April 14, 2025 • 48 mins
The job market has dramatically shifted from the employee-friendly Great Resignation era to a period of "frozen" and "ghost" jobs that waste applicants' time. Our expert panel explores this pendulum swing and provides strategies for navigating today's challenging employment landscape.
• Understanding the difference between frozen jobs (real positions not being filled) and ghost jobs (positions that don't actually exist)
• How corporations are reclaiming power in the hiring process after post-pandemic over-hiring
• The role of AI in potentially making the ghost job problem worse by automating deceptive listings
• Why networking remains the #1 strategy for finding legitimate job opportunities
• The importance of skill diversification to avoid becoming a vulnerable "unitasker"
• Recognizing that economic cycles affect hiring, and how to position yourself for when conditions improve
• Strategic questions to ask during interviews to determine if a job posting is legitimate
• Why sometimes taking a calculated risk or temporary pay cut can lead to better long-term career outcomes
• The value of prioritizing time and career growth over waiting for perfect economic conditions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Should I get a camera too, though?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
No, you don't need a camera.
We're going to talk over eachother, it's totally optional.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
It would just take a lot more time to put on clothes
and stuff, so that's good.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, keep the clothes off.
That's my suggestion.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I was about to ask are you working naked?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I plead the fifth as I don't wish to incriminate
myself.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I mean that's totally fair, right?
Does the workplace policyaround clothing and what you
wear to work count when you'reworking remote?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
that was a great segue to today's topic.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Let's move on real quick when you're working remote
.
That was a great segue totoday's topic.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Let's move on real quick.
Hey, welcome back to CorporateStrategy Podcast.
I'm in an email.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm recording.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And I'm not naked.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Actually neither am I ?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh, what a were about to make the the next
embarrassing story on.
Is it me or is it corporaterejoining us from the world of
bourgeoisie capitalismcorrespondence.
We welcome back our one of ourabsolute favorites, mr alistair
streppo.
Thanks for joining us today,alex.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yep, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hey, we need you Because Clark and I's
intelligence level is not readyto comprehend the topic that was
requested of us.
A month ago From Chief Pod.
Topic, officer Squidboy postedan article about how the job
market is frozen.
Now I read said article andfound it very interesting.
(01:45):
I would encourage all of ourlisteners to do the same, but we
should probably just open upwith the concept for all the
freshers or maybe people whoaren't familiar with frozen jobs
and, alex, I figure you knowbetter than anyone to lead us in
.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I mean, well, there's frozen jobs and there's
ghost jobs.
Those are two different things,right.
A frozen job would be like ajob that actually exists but
it's not going to get hired for,and then a ghost job, in theory
, is a job that actually doesn'treally exist and is being
posted right Just to well.
We can talk about the reasons,right, but yeah, so in theory
(02:21):
they're different.
In practice they're effectivelythe same thing in terms of what
it means to people looking forwork.
So, yeah, so the end result iskind of the same as what you're
saying Like I'm, I'm picturingboth.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Both means people aren't getting hired.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That's correct, and not only that, but it both means
that people are potentiallywasting time getting their hopes
up and uh, and you know theycould be doing better things
with their, with their days,right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
so makes sense and what.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
What I found interesting in reading this
article was specifically therebound effect that seems to
have happened between the greatresignation and today.
Uh, and the the article authorkind of goes on to say like the
great resignation started thismovement that really put power
back into the job applicant'shands.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Is he having trouble?
So it's not me right.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
No, I think it's him.
He just disappeared, foranybody that's listening.
Yeah, bruce just totallydisappeared and now he's back.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Did someone hang me up on the call?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I did not no.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I was totally hands off.
I was hands off keyboard.
I was hands off mouse.
It was not me.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
But it could be the naked bear in the room.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Oh, I mean, that would do it, that would do it.
Craig in his birthday bear suit.
Sorry about that.
No idea what just happened,just forcefully disconnected
because apparently I didn't giveCraig enough attention.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Tariffs on podcasting equipment.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Knew it, knew it was coming, saw this coming from a
mile away.
It's only going to hurt thecorporate strategy bottom line.
We're already given so muchmoney, now we gotta give so much
more thanks, thanks, tariffs uh, I don't even I did.
Basically, things good forworker, big shift, big shift
recently.
Things not so good for workeranymore.
(04:20):
They, uh the article even saidlike um, this is the first time
that a majority of likeapplicants that have like
college degrees are just noteven getting past the filter
phase.
So like they're saying it's atan all time low for filtering
through college grad type roles.
So why is let's get to the just?
Why is this happening?
(04:41):
I have theories and feelings,but I'm very emotional.
So, alex, I feel like you cangive us the reasoning, reasoning
I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
You know it's supply and demand, right, so it just
like everything else, and solabor.
You have to apply supply demandcurves to labor just like you
would to anything else, right?
So the supply of labor is theavailable pool of folks looking
for work.
The demand side would beemployers looking to hire people
with a set of skills right tofill certain roles that they
(05:10):
have, and so if the need to hirenew talent goes down and the
supply stays the same, then thecost of the labor goes down
right, down right.
Additionally, if the demanddrops significantly, then
potentially there will be a setof labor supply.
You know people looking for workthat can't find work at any
(05:32):
price because there just aren'tenough roles to fill for all of
them.
And so the first step is justwhat you?
I think there was a graph inthat article that showed that
during the great resignation youwere going to make more money
if you went looking for a jobsomewhere else, whereas now it's
starting to circle back to, ingeneral, it's about parity.
(05:52):
I don't know that it's going todip where staying at a company
means you make more money in thelong term, but at a minimum
it's very close to parity nowand that's just a strong
indicator that the demand foremployment for laborers of any
type has gone down, and that'slikely tied to macroeconomic
things which we can talk aboutif you want.
But yep, that's kind of thequick version of that.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I love getting yeah, I mean, when we can get macro.
I love a good.
Oh good, now Clark's gone.
Okay, so this is not.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh no, it's going to come for me too.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It's coming for everybody.
You will all be kicked fromthis call.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I don't understand what just happened.
Why was I kicked from this call?
I just showed up and said I waswaiting in the room and I could
just click join.
I'm like what do you mean?
I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Every time we try to get to the what in the
questioning Big Corporate kicksus out of the call.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So we need a conspiracy theory channel now.
Apparently that's where you'regoing.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
This is definitely yes.
I think this is the work of bigcorpo trying not to get it.
Because here's my loadedquestion that I really think
everyone is trying to get to thebottom of is this is this
actually just corporationstaking the power back in their
own hands?
Like, is this a way of likebasically saying we did all this
(07:22):
big hiring post COVID, lots ofjobs, the great resignation
occurred, people had choice ofwhere they wanted to work, it
was all remote, and now there'sthis job markets frozen, there's
all these weird ghost jobs,which I do want to talk more
about.
But in actuality, is it justcorporate basically taking the
power back and the control back?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So I mean probably ultimately right.
So there's going to be, like,different reasons why this is
happening.
Some of them are benign oraccidental or incidental, and
others may be nefarious.
Right, I will.
I think it's worth touching onthe great hiring that you talked
about during COVID, because Ithought about that and to me
it's almost like corporationswere hoarding toilet paper, but
(08:03):
in this case it was talentedworkers.
Now the difference, of course,is that if you hoard toilet
paper, it's a one-time expenseto go out and buy all the toilet
paper you can at Costco andwhatever else you're going to
buy, but if you're hiringemployees, that's an ongoing
expense.
So the closer analogy would be,like they said right after
COVID they're like look, we knowthat the technology is the
(08:26):
future.
That's where the big money is.
We're getting a ton of moneyinvested into us to hire better
talent.
Let's go out and buy all thesubscriptions, basically.
So I'm going to buy all thestreamers because we've got
nothing else to do during thepandemic.
Well, now what has happened?
Right, a lot of folks have cutthe you know back on their
streaming content.
Right, they don't need thatmany streamers because, hey, I'm
back at work, I'm busy, I'mgoing out, and so maybe I don't
(08:48):
need all 17 streaming servicesand so I can cut back.
Well, corporations are kind ofdoing the same thing, right?
They're like look, I hiredthinking that I needed to have
this talent, especially becausethere was a bidding war going on
for the best talent and you'vetalked about this before right,
the 80-20 rule, all that stuffor whatever.
Like the people who do all thework, you know, think about it.
(09:10):
Right, exactly the Paretoprinciple.
Well, that means that there's acertain amount of those, you
know, one to five or whatever itis percentage of people that
are doing all the work out therein the job market.
If I'm a company with a lot ofdollars, I want to hire as many
of those people as I can hire,right and so.
But now the situation haschanged, right, and we
(09:31):
understand a little bit betterwhat the longer term economic
situation is looking like,especially given the current
nature of uncertainty, and thatthat uncertainty is going to
continue for a prolonged periodof time.
And so that's what's changingthe calculus.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
They even mentioned in the article itself.
It was basically like it's await and see.
A lot of companies arecurrently in a.
They had a phrase for it and Ican't find it as I'm frantically
rereading it, but it was kindof like uh, let's see what
happens in 25.
That started to percolate innovember and it's obviously in
execution today, but theirhesitancy to hire and spend more
(10:11):
, I assume, will be curbed evenfurther by some of the economic
changes that are occurring.
As of recording of this podcast, april 7th 2025 2025.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, and I think you know a question for both of you
, right, bruce and Clark,because I think both of you have
are in or have been in thissituation.
Right?
Have you ever been in a hiring,you know, motion where you said
, look, this is the right person, this is the right person, I
want to fill this position.
I'm going to make them an offerand then they don't get hired
(10:43):
for a week, for two weeks, for amonth, right?
I mean, I'm sure you've seenthat, I know I've seen that as a
candidate, where I'm talking tothe manager and they're not
ghosting me.
They're still talking to me andthey're like we are still
trying to hire you for this role.
It's what we want you to.
You know, we want you here, wewant you to be doing this, but
(11:03):
right now HR is dragging theirfeet or the business hasn't
allocated the funds for the role, or whatever.
It is Right.
But you know, I'm assumingthat's happened to you Right At
some point, especially Clark, Iwould assume, given that he's at
a bigger corporation, that'sprobably happened, right.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think we've even hadsituations where we found
extremely good candidates thathave gone through and I felt
terrible about this, but thisdid happen.
They went through like fourdifferent interviews and we're
all were on the same page oflike, yeah, yeah, let's
absolutely do it.
And then we went on freeze andthe corporation's like, hey,
we're freezing all hiring forthe next two months.
I'm like we're going to losethis person.
Like this person's really good.
What do you mean?
We're going on a freeze, butit's because of the shifting
priorities that were happeningat the time.
It was post-COVID, so it wasn'tlike anything you know
(11:48):
surrounding COVID.
