The Great Divide

https://youtu.be/TpSlJ8JpwY8

The Job Market Split in Two: Why Hiring Feels Broken for Everyone

In this episode of Culture Conversations, Megan Robinson sits down with AI talent operations leader and executive coach David Camacho to examine a contradiction that is frustrating job seekers and employers alike:

Qualified people are spending months looking for work while organizations leave important roles open because they cannot find the right candidate.

The problem is not simply a lack of jobs or a lack of talent. The U.S. labor market has quietly split in two, and the systems used to connect people with opportunities are struggling to keep up.

David challenges both leaders and job seekers to look beyond broad headlines, rethink what valuable talent looks like, and rebuild the human connection that technology cannot replace.

Tease Key Insights

The Job Market Is Not One Market

National employment figures can hide major differences by region, industry, role, and level. A low headline unemployment rate does not explain why an experienced professional may remain in the market for months or why an employer can receive thousands of applications and still struggle to hire.

Technology Has Magnified an Outdated Hiring Process

AI can help candidates apply faster and employers screen at scale, but speed does not create trust. When modern technology is layered onto an archaic process built around resumes and job descriptions, both sides gain more volume without necessarily gaining better validation.

Your Next Career Move Is a Marketing and Sales Campaign

A resume is no longer enough to carry a job search. David argues that candidates must understand their most valuable skills, show evidence of the outcomes they can create, build genuine relationships, and become comfortable initiating conversations with decision-makers.

Why This Matters

Hiring is not only an employer problem, and finding work is not only a candidate problem. Both sides are trying to answer the same underlying question: Can I trust that this person, role, or organization will deliver what it promises?

As roles consolidate and teams become leaner, employers increasingly value people who can manage projects, think critically, understand products, adapt to new technology, and apply sound judgment across traditional job boundaries.

That makes the most human parts of work more important, not less. Creativity, discernment, communication, curiosity, and authentic connection are what allow people to direct technology rather than be reduced to the tasks it can automate.

The people who stand out will not be the ones who apply to the most jobs. They will be the ones who can clearly communicate where they create value, support that claim with evidence, and reach the people who need that value.

Listen Now

This conversation offers a candid and practical perspective for job seekers, hiring leaders, recruiters, and executives trying to make sense of a labor market that often seems to contradict itself.

Take a listen to the full episode and reflect on this:

Are you relying on the traditional hiring process—or creating the human connection that helps the right people find one another?

David Camacho

Executive Talent Acquisition Advisor | Executive Coach

David Camacho is an AI Talent Ops leader and executive coach who's spent over a decade inside the hiring machine and seen the job market evolve from every angle, including today's. He advises Directors, VPs, and C-suite leaders on workforce strategy. His recent work, Two Job Markets, One Economy, argues the U.S. labor market has quietly split in two.

Full Episode:

Megan:

Hello and welcome to Culture Conversations, the podcast where we explore the people side of work. I'm your host, Megan Robinson. For years, I've found myself deep in discussions about workplace engagement with industry experts. Now I get to share this wisdom with all leaders, new and experienced, on their journeys to build cultures that maximize potential. We spend so much of our lives at work. Let's make it a place where our teams can grow and succeed. Hello and welcome to Culture Conversations. I'm Megan Robinson from eLeader Experience and today we have David Camacho with a riveting discussion on what the workforce looks like, different opportunities in the job market, and what's really happening beyond just the headlines. So we're going to have to dive into our conversation very quickly here. As a quick introduction, David Camacho is an AI talent ops leader and executive coach who spent over a decade inside the hiring machine and seen the job market evolve from every single angle, including what's happening today. He advises directors, VPs, C-suite leaders on workforce strategy, and his recent work on two job markets, one economy, argues the U.S. labor market has quietly split in two. Welcome, David.

David:

Hi. Good to see you, Megan.

Megan:

It's lovely to see you. We were having quite the discussion beforehand, so I'm so excited to jump into this now. But really looking at that human side of workforce data, when we first met, we were talking a lot about what the headlines are saying, what people are experiencing. There tends to be a lot of disconnect and not a lot of things that you can really trust. So where are you typically seeing job markets, organizations, what's happening between, where's that tension?

