Getting Your Resume Past the Recruiter

Unlock the secrets to transforming recruiters from gatekeepers to allies with insights from David Gittleman, the seasoned recruiter and owner of the Woods Group. Discover how to build long-term, meaningful relationships with recruiters through consistent networking and communication, turning them into powerful advocates who can connect you with opportunities across multiple clients, even years down the line. Learn the crucial differences between recruiters and HR personnel, and why recruiters can become your most valuable asset in navigating the job market.

Elevate your professional presence with practical tips on optimizing your LinkedIn profile, especially for technicians and other skilled professionals. Find out why your profile picture should be free of casual elements like sunglasses or pets, and how detailed job descriptions can enhance keyword searchability, making you more attractive to recruiters and HR personnel alike. Get ahead of the curve by keeping your resume updated, so you're always prepared for unexpected opportunities, and learn how to use AI tools to create professional headshots that stand out.

Embrace the journey of career progression and self-improvement as we explore the benefits of varied experiences and constructive feedback. Balance ambition with humility and understand the importance of customizing your resume for specific job applications to highlight relevant skills and experiences. Whether you're eyeing roles in project management, estimating, training, or quality assurance, our specialized tips—particularly for fields like low voltage—will help you tailor your resume to align perfectly with job requirements, boosting your chances of landing that coveted interview. Tune in and take the next step in your career with confidence.

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating the Recruiter Relationship
• 15:41 Importance of LinkedIn Profiles for Technicians
• 23:29 Career Progression and Self-Improvement
• 29:02 Maximizing Resume Impact for Job Applications

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wiremonkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. On this episode we're going to talk about how to get past the recruiter. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, project managers, customers. We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and that bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind giving us a five-star rating? And if we're not a five-star rated show, email me and tell me what I need to do to make this a five-star rated show. Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry. Wednesday nights at 6 pm, eastern Standard Time, I do a live stream on TikTok, instagram, facebook, linkedin where you get to ask your favorite RCDD and you know that's me questions about installation, design, certification, project management, estimation, even career path questions. I can hear you now, but, chuck, I'm driving my truck at Wednesday nights at 6 pm, I don't want to crash. Okay, I record them and you can go back and watch them on whatever platform or YouTube or the webpage at your convenience, when it's safe to do so. Also, while this show is free and it will always remain free four years running it's still free. If you find value in this content and you would like to help support the show, you can do it through Patreon. You can go to our webpage and peruse our Amazon links. You can also send us donations or subscribe to us through the podcast platform. You can do that by clicking on that little QR code right there.

Speaker 1: 2:06

As I said in the beginning, right now is a time in our industry where there's a lot of people looking for jobs. They're looking to expand their horizons, they're looking to move to new areas because they don't like living in the area they're living in anymore. And you put out enough resumes. Sooner or later you got to deal with a recruiter. How do you get past the recruiter? Because the recruiter is the gateway to talk to the people inside the company. You got to impress that recruiter. You don't impress them. Guess where your resume is going In the circular file. Look that one up. All you youngins, all you youngins. So I brought on a subject matter expert today to talk to us how to get past the recruiter. You might be wondering well, how does he know how to get past a recruiter? He is a recruiter, he knows how to get past them. Welcome to the show, david Gittleman. How you doing, my friend?

Speaker 2: 2:59

Good Chuck. Thank you so much for having me this is awesome.

Speaker 1: 3:02

My pleasure, my pleasure.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Yeah, I appreciate you coming on the show so yeah, the word thank you and yeah, sometimes the recruiter is viewed as the bad guy. But think of it this way we have leverage to dozens of different clients that we, that we're dealing with currently and previously, so, so we, so. So we have a lot of leverage that that companies. So we have a lot of leverage that companies individual companies don't have. So, yes, we like to be viewed as the bad guy, the gatekeeper, but a recruiter is different than an HR person, because an HR person is just counting resumes and looking at resumes and putting them away, but the recruiter, even though he can be the bad guy, he can also be the best friend. I didn't even think about that until you said that.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Because you know I was thinking of, because whenever I've looked for jobs, the times I've gone through recruiters, the company that I was applying for ended up hiring me. But you're absolutely right, if I'm a technician or somebody looking to apply for a job with ABC company and you're the recruiter for ABC but it's not quite the good fit, you're working with other clients where it might be a better fit. I never even thought about that.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Never even thought about that I might not think of you, chuck, for three years. But a job comes in three years down the line and I'm calling you up and saying maybe we talk once a year or once every six months. I drop you a note and I am on LinkedIn and just say, hey, how's it going? How's everybody, how's the family? And you respond to that message and you say, hey, dave, everything's good. I have a friend that's looking for a job. You put me in touch with that person. That kind of thing. That's how you build your relationship with your recruiter long term.