It just was due to I don't knowif it was the fiscal calendar,
the reassessment, looking at whowas being hired or which
departments were the mostcritical, but it absolutely
sucked because this person wasawesome and they ended up
finding another job which,hopefully, is working out for
them.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Hopefully it is working out for them.
But ultimately what I'm gettingat is like so I, like I say we
go through this right on aspectrum of they're doing
nothing wrong, and this is, Ithink, the best example of where
there's a quote unquote ghostjob, because it may not actually
be a ghost job or a frozen job,and it's probably something
like this, right?
So if we're going to give thecorporations the benefit of the
(12:23):
doubt, this is like maybe themost benign or non-insidious
reason why a job may be frozenor a ghost job.
Right, if you progress on downthe spectrum.
Right.
Then there is the idea that,man, I want to have a bench
ready to go of people that Iknow I can hire in, especially
(12:45):
if it's a high turnover role,and so maybe I'm going to just
keep a job posted so that Iconstantly have people applying,
so I can constantly interviewthem, and it's not because I
plan on wasting their time, it'sbecause I do probably want to
hire at some point, and I don'tknow when.
So I need to be ready to hirewhen I have a position come open
, and that's not as nice as thefirst one, but it's still not
(13:08):
completely evil either, becausethey still have the intent to
hire, right, the intent to hireis still there, and then you can
progress on down more insidiousones, right?
So another one could be thatthey're posting this job in an
effort to collect information.
So if you apply to a job, whatare you giving them?
You're giving them your resume,right, as part of that process,
and so now they learn a lotabout you, and not only that, so
(13:32):
they learn about the job marketas a whole, because they learn
who's applying for this job,what's their level of education,
what's the level of experience.
So what can I expect if I everdo need to hire?
And also, how's my competitiondoing?
If you're in an industry Ihappen to be in an industry
where there's like four, fivepredominant players, right, it's
very clear who they are,everybody knows them, and so if
(13:53):
I go looking for a job and acompetitor comes across my
resume, they get to understandhey, what's going on at Alex's
company, right?
And if I'm one of a dozenpeople, right, and so they could
be collecting that information,right.
And then the most evil is wherethere's never going to be a job
and they don't care about thecompetition.
(14:13):
But they're a data broker andthey're literally trying to mine
your information to be able tosell your information on or
market directly to you.
And the very last evil thing,it's probably not even the
corporation's fault.
Something that I've recentlygot in an email is scams,
literally like cyber crimes ofpeople saying, oh hey, about
that job you applied for.
(14:34):
It's like I didn't apply for ajob report spam, you know, and
so, uh, there's a huge spectrumof reasons that these things can
be happening, from relativelybenign to criminal and evil
right so I definitely don't likethe second half of that
spectrum.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
that's pretty crappy behavior.
What can people look for toavoid that second half?
And, like I do think thatthere's probably a way to ask
the question like you know, whenis this job looking to hire?
To kind of avoid that second,not so nefarious case of like
I'm trying to build a good bench, like I see value in that.
But I also see that as like youshould be upfront, like if
(15:15):
possible, be upfront with theperson and say, like you know,
we don't have a direct hire date, or this might be months out,
but we'd love to have moreconversations, but maybe they're
not up front about that.
How do you ask that questionwithout being nefarious?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
to see that the hiring managers at my company
tend to be upfront and I reallyappreciate that in terms of
culture for my company.
But I would argue the numberone thing you could do in
general overall, just constantlyis always build your network so
that you can talk to people whoare at the companies you're
applying for, and a lot of timesyou're not even looking for a
recommendation, you just want abarometer of how real is this
(15:58):
thing?
Right, where are we in theprocess?
And having an inside personthat's going to be able to feed
you some of that information,because realistically, the
information they'd be feedingyou back is not like proprietary
information or anything likethat.
It's not giving away companysecrets, it's just helping them
understand where in thebureaucracy they are.
And so networking is your numberone tool for finding a job.
Always, always, always, likeit's the one through 10, like
(16:23):
number one way to get a job isto network.
Um, every single job I'vegotten basically in the past I
don't know how long has I'vegotten because of my network.
This most recent job, arecruiter reached out, but the
reason I got the job and I gotan offer that I really welcomed
is because my network wasalready at that company and
spoke well of me, and so I wasvery fortunate for that.
So, number one network, right?
(16:45):
Number two would be if you havenobody on the inside, then, yeah
, try to ask probing questions.
See, like, hey, can we set upsome meetings so I can talk to
folks on your team and get avibe from them about what's
going on and then gently askquestions that it would help you
understand.
Is this real or not?
Right, like, hey, you knowwhat's happened recently on your
team that you guys are hiring,you know, did someone leave?
(17:08):
Are you growing?
Right, like, what's the reason?
Did someone get promoted?
Right, those are all legitquestions anyway.
Right, when you're just askingabout company culture.
But it can help inform hey, isthis, is this real?
Right, is this real?
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, One way to ask that question to you that I've
heard actually candidates ask me.
They'll say, hey, is this a newrole or is this one that's been
open for a while?
Like is someone just vacating itand like that's a fair question
, yeah, it's a great question,because it's like, oh, is this
like brand new, you know what'sthe reason for it being new?
And like that gets someoneexcited for kind of, hey, this
new, you know space that's openfor opportunity.
(17:43):
But then it also lets you knowno, actually the person left and
say, okay, you know, you tellme why?
Why do you think they they left?
Why did why?
Was this not a good fit forthem?
And they might not disclose allthat, but it's a really good
way to understand, know whetherthis role was recently vacated
or whether it's a newopportunity.
And the only other thing I'd addto that too, is if you want to
get a sense of what's going onthe inside.
I mean also look at, you know,certain anonymous forums, like
(18:06):
blind, like it is always up todate.
People are always posting aboutcompanies not every company,
but a lot of big companies areon there and you can actually
get a sense of, like, what isactually going on internally,
cause it's all anonymous and soit's really cool to look at that
, to be like, okay, what isactually going on, and hopefully
get somebody who's probably alittle more pessimistic to give
you some honest answers.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So that last bit is important, though, right Cause
you got to take blind with ahuge grain of salt.
That's that so I.
You know, for me it alwaysreminds me of like when I was in
tech support, like, especiallyeven when I was a manager in
tech support, and my employeeswould get so down and it's like,
man, our product stinks, andit's like, no, our product
doesn't stink.
You're seeing a subset of asubset of people interacting
(18:48):
with our product on their worstday, and so, yeah, they're
unhappy, but this is an anomaly,not the rule Right, not the
rule right.
And so, with blind, I would bemindful that the people who are
most likely to post on blind areself-selected folks that are
already ungruntled.
You don't get a lot of gruntledfolks hanging out on.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Blind is all I would say You've got to find a good
balance of gruntle, just ingeneral.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
your gruntle percentage is general, what
would you say your gruntalpercentage is?
I'm perfectly gruntal today andI love remembering that blind
exists.
I feel like it's always you,clark, that brings it up and I'm
like, yeah, that website ishere.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I really should look at it.
Then you go on it and you'relike, especially so.
I haven't found it extremelyuseful when I'm not looking for
work, but when I'm looking forwork I actually really enjoy it
because you kind of get a sense.
You know what is this companylike, what are people saying
about it?
To Alex's point, I think youreally do have to take it with a
grain of salt and realize theseare probably the people on the
higher level of the gruntalmeter and you want to make sure
that you keep that in mind whenyou're looking through it.
(19:52):
But it's a great tool, you know, know just to understand the
vibes of the company.
What kind of roles are going on, interview help.
You know there's a lot of thingsof like oh yeah, this is the se
level three second interviewquestion that you're going to
get.
It's like okay, cool, this isgood to know so I can start
prepping for this interview.
I want to go back.
I got, I got a question, so Iknow obviously I'm an ai purist,
(20:14):
apparently because I alwaysbring it up on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
But I'm curious Every time I can't get through one
without you, how much is AIaffecting these freezes?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
You know if people are truly able to be more
productive.
You know in so many differentrealms, you know in coding and
marketing and everything likethat how much is that affecting?
Oh, we actually don't need tohire because our team is
actually more productive.
Obviously, I know adoptioncurve for something like this is
going to take a really longtime at big enterprises to truly
get the value.
But I am curious.
(20:43):
We're in the biggesttechnological boom in our
lifetimes, for sure, and solooking at that and then looking
at what's going on with thepresidency and all that going on
as well, it's a weird contrastof things going on in our world
right now, where technology isadvancing so fast, making
everybody so much moreproductive, but at the same time
, you know companies can't hirelike crazy to take advantage of
(21:06):
those gains.
So just curious on yourthoughts.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, I would disagree in terms of my lifetime
, because I, you know, was anadult in the nineties, right or
approaching adulthood, and the90s were pretty revolutionary in
terms of technology.
But having said that, I knowthat your question is about AI
impacting productivity so that,in theory, the demand for
(21:29):
employment goes down right.
But the more sinister answer isthat AI makes it easier to
algorithmatize.
The ghost job game is what'sactually happening?
Because AI is a good sidekickfor now, but it's not replacing
full-time workers at the moment.
(21:49):
It's making them perhaps moreproductive, sure, but what it is
good at is creating words.
Right, that's literallygenerative.
Ai is making the next word, it'sguessing the next word in a
sentence, and so it's reallygood at figuring out hey, you
should post a job every two anda half months with these
requirements, and that's thebest way to maximize your media
(22:13):
attention that.
Hey, look, who's hiring, bigCorpo is hiring.
They've just opened up 5,000new positions, and so AI can
help you quickly deploy 5,000ghost jobs to make it look like
you're successful, which mightbe a really good thing to do.
I don't know, a week before youreport earnings and your stock
price is about to go up or down,right, get ahead of the news
(22:37):
cycle to go, you know, you know,up or down.
Right, I get ahead of the newscycle, right.
So ai is really good attricking humans, in my opinion,
in terms of making humans thinkthat other humans are doing
things, and and so I think thatit is affecting frozen and ghost
jobs, but not from thedirection that you're thinking.
I think it's making it easierto make more of this.
You know crap effectively andput it on linkedin and put it on
(22:59):
LinkedIn and put it on anyother job site that might be out
there, and that's, I think, thedownside right now.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Well, that's terrible .
Speaker 2 (23:05):
That hurts me.
The best way I have found tomake job descriptions is by
using AI.
I can only see how that canfurther facilitate Alex's point.
It's very good at it, which isfunny because I don't find it to
be very good at a lot of things, but it's very good at doing
job descriptions and making youknow job description related
(23:28):
assets and work.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
So and if you think about that angle if your first
interview is a chat interview oran email interview, right, it's
really good at doing that, andso the person that it's making
more efficient is the like, thesleazebag recruiter that doesn't
actually have a job but needsto look busy because that's
their metric, that they're beingmeasured on hilarious.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Do you guys see the news about the, the guy who
basically like hacked a bunch ofinterviews through like leak
code by having a automatedcomputer user and he cheated his
way through every interviewbecause no screen recorder could
detect it and then he basicallygot kicked out of his school.