David:

Yeah, I think you said the key word, which is trust. There's so much information people really don't know. If it's something outside of their experience, they don't really know if it's true or it's actually happening. And it gives people the perception that there is some external force to them that they have little to no control over. And so they go on this quest to find answers. Why am I experiencing being in the job market longer than I've ever been in my entire life? Why is it taking me six months or more? I had a client who was in the job market for 27 months before they found a role. And the role they did find, while they have expertise in it, to do the job in their sleep, and they do, it's not a move forward. It's not a move up. It's not lateral. It's actually a bit of a step backwards, both in the scope of work and compensation. Having said that, there are opportunities out there. I think what I'm seeing is that those opportunities have evolved so quickly that people don't necessarily know what they look like. And so they're still looking for what they've always done before. And that sort of foreshadows doing what you've always done, not working out. And so I think that at this point in time, it's essential that people learn to reinvent themselves in the past couple years, people use the phrase pivot a lot, but it is a great time to reinvent yourself and. sort of take stock of everything you've done with your skill sets and say, where else are these valuable? Because I'm not finding them pursuing the same path that I've always gone. And now I just don't know what to do. I've done what's always worked and now none of it works. And so I'm confused. I'm losing time by sitting in the job market. I'm losing money. I'm not progressing in my career anymore. I'm stifled and befuddled, as my grandmother would say.

Megan:

What's the experience for organizations? Because I definitely hear that from the people that are looking for jobs. It's taking them much longer to look for a good role. They're not getting what they used to do. They're not necessarily making big jumps or big leaps forward. The organization, it's not a picnic for them either right now.

David:

Not at all. And that's sort of the irony. You can be in an organization and you don't have to be a recruiter. You don't have to be in HR. You can just be someone who's a line manager or someone who manages an organization with a team. It doesn't matter how big it is. Anytime you need to hire, you have a hard time too finding what you need. And you would think that in a market where there is an overabundance of talent, exceptional talent, not just like, oh, the job market's bad and no one's available. There are so many people available if you post a job as an employer or a staffing company, anybody who's hiring. And it's a job. Let's say that that job is remote. Oh, forget it. You're going to be going through hundreds, maybe even thousands of applications. I saw a job from Google in the past couple of years that was remote at the time, and it had over 14,000 applicants in 24 hours. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. I don't see this with on-site jobs. They do get applicants, but they don't get them in the hundreds or thousands unless it's a brand name company. It's a remote job. It doesn't have to be a brand name company if it's a remote job. So there are some companies that don't have a problem with a talent pipeline, but where they do have a problem is the validating the talent to say, does this person actually have the skills to do the job? Or as a colleague of mine said, this is a fulfillment, this is a deliverable expectation. This is no longer a branding, a reputation, or a resume problem. Like, does your resume look good? Everybody's resume looks great. And we all know why. I'm sort of dancing around the topic before we dive into it. Technology is afforded both sides of the job market, the job seeker, whether they are employed or unemployed, or the employer. Both of them are now empowered by technology in such a way that they are, this was an article I read last year, they're essentially battling it out with technology to get in front of each other. And it's so funny, a colleague of mine, they're an HR executive, they said to me, because they were in their job search at the moment, they said, are we going back to 1985? Like, where you have to do, and I tell people all the time, you have to be able to do this. This is what everybody's trying to get to is, how can I get in front of somebody who is a decision maker, a leader, or someone who I can work with, whether they are a employer, or they're going to be a client or customer. And so, The employers are having a hard time. The job seekers are having a hard time. It's not a different problem. It really is the validation. Is this job, is this scope of work describing this job description something that I'm a great fit for? And a lot of people on paper, if that's all they have to go by because they've not spoken to anybody, yeah, that looks great. I could do that job. I've been doing it for years. Fantastic. I should apply. And then they get no response or they get auto rejected. And we can talk about that too. And the employer is trying to validate the talent, like, wow, I have so many people in my pipeline. This is not going to be a problem hiring. And then the person responsible at the front end for going through all of those resumes or applications, like, oh, wow, there's actually a low percentage of these people are actually qualified. Or maybe they do have the good problem where it's abundant. OK, well. Now who do I interview? Who do I hire? So then they get into this analysis paralysis and then they spend months and they have requisitions open for months and some of them even get to a year. I was talking to a colleague who's a recruiter for a very well-known global company and they said that one of the more than one but one of them in particular the requisition was open for almost a year but many of them were open for more than six months. This is not uncommon and the challenge that both have because of, and even enabled with technology, is that they're trying to validate each other so that they can get to the conversation face-to-face to say, okay, cool, you are in fact the person who could do the job. I like the way you communicate. I like the way you walk me through how you solve problems. It's clear to me that you know how to do that. You have a measurable way that you've done this. You have the documentation, the receipts, as my friends say. But getting to that, has been compounded by technology solutions that are only creating more problems. And the reason I think that's happening is we have an archaic way of hiring and validating people on the front end. And now we've stacked technology on top of it. And so it's exponential. We went from maybe a handful of people locally who would apply for a job to now everybody in the world can see your job and everybody can autopilot apply to your job using technology. You as the employer can validate and rank candidates in the thousands. If you want to, they can interview without you ever showing up. Um, One of the AI solutions that I had a partner with for the front end of recruiting, they pull in resumes, they connect with all these out contract systems, all of them. And they can auto invite people to AI interviews, and they can screen them out and then they get ranked. And then people. Basically they go through the regular process of any applicant tracking system is I'll get a notification whether that's positive meaning you'll move forward to the face-to-face like we're doing or they will maybe it'll be sidebarred as like a secondary tier like a B tier like maybe I'll get to those people maybe they'll wait or maybe I will just be kind and say, hey, you're not fit for us, and you get an automatic message. But technology is built on top of archaic processes for validating talent is one of the reasons that made this problem exponential.