Speaker 1: 4:57

It's all about networking, all about networking. So why don't you go ahead and take just a few seconds to tell the audience who you are and a little bit about your background?

Speaker 2: 5:04

My name's David Gittleman. I've owned the Woods Group. I'm coming up on my 30th year of recruiting. It's all I've actually ever done.

Speaker 2: 5:13

Chuck is recruit for people in the IT industry. My dad started the business in 1990, and he brought me on into the business in 95. And he brought me on into the business in 95. As soon as I finished UMass I went to school for hotel restaurant management and realized working nights and holidays and weekends was not for me. So I went to go work with him, gave it a try and just loved it ever since.

Speaker 2: 5:44

The ability to make a difference for people is really great. I mean, there are a lot of people that I got jobs for that are now my clients, you know that are looking for people and hire people from me and it's just, it's a very tough industry and it's become a lot. You know industry and it's become a lot. You know a lot more. Uh, it just transactional is the word that I guess I was looking for. Is it so? It's so. It's not as much about the relationship as it used to be, but having my own firm and being able to do what I do. You know, I still value the relationship above else with my candidate and telling them hey, like this might not be the right opportunity for you, so that's. You know that's as important as anything is building that trust.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Oh, absolutely. You know I worked for many companies over my 40 plus year career in the low voltage industry companies over my 40-plus year career in the low-voltage industry, and one of those companies was a very large cable contracting company. As a matter of fact, when I worked for them they were the largest privately held communications company in the United States and I worked for a division that did low-voltage out of the DC area and we had our own recruiter. That was all that guy did was he went to job fairs and he, you know, and then he would filter, you know, the HR people would filter him hey, here's what we're looking for. And the recruiter would go out and find that person.

Speaker 1: 7:14

And I'm telling you right now because I've, you know, as an estimator, when I was in the office at that time for that particular job, when I would see people the technicians come in, they'd always gravitate right back to that recruiter and they talked to him for like 15, 20 minutes, like hey, like it was their old friend or something. So you know, there's a lot of relationship. That's really going to be critical there, especially in your position because you can represent multiple companies. But that's actually a great point. Let me ask you probably the most common question. I get right. What are some of the most?

Speaker 2: 7:50

common mistakes that somebody makes that prevents them from getting past you, the recruiter. I think in the cabling industry the biggest thing is that the technicians are a little bit too casual in the way they speak to me. On the phone it's just hey bro, or hey man or you, as opposed to maintaining just a regular level of professionalism, not trying to be my buddy. It's what I tell my kids all the time. You know it's like it is like when you're talking to an adult. Show respect in the conversation. It's the same thing here In your initial conversation. Once you get to know me, you can call me bro, like Chuck you can call me bro after the call.

Speaker 2: 8:37

We're bros, it's fun. In normal friend conversations it's fine. But when you're setting the table, set the table properly, try to speak in complete sentences, be ready to explain what you've done in your job, what you do on a daily basis. A lot of cabling guys say you know, I did this and I cabled that and they just don't give enough detail. There's too many one-word answers or three-word answers and it's really a dig Sometimes even for the really good technicians. Chuck, you really have to dig.

Speaker 2: 9:20

On the PM side you've got to bring the same thing. The clients that I deal with are high profile, deal with Fortune 500 companies. They're looking for a certain level of polish. So on the PM side, same thing. Sometimes they act like, if you're an IT cabling guy, you're a professional, you know you're not a construction guy, okay, like you're a professional and you should be able to bring your trade to your skill set to anybody. It doesn't matter if it's a Fortune 100, fortune 50, or not. So I think that those are some of the biggest things that I see. I see with that the RCDDs tend to give good level of detail and they take their time. Good interviewers just take their time.