I think it was like yale.
He got kicked out of school forbasically getting job offers at
all these colleges and thenexposing it and being like hey,
I cheated on all these.
Here's the software I built.
(24:19):
If you want to use it too, hereyou go, and it basically avoids
all of their kind of anti-AIcheating mechanisms and helped
him get a ton of crazy joboffers.
And, yeah, I got booted fromschool.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Crazy, yeah, I got to say though, I'm not anti-AI.
I want to be clear.
I'm also I want to be on therecord I'm not anti-recruiter
either.
I'm saying that those tools atthe moment, if they're going to
impact the ghost job, frozen jobsituation, they're more likely
to impact it from the point ofview of making the situation
(24:51):
worse, not necessarily impactingthe demand for laborers or
skilled workers not necessarilyimpacting the demand for
laborers or skilled workers.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, I say we.
We fight the power and we justkeep on ghost applying to jobs
with not real people and we justtake down their sites.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
We should build that next.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Sure, I kind of like this idea about like this is
kind of well, I mean.
So.
I mean here's the thing, right,like, if you do that, then it
kind of defeats the purpose ofthe AI and you have to remove
that piece from the equation andget back to a human being
talking to human beings in orderto figure out is this legit to
(25:33):
scale towards the company?
Because they're the ones thathave the jobs, they're the ones
that set the salary, there'sones that pay you at the end of
the day, but, like, that littleact of rebellion could be quite
good if pulled off appropriately, to kind of fight back against
this.
My question is actually dothings get better?
And I don't mean in the AIfront, I just mean in the hiring
(25:54):
front in general.
It definitely seems like and Ijust base this off my own metric
of how many recruiters reachout to me, or look at my
LinkedIn profile, which issignificantly less than it was
three years ago.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I was actually going to ask you post-check is it
better or?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
worse.
It's bad.
It's real bad.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
My resume has never looked better.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah, last six months for me, I've been getting
reached out to.
All the time.
I had three this week.
They were like hey, here's anopportunity, here's an
opportunity.
I'm like huh.
That's why all this is reallyinteresting, because I've had-.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Are they real?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
That's a good question.
I don't know and I have nointerest in finding out.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, the only outreach I've gotten has been
been very impersonal, obviouslyautomated.
And so I don't know if they'relazy recruiters, because I
normally I will respond torecruiters who send me
individualized messages.
I always respond even if I'mnot looking right.
I just let them know, hey, I'mnot looking.
But if you're serious aboutthat role, I can pass it on to
my friends.
(26:50):
They might be appropriatelyskilled for it as well.
Happy to help you out.
So anytime I get a, a realmessage, I respond to it like
that.
But of late I've gotten lessand what I've gotten has been
automated trash.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Interesting.
So that just proves exactlywhat we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Anyways, back to your question yeah, I mean, well,
with that pulse check, is itgoing to get?
I mean this this obviouslycertifies what the article says.
You know, we've all threeexperienced the same thing the
article saying that there's justless and less jobs out there
for folks in corporate.
Do we pull out of this, or isthis the new normal going
forward that people just have toget used to?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
out of this?
Or is this the new normal goingforward that people just have
to get used to?
Yeah, I mean, it comes incycles, right?
So there's no reason we can'tpull out of it in theory.
In practice it's going torequire a period of stability,
all right, and right now wedon't have that.
I don't know when or if we'llhave a period of stability again
.
I would assume we will again atsome point in the long arc of
history.
Everything repeats, right, butfor now I just don't see where
(27:51):
the stability comes from, anduntil that happens it's just
really hard to make predictionson a large scale.
And so large scale hiring, likewe saw during the pandemic.
I don't see that happeninganytime soon.
It'll be far more tactical asopposed to strategic, I would
argue.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Well, and I do feel like that's a little bit.
Oh, go ahead, Clark.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
No, no, I was going to go in a different direction,
so if you want to wrap that, I'mgoing to go pick us somewhere
else.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Okay.
So I was going to say I thinkthat the pandemic created a
really bad false expectation forthings, which probably didn't
help either, because it was justopen season Anyone could go
anywhere, everything was remote,it was great.
Open season Anyone could goanywhere.
Everything was remote, it wasgreat.
And then return to officehappened for a lot of folks, or
hybrid work happened, which verymuch locked down the ability to
job freely anywhere.
(28:37):
That was a little bit of afalse set of expectations, I
think, especially for a lot ofpeople entering the workforce.
That also was not normal at alland it does feel like the
pendulum has swung completely inthe opposite direction.
But I would love to find amiddle, a good middle, so we
could actually know what thatwork looks like.
(28:57):
But it just seems like in myhistory of working in corporate
it's always been on the verge ofa recession.
The corporation we're at isgoing through some kind of
merger, acquisition, separation,like I've never seen a normal
year, and I would just love toknow what a normal year looks
like.
But, clark, what's your point?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
No, I think I'm right there with you.
It does feel like, at least inthe arc of our careers, it
definitely has not been stableat any point, where it's like
we're just riding this out, andI think it's just the system of
our environment, the companieswe were at, everything like that
.
But yeah, it certainly doesfeel that way.
I was going to say how much ofthis is because people are
starting their own businesses.
They're just like screwcorporate, I'm going to do my
(29:39):
own thing and the reason I bringthis up and I always go back to
this.
But, alex, you told us about areally interesting channel, how
money works and it basicallythey recently had an episode
about like how poor people arestarting businesses and
corporations hate it, and Ithink the whole notion was
around like small business loansare easier than ever to get and
people are basically just goingand starting businesses because
now, with technology, they havethe ability to do things
(30:00):
they've never really been ableto do before.
So how much of this freeze iskind of the lower, I guess
smaller businesses that arestarting to actually boom in the
amount of people creating thembecause they can't and they're
kind of sick of corporate.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, if I had to guess, very nominal.
And the reason is the vastmajority of people are risk
averse and starting a businessis incredibly risky.
So if I had to guess, it's anominal impact in terms of the
(30:36):
what normal looks like.
I can tell you, um, I've beenlike filing a w-2 since 1994, so
um, been a long time right, andI can tell you that this boom
bust cycle thing has always beenpart of it, and so you know,
you had the dot-com boom in thelate 90s and then you had the
bust right in the 2000, like2001, 2000, 2001 bust.
Then you had another big boomthe real estate bubble, right,
and that popped in 2007, 2008,right.
(30:59):
And then you had a cycle, avery prolonged cycle prior to
COVID, of very low interestrates, and that's what allowed a
lot of startups to happen,right, because money was cheap
and so you could borrow verycheaply.
And so, if anything, whathappened is you did get used to
a normal, you just didn'trealize it.
(31:19):
But for the 2010s you had thisquote unquote normal of either
zero or close to zero interestrates, and growth was number one
all the time, everywhere.
And so, and additionally, atthe same time, you had China
producing cheaper and cheaperthings that were constantly
being fed to us.
So consumerism was easier andgetting high paying employment
(31:43):
was easier on account of cheapmoney for corporations.
And so COVID, through eramonkey wrench and all of that,
it just made things really weirdfor a while, like huge dip and
then a huge growth, you know forfor a while, and that led to a
lot of inflation because of allthe money that was being pumped
into the system, and now we werestarting to level off.
And now we're getting anothershock to the system with tariffs
(32:05):
right, significant across theboard.
Tariffs applied more or lessindiscriminately, and I think
that's the challenge.
I think tariffs in and ofthemselves do have a place in
the economy.
I want to be clear.
There's a reason that mostnations had tariffs before
Donald Trump even ran for office.
So even before 2016, you hadplenty of nations that had
tariffs going on around theworld.
(32:26):
In fact, you had anorganization, the World Trade
Organization, the WTO that wasbuilt to help manage disputes
about tariffs between nations,and so now we've since pulled
out of that, and that wasactually a bipartisan effort,
believe it or not.
That wasn't just Donald Trump.
Biden approved this.
Obama was already trying topull out of it even before
Donald Trump got elected.
(32:46):
And so, because we were havingissues with China, dumping on us
.
And if you're not familiar withwhat I'm talking about, dumping
is not like slang.
I'm not saying like, oh, chinawas nagging us.
Dumping is where you sellsomething for below the cost to
produce it.
So that's an economic,technical term.
If you took macroeconomics inhigh school or college, you
(33:07):
already know the term.
But at any rate, we wanted toprotest that because it's
basically they were able to doit because the government was
subsidizing their industries soheavily and so it created an
unfair trade imbalance.
But at any rate, that happenedfor a long time.
(33:29):
Corporate, from a corporateperspective that you grew up
with, was that environment ofconstant, unlimited growth.
Right now you're seeing areturn to a more normal where,
instead of 12 years ofunprecedented growth, you have a
cycle that's more, um, you know, three, three to five years
where you're having boom andbusts, which was the norm for
decades prior to thatunprecedented growth of the
teens.
So I mean, change is the onlyconstant in life in general.
(33:55):
But I would argue that thewhiplash you're feeling right
now you know that's somethingthat you should probably get
used to, because it's notunusual in the grand scheme of
history and it's probably goingto be the norm for a while.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So what do we need to look at when it comes to
maximizing our ability to takeadvantage of the swings Like how
do we know when we're out ofthe dump times and I don't mean
that in the macroeconomic sense,but like in the toilet sense
versus when it's time to go lookfor jobs, go apply, go hire,
take advantage of this situation, go apply, go hire, take
(34:29):
advantage of this situation.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, this is something where from that lens,
specifically because I couldtalk about how to maximize from
an investment point of view,like when to buy property, when
to buy equities, all that stuff,but just from an employment
point of view, I would arguethat what you should always be
doing is, like I said, numberone, two, three, four, five grow
your network Always, always,always, always, always.
(34:50):
It is the number one way you'regoing to get a job.
I just had a friend potentiallyinterested in switching over to
being a sales engineer and Isaid, hey, I can get you some
FaceTime with some folks overhere at my company, which
normally speaking would be verydifficult to do, just getting
through the algorithm right.
Not because my company is likebad or anything, but just in
general it's hard to get throughthe automated systems right.
(35:13):
So, network number one, always.
Number two make yourself ashireable as possible.
I think if you're specializedas a unitasker, you're going to
be vulnerable if the unitaskthat you're good at becomes
deprecated in some way, shape orform in the economy, and so
having a wide array of skills isgoing to be valuable, being
(35:35):
capable to learn quickly, right,that skill never goes away in
terms of value.
But I had friends for a longtime.