Megan:

I want to pull back a little bit. I definitely want to dive into the technology aspect about it. But you are almost a statistician, I feel. You have all the data behind it. What's being pumped out there and What is that disconnect between that? Is there anything specific that you see or the headlines that you're reading that just are false at this point?

David:

I think where people get misled is they are looking at broad generalizations. So when you hear on the news data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, oftentimes I have found, because I was asking myself the same questions a few years ago, I'm like, wait a minute, how is unemployment low but it's so hard to find a job? I mean, it's not just me, it's every single person I talk to. How is that possible? That doesn't make any sense. And then I actually opened the report and then I read it. I'm like, oh. Regionally, city to city, state to state, it's different. Some states and metropolitan areas that have a higher population, where a lot of industry is centralized. I'm thinking Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, even Florida now, in different parts of Florida, Nashville, Tennessee. And there's also a health care tech market there as well. And Denver, Portland, where you're at, Seattle, Boston, their unemployment rates are different from other places. And also their market opportunities for employment and or for industry are also different. So when I hear data, the first thing I do is I want to know where is that data coming from? I learned something in my statistics class years ago in college that was the most valuable perspective I ever heard. And my teacher, the statistician, literally said, I can tell you any story you want to hear, With data, I don't care what it is. Just tell me what the margin of error is. What can I use? Basically, what can I get away with to tell the story that you want me to tell with that data? Cause I can tell you many, many direction. Uh, unemployment is low. Great. Cool. Am I averaging it? Is it across all regions? I can tell a story all day long. Oh, it's historically low, but we've added jobs. Okay, great. We've added thousands, hundreds of thousands of jobs. Great. But how many have we lost? Oh, How many people are not hiring and also not leaving their job? So where are these opportunities is kind of the feeling that people get because of these broader generalizations.

Megan:

Which only adds to the stress, the pressure, the depression that happens for many people when they are looking for a job, not to mention the confusion and frustration for employers hiring. Yeah.

David:

