past that had the green banner up. And it just, it started getting me to realize that it wasn't just necessarily all these tech jobs. What I was seeing more of on the white end. It was recruiters that were starting and it was open. It was eyeopening for me because I hadn't seen that part of it yet. didn't really make kind of the connection of why that would happen. It's been a definitely a eyeopening experience all around and just seeing how everything's connected. Yeah, it's rough. Yeah. So what have you been up to over the past year and just kind of trying to keep yourself busy, keeping yourself motivated? I mean, it's hard to keep that motivation going after so long. Well, I think the easiest, the biggest thing to keep myself busy and he has air quotes as I was watching my two year old as she was growing up, right? So I got laid off February, February of last year, so she wasn't even one at the time. So I, so I got to kind of spend, take some time spend with her at home. We thought about keeping up the daycare for her just hoping that I'd get a gig and it just didn't line up right. So we ended up stopping that so I just stayed home with her for the most part and I you know Would apply to jobs here and there we kept a pretty normal summer We did a Disney vacation that we'd already paid for so we would did that kind of thing when it comes to the job Searching though, man, that's the hardest part. It's so depressing to sit out there and look at these extremely talented recruiters Missing out on jobs and seeing some people that you know either land a job and then like you're happy for them, but at the same time, you're like, man, that could have been me getting that gig. Right? You know, there's a couple situations where me and fellow recruiters I'm friends with were up for the same role and they ended up getting it or so on and so forth. So it happens and it's tricky. And I think it's something I work with my therapist every month on, right? It's like understanding that rationally, I'm really good at what I do. Somebody will eventually see that and bring me on board. But it's literally a game, right? For every recruiting gig out there, there's a hundred plus applicants for, for one role. And the thing I hate the most about LinkedIn is the misinformation about what happens when you apply to a job, right? AIs aren't looking at resumes and actually making decisions. They just aren't. It's not really good. It's not feasible. It's not strength. If anyone's doing it, I guarantee you they're losing out on so much talent. What's happening is if I put a job up on a job board and I only have one role and I get 30 applicants, I already have more applicants with just 30 than I will need for the entire process. Statistically, 30 applicants is more than I need. I could hire probably two people off of 30 applicants, if not three. Just the way funnel metrics work, right? So if 30 of those applicants apply, let's say only 15 of them actually meet the minimum qualifications. Right? So now I only have 15 candidates to work with. I'll interview probably 10 of those because those are the ones who are going to respond. I'll send seven of them, maybe five, onto the next round. And you kind of keep whittling it down there, forward and forward. Within two rounds, you're down to two people. Cool. That's only 30 applicants. And I was being really, really aggressive with how I was cutting. More than that's going to get through. Throw on top of that, you now have 100 applicants in the first two hours of a job being posted. They're only going to look at the first 30. And it's not because the bottom 90 are not good, right? It's not because those 70, 60, whatever, aren't good. It's because they don't need to go through all of those. They have to stop at some point, right? They have to say, well, I've got 15 candidates that I'm talking to in the next week. I can't talk to more. I literally don't have the time and it's not going to bear any fruit at this exact moment in time. So I'm just going to stop. Right. So when you get those automated rejections, we've moved forward with other candidates that better align. That's a polite way of saying you weren't one of the first 50 candidates we looked at. We can't look at everybody. It's just not physically possible for one recruiter or whoever many recruiters they have on board to look at every single candidate. I've been on the other side of that. And it's just, it's not doable. You go, you do as many as you can and as many as you need for the funnel metrics to work out. Otherwise you're wasting people's time. I like this perspective on the other side that because I think as a candidate when you're going out there and you're applying and you're seeing that and I know a lot of people who just don't want to go on LinkedIn anymore because you can see how many applicants there are or whether or not the number is accurate, but it can discourage you a little bit. It's off by 50%. It's still more candidates than they need. And as a candidate. So what I do is, you know, I turn to the internet, I turn to YouTube, I turn to any resource that I can find like, okay, what's going on? Somebody explained to me and I've seen a lot of, I don't want to say conspiracy theories, but there's been a lot of theories. Misinformation? Well, I don't, I mean, I don't know if it's misinformation or not, but just saying that, let's