raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Hey folks, and welcome to the Small Tech Podcast.
I'm your host, Raph from EC, and today we have a guest on the show.
He has over a decade experience in recruitment across Australia, Singapore,
the UK, and Canada, runs events around AI and machine learning, as well as
software and mobile development, and he is currently the CEO and principal
consultant at North Technology People.
He is Adam Delgado.
Adam!
Welcome to the small tech podcast.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: man.
Great to be here.
Thanks for that intro.
I was expecting like, man, it was a very Bruce Buffer esque.
I was, uh, I was feeling the energy, man.
And thanks for that.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
Yeah.
Nice to have you on the show, man.
How's it going?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: not too bad.
Not too bad.
No complaints.
Looking forward to a bit of a sunny weather.
It's still pretty chilly here in Toronto.
So, uh, yeah, looking forward to some spring and sun and pints on patios.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Amazing.
Yeah.
Pints on patios sounds great.
So yeah, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about how you got
into recruiting how you got into tech.
Yeah.
How you got here?
What's the story?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: So a lot of my friends went to
university after straight out of high school and I Did not.
So I kind of finished high school and then thought, Hey, I'm just
going to like work for a while.
And I was doing a lot of telesales stuff, just cold calling.
And then I went and met with a recruiter for a job and he's
like, Hey, have you ever thought about a career in recruitment?
I said, no.
He's like, you should.
I'm like, okay.
And that was kind of, you know, The nudge in that direction.
I, redid my CV a little and started applying for recruiter jobs.
And then I was really fortunate to join a boutiques, recruitment agency in Toronto,
uh, sorry, in Sydney, back in the early 2000s, Recruitment Tara was the, managing
director and founder at the time, she was like old school English recruiter,
Greythorn, Michael Page, Ransdad.
She'd been at all those big shops and she taught me everything, man.
Tips to tell about 360 recruitment.
So that, that was kind of how I got into it.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Amazing.
I'm curious, like when you first got that question, what did
recruitment even mean to you?
I feel like from my perspective, I don't even know what that entails.
Is it mostly like reaching out to people?
Do you have to have a bit of technical understanding of what the people do?
Like what, how does it work?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: So like the general recruitment is like.
There's two sides to it.
You've got your business development, which is like sales kind of thing.
And then you've got your actual recruiting.
And then there's a model called 360 recruitment, where
it's basically end to end.
I cut my teeth on 360 recruitment and basically we're a services business.
So we work a lot in the tech sector across North America.
So our clients are startups, pre seed, VC funded, all the way up to enterprise.
So we've and they will give us a requirement.
We picked up a role today, very fortunate, with a shout out to
Maple Finance, a big DeFi player.
And basically they said that, hey, we need a VP of capital markets.
So we've got the spec now, we've signed terms with them, so now we're helping
them go and recruit for this type of role.
Fortunately, we've done this type of recruitment before, so we've already got
a network of candidates and that's really.
Where a recruiter really earns their medal is having a network of people that our
clients might not be able to tap into.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah, that makes sense.
And when you first got into this, was it also tech?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Yeah, yeah, so I cut my teeth on systems
and network engineers back when VMware was a thing and all the storage and stuff.
So that was kind of where I first started and then hopped around
a little bit, started doing some More software dev, digital, UX, UI.
And then when I moved to Canada and the U.
S.,
that was really when I started doing very, very deep into software development.
And then when I started on technology people, I'm like, Hey,
I want to work with the cool stuff.
I don't want to be like, Oh, we're just like recruiting PHP.
So I was like, Hey, AI, ML, data, software, mobile product.
That's our jam.
That's our specialty.
And we've kind of applied those.
Niches across a variety of different verticals, so we're doing stuff in Web3,
Blockchain, we're doing some cool stuff in Robotics, our clients are in Quantum
Computing, shout out to Agnostic as well, they, do some great work in
Quantum in Toronto, so, yeah, that, that's kind of the long and short of,
of, uh, of our network and our clients.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: That's awesome.
I, out of curiosity, are there any sectors that you find
are particularly interesting?
Interesting or difficult to recruit for, or I feel like the AI stuff that's
been booming, you hear about some of the salaries that the folks working
at places like OpenAI are making.
That's gotta be a very, selective process and small, small pool of people.
How does it differ across, sectors?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: it's a good question.
I mean, tech, why I loved it and why I've always recruited in tech, there's
always something new coming out.
There's always new technology, new framework.
So, being in that sector, there's, always the new shiny thing.
And as I said, we founded in Jan 2020, just before the pandemic kicked off,
focusing on AI and machine learning.
Whilst it was a market, it wasn't the sexy gen AI chat post
chat GPT world that we live in.
So it is definitely supply and demand and that really ties into salary.
So when the demand is up, gen AI, if you look at any hardware skills in like ASIC,
FPGA, CPUs, GPUs, the compiler technology, that stuff, man, red hot at the minute.
It's really, really hard
to find people.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: uh, yeah, but I mean, what we've seen on
the other end of the market is obviously all the layoffs that happened in the
last kind of 12 ish, 18 months in the U.