Speaker 1: 10:19

Make sure you understand the question before you answer the question, and it's not a bad thing. You tell me if I'm wrong. If you ask me a question during an interview, if I don't thoroughly understand that question, it's okay for me to ask you. Can you say that? What was that question again, or can you restate that question?

Speaker 2: 10:34

yeah, that's. The biggest thing is oh, chuck, you got that question wrong in the interview and you come back and you say I didn't get that question wrong in the interview. What are you talking about? And nine times out of 10, it's the communication between the two parties.

Speaker 1: 10:51

You know a lot of. I didn't learn this lesson until late in my career probably entering my third decade in this career I learned that preparation is key. Right late in my career, probably entering my third decade in this career, I learned that preparation is key and so it's okay. I know this is going to probably sound stupid to some people, but if you know that you're going to be going to do a job interview and you haven't been doing job interviews for 10 years, five years, whatever get your wife or your spouse or your brother or your sister sit down to act like an HR person to ask you questions. Think about your responses ahead of time. Right, you know, think about what you're going to say, not necessarily memorize what you're going to say, but think about bullet points and then that way, when you know because there's a lot of common questions that get asked by you know recruits in HR and you can prep for those and that's just gonna make you come off a lot better.

Speaker 2: 11:45

And that's, and that is 100% the right way is to interview with someone who doesn't understand what you do and I'm talking to the technicians right now. So talk to people that don't know what you do on a day-in, day-out basis and explain it to them in a certain level of detail, and you can ask the person you're interviewing with let me know if I'm giving the right level of detail, like, is that what you were you answer? Ask and answer the question and then say was that the right level of detail of what you were looking for? But you don't want to run on forever and and it becomes a monologue.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Because you know when you especially when you get, not necessarily to you but to the HR people you know a lot of HR people don't know that they're well versed in human resource management but they're not well versed in, you know, copper and fiber cable installation, certification and documentation. So you might, when you're sitting there, saying, ok, well, we pulled in OS1 fiber and then we did tier one testing, and then the customer acts come back and do tier two testing for real, you know, for spool testing, blah, blah, blah. That might be too much detail, right, unless that, unless that HR person is extremely versant in that.

Speaker 2: 13:11

But that's that. That happens quite a bit, but that's not even really their. Their job, right? It doesn't make them a good or versus a bad HR person, even if they don't understand what you're talking about. That's not what they're tasked with doing. What they're tasked with doing is how does he respond to questions? Does he hear the question properly? Because that's how he's going to deal with our user base, so that's how he's going to deal with the, you know, the, the person, the, the maintenance guy or the, the C level. You know that's. Those are. The keys, you know is to is to be patient and not just try and get done with the answer. Hey, I'm great, I can do. You know what you hear a lot of technicians do, I can do everything. Yeah, right, and that is, and that is the kiss of death right there.

Speaker 1: 14:02

I've said many times on my podcast, I am a 40-year veteran of this industry. I am an RCDD, a Bixie technician, a former Bixie certified trainer. I've sat in tons and tons of manufacturer certification programs. I don't know everything. The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. So if someone comes to me and says they know everything, that's like someone saying oh, I'm an expert, Cuckoo, cuckoo. No, you're not. That just tells me you're blatantly oblivious to what you don't know. It happens right.

Speaker 2: 14:38

You become an expert when you know you don't know. Yes, a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 14:44

I run in a lot of circles and I do a lot of events speaking events like that and I've got a lot of people who follow me on my social media stuff and when they meet me in person they say oh man, you're an expert man, you know everything.

Speaker 2: 15:05

I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, easy with that e word, because because the more you know, the more you realize you don't know so and if you think you're an expert, then you think that nobody can tell you anything and that you're perfect.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Great point. Because if you yeah, if you think you're an expert, you're not willing to listen to. You know alternate ways because I can go, I can. I might turn into an hour show on how people argue over stuff all the time, but you know, just because that's the way your granddad did it, your dad did it because he used to be in communication, doesn't mean that's the way that we're still doing it today. And if you think you're an expert, you're not going to be willing to listen to the new methods, the new procedures, the new standards, the new best practices to help for the latest and greatest cable you were installing. So that's actually a great point.