say you are getting an onslaught of candidates in that first, you know, 10 minutes of posting a job. And some of the... explanations, I'll say have been, well, they are using an AI tool or something to kind of weed out and look for particular keywords. Yeah. Yes and no. If you are working at a large company, they did use what's called the parser and it would just look for keywords on a job. Let's say you have a hundred applicants for a software developer role and it's a Java specific role. You have your minimum qualifications and you have your preferred qualifications. Right. As a hiring manager, they're going to want to see the people with the preferred first, because those are the people who are going to better fit their job, whether it's right or wrong. What's happening is the recruiter is then going to go in and he's going to do a quick little Boolean search, right? Of, you know, in, of these a hundred applicants who has Java just in their resume, right? And they're going to use that as a first weed versus not weed. And they're going to play a numbers game. If that number. is high enough that their funnel metrics still work, then that's the pool they're going to work with first. Okay. It's the same as like, if you're looking for like a plumber, and you're looking for a plumber who works in a specific style of plumbing. I don't know plumbing, so bear with me on this analogy, but you're going to look for a plumber who fits exactly what you're doing, right? Or like landscaping. Let's say you want to build a beautiful Gothic gazebo. Mm-hmm. All of the contractors in the world can make a gothic gazebo. They can look it up on Google and figure it out, but you're going to find the contractor who has done it before. That's what's happening is the recruiters are looking through their large applicant pool of a hundred plus people for one job, and they're trying to find the people who have done the closest to what they're trying to do first. And that's the people they're going to talk to. And if you're getting that rejection, that's fairly quick in the process and you're like, Oh wow, kind of seems a little generic, probably because It was a generic rejection of the hundred plus candidates. 30 had exactly what they were looking for and they were the first 30 they took, they reached, right? It's totally a game of who got there first in some cases. It's just the way it is. AI isn't going through. I have yet to work in an applicant tracking system. And I've worked in all of them that has AI rejecting candidates based off of resume alone. If an AI quote unquote is rejecting a candidate and that does happen, it's because of yes, no questions. For example, I used to work at a company that couldn't do H1 visas. We just couldn't. It wasn't what we were looking to do. It's something companies are allowed to say, we're just not willing to go through that process because it's expensive. In our application process was a yes, no, you question, do you require an H1 visa or not? That's a hard no for our company. Right? It's the same as if your company is an onsite company and you're like, Hey, I need you to be in Seattle in office. Are you comfortable with that? If you say no, they're not going to continue. It doesn't matter how good you are because that's a hard no question. Right. Remember when we were talking about like off ramps, it's the same concept. They're giving that person an off ramp. They just might not know it's an off ramp. The conversation was never going to go further in the first place. That is the only instance that I have seen automatic AI style rejections ever used with an ATS. Otherwise it's almost always somebody doing a more refined search of a already large candidate pool to get even closer to what they want. If that makes sense. It does definitely. And it sucks, but that's the moment. But unfortunately that's life. It's like, I like hearing the other side of being on the other side of it, because I think that's being laid off. You're already confused as to what is going on and there's no sugarcoating it. I mean, the, the job landscape right now and the market right now is totally different from the last time I tried to. look for a job. Yeah, I went through 2021. I did three job hops in 2021 and not once did I apply for the job. I heard so many stories before about right around pandemic time and went into 21. There were- All the tech companies over hired. They did over hire. There was a lot of mass resignations in some companies, the company I was previously working for, a lot of people left out for other opportunities. And another thing that I was seeing at that time is the salaries were inflated quite a bit compared to now if you're out there looking it's like where did all the money go? It's there, it's not for you. Yeah exactly. Talking about these job postings and not going to AI and kind of looking at the first few that they can look at, what about the reposted jobs that are out there that you see a lot of times? Those ones piss me off. Those Oh my gosh, this pisses me off so much. It's companies resume farming. And I say this having done it, by the way. So I'm totally guilty of doing this. I did this at a company. So if you're a project manager and you know a huge project is coming up, it's not on the books yet. No one's actively working on it right now, but you know it's coming up and you have time. What