Minnesota Headhunter On The Schmidt List Podcast

A couple of weeks ago I sat down with Kurt Schmidt to record a session of his The Schmidt List podcast. Kurt is the President of Foundry (@FoundryMakes | Instagram) and he can be found by clicking LinkedIn, @KRTS & The Schmidt List with (as I post this) 36 podcast episodes. We’ve bumped into each other a number of times over the years and had a bunch of quick chats. But this is the first time we had some quality time. Here is his current bio:

Kurt Schmidt began his career as a graphic designer and filmmaker in the skateboarding and BMX biking industry.

In 1991, while recognized as one of the top twelve professional bike riders in the world, he co-founded Standard Byke Company.

In 2010, he was tapped by The Nerdery to be the Director of Project Management and has been responsible for the delivery of over $300 million in software development and design.

Currently, as the President of Foundry, he leads product design workshops, drives digital transformation initiatives, and hosts a weekly Podcast called “The Schmidt List” where he interviews leaders in design and technology.

While well versed on his business and technology background, I did not know about his BMX skills until after we recorded. Where have I been???

Here is what we covered over the hour (we had wayyy more things we could have riffed on) and you can listen below. Be sure to check out The Schmidt List on iTunes.

We start by talking about how I got into recruiting (old school, answered an ad in the newspaper) and how “Minnesota Headhunter” came to be and my then lack of SEO knowledge.

We talk about how the Minnesota Recruiters group started including a nod to John Sumser.

“What makes a good recruiter” is a fantastic question.

I get to ramble a bit on why some recruiters suck and I stick up for my corporate recruiter and HR friends.

I take to task the line CEO’s give that they want the best and the brightest and why I think that is BS.

Can a technologist burn a bridge with a recruiter?

Recession 2020: Will You Be Ready?

The dreaded “R” word reared its ugly head last week when the NABE (National Association for Business Economics) released its Q2 2018 quarterly report that their 45 economists saw the economy going the following way:

+2.8 % GDP in 2018

+2.7% GDP in 2019

That OK news. More of the same of the past 10 years. Not great, not horrible. Moving along at decent pace.

Here is the bad news:

Around 50% see a recession by the end of 2019 and early 2020

60%+ see a recession by the end of 2020

These numbers are similar to other recent surveys from The Wall Street Journal and Zillow.

Things are going great for most people so why does it have to end?

Most likely… wages should start rising more and at some point companies will have to raise prices. If inflation goes to high and the Fed raises rates then costs of borrowing increase, home sales will slow and individuals and businesses may slow spending. There are other scenarios like government spending, the Trump tax cuts, overseas issues including tariffs, etc.

Let’s be clear, I am not an economist. I do watch CNBC and Bloomberg all the time and I am fascinated by how an economy works. I watch for trends, numbers, hiring and layoff announcements all the time including a bunch of Google Alerts. I have survived 2 recessions while being a recruiter. They’re not fun for recruiters (corporate, search and consulting). If a company does not plan on hiring then we are the first to get cut. Long before noticeable layoffs are seen and heard about.

I watch this stuff because it impacts my life in every way. And the “Great Recession” gives me night sweats.

Why am I bringing this survey up?

What if it happens… if the shit hits the fan am I prepared, am I ready?

Are you prepared? Ready?

Are your skills current?

Is your employer stable?

3 Lessons Learned From Minnesota Tech Layoffs: Capital One And ONE20

Back in December on the MSP On Deck podcast we made 2018 predictions and mine was that we would see continued greater tech hiring and we would see more layoffs… that we would see more churn in 2018 than 2017. To hear the episode click:

MSP On Deck #12 - The most popular tech news stories of 2017 + what big things are in the pipe for 2018?

At the beginning of May news broke that the Capital One office in St Cloud had cut around 24 tech staff:

Capital One announces another round of layoffs in St. Cloud

This one is not a big surprise… Capital One has been reducing the size of the St Cloud office.

Mid May the staff of Minneapolis startup ONE20 arrived on a Monday morning to find the office door locked. Outside of the company this one caught people off guard. Internally it seemed that many were aware things were rocky. There also seems to be some drama about this one regarding current customers, a few employees being retained (most are not) and what comes next:

Minneapolis Truck Tech Startup ONE20 Crashes, Laying Off 50+ (Tech.mn may require a subscription)

There have also been a number of groups that have “realigned” in some fashion causing 5 layoffs here and 10 there while still hiring across the company.