Speaker 1: 15:41

Now you and I met on LinkedIn. You'd sent me a friend request and then you shot me a message, asked me about some RCD stuff. Let me ask you this, because I get this is one of my pet peeves my brother. He's also in communications, he's a field supervisor, he's working for a very successful company and I said to him one day I said are you on LinkedIn? He's like why would I be on LinkedIn? I'm like what you should be on LinkedIn. Let me ask you this how important is it for a technician not only to be on LinkedIn, but to have a well-maintained LinkedIn profile not only to be on LinkedIn, but to have a well-maintained LinkedIn profile.

Speaker 2: 16:20

I think it's very important, chuck. I really do. I think that recruiters and HR people that's where they're going to look for it, and if you have a decent picture on your profile, it's going to make a big difference. Don't have sunglasses on in your picture. You don't need to be wearing a hard hat either. You know, like I see, I see guys with hard hats on. It's kind of cool, like I get it All right, I get it, you guys, but you don't, you don't need it. Just have a regular picture wearing your Bixie shirt or wearing a collared shirt, like that's great. You know what I mean. Just a normal picture of you. That you know. Don't put your wife or your dog in your picture, like we don't want any of that.

Speaker 1: 17:07

I love that when someone takes a picture of like him and his wife or her and her husband, they're obviously like at a wedding or something. And then their profile picture they zoom in on just them.

Speaker 1: 17:18

But you could tell they're like, they're like a tux and there's, like you know, like you know, welcome back or congratulations, mental. I gotta write this note down before I forget. Mental note talk to brother to update his profile picture to remove the hard hat. And that's actually my fault because I I told him with that picture, that's, that's my fault to remove the hard hat and that's actually my fault Cause I I told him with that picture of that's, that's my fault and because the other picture he sent me was like one of the ones I just explained. Yeah, it just, it was.

Speaker 1: 17:50

You don't have to go have you don't have to go out and spend a couple hundred dollars on a, on a professional headshot. I mean literally, just you. Literally you can go outside of a building, like a brick wall building or something, stand 10 feet off that brick wall, so the camera focuses on you and the brick wall becomes like bokeh kind of Take that picture and make that your profile picture. And with Canva and AI there's actually an AI program you can send them a picture and it will turn it into I don't know how many, but it turns them into professional headshots for you, for your social media.

Speaker 2: 18:23

Wow, right, yeah, that's great. And also it's really important to at least have a little bit on the companies that you work for, even if it's just a few sentences for each, just so that you get picked up, the keywords get picked up by. So, as a recruiter, if I do a search on Riser or TI, I mean like these are searches that I was doing today. Chuck Bixie, I do. You know I did a search on Bixie today in New York. You know like these are. This is real stuff. You know EIA TIAork. You know like these are. This is real stuff. You know eia tia. You know like I'm. You know I'm not that technical, but the, the I am get, I am trying to figure out what the good keywords that I can use here's a tip for you, david eia is an old acronym that's not really used anymore in our industry.

Speaker 1: 19:16

Just kind of get a real, a real quick lesson. It used to be the EIA TIA standards, but the TIA kind of absorbed EIA so now it's the TIA ANSI standards. So if someone says EIA to me, what that tells me is man, they've been around this industry for a while because we haven't used that term in a while.

Speaker 2: 19:33

But sometimes that's good, because I'm looking at resumes that are. I have a.

Speaker 4: 19:58

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Speaker 1: 20:28

Let me ask you this question. This is not on our, on our, our prearranged question, but I'm pretty sure you can answer this. Let's say that you have somebody who's been working for a company, I don't know, five years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever. They're not actively looking. Should they keep their resume up to date even though they're not actively looking, a hundred percent?