I mean, you guys got to think as an individual, Your belief is I'm good at my job. Let's say that I have accolades. Uh, I've always had great performance reviews. I've always been employed. I've never been unemployed. And then you take that logic into this job market, which is split in two where people can't find jobs and employers can't find people to hire seemingly. what none of this makes sense. And so that leads to that, that confusion, frustration. And it does, you know, when I'm coaching people, most of my phone calls or my meetings like this, at some point, men and women are crying. They are frustrated beyond belief because they cannot understand. I've had a successful career. I've always been employed. I have accolades. I've even worked at brand companies. I've spoken to people at fan companies who can't get an interview to save their life. That's always been where they've hung their hat. Like, Oh, I worked at a fan company. Oh, great. We would love to have you instant hire in the past. Um, maybe three years ago, not anymore because you're now you're actually a dime a dozen. So what's changed? Well, supply and demand is one of them. As I mentioned before, I think people would need to really reevaluate what the value of their skills are and see how people are hiring them. This is another skill that I believe firmly needs to develop. Your next career move is not a campaign with a resume and an application. And I'm, this is not novel. I've been saying this for a while, but if you don't know me from Adam, there are many other people who have said something similar and it's more common. Now you see it all the time. If you do not know how to have a marketing campaign and you don't know how to sell, when you get into those conversations that your marketing efforts bring you the leads, you are not going to give job. You'd be very lucky. And I'm talking if you're playing the, I'm going to get into someone's talent funnel. And even then, even then you still have to do this. So people are being encouraged. LinkedIn has totally changed, but people are being encouraged to create content. People are already exhausted. They're like, wait a minute, I don't want to show my face to the public. I do not want to be even partially a public figure. you do have to, I'm just going to say it, accept that your job search today, not in the future, and even two and three years ago, is now a marketing and sales campaign. And if you do not have those skills, I encourage you to develop them. You can develop them through finding a coach. You don't have to pay for an expensive coach. AI is available. You can teach yourself certain skills. You can look at what works. Steel, steel, the best steel. Find someone who's great at marketing themselves who is approximately your one-to-one. Like have they had your career? Do they do what you do? Why are they successful at putting themselves in front of others so that you can get to this where you have the conversation and you can evolve into whatever the value of your collective skills are. And maybe it's not all the skills. And I say all the skills because when people get into interviews, they make the mistake of trying to sell everything. Oh, I can do it all. And that may be true. That actually may be true. I could say that. My role, I was hired because I could do I'll go back to the JD thing. Never in my career or in hiring people or being hired has a job description ever reflected the reality of the job. I don't care if it's four or five pages. There is something in there that you will do that I think you will not do.

Megan:

It's actually my favorite exercise I've been doing for expectation setting. will actually, I'll take job descriptions from their website for open positions and run it through and see what is this job description not saying? Like what could possibly be under the hood? Because they never can be inclusive of everything. There's just something that always comes up. There's the hidden expectations behind it. Sorry, go ahead.

David:

Yeah, I, similarly, I encourage people You know, as much as I'm inferring that AI has a downside to it, I do help people build and buy and implement AI solutions into their business for workforce strategies and other things too. But it's also fun to take a job description you're applying to If it's a company you're really interested in, I don't believe in doing this with everything. You'll exhaust your time and energy. You don't want to do that at all. You'll get depressed and you'll feel like you have no momentum. But if it's a company you're, wow, really interested in this and I also want to get an interview and or I have an interview, especially if you have an interview, you need to take a job description and green flag, yellow flag and red flag it and find out what does that job description imply? Is it describing three different roles? I bet you it is, because here's the other thing that's happening. This is why I say it's important that you audit, evaluate your skills and say, what are the most valuable things that I should be marketing and selling to what the job market is looking for now? And how can I validate it? That's the important piece. How can I validate it? Your resume is not a validation point. It's really just kind of like the menu or the, you know, like a promotional flyer, if you will. But when you do this, you'll see the scopes of work where the scope creep. And maybe this is actually not a fit, but the other reason is because roles are being consolidated. My roles recently have all had multiple facets. If I put them through a practice of green light, yellow light, red light, or red flag, I was thinking like being a kid, cause I'm a dad, you know, like red light, green light. But if you, if you put it to that practice, you'll find that there are probably things that, you know, maybe, maybe they interest you. Maybe the scope creep interests you, but you also want to know market rate. Am I being paid enough? Is this role paid enough for that? That's the other thing that's happening is, Compensation is getting compressed too while roles are being consolidated because people have been let go or maybe the company is just small. I work with a lot of startups. You have to wear many hats as they say in HR, but you need to find where you can bring the most value. Is there scope creep? Are you willing to take on that scope creep and be paid for that job? And how can you take all those when you when you show up to an interview and you tell me you can do everything. There's actually a good time to be able to articulate what is that because you may in fact be asked to do that because teams are getting smaller even these fortune 50 companies. They just laid off tens of thousands of people and they've been doing it every month, almost continuously for the past two years. So what do you think is happening to the roles? What I'm noticing, and you and I are talking about this before we officially hit the record button, is there are needs for people to have project management skills. That's kind of always been the case as you go. Project management skills, product management, depending on the industry you work in. If you have any expertise in the success of a product or could weigh in on the design of that. And it doesn't have to be software. It doesn't have to be hardware. It could be food. We were talking about food and food production. There may be lots of things your experience can inform about that. But what I'm starting to see is that people, these roles, even these roles that you typically might not see as leadership roles or management roles, maybe they're even just in the first three years, People are starting to consolidate these roles into things that require project management, product management, or product knowledge technology. I've had to spin up several websites for partnerships. I'm not a web developer. Can I do it? Yes. Am I vibe coding these things? Yes. But so can you. And so it's, it's becoming an expectation. I've, I've heard anecdotes of people going in and interviews who actually are technical and they're being asked to vibe code things. That blows my mind. I used to be a QA, a test engineer. So I'd have to do a lot of fun scrummy JIRA stuff, but No one wants to spend their time doing that now. I mean, they might do code review, but they want to do it like this. It has to be fast.

