August 20, 2025 • 8 mins
In this episode of The Hiring Edge, host Josh Matthews brings on Salesforce architect and founder of the People First Method, Jon Cline. This isn’t your typical tech talk — Jon breaks down how soft skills like empathy, communication, and collaboration are the real power plays in the tech world.
He shares a powerful transformation story of Serena, a military spouse who went from jobless and discouraged to landing a major role and leading projects — all by shifting how she showed up in interviews and on teams.
They unpack:
- Why most tech projects fail (and it’s not about the tech).
- The mindset shift that drives career breakthroughs.
- How simple tools like process diagrams can become leadership assets.
- Why “go-givers” win long term over “go-getters.”
🚨 LIMITED OFFER: Use code shared in the podcast at PeopleFirstMethod.com to get 50% OFF the next cohort — only 12 spots available. Starts in September.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Hiring Edge, the podcast helping
leaders navigate the age of AI,create teams that thrive and
build a workplace people neverwant to leave.
I'm your host, josh Matthews.
Today we have John Klein.
John Klein is a friend.
He's also an incredibly giftedSalesforce architect and he is
the founder of People FirstMethod, and some of you who've
(00:21):
been tracking the show for atleast the last eight or nine
months will know that we had anamazing giveaway last year.
John donated $60,000 worth offree education and leadership
training to an entire cohort ofwhat was then called the
Salesforce Career Show and whatyou now know as the Hiring Edge.
(00:41):
Why don't you talk for a momentabout People First Method?
What's the 20-second breakdownof what you guys do over there?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, thanks so much for the opportunity.
It's been such a greatexperience walking this journey
with these 12 people.
In a nutshell, we help turnsoft skills into hard money for
tech professionals.
Most people lead with techcertifications.
We recognize the top threereasons why projects fail are
all non-technical in nature, sowe want to help people have more
(01:12):
success.
More promotions, more growth.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Maybe you can share what were some of the results
for this cohort.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
What I loved about this cohort and it's really just
representative of your audienceis it was a really good
spectrum, a really diverse setof people, a lot of different
backgrounds and a lot ofdifferent experience.
Everything from one to twoyears experience all the way up
to 12 plus years experience.
A lot of different backgrounds.
We had people from the UK, fromCanada, from India, from the US
(01:44):
, across all three time zones.
Really great to see the levelof diversity that's in your
audience and that we were ableto serve.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Can we talk about our friend who hadn't worked for
two years and suddenly foundherself in an incredible role
with a New York-based company?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Essentially, when we began with Serena at the
beginning, she was reallystruggling with confidence and
I'm not saying anything that shewouldn't say herself.
If you go to her LinkedInprofile, she's already mentioned
all of this.
Every week she actually posts.
So for her she really had somechallenges with confidence
because she had applied to many,many I think upwards of 50
(02:27):
different roles over the manymonths and it's so difficult to
be ghosted, to figure out likewhat am I going to do, how to
stay motivated?
And certainly she's also amilitary family, so she's got
other stresses, so she's gotother stresses.
It was amazing to see her, weekafter week, just invest and
become more and more confident,have poise.
(02:49):
And really what she mentionedis, even as she went in to do
these interviews on these newpositions, the whole vernacular
and focus of what it was thatshe was going to talk about.
She wasn't going to go throughand mention all of the checklist
items from a particulartechnical project, the things
that she highlighted and shesaid I'm going to go in, I'm
(03:14):
going to talk about empathy andI'm going to talk about
enlisting others in thesolutions that I drive and I'm
going to talk about how toresolve conflict and avoid those
massive risk factors thatimpact project success.
She had a totally differenttalk track when she was entering
those interviews and it reallyjust reflected in a revised and
refined really a vantage point,a whole perspective about what
(03:35):
is a project and how do wemeasure success.
Well, and I think one attributethat she demonstrates well is
she's a go-giver.
A lot of people they feel thatthey need to be go-getters,
which sometimes can be a netloss to other people, but she's
a go-giver Even in our cohorts.
Every week she would be thefirst one to post on Slack to
say, hey, here's our reflectionquestions for the week.
(03:56):
Here are my answers.
Let's process these together.
Let's maximize our benefit fromthis as a cohort together.
On the calls, she's encouragingpeople.
She's creating an environmentwhere people can be vulnerable
and transparent about the rutsthat are holding them back in
their professional careers.
So no doubt she would go intothis.
And now, from what I understand, we just ended our cohort last
(04:18):
week and she was highlightedthat she's become a leader
within her organization.
She's now taken on multipleprojects and being relied on and
depended on in thisorganization to do really
extraordinary things, and it'sjust wonderful to see how she's
been able to really stand upfirm, strong and confident in
this role and really level up inher career.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So I'm kind of curious when you think about the
people in the cohort who haveachieved the most out of the
system, the most out of theprogram.
What are the qualities thatpeople walked in the door with
that helped them to be the toptwo, top three, top four people
in the whole cohort or get themost out of it?
(05:03):
Maybe you can share that realquick.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That's a good question.
Get the most out of it.
Maybe you can share that realquick.
That's a good question.