Speaker 2: 20:45

They should absolutely keep their resume up to date, even though they're not actively looking 100%. They should absolutely keep their resume up to date because you want it to be ready for when that opportunity does come around and you don't want to be scrambling. I mean, that's the basic thing is, you know, sometimes you have to have your resume for your own company if you're going to be as part of a proposal. So to have something just ready and you know what, you could be dropping your kid off at school next week and your boss asks you for your resume to put into an RFP and you have nothing. So you're pulling your jobs back from when you got the job. So I think it's really important and it just is like there's a reality to it, where we live in a world where there isn't that much loyalty between companies and people.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Forty years ago I got into this because of my father-in-law. He worked for AT&T and at the time when I got into this because of my father-in-law, he worked for AT&T and at the time when I got into the industry, he'd worked for AT&T for 30 years out of the same garage, right, and that's just not what you find today. I mean today's environment. You'll see people. I don't know what the average is, maybe you might know what it is, but when you look at a resume now, people tend to stay around five years. It seems like to me. That seems like to be the magic number to me for some reason. Let me ask you this question as a recruiter if you get a resume that somebody's only had let's say they both have 20-year careers and let's say one of them had only two jobs, the other had seven jobs Does that make you?

Speaker 2: 22:33

look at one resume or another resume differently Depends. So sometimes having so, if you have seven jobs over a 20-year career, that's an average of three years If there's good progression in those jobs, then that might make them a better candidate than someone who's been at the same company for 20 years. So so the the famous word that the clients use is they become institutionalized, which means they become part of, they start talking like, like they're in their own company's cult. Basically, I mean the most famous ones are AT&T and Verizon. It's so hard for these guys to get out of AT&T and Verizon and to get you know without them going back and forth between the two of them, and we all know these people out there and it's it's hard to break out from these companies. So there is, there is good reason for you to at least look at, look for a job and look to change where you are.

Speaker 1: 23:37

I mean interesting, coming from me who's been at the same company for 30 years, um, but but there are a lot of reasons for you to that's your company, though right, yeah, it's different, but still it's a good way to increase and show progression in your career by getting different experiences and meeting different types of people and dealing within different industries the way that I because what I like to do is I like to take what I just heard and just kind of like rearrange it in my brain so it makes sense to me. And so if I was a, based on what you just said, if I was a recruiter and I look at that 20-year history and they had those seven jobs and one was a dishwasher, one was a cable puller, one was working at an auto dealer. That doesn't really that, just kind of, like you said, doesn't show that progression. But if I see, okay, one job they started off as an apprentice. The next job they were a technician. Next job they were a lead tech or supervisor. Next job they were a project manager. That's what you're kind of talking about, correct? And you know it's funny, I never thought about that because I always would have thought that the person had the two jobs, would have had the one up.

Speaker 1: 24:53

But until what you say, because you rang the bell in my head, because I work again, going back to that largest privately held communications company I work for, we're bringing in our super I was a project manager. We're bringing all of our supervisors to do their yearly review and one of the supervisors great guy. I mean, he'd be an asset to any company he worked for and we were talking to him about you know well, where do you see yourself five years from today or 10 years from today? He goes I like this job because you don't want to become a project manager. I like what I'm doing right now. I don't want to change it. I was like I didn't think about that. You just said that, like that's what you were just talking about. He'd been a project foreman for so long that he was comfortable with what he did and he's working inside of his comfort box and he didn't want to change that.

Speaker 2: 25:40

And that can be fine for certain jobs, right. But what you want to show is that you, you, you want to find that middle ground between like I'm, like I want to sit in your seat, like you don't want to be that aggressive, but you want to show that you have some drive, why not be?

Speaker 1: 25:57

that aggressive I've actually told about that once. Well, some people think that that's the most brilliant I told about that once when doing a red, we're doing a during one of my year reviews and he says, well, where do you want to be next year? I said in your chair.

Speaker 2: 26:12

Yeah so, but it's, you know, but that's always depending on the situation, but mostly, but mostly, that's not the right answer, cause you don't want to be, you don't want to view the person you know, you don't want to become viewed as a threat, you know, to your manager, or this person's going to get really bored in this job in about two weeks. So you have to find that middle ground between the two, and it's not easy. It's more of an art. I'm always on the path of self-improvement on everything that I do. It's more of an art.

Speaker 1: 26:44

I'm always on the path of self-improvement on everything that I do and I always look at you know. That's why you know when people my day job. I'm an instructor, so I get a lot of feedback through survey mechanisms and stuff like that, and I get a lot of man, you're the best instructor, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I kind of let those kind of go over my head. I try not to dive into those. I always look for the, the, the on the survey, where somebody says you know, maybe maybe you should use talk about this more, maybe, man, I noticed you a lot of filler words, right? Those are the ones I always focus in on, you know, cause it makes me better.