are you going to do? You're going to prep for that project, right? Because you want to get a head start on it. Cause you know, it's going to be a big push, right? You know, it's going to be a massive overhaul. So you're going to start building out your workflows. You're going to start building out your project proposals. You're going to just start getting things ready before you have everything lined up. Recruiters do the same thing. It's called pre-pipelining. So what's happening is these companies know that they are going to eventually need to hire. And they know they're going to need a hire quickly because at some point. Again, I'm not going to try and get too political, but the reality is the Fed is going to lower the interest rate and these tech companies are going to start borrowing again because that's the way tech companies run. They borrow money to fund their projects because they're not making profit right now. And they're going to need to hire to kick up production again and start things going. So what little recruiting staff is there goes, we are going to get slammed. We're going to go from hiring three people in three months to them needing us to hire 30 people in the same timeframe. So we are going to build a massive database of resumes of people who have applied to our jobs. That means they are at least somewhat interested compared to us having to go on LinkedIn and mass in mail, a bunch of people who aren't really interested necessarily. So I'm going to get a huge list of resumes and then I'm going to use that as my sourcing source. So when we're finally ready to hire, I'm just going to reach out to a bunch of them. My metrics might fall from applicant metrics, right? Like let's say if an applicant applies in a normal world and I reach out, eight out of 10 of them are going to actually go to next stage that might fall to only six out of 10, I still don't care because the number is so much larger that 20% hit isn't enough for it to mess with anything. I'm still going to make my hiring goals. So that's what's happening is they know a hiring push is going to come at some point, so they're building it up. The one other thing it could be, and I'm dead serious about this, a recruiter put a job on the auto repeat because they were pre-pipelining and then got laid off and no one went in to check. Thank you for giving me the side of it because I'm clueless. These are questions I feel like candidates have and it's things that we've talked about even on my podcast. You feel like there are recruiters that reach out and then they're asking for... all of these different, I had one particularly reach out to me and ask me to pretty much redo my resume in certain ways that they wanted to see it. I sent it and then it was totally ghosted. After what? That's the point. Oh my gosh. Like it's one thing when they're reaching out to you for a job that is not in your portfolio, right? Or not on your resume, right? So for example, I'm a recruiter, very obviously. But I could theoretically be a project manager. A lot of recruiters would make fantastic project managers. Hint, hint to anyone out there who's trying to find project managers, go to recruiters. They're really good at it. They just haven't done it in the project management space. Recruiting is project management. Their project is people. I would say a recruiter should go up to you and say completely redo your resume. It's one thing to say, like, hey, you've got a typo here. Can you give us a little bit more information on this job? That's a different conversation altogether. And usually what that means is a recruiter has found you, thinks you're interesting, but your resume doesn't meet either minimum qualifications for the job. But they think you might anyways, or they're trying to pitch you to a hiring manager and they need to spruce up the cell, if that makes sense. I have worked with people before where I know the company they've come from. So I know the skillset that requires. And I need to pitch them to my current company, whatever company that is, but that's not showing up on their resume very well. So I need, I want that resume to look a little bit better. So when I do come and bring it to the hiring manager, it's more in line with what they're going to look for. And right now we are in a situation where employers can be picky. So they're going to be, they're going to find ways to reject. Again, remember what I was saying about having these jobs have a hundred plus applicants? they're going to be picky about ways to reject people because they have to be, otherwise they have just way too many candidates to deal with. It used to be in an employee's, like a job seekers market, you were finding reasons to say yes to people. Now they're finding reasons to say no to people because there's so many, they have to do that or they're just gonna get overwhelmed. And I think what's really, really important to realize is there's people on all sides of this conversation. There's job seekers who are out there trying their hardest. I'm right there with you trying to find your next gig. And then there's employers who are trying to find the right person to come to this gig and are getting bombarded with resumes. Right. And what do you do when you get bombarded with things, you look for things to say no to, to whittle down your options to a manageable chunk. And that's what