Like I said, I was in techsupport for quite a few years
and I remember people in techsupport were always afraid their
job was going to go away, butat the same time, they
criticized me when I decided togo into sales to become a sales
(35:56):
engineer.
They're like oh, that sounds sorisky.
Talk about risk-averse folks.
That sounds so risky.
And I'm like really you thinkit's risky, because how are they
going to outsource my job toIndia?
And you're worried about youbeing outsourced all the time.
That's like the sword ofDamocles hanging over your head
that you're worried about.
And I'm not worried about that.
(36:16):
Right, going into sales.
And on top of that, if salesdoesn't work out, what can I do?
I can go back and get a techsupport job, right, so it's not
that big of a deal, right?
If I become a manager, they'relike, oh, managers are always
the first to go.
And it's like sure, but now Ihave management experience.
Right, if I get into marketing?
Right, All my sales engineeringfriends were like you're going
(36:36):
to marketing, marketing is thefirst thing to go whenever
there's a recession, right, andI said sure, but now I have
experience doing this as well,and so if I need to get a job, I
have so many outs right Versusif you're a uni tasker and the
economy tanks in your role, Imean it could be very difficult
to find employment again veryquickly, whereas you know, the
(36:59):
more flexible you are, the morelikely you are to be able to
bounce back quickly and the moreoptions you're going to have in
terms of promotion and otheravenues of career advancement.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah, makes sense.
What would you say to, I guess,what would our recommendations
be?
Someone had to take somethingaway of like well, I'm in this
situation right now.
I'm, you know, looking to exiteither my current job, find a
new job, I'm looking to exit,startup my own business for a
while.
What would the recommendationbe?
Is it like hold strong, youknow, stay where you're at for a
little while till thingsstabilize and then, you know,
(37:30):
look at opportunity?
Or is it always just keep yourdoor open, keep on looking, and
to your point earlier, you knowyou could be kind of wasting
your time working for theseopportunities that don't
actually exist.
What do you guys think?
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I mean, I know for me .
I say I personally choose toalways bet on myself, and so I'm
willing to go in for what onthe surface appears to be a
riskier proposition if it meansadvancement for me.
Now, having said that, right, Ido, it is a calculated risk, I
do weigh the pros and cons andall that, but I would not let
(38:05):
the macroeconomic conditionsaffect my microeconomic career
decisions is what I would tellyou.
And so if you have a goodopportunity, it doesn't matter
what the economy is, and by goodopportunity, what I mean is an
opportunity that's going to growyour career or just make you
happier, right Bet on yourself.
Bet on yourself to be happier,bet on yourself to grow right,
(38:28):
regardless of the macro state,is my personal advice.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I like that, yeah, so it's taking a hard look at.
Yeah, what is your riskadversity what's your personal
situation now and how much riskcan you tolerate in making that
decision?
And, to your point, don't leaveyour sure thing unless it's a
really bad situation, until youhave kind of the next thing
because that's going to hurt.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
You don't leave your sure thing unless it's a really
bad situation until you havekind of the next thing, because
that's going to hurt.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
You.
Don't put yourself in a reallybad spot.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah, just look at it like you could wait right for a
decade for the economy to bejust right for you to take that
leap, and then maybe thathappens in 10 years.
But you just waste the 10 yearsin an obviously not ideal
situation.
And so the one thing you have alimited supply of, any way you
slice it, is time.
You have infinite ability toexpand your career in general
(39:17):
within the frames of time, buttime itself you can't get back.
And so every day, every week,every month that goes by in a
job you hate or in a job that'snot taking advantage of
everything you can bring to thetable, would argue, is time
wasted I love that flip that,flip that.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Some motivation right there yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
I also just wanted one double down.
I'm gonna double the heck downon, uh, the.
Don't be a unit tasker or aunit, a unit unit master of your
, of your domain.
What you should be isgeneralize.
Generalize as much as you canin as many different sort of
corporate ways as you can Love.
That.
It's worked for me, it's workedfor Alex, it's worked for Clark
(39:58):
.
I think it's a very, veryimportant tip.
So I'm just saying it louderfor the people in the back.
My actual tip would be oneobviously, time is always the
enemy enemy.
You're only going to get older,time's going to pass if you're
not getting paid.
That's not a good thing.
So go in with the reasonableexpectations.
We talked a lot on this podcastabout cac culture, autonomy,
(40:21):
challenge, compensation, right,like sometimes, compensation
takes a hit for you to be at aplace where you have the culture
, the autonomy and the challengethat you like, but a few years
or even a year at a place whereyou have the culture or the
autonomy and the challenge thatyou like, but a few years or
even a year at a place thatmaybe doesn't pay so well, is a
good gap filler versus justlooking and looking and looking
and not bringing in any income,not building up any of your
skills, not advancing yourselfpersonally.
(40:44):
Don't be a choosing beggar.
Right Like take what you canfind.
If you can find something good,and understand that better
times will be around the cornerand you can go for those jobs
when they're there.
But if you've got a betterresume, it makes it so much
easier for you to get in.
So do not limit yourself todaybecause of what you think you
can get tomorrow.
And also understand that, like,when times are bad, you know
(41:06):
it's statistically bad foreveryone, so you're not alone.
Don are bad, you know it'sstatistically bad for everyone,
so you're not alone.
Don't feel like the universe issingling you out.
Everyone is in this, this cycletogether and you know,
sometimes just open up to yournetwork, ask the question, see
if other people are feeling thesame way you do, because I
guarantee you're not alone greattips.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
That's it, you know.
Last words of wisdom, alex no,I just want.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Oh, one more thing I want to echo, because a triple
down on what Bruce just saidyeah, yeah, is this the triple
down economic?
The triple Triple down?
I've taken a pay cut multipletimes in my career to get to
where I wanted to be.
It's like sacrificing a pawn totake a queen right, and it's
worked out for me at every time.
(41:49):
Now it's not going to work outfor everyone all the time,
because your results may vary,blah, blah, blah.
Legal disclaimer, right.
But ultimately I have taken apay cut a few times in my career
and in every single instance itpaid off significantly in the
long run, both in terms of meliking what I do and just
financially.
So I think so many times peopleworry about what they're losing
(42:10):
versus what they can gain now.
So I'll give you an example.
Right, I know someone who waslike, oh man, I'm going to have
to earn a lot more money to giveup the four day work week I
have right now.
They really like working for 10hour shifts, right, and it's
like, man, I'd have to get somuch money to do that.
And it's like, okay, look if,if this is like the hill, you're
going to die on that four daywork week means everything to
(42:33):
your quality of life.
I respect that.
You should keep it, then, butlike, don't ask me to talk you
out of that.
Right, like I'm not, you know.
Like no one is going to bendover backwards to make it so
that like, hey, you're going towork five days but you're going
to love it because we're givingyou a million dollars more a
year.
Right, like you have to decidewhat's more important to you.
Is it progression in adirection or is it keeping
(42:55):
certain quality of life, balance, things that you have?
And there's no right or wronganswer.
By the way, the only way tofigure out what the right answer
is for you to figure out whatthe right answer is for you as
an individual.
So there isn't one clear cut,correct answer.
But I would not worry aboutwhat I'm losing so much, as is
what I would gain.
Worth taking the dive?
(43:16):
Right Like, worth taking therisk, and if the answer is yes,
then I think you should take itseriously.
That's what I would argue.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Couldn't have said it better, Even if I quadrupled
down on it.
I could try, but quad up.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
I quad up in a soft manner.
I'm not going to add anythingto it, I'm just going to quad up
to say I agree, is that legal?
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I don't know, but for whatever reason, quadding up
seems icky to me.
I really don't like it.
I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I feel like you're going to get creatine if you're
going to quad up, you know like,yeah, you're one step away from
full-blown juicing.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah Listen, I don't quadruple down, I quadruple up,
quad up, leg day.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Never skip it.
Oh boy, what happened?
Well, you know, I think on thatnote it's not a better note to
close it out on.
So, uh, as always, thanks,squid boy, for bringing the
topic.
Uh, we don't have any memesthis week, sadly.
Uh, do shout outs, though, toalex again for bringing the
absolute banger of a meme we gotlast week.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
That was pure fire uh , I haven't listened to the
episode to release today.
Sorry, I gotta listen to it.
No, don't.
No, alex, I gotta, I gotta saythis you're really gonna hate it
, so don't listen.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
I the episode that released today.
Sorry, I got to listen to it,no, don't.
No, alex, I got to say thisYou're really going to hate it,
so don't listen to that part.
I hope you're ready fordisappointment.
Just set your expectation levelreally, really low, please, and
don't judge me after that's all.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I ask I'm just going to zoom ahead to the what do you
meme?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
I just want to hear you found nuggets of knowledge
in this episode.
Please make a meme of somethingalex said specifically and uh
post it in that chat.
Uh, we're still looking on.
We're on the hunt for thoseembarrassing stories.
So, uh, go to the is it mirroras a corporate channel and use
forward, slash, confess and postyour embarrassing stories there
.
And if you're wondering, well,how the heck do I do any of this
?
You got to join the discordopen.
Open up your show notes, clickthe link tree and inside of
there, click join the Discord.
(45:13):
Super simple.
Couldn't make it any easier.
If we tried, clark, what elseis there to do?
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Well, we're still at a funding podcast or funding
podcast fundraiser to try to getPepsi man.
No one's bought a single babyonesie in a year and I'm really
disappointed in everybody.
You're having children, I knowyou are.
Buy the baby onesie.
I'm going to go in and buy ababy onesie for a friend who
just had a baby, because someoneneeds to buy one and that's
going to go towards Pepsi man.
(45:39):
So you can go to our website,you can buy me a coffee.
You can go to our store.
You can get our merchandise.
You can get have a child.
Send somebody you love, even ifthey don't have a child, a baby
onesie.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
There's no better gift to arrive in the mail than
an unmarked onesie for a childthat says corporate strategy.
It's a really great way to makethe spouse feel.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
We love Bruce and Clark, is that like the
corporate equivalent ofscentclowncom?
Speaker 3 (46:06):
Yes, oh my God, yes, it is.
That's incredible.
That might.
Yes, oh my God, yes, it isthat's incredible.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
That might be a good business idea.
I'm just going to throw thatone out there.
If you want to support the show, you can do that.
You can buy us a coffee, youcan do that all on the link tree
.
And if you don't want to do anyof these things, then all we
ask is that you share the podwith your friends.
That's really how we grow.
Share it with the friends, jointhe Discord, join the
conversation, because we'redoing this for the love of
helping others and the love ofjust doing it.
(46:33):
So thanks, as always, forlistening and do share broadly.
Thanks one more time to ourvery special, always returning
guest, mr Alex Estrepo.
I just spit when I said yourname.
I'm so sorry, but I feel worsefor the microphone.