Speaker 2: 27:20

Right, or you focus on the ones that give a little bit more detail about the things that they liked you, as opposed to just throwing platitudes at you. They said well, one thing that really, really struck me about what you were saying was was X, so that's so. That would be the other thing that you would pay attention to Someone who took a moment and didn't just touch the surface but wrote a little bit of a detail of what it was that you said. And that's exactly the same thing in an interview.

Speaker 4: 27:50

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Speaker 1: 29:02

So we were talking about resumes and one of the most common pieces of advice I give people about resumes who are currently in the job market don't just have one resume, right. So, for example, I'm not looking for a job. But if I were to look for a job, there's lots of things I could be. I could go project management, I can go estimating, I can go training right, I can go QA. I think to me it's always it's always been great advice to think about the one or two, maybe three positions you want and then tailor maybe a couple of your resumes to those positions, because you don't want a resume that's focused on estimating when you're applying to something that's maybe for QA, right. So what are some tips that candidates can effectively do to tailor their resumes to stand out for, like, say, lou Voltage?

Speaker 2: 29:51

I would. I would say that if you're a technician, you probably only need one version of your resume. I think if you're Unless, well, you could have a. You have a resume that you put out to the general public, let's say on LinkedIn. But if you're a technician and you really want to become a project manager and you're applying for project manager jobs and technician jobs, then you have more of the aspirational resume where it's like I've taken a couple classes on LinkedIn about PMP certification, you know. So I would say that that would be a good way to go is to have more an aspirational resume and then a regular, standard technician resume, because once again, you don't want to.

Speaker 2: 30:46

Oh, this guy wants to be a project manager. He does. He doesn't want to be a technician. Well, that's. You know, maybe you would be much happier technician somewhere else, at a different company, and then you can work your way into being a project manager. So an HR person will hear that and they'll be like, oh my god, this person wants to become a project manager and he doesn't want to work with us. But meanwhile you're working at a small dinky cabling company and like that was, that wasn't an issue at all. You know what I mean, like you'd be happy to go work for this company as a technician and then, when you're, and because you're really good at what you do, one year from now you will be a project manager.

Speaker 1: 31:25

And I see another layer of complexity over this Right Project managers. So a small company that might only have five or ten technicians, you might be given the title project manager, but you're really just acting like a lead tech or project foreman when then, when you go to work for a big company, you know that's got multiple branches and 50 people in each of those branches. To them, a project manager is the true definition of a project manager. They're managing schedules, they're managing timelines, they're managing materials and labor and they're reporting. That's what a true project manager does. Sometimes the smaller companies will give a person the title project manager so they can do multiple stuff right.

Speaker 1: 32:06

So, especially when you throw that extra layer of complexity on that, I could see how that could really confuse an HR person trying to evaluate, you know, trying to get somebody from a to come on as a project manager within their organization, especially if that person's coming from a small where they're? They're, they're thinking I'm a project manager, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. And then the HR person well, you say you're a project manager but you don't list Excel or word as as Excel or Word as any of your skill sets. And you never said you never heard of. You know, you know AutoCAD or stuff like that, where those are things that a good project manager man we could go really deep.

Speaker 2: 32:44

But the same thing in reverse can be true, interestingly enough, as well. Whereas the guy that works for the small cabling company has to wear so many different hats that he is doing project scheduling and going to a big company. You become you, you you become tunnel vision and you only get to do one piece of it. So some of the best guys that I find found in ict are out of tiny companies that and the guy was just was just working his ass off doing a little bit of everything.

Speaker 1: 33:15

Yeah, I find the biggest frustration with anybody coming from a smaller company to a larger company is they get frustrated because larger companies move slower. A small company, you got to be nimble and quick and as a project manager you can turn on a dime and maybe send the guys to a different project or do something different. With a larger company, you know there's it's like, it's like the Titanic. It doesn't stop on a dime, it doesn't go around icebergs, it goes well, it doesn't go through. That's why we have a Titanic on the bottom of the ocean.

Speaker 1: 33:52

But yeah, Well, at least we still have some icebergs to talk about, yeah, so going from a small company where you're used to making your own decisions and shooting from the hip and being able to make stuff, if you get great satisfaction in that and I'm not saying all big companies are like what I just described, but there are a lot of them that can be frustrating, absolutely can be frustrating 100%, but showing if you're out of that small cabling company.