Here’s the deal and I swear I feel like this is old advice that doesn’t need to be said but then it does when tech pros are surprised to hear of layoffs. And I think I spoke about this during my Minnebar session or maybe because it seems to come up all the time… generally companies are going to do what they need to do to keep shareholders and investors happy. Whether you work at a private/public/startup, large/small, agency/med tech/manufacturing company this includes you. Which is almost everyone.

Including you.

So no one should be shocked, surprised or otherwise taken aback when something like this happens.

U.S. Tech Jobs Roundup v1

I was in a meeting today with a group of senior HR leaders from about 15 companies and I was asked if I could give them some examples of what is going on in other cities around the country when it comes to tech and IT job trends. Were some cities and regions seeing growth, astronomical growth… were smaller cities and rural areas seeing people leaving for big cities?

What they were getting to (and I do this a lot) is “how are we doing” compared to other cities and can we speculate on some conclusions.

Let me speculate first and a reminder that while I am highly interested in economic development I am not an economist. I am a tech recruiter, regional advocate and highly opinionated blogger and podcaster.

Are we doing OK? Yeah

Are we doing better than we used to? Yes

Do I think we are about to could get passed by some other cities that “rank” below us? Absolutely

We need to get off our Midwest, we don’t like to promote ourselves ass and started being vocal about the career and life opportunities here. If you know me at all you have heard me say something like that 127 times by now. Yet… I am still saying it because we have barely moved the needle on it. As individuals, employees, companies, elected officials and community engaged people we need to get loud. Louder.

We have to get this idea into our head… we are NOT competing for “talent” (still hate the word) with Best Buy, Target, 3M, Total Expert, Code42, Accenture, Medtronic and whoever is going through a growth phase. We are competing with regions like Boulder, Austin, Chicago, startups in the Bay Area who allow workers to be remote and the tech companies in Atlanta who lives and breathe diversity and inclusion.

We MUST more frequently and more loudly tell our Minneapolis/St Paul story. It’s a good one. And if we don’t tell it then we can’t be shocked when other regions look more attractive.

You can find some more on this topic by clicking A Bunch Of Thoughts… Minneapolis And Amazon HQ2

The quick research I came up with for the group:

• Business Insider brings up how expensive San Francisco and the Bay Area are and lists 10 cities that are tech hubs and people are looking at including Minneapolis San Francisco is so expensive that people are starting to look at these 10 US cities as the next tech hubs — here's how much local employees are making

Q&A With Minnesota Headhunter: An Intro To The Minnesota Startup And Tech Scene

As 2017 was winding down I was getting a number of inquiries about the Minnesota startup and tech scene from people outside Minnesota. I think the recruiting trip to Chicago, the Fly in Program during Twin Cities Startup Week and my own sourcing and recruiting is the cause of this. Most inquiries are coming from a few regions:

• San Francisco and Silicon Valley
• Chicago, Detroit… Midwest
• Seattle
• Austin and Dallas

And I have not yet put together a list of resources or guide to send them.

So… I’ll do a webinar and have about 45 minutes of content to share and then do Q&A for another 30 minutes or until everyone has the info they are looking for.

I’m still coming up with an agenda… so far something like this:

Survey: Minneapolis #6 City For Tech Hiring In 2018

 

A few weeks ago on the MSP on Deck Podcast 12 - The most popular tech news stories of 2017 + what big things are in the pipe for 2018? we made predictions for 2018 and one of mine is that Minneapolis and St Paul will see more IT job growth and a greater number of layoffs than 2017.

Yes… I am predicting both.

Let me start with the “bad news” first. As 2017 went on there were a number of unannounced layoffs at many large companies… usually in the 10’s, 20’s and 50’s range of jobs. It seemed like some large companies were doing this so not to have to file a notice with the State of Minnesota.

That’s speculation on my part and I stand by it. Add up all the numbers and they would have had to file a notice. These layoffs were generally part of restructuring staff, maybe over hired in a group, becoming more efficient, etc. And they were in all skill sets from marketing, sales, customer service and yes, IT.

Startups and small tech groups are a part of this too. A customer is lost, a MVP does not work, investors worry about the burn rate, etc. Layoffs are in the 2’s, 5’s and 10’s.

And that’s my basis for more tech layoffs in 2018 than 2017… it will continue. It happens and it’s a normal thing in a growing economy. Many companies have hired hard and fast the past 18 months and some may have gone a bit too far.