You're our Capitalscorrespondent.
You're our rock, you're ourstone.
You keep us on track.
Thank you, as always forjoining us.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Alex, Happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Sewn by hand.
I learned something today, andI hope you did too.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Great, I learned something every day.
I don't know if it's useful ornot, but I do learn.
It's one of the few skills Istill have.
You know what I think?
That's it.
We're going to pin tuple upthis episode right out of here,
but until next time I'm Bruceand I'm Clark and you're on mute
We'll sex tuple you next week.
Should I get a camera too, though?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
No, you don't need a camera.
We're going to talk over eachother, it's totally optional.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
It would just take a lot more time to put on clothes
and stuff, so that's good.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, keep the clothes off.
That's my suggestion.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I was about to ask are you working naked?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I plead the fifth as I don't wish to incriminate
myself.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I mean that's totally fair, right?
Does the workplace policyaround clothing and what you
wear to work count when you'reworking remote?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
that was a great segue to today's topic.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Let's move on real quick when you're working remote
.
That was a great segue totoday's topic.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Let's move on real quick.
Hey, welcome back to CorporateStrategy Podcast.
I'm in an email.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm recording.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And I'm not naked.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Actually neither am I ?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh, what a were about to make the the next
embarrassing story on.
Is it me or is it corporaterejoining us from the world of
bourgeoisie capitalismcorrespondence.
We welcome back our one of ourabsolute favorites, mr alistair
streppo.
Thanks for joining us today,alex.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yep, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hey, we need you Because Clark and I's
intelligence level is not readyto comprehend the topic that was
requested of us.
A month ago From Chief Pod.
Topic, officer Squidboy postedan article about how the job
market is frozen.
Now I read said article andfound it very interesting.
(01:45):
I would encourage all of ourlisteners to do the same, but we
should probably just open upwith the concept for all the
freshers or maybe people whoaren't familiar with frozen jobs
and, alex, I figure you knowbetter than anyone to lead us in
.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I mean, well, there's frozen jobs and there's
ghost jobs.
Those are two different things,right.
A frozen job would be like ajob that actually exists but
it's not going to get hired for,and then a ghost job, in theory
, is a job that actually doesn'treally exist and is being
posted right Just to well.
We can talk about the reasons,right, but yeah, so in theory
(02:21):
they're different.
In practice they're effectivelythe same thing in terms of what
it means to people looking forwork.
So, yeah, so the end result iskind of the same as what you're
saying Like I'm, I'm picturingboth.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Both means people aren't getting hired.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That's correct, and not only that, but it both means
that people are potentiallywasting time getting their hopes
up and uh, and you know theycould be doing better things
with their, with their days,right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
so makes sense and what.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
What I found interesting in reading this
article was specifically therebound effect that seems to
have happened between the greatresignation and today.
Uh, and the the article authorkind of goes on to say like the
great resignation started thismovement that really put power
back into the job applicant'shands.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Is he having trouble?
So it's not me right.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
No, I think it's him.
He just disappeared, foranybody that's listening.
Yeah, bruce just totallydisappeared and now he's back.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Did someone hang me up on the call?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I did not no.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I was totally hands off.
I was hands off keyboard.
I was hands off mouse.
It was not me.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
But it could be the naked bear in the room.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Oh, I mean, that would do it, that would do it.
Craig in his birthday bear suit.
Sorry about that.
No idea what just happened,just forcefully disconnected
because apparently I didn't giveCraig enough attention.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Tariffs on podcasting equipment.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Knew it, knew it was coming, saw this coming from a
mile away.
It's only going to hurt thecorporate strategy bottom line.
We're already given so muchmoney, now we gotta give so much
more thanks, thanks, tariffs uh, I don't even I did.
Basically, things good forworker, big shift, big shift
recently.
Things not so good for workeranymore.
(04:20):
They, uh the article even saidlike um, this is the first time
that a majority of likeapplicants that have like
college degrees are just noteven getting past the filter
phase.
So like they're saying it's atan all time low for filtering
through college grad type roles.
So why is let's get to the just?
Why is this happening?
(04:41):
I have theories and feelings,but I'm very emotional.
So, alex, I feel like you cangive us the reasoning, reasoning
I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
You know it's supply and demand, right, so it just
like everything else, and solabor.
You have to apply supply demandcurves to labor just like you
would to anything else, right?
So the supply of labor is theavailable pool of folks looking
for work.
The demand side would beemployers looking to hire people
with a set of skills right tofill certain roles that they
(05:10):
have, and so if the need to hirenew talent goes down and the
supply stays the same, then thecost of the labor goes down
right, down right.
Additionally, if the demanddrops significantly, then
potentially there will be a setof labor supply.
You know people looking for workthat can't find work at any
(05:32):
price because there just aren'tenough roles to fill for all of
them.
And so the first step is justwhat you?
I think there was a graph inthat article that showed that
during the great resignation youwere going to make more money
if you went looking for a jobsomewhere else, whereas now it's
starting to circle back to, ingeneral, it's about parity.
(05:52):
I don't know that it's going todip where staying at a company
means you make more money in thelong term, but at a minimum
it's very close to parity nowand that's just a strong
indicator that the demand foremployment for laborers of any
type has gone down, and that'slikely tied to macroeconomic
things which we can talk aboutif you want.
But yep, that's kind of thequick version of that.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I love getting yeah, I mean, when we can get macro.
I love a good.
Oh good, now Clark's gone.
Okay, so this is not.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh no, it's going to come for me too.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It's coming for everybody.
You will all be kicked fromthis call.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I don't understand what just happened.
Why was I kicked from this call?
I just showed up and said I waswaiting in the room and I could
just click join.
I'm like what do you mean?
I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Every time we try to get to the what in the
questioning Big Corporate kicksus out of the call.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So we need a conspiracy theory channel now.
Apparently that's where you'regoing.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
This is definitely yes.
I think this is the work of bigcorpo trying not to get it.
Because here's my loadedquestion that I really think
everyone is trying to get to thebottom of is this is this
actually just corporationstaking the power back in their
own hands?
Like, is this a way of likebasically saying we did all this
(07:22):
big hiring post COVID, lots ofjobs, the great resignation
occurred, people had choice ofwhere they wanted to work, it
was all remote, and now there'sthis job markets frozen, there's
all these weird ghost jobs,which I do want to talk more
about.
But in actuality, is it justcorporate basically taking the
power back and the control back?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So I mean probably ultimately right.
So there's going to be, like,different reasons why this is
happening.
Some of them are benign oraccidental or incidental, and
others may be nefarious.
Right, I will.
I think it's worth touching onthe great hiring that you talked
about during COVID, because Ithought about that and to me
it's almost like corporationswere hoarding toilet paper, but
(08:03):
in this case it was talentedworkers.
Now the difference, of course,is that if you hoard toilet
paper, it's a one-time expenseto go out and buy all the toilet
paper you can at Costco andwhatever else you're going to
buy, but if you're hiringemployees, that's an ongoing
expense.
So the closer analogy would be,like they said right after
COVID they're like look, we knowthat the technology is the
(08:26):
future.
That's where the big money is.
We're getting a ton of moneyinvested into us to hire better
talent.
Let's go out and buy all thesubscriptions, basically.
So I'm going to buy all thestreamers because we've got
nothing else to do during thepandemic.
Well, now what has happened?
Right, a lot of folks have cutthe you know back on their
streaming content.
Right, they don't need thatmany streamers because, hey, I'm
back at work, I'm busy, I'mgoing out, and so maybe I don't
(08:48):
need all 17 streaming servicesand so I can cut back.
Well, corporations are kind ofdoing the same thing, right?
They're like look, I hiredthinking that I needed to have
this talent, especially becausethere was a bidding war going on
for the best talent and you'vetalked about this before right,
the 80-20 rule, all that stuffor whatever.
Like the people who do all thework, you know, think about it.
(09:10):
Right, exactly the Paretoprinciple.
Well, that means that there's acertain amount of those, you
know, one to five or whatever itis percentage of people that
are doing all the work out therein the job market.
If I'm a company with a lot ofdollars, I want to hire as many
of those people as I can hire,right and so.
But now the situation haschanged, right, and we
(09:31):
understand a little bit betterwhat the longer term economic
situation is looking like,especially given the current
nature of uncertainty, and thatthat uncertainty is going to
continue for a prolonged periodof time.
And so that's what's changingthe calculus.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
They even mentioned in the article itself.
It was basically like it's await and see.
A lot of companies arecurrently in a.
They had a phrase for it and Ican't find it as I'm frantically
rereading it, but it was kindof like uh, let's see what
happens in 25.
That started to percolate innovember and it's obviously in
execution today, but theirhesitancy to hire and spend more
(10:11):
, I assume, will be curbed evenfurther by some of the economic
changes that are occurring.
As of recording of this podcast, april 7th 2025 2025.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, and I think you know a question for both of you
, right, bruce and Clark,because I think both of you have
are in or have been in thissituation.
Right?
Have you ever been in a hiring,you know, motion where you said
, look, this is the right person, this is the right person, I
want to fill this position.
I'm going to make them an offerand then they don't get hired
(10:43):
for a week, for two weeks, for amonth, right?
I mean, I'm sure you've seenthat, I know I've seen that as a
candidate, where I'm talking tothe manager and they're not
ghosting me.
They're still talking to me andthey're like we are still
trying to hire you for this role.
It's what we want you to.
You know, we want you here, wewant you to be doing this, but
(11:03):
right now HR is dragging theirfeet or the business hasn't
allocated the funds for the role, or whatever.
It is Right.
But you know, I'm assumingthat's happened to you Right At
some point, especially Clark, Iwould assume, given that he's at
a bigger corporation, that'sprobably happened, right.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think we've even hadsituations where we found
extremely good candidates thathave gone through and I felt
terrible about this, but thisdid happen.
They went through like fourdifferent interviews and we're
all were on the same page oflike, yeah, yeah, let's
absolutely do it.
And then we went on freeze andthe corporation's like, hey,
we're freezing all hiring forthe next two months.
I'm like we're going to losethis person.
Like this person's really good.
What do you mean?
We're going on a freeze, butit's because of the shifting
priorities that were happeningat the time.
It was post-COVID, so it wasn'tlike anything you know
(11:48):
surrounding COVID.
It just was due to I don't knowif it was the fiscal calendar,
the reassessment, looking at whowas being hired or which
departments were the mostcritical, but it absolutely
sucked because this person wasawesome and they ended up
finding another job which,hopefully, is working out for
them.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Hopefully it is working out for them.
But ultimately what I'm gettingat is like so I, like I say we
go through this right on aspectrum of they're doing
nothing wrong, and this is, Ithink, the best example of where
there's a quote unquote ghostjob, because it may not actually
be a ghost job or a frozen job,and it's probably something
like this, right?