Speaker 2: 34:17

Those are the guys that, and the ones that want to make it into a big company. Those are the guys that end up doing so well. So it's it. It's it's worth noting that, like sometimes it takes a little bit for you to get used to it, but once you do and you understand it and the reasons that things move slower, it's worth it.

Speaker 1: 34:37

A lot of people are going to bigger companies because it's more money, but money is not the only motivator for somebody looking for a new job. Some people thoroughly enjoy being a big fish in a small pond. They don't want to be a small fish in a big pond, it's true, it's definitely true.

Speaker 2: 34:58

So that guy might just stay at the same company for the next 20, 25 years and there's and there's a market for that. You know, if you have to move, yeah, there's still a market.

Speaker 1: 35:05

Yeah, fine, exactly right, you know, small companies, what happens is 10 is if the owner dies, they tend to fold up and go away. That's the only. That's one of the bad things about small companies, but also big companies go broke too. I've seen that too.

Speaker 2: 35:19

Or they get acquired and they just shut down the ICD commission.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Right there's positives and negatives to both working for small and large companies. Now you and I met because you shot me a message, because you were looking for, if I knew, any RCDs looking for jobs. So how valuable do you think having a credential like a BICC technician or an RCD? How valuable is that when you're assessing the candidate and to follow that up? Do those certifications significantly increase the candidate's chance of getting an interview?

Speaker 2: 35:48

100%. If you have an RCD, especially here in the New York tri-state area, you're gold. Right now. Young guys, the trades are looking for people In New York hard to find good young guys. So if you're out in Kentucky or wherever you are in the US and you're a young guy in RCDD and you want to move to the New York, new Jersey area, there are jobs available here. There are good jobs. There's so much new building going on in New York city.

Speaker 2: 36:21

Sure, we're not doing as much cabling to the desk anymore, but that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of cabling going on. It's just higher. It's just higher level stuff. So I would say, yes, having your RCDD is a huge plus, but under the minimum in ICT is understand. The first thing that clients say to me is as long as they understand the Bixie rules, the Bixie guidelines, then I can work with that. So having some exposure to some of the training that Bixie offers is a huge leg up, because otherwise you're not getting your foot in the door at all. If you don't know Bixie standards, forget about it in the world that I live in, oh absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 37:10

So let's focus on like, say, technicians, just for a brief second. If they're on LinkedIn or submitting resumes, how can that candidate demonstrate their hands-on abilities through their resume or LinkedIn profile? I?

Speaker 2: 37:28

think it's just writing down specifically what they did. The type of equipment that they've worked on, utilizing the words hands-on with X equipment is going to be a huge, huge leg up. I mean, one of the searches that I'll do is, like I said before, is Bixie. So just having any, just mentioning the word Bixie as many times as you can in the profile without it being obnoxious, obviously.

Speaker 1: 38:02

Without being accused of being the Bixie police.

Speaker 2: 38:06

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 38:07

Somebody accused me of that once. Sometimes I'll do only a search on Bixie under training, but sometimes it does. It doesn't necessarily all show up in the same place on LinkedIn, so the algorithms are constantly being tweaked on LinkedIn, so it's good for you to mention it at least at some point. You know utilizing Bixie standards. You know utilizing Bixie standards. I, you know I I cabled a you know 300,000 foot square foot data set, so that's, you know that kind of thing. So, yes, it's putting in specifically and giving some level of scope.

Speaker 2: 38:50

What was it for? You don't have to name the client that you did it for. You know usually, usually you don't. You definitely don't have to name the client that you did it for. You know usually you don't, you definitely don't need to do it, but give some level of scope to it. Like where did you do it? Was it a new, was it a greenfield or was it an already existing space? And that everybody can understand. It doesn't matter if you're hr or not. And by giving that person that level of detail, it allows them into the conversation and that's what you want is. You want it and that's why it's so important, like what we were talking before about explaining it to your brother or your, your cousin or somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you're doing in a day-in, day-out basis, because that's what you're going to be encountering when you talk to that HR person.