S.
tech market, that's kind of, we had that follow on effect here in Canada, when
there are massive layoffs, the shoe's on the other foot, now the demand is
decreased, and there's a huge supply of candidates, so that, formula generally
puts downward pressure on salaries.
When there's increased demand, candidate shortage, that's
when the salaries are going up.
And that's exactly what we're seeing at the minute in those
kind of AI hardware verticals.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah, that makes sense.
Also, since you brought up that effect from the US coming into
Canada, you've done this in a few different parts of the world.
Do you see big differences in, the process in different countries, or maybe
even just like from legal perspectives?
Like how does it all work?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: It's really interesting, man.
If you take a look back at any, if you, I'm just going to pick random
countries, say Australia, and we're really close to like Indonesia, and
then we've got, China and Japan and the Middle East and UK and Europe and
North America, if you go and walk around the streets, what is typical behavior
and what is acceptable in one region?
You take that to another region and you might find yourself in a little strife.
So what I found was really interesting is that every country you live in
has these different cultural norms.
And there are pros and cons, I find, to every region that I've lived in.
I find that, If we take the UK and Australia and the APAC region, very
direct, it is quite transactional where people are, you know, I don't necessarily
need to have a brand or a reputation or a connection with this person.
They're like, Hey, you're a recruiter.
Hey, here's some good candidates.
Sure.
I'll take a look.
Let's try it out.
Whereas here in the U S and Canada, that type of business approach, it
still might happen, but it's a very, It's a much smaller amount of success.
So it's very relationship driven, but then if you go to somewhere in Asia,
again, it's going to be different.
So it was just, I find getting used to those different cultural norms.
And I mean, we've been in Canada now since 2017.
So certainly I find that we've adapted to what is norm, but I
still have a particular style about how I do my work and how I meet
people and such.
Some people.
Um, I don't want to say love or hate, but it, it kind of comes down to that.
So some people like don't respond well to it at all.
Like, oh,
it's too strong.
I did a disk assessment.
Strong D personality, just like down the line.
Let's talk, the nuts and bolts of it.
Whereas I find sometimes people need a bit of fluffy couple of conversations.
So I'm like, ah, whatever it, work with me or don't.
It doesn't make that much of a difference.
I'm here to help.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yep.
That's fair.
Piggybacking on that question.
I'm curious.
Do you all work like the way you all work?
Is it, just so you recruit four firms in North America and is
the talent pool you're looking at always going to be folks?
In North America, or do you also look to the rest of the world either for
remote roles or do these companies sometimes, want to look worldwide
to perhaps bring someone into, to, their North American offices?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: So during the pandemic,
everyone was like remote first,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: we recruited across, I found that
when we picked up roles, it was quite, broad across, the globe,
especially in web three, if you're like web three, blockchain, DeFi,
those clients were just like anybody, anywhere, just find me the best people.
so it does only see, saw that.
Traditionally when we first started, we only did Canada and then it was after
about six ish, 12 months that we're like, Hey, there is so much more business to
be had in North America or in the States.
So we, won a few accounts in the US, but I'd say primarily our main
network and our main focus is in Canada but through that, obviously
it's hard to ignore the US there.
Yeah, and one point as well, you're talking about bringing people in
and around, there are, recruitment businesses that have, they specialize
in bringing international talent for Canadian companies, but what I think
is interesting to note on companies that offer that type of model, we're
missing out on the Canadian talent.
So there's a lot of people in Canada who are like, Hey, can I please work?
And then there are companies that are like, Hey, we can hire you this.
Dude from Mexico or this person from Pakistan or whatever, and
they'll bring them over on a visa.
And it's been to the detriment of local Canadian talent.
So I think, yeah, just at the end of the day, there's a lot of
people who can do a lot of work and there's a lot of companies hiring.
It's, we're just matchmakers at the end of the day.
And, we spend a lot of time building our network and our brand and these
so as, when, and if the role comes up, Hey Presto, we've already got
a good network of people there.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
That makes sense.
Out of curiosity, as a North American firm, do you also,
would you do recruiting?
Would you work with a company outside of North America who wants
to recruit North American talent?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: small business, man.
We're not too picky.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: yeah, yeah, anyone.
Okay.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: yeah, really,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah, that's fair.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: you know, in Europe said,
Hey, we want to build a team in Toronto, Happy to help them.
If a , UK company or let's say a US company, for example, wants to hire
in Toronto, hey, we can do that.
Another point I'll just highlight as well about the whole pandemic thing, when we
kicked off the pandemic in Canada, It blew up the market, man, because all these U.
S.
tech companies were hiring, and they were poaching a lot
of really good Canadian talent.
So what that meant is, it's driven the, it's increased the demand for Canadian
engineers, and therefore increased the salaries, which is why, during that
peak pandemic, we saw salaries going crazy, and now, a lot of people are
talking about this whole, tech downturn.
It's kind of, we're balancing ourselves out a little bit.