So if we're going to give thecorporations the benefit of the
(12:23):
doubt, this is like maybe themost benign or non-insidious
reason why a job may be frozenor a ghost job.
Right, if you progress on downthe spectrum.
Right.
Then there is the idea that,man, I want to have a bench
ready to go of people that Iknow I can hire in, especially
(12:45):
if it's a high turnover role,and so maybe I'm going to just
keep a job posted so that Iconstantly have people applying,
so I can constantly interviewthem, and it's not because I
plan on wasting their time, it'sbecause I do probably want to
hire at some point, and I don'tknow when.
So I need to be ready to hirewhen I have a position come open
, and that's not as nice as thefirst one, but it's still not
(13:08):
completely evil either, becausethey still have the intent to
hire, right, the intent to hireis still there, and then you can
progress on down more insidiousones, right?
So another one could be thatthey're posting this job in an
effort to collect information.
So if you apply to a job, whatare you giving them?
You're giving them your resume,right, as part of that process,
and so now they learn a lotabout you, and not only that, so
(13:32):
they learn about the job marketas a whole, because they learn
who's applying for this job,what's their level of education,
what's the level of experience.
So what can I expect if I everdo need to hire?
And also, how's my competitiondoing?
If you're in an industry Ihappen to be in an industry
where there's like four, fivepredominant players, right, it's
very clear who they are,everybody knows them, and so if
(13:53):
I go looking for a job and acompetitor comes across my
resume, they get to understandhey, what's going on at Alex's
company, right?
And if I'm one of a dozenpeople, right, and so they could
be collecting that information,right.
And then the most evil is wherethere's never going to be a job
and they don't care about thecompetition.
(14:13):
But they're a data broker andthey're literally trying to mine
your information to be able tosell your information on or
market directly to you.
And the very last evil thing,it's probably not even the
corporation's fault.
Something that I've recentlygot in an email is scams,
literally like cyber crimes ofpeople saying, oh hey, about
that job you applied for.
(14:34):
It's like I didn't apply for ajob report spam, you know, and
so, uh, there's a huge spectrumof reasons that these things can
be happening, from relativelybenign to criminal and evil
right so I definitely don't likethe second half of that
spectrum.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
that's pretty crappy behavior.
What can people look for toavoid that second half?
And, like I do think thatthere's probably a way to ask
the question like you know, whenis this job looking to hire?
To kind of avoid that second,not so nefarious case of like
I'm trying to build a good bench, like I see value in that.
But I also see that as like youshould be upfront, like if
(15:15):
possible, be upfront with theperson and say, like you know,
we don't have a direct hire date, or this might be months out,
but we'd love to have moreconversations, but maybe they're
not up front about that.
How do you ask that questionwithout being nefarious?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
to see that the hiring managers at my company
tend to be upfront and I reallyappreciate that in terms of
culture for my company.
But I would argue the numberone thing you could do in
general overall, just constantlyis always build your network so
that you can talk to people whoare at the companies you're
applying for, and a lot of timesyou're not even looking for a
recommendation, you just want abarometer of how real is this
(15:58):
thing?
Right, where are we in theprocess?
And having an inside personthat's going to be able to feed
you some of that information,because realistically, the
information they'd be feedingyou back is not like proprietary
information or anything likethat.
It's not giving away companysecrets, it's just helping them
understand where in thebureaucracy they are.
And so networking is your numberone tool for finding a job.
Always, always, always, likeit's the one through 10, like
(16:23):
number one way to get a job isto network.
Um, every single job I'vegotten basically in the past I
don't know how long has I'vegotten because of my network.
This most recent job, arecruiter reached out, but the
reason I got the job and I gotan offer that I really welcomed
is because my network wasalready at that company and
spoke well of me, and so I wasvery fortunate for that.
So, number one network, right?
(16:45):
Number two would be if you havenobody on the inside, then, yeah
, try to ask probing questions.
See, like, hey, can we set upsome meetings so I can talk to
folks on your team and get avibe from them about what's
going on and then gently askquestions that it would help you
understand.
Is this real or not?
Right, like, hey, you knowwhat's happened recently on your
team that you guys are hiring,you know, did someone leave?
(17:08):
Are you growing?
Right, like, what's the reason?
Did someone get promoted?
Right, those are all legitquestions anyway.
Right, when you're just askingabout company culture.
But it can help inform hey, isthis, is this real?
Right, is this real?
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, One way to ask that question to you that I've
heard actually candidates ask me.
They'll say, hey, is this a newrole or is this one that's been
open for a while?
Like is someone just vacating itand like that's a fair question
, yeah, it's a great question,because it's like, oh, is this
like brand new, you know what'sthe reason for it being new?
And like that gets someoneexcited for kind of, hey, this
new, you know space that's openfor opportunity.
(17:43):
But then it also lets you knowno, actually the person left and
say, okay, you know, you tellme why?
Why do you think they they left?
Why did why?
Was this not a good fit forthem?
And they might not disclose allthat, but it's a really good
way to understand, know whetherthis role was recently vacated
or whether it's a newopportunity.
And the only other thing I'd addto that too, is if you want to
get a sense of what's going onthe inside.
I mean also look at, you know,certain anonymous forums, like
(18:06):
blind, like it is always up todate.
People are always posting aboutcompanies not every company,
but a lot of big companies areon there and you can actually
get a sense of, like, what isactually going on internally,
cause it's all anonymous and soit's really cool to look at that
, to be like, okay, what isactually going on, and hopefully
get somebody who's probably alittle more pessimistic to give
you some honest answers.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So that last bit is important, though, right Cause
you got to take blind with ahuge grain of salt.
That's that so I.
You know, for me it alwaysreminds me of like when I was in
tech support, like, especiallyeven when I was a manager in
tech support, and my employeeswould get so down and it's like,
man, our product stinks, andit's like, no, our product
doesn't stink.
You're seeing a subset of asubset of people interacting
(18:48):
with our product on their worstday, and so, yeah, they're
unhappy, but this is an anomaly,not the rule Right, not the
rule right.
And so, with blind, I would bemindful that the people who are
most likely to post on blind areself-selected folks that are
already ungruntled.
You don't get a lot of gruntledfolks hanging out on.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Blind is all I would say You've got to find a good
balance of gruntle, just ingeneral.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
your gruntle percentage is general, what
would you say your gruntalpercentage is?
I'm perfectly gruntal today andI love remembering that blind
exists.
I feel like it's always you,clark, that brings it up and I'm
like, yeah, that website ishere.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I really should look at it.
Then you go on it and you'relike, especially so.
I haven't found it extremelyuseful when I'm not looking for
work, but when I'm looking forwork I actually really enjoy it
because you kind of get a sense.
You know what is this companylike, what are people saying
about it?
To Alex's point, I think youreally do have to take it with a
grain of salt and realize theseare probably the people on the
higher level of the gruntalmeter and you want to make sure
that you keep that in mind whenyou're looking through it.
(19:52):
But it's a great tool, you know, know just to understand the
vibes of the company.
What kind of roles are going on, interview help.
You know there's a lot of thingsof like oh yeah, this is the se
level three second interviewquestion that you're going to
get.
It's like okay, cool, this isgood to know so I can start
prepping for this interview.
I want to go back.
I got, I got a question, so Iknow obviously I'm an ai purist,
(20:14):
apparently because I alwaysbring it up on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
But I'm curious Every time I can't get through one
without you, how much is AIaffecting these freezes?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
You know if people are truly able to be more
productive.
You know in so many differentrealms, you know in coding and
marketing and everything likethat how much is that affecting?
Oh, we actually don't need tohire because our team is
actually more productive.
Obviously, I know adoptioncurve for something like this is
going to take a really longtime at big enterprises to truly
get the value.
But I am curious.
(20:43):
We're in the biggesttechnological boom in our
lifetimes, for sure, and solooking at that and then looking
at what's going on with thepresidency and all that going on
as well, it's a weird contrastof things going on in our world
right now, where technology isadvancing so fast, making
everybody so much moreproductive, but at the same time
, you know companies can't hirelike crazy to take advantage of
(21:06):
those gains.
So just curious on yourthoughts.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, I would disagree in terms of my lifetime
, because I, you know, was anadult in the nineties, right or
approaching adulthood, and the90s were pretty revolutionary in
terms of technology.
But having said that, I knowthat your question is about AI
impacting productivity so that,in theory, the demand for
(21:29):
employment goes down right.
But the more sinister answer isthat AI makes it easier to
algorithmatize.
The ghost job game is what'sactually happening?
Because AI is a good sidekickfor now, but it's not replacing
full-time workers at the moment.
(21:49):
It's making them perhaps moreproductive, sure, but what it is
good at is creating words.
Right, that's literallygenerative.
Ai is making the next word, it'sguessing the next word in a
sentence, and so it's reallygood at figuring out hey, you
should post a job every two anda half months with these
requirements, and that's thebest way to maximize your media
(22:13):
attention that.
Hey, look, who's hiring, bigCorpo is hiring.
They've just opened up 5,000new positions, and so AI can
help you quickly deploy 5,000ghost jobs to make it look like
you're successful, which mightbe a really good thing to do.
I don't know, a week before youreport earnings and your stock
price is about to go up or down,right, get ahead of the news
(22:37):
cycle to go, you know, you know,up or down.
Right, I get ahead of the newscycle, right.
So ai is really good attricking humans, in my opinion,
in terms of making humans thinkthat other humans are doing
things, and and so I think thatit is affecting frozen and ghost
jobs, but not from thedirection that you're thinking.
I think it's making it easierto make more of this.
You know crap effectively andput it on linkedin and put it on
(22:59):
LinkedIn and put it on anyother job site that might be out
there, and that's, I think, thedownside right now.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Well, that's terrible .
Speaker 2 (23:05):
That hurts me.
The best way I have found tomake job descriptions is by
using AI.
I can only see how that canfurther facilitate Alex's point.
It's very good at it, which isfunny because I don't find it to
be very good at a lot of things, but it's very good at doing
job descriptions and making youknow job description related
(23:28):
assets and work.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
So and if you think about that angle if your first
interview is a chat interview oran email interview, right, it's
really good at doing that, andso the person that it's making
more efficient is the like, thesleazebag recruiter that doesn't
actually have a job but needsto look busy because that's
their metric, that they're beingmeasured on hilarious.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Do you guys see the news about the, the guy who
basically like hacked a bunch ofinterviews through like leak
code by having a automatedcomputer user and he cheated his
way through every interviewbecause no screen recorder could
detect it and then he basicallygot kicked out of his school.
I think it was like yale.
He got kicked out of school forbasically getting job offers at
all these colleges and thenexposing it and being like hey,
I cheated on all these.
Here's the software I built.