Megan:

It has to be instant. You have to be flexible, dynamic, agile. And that's on top of what you started to touch on, this project management skill, the product management skills. It's the strategic, the critical thinking, which I will say has been something that people have been lamenting about for years and years and years is they want more critical thinkers. And only now are we really getting to a point where you will start to see where those are living or dying, where they're actually being, applied or whether you're out of that job very, very quickly.

David:

Oh, those things can't die. And I'm glad you mentioned that. So the job market is also divided. There's a split there. There's this paradox, if you will. There's technically even a third one because the amount of people who are looking for work who have work already is more than 50%. But of all these things that are splitting and dividing and then being compressed back into something new, the things that are becoming more valuable, and this is what I love about these conversations, is they always come back to what we're doing, is what is the most human thing about you? And that in its own way has become a commodity, meaning, I know that now I can get any number of things out of production for a low cost, for pennies. I can replace a marketer for pennies. So why am I going to hire one? I'm going to hire one because there's something novel about their thinking, about how they engage with people, about what their ideas for engaging with people are, that AI hasn't managed to somehow slop together from the billions of users who are on these different platforms. You have to be able to direct it. You are this orchestrator of your human experience. And that's why, literally, I was having this conversation with my non-technical 88-year-old grandmother. And she was harping on about why critical thinking is so important. We're talking about parenting. But if you do not have the audacity to think creatively and apply your human experience, which is a now high value commodity for connection and ideation and novel thinking, then why wouldn't I replace you with an automation or some LLM? And nobody wants to be reduced to that. You know, we were talking under the preface of the human element of the job market, the human experience behind data. And yeah, I could rattle off data all day long about this job market and people go, Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. That's, but people get lost in that because it doesn't necessarily mean anything to them. They want to know why the hell is this happening to me?

Megan:

More importantly, what do I do about it? Because yes, it's happening to me. Yes, you can validate your own experience. But it's a question of how do you get over it? How do you get above it? How do you get around it?

David:

So I'll tell you what my critical thinking led to is how fast can I get in touch with a human being to share in their goals and my goals in a way that gets us both excited? The interesting thing about having a job is that it's tied to, I'm sure you know what the hierarchy of needs are. You hear enough people, you see just individual content out there going, yeah, I'm passionate about microprocessing and manufacturing and supply chain. Just can I have a damn job? The more important thing to me is, can I have a roof over my head? Can I eat food? Can I take care of my family? Can I be safe, secure, and stable? I can do any job at this point. I don't care. Let me learn a tool. I've been in your industry. I'm perfect for this job. Can you just give me the damn job? But that's as much as another human could understand that, especially if they've been in that position. It does not matter to them. It's not to be callous or inhumane. It's because it's not relevant to them. And this goes into this idea of marketing and selling yourself. So who do you best work with? It's the person who you have a shared goal or interest in. And I heard somebody talking yesterday. They said they were finding clients by going and doing an activity that they liked. It was like a fitness activity and they were getting all their clients from there, but they weren't going there to get clients. They weren't going there to get a job. One of my colleagues is a a director of product, and they got their first product job, I think they said from a yoga class. Zero experience in it.

Megan:

You mentioned going back to 1985, and I'll say that's the trend that I've been noticing, is you can't fake that human element, you can't fake connection through in-person, true network, real experience of Understanding, meeting people, and that's how you, more often than not, are cutting through the noise, is by making real connections, authentic connections, having conversations, to your point, jumping to the end to finding that real goal.