they're trying to do. So when a recruiter's coming to you saying, Hey, please, I think you're a really good fit for this job. I know what background you're coming for. I just need that to show up on your resume. They're trying what they're saying without saying it because they can't. Right. They have legally, they can't necessarily say this is I know you're really good at this job and you can do it. My hiring manager doesn't know that. And he's going to find currently your resume is giving him reasons to say no. I need you to give him reasons to say yes. So you can get to that next stage. Yeah, that makes sense. And this again kind of goes back to that whole candidate experience. It 100% depends on how that recruiter is coming to you. If they're coming to you just saying, hey, I need you to spruce up your resume, that's useless. What do you mean? What is wrong? Tell me more. But if they come to you going, hey, here's the job description. I know what you can do. I'm seeing this, and this. I don't see this, and this. That should be a light bulb for anybody going, ah. recruiter likes me, but he doesn't see this on the res on the job description in my resume. And the hiring manager is going to say no, because there's five other candidates who do have that. Right. Again, it's a numbers game. If there's a hundred plus candidates going into the process, odds are at least five of them have everything they want just statistically rough statistics. I'm not a math major, but like that information is really, really important to know. So if you do see that, that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to get you to give them what they recruiter can do that without telling you exactly what to do. And it's hard. It can be really hard because you're relying on somebody to pick up on subtext. Some subtext can be really hard to pick up on if you don't know the person, especially via text. If it's going through email or LinkedIn messages, it can seem harsher than it really is. And it's the same thing. I'm sure you've had this situation where you've texted a significant other a joke and forgot to put the winky face in it. And they're like, wait, what? And you're like, Oh gosh, it's the same concept. It happens all the time with recruiters. That's why when I, I've had people come up to me and go, wow, your, your emails are a little informal. Like they can be formal when they need to be, but I do it on purpose. Cause I'm trying to be human. I want to have a conversation with this. All of the companies I've worked for have had laid back more humor, reliant cultures, if that makes sense, especially tech and developers specifically. In jokes. subtext, that's all things in that world, I want my candidates to know that is what's going on. Because what that does is that humanizes the company, not just the people, but it gives the company a personality. It gives the company something that they can latch onto and go, hey, yeah, we're going to buckle down and we're going to work 60 hours, maybe one week. But there's going to be another week where we chill for half the week playing cookie clicker and doing League of Legends tournaments or whatever. And that's what gets people to go, hey, cool, all of those horror stories I heard about your company on Glassdoor, because Glassdoor is a cesspool of misinformation. Don't get me started on that. Maybe those aren't all true. I think it's just like any other review site. A lot of times people are more inclined to give their review when it's a negative experience versus the positive. You have to take those with a grain of salt. It's the same when I'm buying something off of Amazon. You know, I will look at the reviews as a whole, but then I will kind of drill into, okay, what are the best ones saying? What are the worst ones saying? Let me just do my own analysis of it and see. Yeah, having recruited during COVID, Glassdoor, the problem with that is, this is gonna be the reverse problem that candidates are having right now, where... Employers are looking for reasons to say no. Employees were looking for reasons to say no. Glassdoor gives them that reason. Whether it's a good reason or not, doesn't matter. That's not the point. The point is I have good company that I'm at now. This other company I'm in talks with has one bad review. That sounds like a horror story. Why even risk it? Right? So that's kind of where the Glassdoor piece comes. Right now, you're right. People are going to ignore Glassdoor because they're desperate for work. As soon as that flips. Glassdoor now becomes the nail in the coffin for some companies. And I've worked at a company during both of those periods where Glassdoor didn't matter and where it really did matter. Stay tuned for part two of the podcast where I continue my conversation with Cray talking about resumes as well as bias in the interview process. You won't want to miss it. If you're interested in becoming a guest on my show, All the information on how to contact me is available in the show notes. Would love to speak with other laid off individuals, mental health professionals, recruiters, business and career coaches, and resume writers. Also, if you're enjoying the content and would like a shout out in an upcoming episode, a link in how you can support this podcast is available in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening and until next time.