(24:19):
If you want to use it too, hereyou go, and it basically avoids
all of their kind of anti-AIcheating mechanisms and helped
him get a ton of crazy joboffers.
And, yeah, I got booted fromschool.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Crazy, yeah, I got to say though, I'm not anti-AI.
I want to be clear.
I'm also I want to be on therecord I'm not anti-recruiter
either.
I'm saying that those tools atthe moment, if they're going to
impact the ghost job, frozen jobsituation, they're more likely
to impact it from the point ofview of making the situation
(24:51):
worse, not necessarily impactingthe demand for laborers or
skilled workers not necessarilyimpacting the demand for
laborers or skilled workers.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, I say we.
We fight the power and we justkeep on ghost applying to jobs
with not real people and we justtake down their sites.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
We should build that next.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Sure, I kind of like this idea about like this is
kind of well, I mean.
So.
I mean here's the thing, right,like, if you do that, then it
kind of defeats the purpose ofthe AI and you have to remove
that piece from the equation andget back to a human being
talking to human beings in orderto figure out is this legit to
(25:33):
scale towards the company?
Because they're the ones thathave the jobs, they're the ones
that set the salary, there'sones that pay you at the end of
the day, but, like, that littleact of rebellion could be quite
good if pulled off appropriately, to kind of fight back against
this.
My question is actually dothings get better?
And I don't mean in the AIfront, I just mean in the hiring
(25:54):
front in general.
It definitely seems like and Ijust base this off my own metric
of how many recruiters reachout to me, or look at my
LinkedIn profile, which issignificantly less than it was
three years ago.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I was actually going to ask you post-check is it
better or?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
worse.
It's bad.
It's real bad.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
My resume has never looked better.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah, last six months for me, I've been getting
reached out to.
All the time.
I had three this week.
They were like hey, here's anopportunity, here's an
opportunity.
I'm like huh.
That's why all this is reallyinteresting, because I've had-.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Are they real?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
That's a good question.
I don't know and I have nointerest in finding out.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, the only outreach I've gotten has been
been very impersonal, obviouslyautomated.
And so I don't know if they'relazy recruiters, because I
normally I will respond torecruiters who send me
individualized messages.
I always respond even if I'mnot looking right.
I just let them know, hey, I'mnot looking.
But if you're serious aboutthat role, I can pass it on to
my friends.
(26:50):
They might be appropriatelyskilled for it as well.
Happy to help you out.
So anytime I get a, a realmessage, I respond to it like
that.
But of late I've gotten lessand what I've gotten has been
automated trash.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Interesting.
So that just proves exactlywhat we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Anyways, back to your question yeah, I mean, well,
with that pulse check, is itgoing to get?
I mean this this obviouslycertifies what the article says.
You know, we've all threeexperienced the same thing the
article saying that there's justless and less jobs out there
for folks in corporate.
Do we pull out of this, or isthis the new normal going
forward that people just have toget used to?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
out of this?
Or is this the new normal goingforward that people just have
to get used to?
Yeah, I mean, it comes incycles, right?
So there's no reason we can'tpull out of it in theory.
In practice it's going torequire a period of stability,
all right, and right now wedon't have that.
I don't know when or if we'llhave a period of stability again
.
I would assume we will again atsome point in the long arc of
history.
Everything repeats, right, butfor now I just don't see where
(27:51):
the stability comes from, anduntil that happens it's just
really hard to make predictionson a large scale.
And so large scale hiring, likewe saw during the pandemic.
I don't see that happeninganytime soon.
It'll be far more tactical asopposed to strategic, I would
argue.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Well, and I do feel like that's a little bit.
Oh, go ahead, Clark.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
No, no, I was going to go in a different direction,
so if you want to wrap that, I'mgoing to go pick us somewhere
else.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Okay.
So I was going to say I thinkthat the pandemic created a
really bad false expectation forthings, which probably didn't
help either, because it was justopen season Anyone could go
anywhere, everything was remote,it was great.
Open season Anyone could goanywhere.
Everything was remote, it wasgreat.
And then return to officehappened for a lot of folks, or
hybrid work happened, which verymuch locked down the ability to
job freely anywhere.
(28:37):
That was a little bit of afalse set of expectations, I
think, especially for a lot ofpeople entering the workforce.
That also was not normal at alland it does feel like the
pendulum has swung completely inthe opposite direction.
But I would love to find amiddle, a good middle, so we
could actually know what thatwork looks like.
(28:57):
But it just seems like in myhistory of working in corporate
it's always been on the verge ofa recession.
The corporation we're at isgoing through some kind of
merger, acquisition, separation,like I've never seen a normal
year, and I would just love toknow what a normal year looks
like.
But, clark, what's your point?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
No, I think I'm right there with you.
It does feel like, at least inthe arc of our careers, it
definitely has not been stableat any point, where it's like
we're just riding this out, andI think it's just the system of
our environment, the companieswe were at, everything like that
.
But yeah, it certainly doesfeel that way.
I was going to say how much ofthis is because people are
starting their own businesses.
They're just like screwcorporate, I'm going to do my
(29:39):
own thing and the reason I bringthis up and I always go back to
this.
But, alex, you told us about areally interesting channel, how
money works and it basicallythey recently had an episode
about like how poor people arestarting businesses and
corporations hate it, and Ithink the whole notion was
around like small business loansare easier than ever to get and
people are basically just goingand starting businesses because
now, with technology, they havethe ability to do things
(30:00):
they've never really been ableto do before.
So how much of this freeze iskind of the lower, I guess
smaller businesses that arestarting to actually boom in the
amount of people creating thembecause they can't and they're
kind of sick of corporate.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, if I had to guess, very nominal.
And the reason is the vastmajority of people are risk
averse and starting a businessis incredibly risky.
So if I had to guess, it's anominal impact in terms of the
(30:36):
what normal looks like.
I can tell you, um, I've beenlike filing a w-2 since 1994, so
um, been a long time right, andI can tell you that this boom
bust cycle thing has always beenpart of it, and so you know,
you had the dot-com boom in thelate 90s and then you had the
bust right in the 2000, like2001, 2000, 2001 bust.
Then you had another big boomthe real estate bubble, right,
and that popped in 2007, 2008,right.
(30:59):
And then you had a cycle, avery prolonged cycle prior to
COVID, of very low interestrates, and that's what allowed a
lot of startups to happen,right, because money was cheap
and so you could borrow verycheaply.
And so, if anything, whathappened is you did get used to
a normal, you just didn'trealize it.
(31:19):
But for the 2010s you had thisquote unquote normal of either
zero or close to zero interestrates, and growth was number one
all the time, everywhere.
And so, and additionally, atthe same time, you had China
producing cheaper and cheaperthings that were constantly
being fed to us.
So consumerism was easier andgetting high paying employment
(31:43):
was easier on account of cheapmoney for corporations.
And so COVID, through eramonkey wrench and all of that,
it just made things really weirdfor a while, like huge dip and
then a huge growth, you know forfor a while, and that led to a
lot of inflation because of allthe money that was being pumped
into the system, and now we werestarting to level off.
And now we're getting anothershock to the system with tariffs
(32:05):
right, significant across theboard.
Tariffs applied more or lessindiscriminately, and I think
that's the challenge.
I think tariffs in and ofthemselves do have a place in
the economy.
I want to be clear.
There's a reason that mostnations had tariffs before
Donald Trump even ran for office.
So even before 2016, you hadplenty of nations that had
tariffs going on around theworld.
(32:26):
In fact, you had anorganization, the World Trade
Organization, the WTO that wasbuilt to help manage disputes
about tariffs between nations,and so now we've since pulled
out of that, and that wasactually a bipartisan effort,
believe it or not.
That wasn't just Donald Trump.
Biden approved this.
Obama was already trying topull out of it even before
Donald Trump got elected.
(32:46):
And so, because we were havingissues with China, dumping on us
.
And if you're not familiar withwhat I'm talking about, dumping
is not like slang.
I'm not saying like, oh, chinawas nagging us.
Dumping is where you sellsomething for below the cost to
produce it.
So that's an economic,technical term.
If you took macroeconomics inhigh school or college, you
(33:07):
already know the term.
But at any rate, we wanted toprotest that because it's
basically they were able to doit because the government was
subsidizing their industries soheavily and so it created an
unfair trade imbalance.
But at any rate, that happenedfor a long time.
(33:29):
Corporate, from a corporateperspective that you grew up
with, was that environment ofconstant, unlimited growth.
Right now you're seeing areturn to a more normal where,
instead of 12 years ofunprecedented growth, you have a
cycle that's more, um, you know, three, three to five years
where you're having boom andbusts, which was the norm for
decades prior to thatunprecedented growth of the
teens.
So I mean, change is the onlyconstant in life in general.
(33:55):
But I would argue that thewhiplash you're feeling right
now you know that's somethingthat you should probably get
used to, because it's notunusual in the grand scheme of
history and it's probably goingto be the norm for a while.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So what do we need to look at when it comes to
maximizing our ability to takeadvantage of the swings Like how
do we know when we're out ofthe dump times and I don't mean
that in the macroeconomic sense,but like in the toilet sense
versus when it's time to go lookfor jobs, go apply, go hire,
take advantage of this situation, go apply, go hire, take
(34:29):
advantage of this situation.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, this is something where from that lens,
specifically because I couldtalk about how to maximize from
an investment point of view,like when to buy property, when
to buy equities, all that stuff,but just from an employment
point of view, I would arguethat what you should always be
doing is, like I said, numberone, two, three, four, five grow
your network Always, always,always, always, always.
(34:50):
It is the number one way you'regoing to get a job.
I just had a friend potentiallyinterested in switching over to
being a sales engineer and Isaid, hey, I can get you some
FaceTime with some folks overhere at my company, which
normally speaking would be verydifficult to do, just getting
through the algorithm right.
Not because my company is likebad or anything, but just in
general it's hard to get throughthe automated systems right.
(35:13):
So, network number one, always.
Number two make yourself ashireable as possible.
I think if you're specializedas a unitasker, you're going to
be vulnerable if the unitaskthat you're good at becomes
deprecated in some way, shape orform in the economy, and so
having a wide array of skills isgoing to be valuable, being
(35:35):
capable to learn quickly, right,that skill never goes away in
terms of value.
But I had friends for a longtime.
Like I said, I was in techsupport for quite a few years
and I remember people in techsupport were always afraid their
job was going to go away, butat the same time, they
criticized me when I decided togo into sales to become a sales
(35:56):
engineer.
They're like oh, that sounds sorisky.
Talk about risk-averse folks.
That sounds so risky.
And I'm like really you thinkit's risky, because how are they
going to outsource my job toIndia?
And you're worried about youbeing outsourced all the time.
That's like the sword ofDamocles hanging over your head
that you're worried about.
And I'm not worried about that.