David:

Yeah, and I think a lot of people feel that they have to go through all the barricades that are the socially acceptable way to become aligned and employed. Meaning, The way that I get a job has to be, I update my resume, I have a review, make sure that it describes me well. Everybody now is a resume expert that's been commoditized greatly. You really don't need too many eyes on it. It's really more of Can this person give me insight into what I'm doing because they've been in that market and are they connected to those relationships that can open the door faster? It's really not about the resume, so to speak, even though some people have this archaic thought of like, this resume doesn't look like what I want it to look like. I'm like, that doesn't matter. I tell people all the time, I told another recruiter this, I'm like, are you hiring a resume or are you hiring a person? you're not hiring a resume. That resume is not going to show up and do the job. But this goes back to that human piece. And I think because I don't come from a A traditional background, I think, is the verbiage people use in HR. And actually, like, most talent acquisition professionals, I was talking to a recruiter colleague of mine the other day. A lot of us just trip and fall, even HR professionals to a degree, trip and fall into it. They can get a degree in it. Sometimes it comes from communications. There are HR degrees. But I tripped and fell in talent acquisition. I would say that it was by accident, but it wasn't. I was doing sales and talent acquisition is a sales job. And that's how I shipped and found it. But it was the human piece that got me to go, OK, what am I good at today? Well, I can talk to people and I could probably sell this stuff. So I'll do that. And then someone else said, hey, I like that you actually have this skill set. I know you didn't know we were looking for it, or I know maybe you didn't know it was valuable, but we value it. Would you come over here and do that? And then it sort of leapfrogged to all these jobs that I would otherwise look at my whole life and go, wow, this is completely disconnected. Again, going back to this is why it's important you evaluate what it is you're doing. But in doing that, because I have this, I'll call it unconventional background, I don't think that there are any rules around how do I connect with people. I don't, I also don't think that I need permission. So here's where This has been happening, but I don't think it's being overtly discussed in terms of how you get a job. People are like, well, you got to update your resume, and you got to use this AI tool, and you have to network on LinkedIn. Listen, there is so much data and information available. You can literally, and I'm just going to call this out because this is what I would do and have done. You can literally go get a free seamless AI account. Hi, Seamless. I'm not a sponsor. And you can go get contact information and just cold call people. The thing is, is that for the same reason people are afraid to interview or apply to a job, maybe it's a certain brand or company, maybe they don't feel like they're like at that level or that they don't match that brand or something, is the same reason they won't pick up the phone and talk to the person who is aligned with where they want to be. You literally can go get their damn phone number and connect the Chrome extension, go to LinkedIn, and say, pick up the phone. This person is awesome. I love what they're doing. I even like the way they describe it. You know, looking for these human elements, these human signals. And then you're also looking for buying signals. Again, these are all sales. It's all sales techniques. But at the end of the day, if you can't pick up the phone and talk to the person, what's going to happen when you're in the interview? After your awesome AI resume passes through the applicant tracking system or whatever they're using for a job site. What's going to happen when you show up? You're going to be unprepared. You might as well prepare. The reason why I'm not afraid to talk to people anymore is because someone stood over my shoulder and made me call 100 people or more a day. So now I don't care. But not everybody has had to have that happen to them. And sometimes even salespeople won't. But the people who I do see do this are in fact salespeople. Why? Because They've been conditioned to know how to handle and respond to objection in real time and get to the yes. And that's really all you're looking for a job. You just need one. Yes. If you're looking for an employee and you're not hiring like a high volume role where it's like, Hey, a hundred people on the, um, supply chain, uh, in the processing product or shipping product. Great. But it's usually like a one-on-one you just need one. And you just need to know how to, trust me, that company, like this job market might suck for employees looking for work or promotions and job seekers, but that hiring manager for the person that they really want, they have to sell to. And here's the thing I tell people all the time, because sometimes that evades them, because they're like, I'm the one in need. I'm the one who's not in a position of strength. That employer has the same damn problem. I would love people to just become aware of that. There are two things. They're struggling, and you're struggling. and both of you have to sell to each other. And if you don't, well, then neither one of you are going to work together. Even if you're like, hey, best company in the world, love their benefits, they won awards, I've won awards, I got great employee reviews, I've got letters of recommendation, all those things. If you can't connect with those people, and you're also not willing to condition yourself to have that conversation with confidence, and put yourself out there in a way where other people are like, let me wait in line, let me waive my resume, like, please look at this. you're not going to get into conversation. But if you really want to know the hack, go get a database. Get some free credits. You can use Lucia. You can use Seamless. By the way, obviously these are things I've done because I'm telling you exactly what it is. Oh, that's the other thing about my advice in general. I would never tell anybody to do something that I didn't do myself with effect or success. but just pick up the phone and call somebody. Here's a fun one. I have to give you this. I'm sorry to interrupt. Okay.