Recap: Managing Your Tech And Startup Career

 

Last week I hosted my first online chat in all long time, maybe 3+ years, on Managing Your Tech And Startup Career. This is something I do every year at MinneBar and tech user groups throughout the year.

This one was a lot of fun for me as it was not only tech professionals in Minneapolis/St Paul but marketing, sales and CxO’s in our area along with a number of tech and data pros from the Bay Area.

The original agenda I proposed was:

• What is the local job market like right now?
• Is this a good time to look for a new job?
• What's a reasonable salary increase year over year?
• Should I stay a developer or move into management?
• I'm thinking about moving to "FILL IN THE BLANK CITY", should I go?
• Why is there so much recruiter spam?
• How much personal info should I share with corporate/search firm recruiter?
• I’m not a tech person but want to work with a tech company, how do I get in one?

And then attendees asked a number of questions including one I always seem to ramble on waffling back and forth on and paraphrasing… specialist or generalist?

In all it went for about 45 minutes and below is the session uploaded to YouTube.

This was my first time using Zoom and while it went OK it’s clear I need some more practice with which screen is showing.

To those who asked questions… thank you. It’s always way more enjoyable to have interaction particularly when I can’t see you.

If you have questions or comments after listening to this please send me an email paul@mnheadhunter.com

Here we go…

Click Minnesota Headhunter for current blog posts and Minnesota IT Jobs for searches I am working on.

 

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Online Chat: Managing Your Tech And Startup Career

Every year at MinneBar I do a presentation called, “Managing Your IT Career - (Why do recruiters suck so bad?). This past spring, 8th year doing this, I had an end of the day speaking time and still had a full room with people sitting on the floor and along the wall. I do wonder how many more people would attend a morning session… part of my group:

 

The past weeks I have been getting a higher than usual number of inquiries from tech, data and product professionals, along with those interested in the Minnesota and Midwest startup scene, asking questions about salaries, Minneapolis and Midwest tech jobs, what code schools to choose, etc.

So I am going to do an online chat… a webinar to answer the current most asked questions and ask attendees to send theirs.

Survey: 57% Of Employers Less Likely To Interview A Candidate They Can't Find Online

 

CareerBuilder released their annual survey, Number of Employers Using Social Media to Screen Candidates at All-Time High, about how companies are using social media to source and screen candidates. There are the usual “headline” stats:

• 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates
• 54% have decided not to hire a candidate based on their social media profiles

That last one is the one that usually gets the most attention. Here’s the thing… of course the number is that high. Look at the wording of it. Of course any/every “Fortune 500” company, as an example, has not hired someone because of their online stupidity profile. Think of how many people apply with them. So they didn’t hire one? That’s easy to understand.

And I think the 70% number is much higher. Surely some respondents didn’t want to tell the truth.

Webinar: Minnesota IT Jobs, Salary and Recruiting Report - Spring 2017

 

A frequent question I get locally and nationally is “what’s going on in Minnesota?”.

After all the fall and winter events and conferences and leading into spring it’s time for me to give some clarity… I am putting together a summary of all of the info I have gathered over the past months, add in a bunch of reference points from national IT job and salary surveys and do a webinar.

This is my perspective from attending user groups, working with and recruiting for startups and tech companies, conversations with large companies about their recruiting strategies and speaking at local and national conferences.

When:

• March 1^st, 2017
• 1 pm CT

Cost:

• Free

To register click:

• Minnesota IT Jobs, Salary and Recruiting Report - Spring 2017

Topics:

• Intro
• What’s going on in MN
• Recruiters in demand
• Job and Skills info
• IT salary info
• Recruiting trends
• Conclusion

Who should attend:

• Corporate Recruiter or HR
• Hiring Managers
• Startup CEO
• IT Manager, Director or CIO
• IT professionals
• (Who am I missing?)

Q&A will be part of the webinar. Please interact with me.

If you have any questions ahead of time send me an email paul@mnheadhunter.com

FYI… a few events this spring you may want to attend:

• 3/3 Tech Cities
• 3/25 MinneBar
• 3/30 Enterprise Rising
• 3/31 Midwest Capital Call

Save the Date:

• June (TBD): Midwest Recruiting Bootcamp
• 10/9-15 Twin Cities Startup Week
• 10/16-18 ERE Fall 2017 in Minneapolis

Click Minnesota Headhunter for current blog posts and Minneapolis IT Jobs for searches I am working on.

 

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