(36:16):
Right, going into sales.
And on top of that, if salesdoesn't work out, what can I do?
I can go back and get a techsupport job, right, so it's not
that big of a deal, right?
If I become a manager, they'relike, oh, managers are always
the first to go.
And it's like sure, but now Ihave management experience.
Right, if I get into marketing?
Right, All my sales engineeringfriends were like you're going
(36:36):
to marketing, marketing is thefirst thing to go whenever
there's a recession, right, andI said sure, but now I have
experience doing this as well,and so if I need to get a job, I
have so many outs right Versusif you're a uni tasker and the
economy tanks in your role, Imean it could be very difficult
to find employment again veryquickly, whereas you know, the
(36:59):
more flexible you are, the morelikely you are to be able to
bounce back quickly and the moreoptions you're going to have in
terms of promotion and otheravenues of career advancement.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah, makes sense.
What would you say to, I guess,what would our recommendations
be?
Someone had to take somethingaway of like well, I'm in this
situation right now.
I'm, you know, looking to exiteither my current job, find a
new job, I'm looking to exit,startup my own business for a
while.
What would the recommendationbe?
Is it like hold strong, youknow, stay where you're at for a
little while till thingsstabilize and then, you know,
(37:30):
look at opportunity?
Or is it always just keep yourdoor open, keep on looking, and
to your point earlier, you knowyou could be kind of wasting
your time working for theseopportunities that don't
actually exist.
What do you guys think?
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I mean, I know for me .
I say I personally choose toalways bet on myself, and so I'm
willing to go in for what onthe surface appears to be a
riskier proposition if it meansadvancement for me.
Now, having said that, right, Ido, it is a calculated risk, I
do weigh the pros and cons andall that, but I would not let
(38:05):
the macroeconomic conditionsaffect my microeconomic career
decisions is what I would tellyou.
And so if you have a goodopportunity, it doesn't matter
what the economy is, and by goodopportunity, what I mean is an
opportunity that's going to growyour career or just make you
happier, right Bet on yourself.
Bet on yourself to be happier,bet on yourself to grow right,
(38:28):
regardless of the macro state,is my personal advice.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I like that, yeah, so it's taking a hard look at.
Yeah, what is your riskadversity what's your personal
situation now and how much riskcan you tolerate in making that
decision?
And, to your point, don't leaveyour sure thing unless it's a
really bad situation, until youhave kind of the next thing
because that's going to hurt.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
You don't leave your sure thing unless it's a really
bad situation until you havekind of the next thing, because
that's going to hurt.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
You.
Don't put yourself in a reallybad spot.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah, just look at it like you could wait right for a
decade for the economy to bejust right for you to take that
leap, and then maybe thathappens in 10 years.
But you just waste the 10 yearsin an obviously not ideal
situation.
And so the one thing you have alimited supply of, any way you
slice it, is time.
You have infinite ability toexpand your career in general
(39:17):
within the frames of time, buttime itself you can't get back.
And so every day, every week,every month that goes by in a
job you hate or in a job that'snot taking advantage of
everything you can bring to thetable, would argue, is time
wasted I love that flip that,flip that.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Some motivation right there yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
I also just wanted one double down.
I'm gonna double the heck downon, uh, the.
Don't be a unit tasker or aunit, a unit unit master of your
, of your domain.
What you should be isgeneralize.
Generalize as much as you canin as many different sort of
corporate ways as you can Love.
That.
It's worked for me, it's workedfor Alex, it's worked for Clark
(39:58):
.
I think it's a very, veryimportant tip.
So I'm just saying it louderfor the people in the back.
My actual tip would be oneobviously, time is always the
enemy enemy.
You're only going to get older,time's going to pass if you're
not getting paid.
That's not a good thing.
So go in with the reasonableexpectations.
We talked a lot on this podcastabout cac culture, autonomy,
(40:21):
challenge, compensation, right,like sometimes, compensation
takes a hit for you to be at aplace where you have the culture
, the autonomy and the challengethat you like, but a few years
or even a year at a place whereyou have the culture or the
autonomy and the challenge thatyou like, but a few years or
even a year at a place thatmaybe doesn't pay so well, is a
good gap filler versus justlooking and looking and looking
and not bringing in any income,not building up any of your
skills, not advancing yourselfpersonally.
(40:44):
Don't be a choosing beggar.
Right Like take what you canfind.
If you can find something good,and understand that better
times will be around the cornerand you can go for those jobs
when they're there.
But if you've got a betterresume, it makes it so much
easier for you to get in.
So do not limit yourself todaybecause of what you think you
can get tomorrow.
And also understand that, like,when times are bad, you know
(41:06):
it's statistically bad foreveryone, so you're not alone.
Don are bad, you know it'sstatistically bad for everyone,
so you're not alone.
Don't feel like the universe issingling you out.
Everyone is in this, this cycletogether and you know,
sometimes just open up to yournetwork, ask the question, see
if other people are feeling thesame way you do, because I
guarantee you're not alone greattips.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
That's it, you know.
Last words of wisdom, alex no,I just want.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Oh, one more thing I want to echo, because a triple
down on what Bruce just saidyeah, yeah, is this the triple
down economic?
The triple Triple down?
I've taken a pay cut multipletimes in my career to get to
where I wanted to be.
It's like sacrificing a pawn totake a queen right, and it's
worked out for me at every time.
(41:49):
Now it's not going to work outfor everyone all the time,
because your results may vary,blah, blah, blah.
Legal disclaimer, right.
But ultimately I have taken apay cut a few times in my career
and in every single instance itpaid off significantly in the
long run, both in terms of meliking what I do and just
financially.
So I think so many times peopleworry about what they're losing
(42:10):
versus what they can gain now.
So I'll give you an example.
Right, I know someone who waslike, oh man, I'm going to have
to earn a lot more money to giveup the four day work week I
have right now.
They really like working for 10hour shifts, right, and it's
like, man, I'd have to get somuch money to do that.
And it's like, okay, look if,if this is like the hill, you're
going to die on that four daywork week means everything to
(42:33):
your quality of life.
I respect that.
You should keep it, then, butlike, don't ask me to talk you
out of that.
Right, like I'm not, you know.
Like no one is going to bendover backwards to make it so
that like, hey, you're going towork five days but you're going
to love it because we're givingyou a million dollars more a
year.
Right, like you have to decidewhat's more important to you.
Is it progression in adirection or is it keeping
(42:55):
certain quality of life, balance, things that you have?
And there's no right or wronganswer.
By the way, the only way tofigure out what the right answer
is for you to figure out whatthe right answer is for you as
an individual.
So there isn't one clear cut,correct answer.
But I would not worry aboutwhat I'm losing so much, as is
what I would gain.
Worth taking the dive?
(43:16):
Right Like, worth taking therisk, and if the answer is yes,
then I think you should take itseriously.
That's what I would argue.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Couldn't have said it better, Even if I quadrupled
down on it.
I could try, but quad up.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
I quad up in a soft manner.
I'm not going to add anythingto it, I'm just going to quad up
to say I agree, is that legal?
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I don't know, but for whatever reason, quadding up
seems icky to me.
I really don't like it.
I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I feel like you're going to get creatine if you're
going to quad up, you know like,yeah, you're one step away from
full-blown juicing.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah Listen, I don't quadruple down, I quadruple up,
quad up, leg day.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Never skip it.
Oh boy, what happened?
Well, you know, I think on thatnote it's not a better note to
close it out on.
So, uh, as always, thanks,squid boy, for bringing the
topic.
Uh, we don't have any memesthis week, sadly.
Uh, do shout outs, though, toalex again for bringing the
absolute banger of a meme we gotlast week.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
That was pure fire uh , I haven't listened to the
episode to release today.
Sorry, I gotta listen to it.
No, don't.
No, alex, I gotta, I gotta saythis you're really gonna hate it
, so don't listen.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
I the episode that released today.
Sorry, I got to listen to it,no, don't.
No, alex, I got to say thisYou're really going to hate it,
so don't listen to that part.
I hope you're ready fordisappointment.
Just set your expectation levelreally, really low, please, and
don't judge me after that's all.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I ask I'm just going to zoom ahead to the what do you
meme?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
I just want to hear you found nuggets of knowledge
in this episode.
Please make a meme of somethingalex said specifically and uh
post it in that chat.
Uh, we're still looking on.
We're on the hunt for thoseembarrassing stories.
So, uh, go to the is it mirroras a corporate channel and use
forward, slash, confess and postyour embarrassing stories there
.
And if you're wondering, well,how the heck do I do any of this
?
You got to join the discordopen.
Open up your show notes, clickthe link tree and inside of
there, click join the Discord.
(45:13):
Super simple.
Couldn't make it any easier.
If we tried, clark, what elseis there to do?
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Well, we're still at a funding podcast or funding
podcast fundraiser to try to getPepsi man.
No one's bought a single babyonesie in a year and I'm really
disappointed in everybody.
You're having children, I knowyou are.
Buy the baby onesie.
I'm going to go in and buy ababy onesie for a friend who
just had a baby, because someoneneeds to buy one and that's
going to go towards Pepsi man.
(45:39):
So you can go to our website,you can buy me a coffee.
You can go to our store.
You can get our merchandise.
You can get have a child.
Send somebody you love, even ifthey don't have a child, a baby
onesie.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
There's no better gift to arrive in the mail than
an unmarked onesie for a childthat says corporate strategy.
It's a really great way to makethe spouse feel.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
We love Bruce and Clark, is that like the
corporate equivalent ofscentclowncom?
Speaker 3 (46:06):
Yes, oh my God, yes, it is.
That's incredible.
That might.
Yes, oh my God, yes, it isthat's incredible.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
That might be a good business idea.
I'm just going to throw thatone out there.
If you want to support the show, you can do that.
You can buy us a coffee, youcan do that all on the link tree
.
And if you don't want to do anyof these things, then all we
ask is that you share the podwith your friends.
That's really how we grow.
Share it with the friends, jointhe Discord, join the
conversation, because we'redoing this for the love of
helping others and the love ofjust doing it.
(46:33):
So thanks, as always, forlistening and do share broadly.
Thanks one more time to ourvery special, always returning
guest, mr Alex Estrepo.
I just spit when I said yourname.
I'm so sorry, but I feel worsefor the microphone.
You're our Capitalscorrespondent.
You're our rock, you're ourstone.
You keep us on track.
Thank you, as always forjoining us.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Alex, Happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Sewn by hand.
I learned something today, andI hope you did too.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Great, I learned something every day.
I don't know if it's useful ornot, but I do learn.
It's one of the few skills Istill have.
You know what I think?
That's it.
We're going to pin tuple upthis episode right out of here,
but until next time I'm Bruceand I'm Clark and you're on mute
We'll sex tuple you next week.
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