Speaker 1: 39:40

You might run into legal problems if you start naming customers, especially if you've signed like an NDA. But you can certainly say, hey, I've done five data center projects X, an average square footage of blah, blah, blah. And this is the type of killing that way, it's broad, it's generic, it's not specific to you know the actual customer that they did the work for. So let's talk about again. Looking at the technician. Let's now let's look at the, because part of my audience are people who are new to the industry or maybe wanting to get into the industry. So what advice would you give that candidate who may not necessarily have a lot of experience but they're eager to get into this industry? How can they make a compelling case to you to get past you, to get hired?

Speaker 2: 40:31

I would say go to a crew force and be willing to do whatever it takes. I would say go to a crew force and be willing to do whatever it takes. Those guys that go into the tech systems crew force and become part of a crew. It's not, I get that it might not be what you want to do for a long time, but if you can get a little bit of actual hands-on experience, because some kids go to the trade schools but they never get to work with the gear so they can explain it in a way that actually makes sense. So they have the training, but they're like but then you're looking at their resume and that's like well, what experience.

Speaker 2: 41:08

You worked at Starbucks, you know. Like got to, you got to get your hands on the equipment. Yeah, I mean there's a training school here and it's great, you know, for them to get the training. But you have to get whatever job you can get at a school, part-time, anything to show, initiative, volunteer, you know I mean whatever it is, whatever it takes, just to get your hands on that equipment. Because everybody's going to say, oh, it's so hard to get a job in IT. Yeah, it is hard to get a job in IT. But once you get the hardest job to get in, it is your first job. Once you get your first solid, in-road IT job, yeah, because there's book smart and there's street smart.

Speaker 1: 41:49

right, you can have that book memorized forwards and backwards, but sometimes when you get out in the field there's some variations that happens in the field that the book doesn't really discuss. The book can't really cover every single scenario for every type of environment, for every type of customer, for every type of cable plant that's out there in the world, so it's kind of generic. So putting your hands on fills in that gap.

Speaker 2: 42:15

It's your ability to pivot and show that you can work in a corporate environment and with specific guidelines and know how to deal with people. So even though it's a technical, you know we're technically focused, you know in our careers you have to be able to bring that back out.

Speaker 1: 42:37

So let me ask you this in the terms of job readiness and overall appealing to say the hiring manager. You have two applicants, not clients, two applicants and you push them both through. One of them has credentials like Bixie Tech, rcdd, foe, cfot, and the other one doesn't. How do those two compare to the hiring manager? Which one do you think is most likely going to get hired If everything else is?

Speaker 2: 43:08

taken, I mean the person with the certifications, and they're going to get paid a lot more too. Like, yeah, there was a guy that I spoke to today that had his pmp, his rcdd and his ccna. It shows so much diversity in in skill set because cabling guys shouldn't just be cabling guys. They should understand how the technology, how a router works. They should not just showing. Just showing some interest in that is helpful too. I mean, that's another good one, getting training. Sure, you could be a good cable tech. Maybe one of the things you could do is do a CompTIA, you know, and get a network certification.

Speaker 1: 43:50

You're already meeting down. I have an additional question here. So we talk about the Bixi tech, the Bixie RCDD and stuff. What other certifications do you see customers desiring from their applicants?

Speaker 2: 44:04

Oh, yeah, I mean PMP, ccna, prince, itil. Yeah, I mean I think that they're all you know. Those are all really valid. My cabling tends to be more IT focused because I come from more of an IT background, so this is kind of like an offshoot from my technology side. So I would say but I see a lot of that. Let me ask you this question then. So I would say but I see a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 44:33

Let me ask you this question then Do you ever see, or have you ever seen, customers putting in their, when they put in their request to you to find this person, because this is a lesser known certification the FOA Fiber Optic Association? They have their CFOT, which is Certified Fiber Optic Technician, and they've got a couple others too. Do you ever see those kinds of certifications?

Speaker 2: 44:58

I haven't, I haven't seen the requirements.

Speaker 1: 45:02

Good fodder for people to think about there. Don't get me wrong. The FOA has a really good certification program, but it's not exactly the same as the Bixie program and the Bixie program is more well-known. So, dave, what a fantastic conversation. My friend, I appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 2: 45:17

Thank you, this was great. I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 3: 45:21

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.