Megan:

No, it's okay. I'm saying we have a wrap up. I'm so excited, but you're giving all the juice at the end.

David:

Here's, here's a fun one. I've put this out there a few times now. I have this thing called a reversing card. And if you've met me, I've already done it to you. So, you know, there are awesome companies out there and they have a sales funnel. They are either marketing to you through ads on Instagram or Meta or TikTok. I don't care who it is. They have a sales funnel. Microsoft even has one. People are like, man, how do I get a job with Microsoft? And I'm like, well, let's go to their page and see if they have a sales portal where you can book a call. I book calls with sales teams all the time and I do my market intelligence and I figure out what they're doing. I don't do with everybody. I do with people who are doing something interesting that I, again, am aligned to, and I want to work with them in some way, shape, or form, either as an employer or a client. I call it the reverse Uno card. Now you hear like Gen Z throwing this around because like, oh, I've switched it up on them. This is how I switch it up on employers. I will get, if you haven't met me yet, this is how you will meet me. I will get into your sales funnel. I will find a way to get ahold of your calendar and I will book a meeting with you. I did this yesterday and I'm meeting a CEO on Wednesday. Hi, for the future. You'll know exactly what I did if you see this later. People are out there saying, hey, meet me. I want to tell you about my product. And you go there and you learn everything about the company. Salespeople, by the way, we will tell you everything. So why wouldn't you do this? And then you can take all that great intelligence you've learned, and then go reach out to the person you want to talk to and or just get the introduction from them. I can't tell you no, nobody, nobody has ever said no to me. I'm like, Hey, can I meet your head of partnerships? Oh, we don't have one. Oh, cool. Who would that be? Oh, it's probably going to be our CEO. Great. I'd love to meet him. Okay. Awesome. I'll get their calendar for you. Okay. Thank you. And again, back to your other question, it's because I don't have a belief that you can't do this. I don't believe that there's a right or wrong way to meet somebody. I believe that if you think they're doing something amazing and you think you could do it with them and or you could help them do it better, then you should talk to them. What's the fastest way to talk to them? Get their phone number, find their calendar. Get on that thing pick up the phone and call them and meet them and see hey, do we connect? May they hang up on you? Sure. How'd you get this number? Oh, I got this number because I saw you're doing this and this was out there So I just thought I'd reach out to you this quickest way. Let me know if you have five minutes. What's your email? I'll send it to you. Sales people do this all day long. They're just not afraid to get kicked to the curb. Somebody will say yes, and you only need one. Just one.

Megan:

Just one. That is incredible advice. I love the salesperson strategy. I find more and more things in our world actually has to have a sales approach. And finding a job is one. I will say a lot of leadership actually needs a lot of the same skill, sales skills as what it takes to be effective with it. But those are quite a few insights, David. I'm definitely taking notes and sending this to a couple of key people. Thank you so much for sharing them. If someone wants to get in contact with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

David:

The fastest way to find me is probably on LinkedIn, because I'm all like writing articles or posts. You can reach out to me at David at TotalTalentSource.com. Or if you're someone who is looking for executive coaching, you could email me at TheExecutiveCoach at TotalTalentSource. If you have questions about AI in your operations or in your talent systems or your process, I'm happy to answer those. There's lots of different approaches that you can take for your business. You don't need to buy everything or use everything all at once. And as a coach, you don't need to do everything all at once. There may just be like one or two things you need to adjust, and then you'll be on your way.

Megan:

You are so incredibly intelligent and talented. I know every conversation I have with you definitely elevates me as well. So thank you for sharing and being so generous with that wisdom and knowledge and for sharing that with everyone else. I do highly recommend having that conversation with David. Give him that reverse Uno card and go ahead and pick up the phone. Now you're waiting for people to ask you. I'm waiting for that. I'm sure you're there waiting with bated breath. Well, thank you so much for the conversation. If you are looking for that, please reach out to David. And this has been another fantastic conversation. Thank you.

David:

Thank you, Megan.

Megan:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Culture Conversations. I'm your host, Megan Robinson, founder of eLeader Experience, a professional leadership development company. Today, we shared actionable ideas to navigate the evolving workplace landscape, compete for talent, and build cultures that maximize potential. If you're looking to learn more about how to support your organization's leaders, you can learn more about our work at eLeaderExperience.com. Now get out there and contribute positively to your organization's culture with your own conversations.