First, I think what wehighlighted with Serena, that
others also exhibited, is thatsense of I'm here to make an
investment, I'm here to givesomething that is going to
reciprocate and give mesomething back, that there's not
a sense that I'm here to justbe a consumer.
I'm going to wait until thedish is served to me and then
(05:29):
I'll eat it, and if it's late orit's not coming, I'm just going
to sit here and wait, butrather I'm going to participate
and make sure that my questionsget answered, that I'm engaging
other people, that I'm doing mybest to provide the highest
value, the highest presence, thebest kind of mindful engagement
I can in this process and giveit requisite time, because
(05:53):
changing our behavior is reallyhard.
It's not like binging trailheadand just having something to
memorize or to refer to later.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
What level of engagement are people taking
from the course and from thistraining and actually utilizing
it and applying it in theirregular lives.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
They're slowly changing over time in this kind
of peer environment, I thinkvery quickly people realized
that they were in new territory,that they were in kind of
uncharted waters and though theymay have heard, for example,
some of the terminology thatwe're talking about for example,
who hasn't heard of a processdiagram?
But we take something thatseems ordinary like a process
(06:35):
diagram, and through thatpeople-first vision we turn it
into something extraordinary asa recon device, as an ability to
align and motivate peopletowards a particular direction.
We show them how to useordinary tools, much like one is
going to use an ordinarypickaxe in the right way to mine
gold.
It's not the pickaxe thatdiscovers the gold right, it's
(06:59):
the person who recognizes how touse a simple tool in an
extraordinary way.
So they realized this very soonand I think that was very
motivating.
It created an appetite thatthey knew, no matter what we
were going to discuss.
Something is seemingly mundane,like a test plan, for example,
or a deployment plan.
We go over these aspects asways of communicating value and
(07:22):
demonstrating it and making itvisible to the client right,
ensuring that there's no risk ifyou happen to move away or it
can't work on the project nextweek.
You're ensuring that the showwill go on.
There's all these otherbenefits that people recognized
weren't things that they werethinking of or had actually ever
heard about.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So everybody, john has a code for you If you want
to get 50% off of the PeopleFirst Method for the next cohort
it starts in September.
That's $2,400 off the entirecourse.
This is only available to thefirst 12 people who sign up.
That sign up code is HiringEdge, so you'll see on
PeopleFirstMethodcom when you goto register you can just enter
(08:05):
in HiringEdge.
You'll get half off and someincredible results.
You've had 12, 14 people gothrough the last cohort.
I was able to place two of themand I didn't even know that
they were part of the cohort atthe time because I'm terrible
with names, as most of you guysknow.
John, I can't thank you enoughfor being on the show.
You're always welcome here.
What you do over at PeopleFirst Method is nothing short of
(08:27):
absolutely incredible.
You are one of the most unique,high EQ people I've ever met in
my life.
You are so appreciated in thisecosystem and certainly
appreciated by me and by myaudience.
Thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
My pleasure, so glad to help, and thanks for the
opportunity.
Welcome to the Hiring Edge, the podcast helping
leaders navigate the age of AI,create teams that thrive and
build a workplace people neverwant to leave.
I'm your host, josh Matthews.
Today we have John Klein.
John Klein is a friend.
He's also an incredibly giftedSalesforce architect and he is
the founder of People FirstMethod, and some of you who've
(00:21):
been tracking the show for atleast the last eight or nine
months will know that we had anamazing giveaway last year.
John donated $60,000 worth offree education and leadership
training to an entire cohort ofwhat was then called the
Salesforce Career Show and whatyou now know as the Hiring Edge.
(00:41):
Why don't you talk for a momentabout People First Method?
What's the 20-second breakdownof what you guys do over there?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, thanks so much for the opportunity.
It's been such a greatexperience walking this journey
with these 12 people.
In a nutshell, we help turnsoft skills into hard money for
tech professionals.
Most people lead with techcertifications.
We recognize the top threereasons why projects fail are
all non-technical in nature, sowe want to help people have more
(01:12):
success.
More promotions, more growth.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Maybe you can share what were some of the results
for this cohort.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
What I loved about this cohort and it's really just
representative of your audienceis it was a really good
spectrum, a really diverse setof people, a lot of different
backgrounds and a lot ofdifferent experience.
Everything from one to twoyears experience all the way up
to 12 plus years experience.
A lot of different backgrounds.
We had people from the UK, fromCanada, from India, from the US
(01:44):
, across all three time zones.
Really great to see the levelof diversity that's in your
audience and that we were ableto serve.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Can we talk about our friend who hadn't worked for
two years and suddenly foundherself in an incredible role
with a New York-based company?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Essentially, when we began with Serena at the
beginning, she was reallystruggling with confidence and
I'm not saying anything that shewouldn't say herself.
If you go to her LinkedInprofile, she's already mentioned
all of this.
Every week she actually posts.
So for her she really had somechallenges with confidence
because she had applied to many,many I think upwards of 50
(02:27):
different roles over the manymonths and it's so difficult to
be ghosted, to figure out likewhat am I going to do, how to
stay motivated?
And certainly she's also amilitary family, so she's got
other stresses, so she's gotother stresses.
It was amazing to see her, weekafter week, just invest and
become more and more confident,have poise.
(02:49):
And really what she mentionedis, even as she went in to do
these interviews on these newpositions, the whole vernacular
and focus of what it was thatshe was going to talk about.
She wasn't going to go throughand mention all of the checklist
items from a particulartechnical project, the things
that she highlighted and shesaid I'm going to go in, I'm
(03:14):
going to talk about empathy andI'm going to talk about
enlisting others in thesolutions that I drive and I'm
going to talk about how toresolve conflict and avoid those
massive risk factors thatimpact project success.
She had a totally differenttalk track when she was entering
those interviews and it reallyjust reflected in a revised and
refined really a vantage point,a whole perspective about what
(03:35):
is a project and how do wemeasure success.
Well, and I think one attributethat she demonstrates well is
she's a go-giver.
A lot of people they feel thatthey need to be go-getters,
which sometimes can be a netloss to other people, but she's
a go-giver Even in our cohorts.
Every week she would be thefirst one to post on Slack to
say, hey, here's our reflectionquestions for the week.
(03:56):
Here are my answers.
Let's process these together.
Let's maximize our benefit fromthis as a cohort together.
On the calls, she's encouragingpeople.
She's creating an environmentwhere people can be vulnerable
and transparent about the rutsthat are holding them back in
their professional careers.
So no doubt she would go intothis.
And now, from what I understand, we just ended our cohort last
(04:18):
week and she was highlightedthat she's become a leader
within her organization.
She's now taken on multipleprojects and being relied on and
depended on in thisorganization to do really
extraordinary things, and it'sjust wonderful to see how she's
been able to really stand upfirm, strong and confident in
this role and really level up inher career.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So I'm kind of curious when you think about the
people in the cohort who haveachieved the most out of the
system, the most out of theprogram.
What are the qualities thatpeople walked in the door with
that helped them to be the toptwo, top three, top four people
in the whole cohort or get themost out of it?
(05:03):
Maybe you can share that realquick.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That's a good question.
Get the most out of it.
Maybe you can share that realquick.
That's a good question.
First, I think what wehighlighted with Serena, that
others also exhibited, is thatsense of I'm here to make an
investment, I'm here to givesomething that is going to
reciprocate and give mesomething back, that there's not
a sense that I'm here to justbe a consumer.
I'm going to wait until thedish is served to me and then
(05:29):
I'll eat it, and if it's late orit's not coming, I'm just going
to sit here and wait, butrather I'm going to participate
and make sure that my questionsget answered, that I'm engaging
other people, that I'm doing mybest to provide the highest
value, the highest presence, thebest kind of mindful engagement
I can in this process and giveit requisite time, because
(05:53):
changing our behavior is reallyhard.
It's not like binging trailheadand just having something to
memorize or to refer to later.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
What level of engagement are people taking
from the course and from thistraining and actually utilizing
it and applying it in theirregular lives.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
They're slowly changing over time in this kind
of peer environment, I thinkvery quickly people realized
that they were in new territory,that they were in kind of
uncharted waters and though theymay have heard, for example,
some of the terminology thatwe're talking about for example,
who hasn't heard of a processdiagram?
But we take something thatseems ordinary like a process
(06:35):
diagram, and through thatpeople-first vision we turn it
into something extraordinary asa recon device, as an ability to
align and motivate peopletowards a particular direction.
We show them how to useordinary tools, much like one is
going to use an ordinarypickaxe in the right way to mine
gold.
It's not the pickaxe thatdiscovers the gold right, it's
(06:59):
the person who recognizes how touse a simple tool in an
extraordinary way.
So they realized this very soonand I think that was very
motivating.
It created an appetite thatthey knew, no matter what we
were going to discuss.
Something is seemingly mundane,like a test plan, for example,
or a deployment plan.
We go over these aspects asways of communicating value and
(07:22):
demonstrating it and making itvisible to the client right,
ensuring that there's no risk ifyou happen to move away or it
can't work on the project nextweek.
You're ensuring that the showwill go on.
There's all these otherbenefits that people recognized
weren't things that they werethinking of or had actually ever
heard about.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So everybody, john has a code for you If you want
to get 50% off of the PeopleFirst Method for the next cohort
it starts in September.
That's $2,400 off the entirecourse.
This is only available to thefirst 12 people who sign up.
That sign up code is HiringEdge, so you'll see on
PeopleFirstMethodcom when you goto register you can just enter
(08:05):
in HiringEdge.
You'll get half off and someincredible results.
You've had 12, 14 people gothrough the last cohort.
I was able to place two of themand I didn't even know that
they were part of the cohort atthe time because I'm terrible
with names, as most of you guysknow.
John, I can't thank you enoughfor being on the show.
You're always welcome here.
What you do over at PeopleFirst Method is nothing short of
(08:27):
absolutely incredible.
You are one of the most unique,high EQ people I've ever met in
my life.
You are so appreciated in thisecosystem and certainly
appreciated by me and by myaudience.
Thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
My pleasure, so glad to help, and thanks for the
opportunity.
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