A lot of these tech companies had these huge valuations, so now it's kind
of like, hey, we're settling back to something that's a little more stable
mind you, if you're an AI company, maybe a different story, but,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
So North technology people, is that your first, first foray into
building a business yourself?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Yes,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
How's that going?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Champagne and razorblades.
There's an old saying in recruitment, champagne and razorblades.
You're either popping corks because you made placements and everybody's happy and
you're making money, or it's razorblades where you're like, oh my god, this is very
hard, and I'm having some dark thoughts.
So look, man, honestly, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I was really fortunate where I had a little, bit of cash lying around
where I'm like, Hey, you know what?
I could probably see myself through for the next three, six months without a job.
Want to
start making some money.
So it was pretty touch and go for the first six months.
Cause like I said, we incorporated, I think it was like 14th of Jan, 2020.
And then literally two
weeks later, we're
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: rough timing.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: bad, really.
But, you know, we, I said, we had some cash to tide me over for a little bit.
It was pretty scary thinking, Hey, what, what's happening?
And I think everybody was in the same boat.
but Yeah.
first business learnt a ton, learnt from failing.
I guess, I don't know if people are too proud to say that, but Hey, guess what?
You learn so much more from a mistake than you do from a success
because you're like, Oh, it worked.
But if you fail,
you're like, ah sometimes you have to learn that lesson the hard way.
So.
It's been awesome.
I've hired and trained and coached and managed people from zero recruitment
experience to be highly proficient.
A lot of these people have now gone on for other roles and, for turnover
and sometimes it didn't work out with particular people, but, I'm really happy
with, uh, I'm excited about what we've, what I've built and I think we've done
some great work for some great companies.
So, uh, yeah, certainly happy with, with how things are, but, certainly not the
only thing I'm working on at the minute.
Got a little stealth tech startup I'm working on at the minute, um, with, uh,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: A small tech product.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: It is a small tech product.
Yes, it is.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yep.
Awesome.
Is there anything you can tell us about that or is that still
keeping that quiet for now?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: No, yeah, so.
I'll, I don't want to, you know obviously this is going to go out to a live audience
and we're still definitely in that stealth mode, but hopefully we can reveal in the
next couple of weeks but basically it's in the recruitment sector and, having
done a ton of research about what else is out there, a lot of people are trying
to, automate the job of a recruiter,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: which is kind of like
this AI for everything.
Oh, it's going to be AI AI for this, and where I come back to is like.
Is AI necessarily, is it the right hammer?
Is it the right tool for this problem?
And I think everybody's just hitting things with AI.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: There's so much of that.
It's true.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: yeah, totally.
So we're definitely utilizing AI.
It's in the recruitment space and sector.
But I can comfortably say I have not through dozens of hours of
research, I have not found any global competitors that are doing what we do.
So I'm pretty sure, pretty sure, man, once we launch.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: mean, I'm, I'm totally like tooting
my own horn here, but we're, I really do think we're going to disrupt.
I mean, I know again, that, yeah, man, you're talking a big game, once, once we
launch what we've built and what I have in my mind, I don't think recruitment
will be done the same way again.
And we're really trying to solve problems.
You know, everybody's like, oh, let's automate recruitment.
And I'm like, sure, you guys do that.
We're going to go over here and build this thing.
And then hopefully we're going to eat your lunch.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Well, maybe in a few months we should have
you back on and you can talk about your, product development journey.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Mate, I would absolutely love it.
I've been super inspired to, to build something like this.
And it's now, it's not, I want to actually transition out of North
technology people and, and work on this startup full time this year.
That's obviously going to be super difficult, but it's, what I, what
I want to do, and, we're going to apply for YC in a couple of weeks.
So crossed, we'll see.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah, fingers crossed.
That's super exciting.
Man, building, products is just, it's also just so much fun.
Like, I love it, have you found that so far the product development
stuff, exciting, difficult?
Was it what you were expecting?
Was it not?
Like, how's that going for you?
Yeah.
I'm a, I'm a sales guy.
That, that's what I've for the last 15 years or so.
I don't want sales guy anymore.
I want to, I, and where I think my skills, my recruitment background
will really compliment a tech company is on that product.
So having listened to a bunch of podcasts and events and heard
a lot of smart people talk.
Yourself, Raph, last week on our show, appreciate that one.
You know, there is a, there is certainly a recipe that people suggest in building
tech products, whether or not you follow that recipe or have, or follow
the advice, completely different story.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: but Yeah.
I think people don't know what they want and your job as a
founder and a product person is to iterate and try and experiment.
Hey, what about this?
What about that?
So, that fail fast kind of design mentality is certainly something
that I've, taken on board.
And I mean, for mine, if I can learn from somebody who's smarter than me
and learn a lesson the easy way, when someone's like, Hey, Adam, don't do that.
Yep, gotcha Raph, next.
So yeah, excited for that journey, for sure.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Awesome.
Cool.
Anything else you want to tell me about North Technology people or, the events?
Thank you so much for having me last week.
That was amazing.
I think I saw you also do like an AI machine learning one.
So yeah.
Yeah.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Yeah man, so you know, recruitment
business, we make placements, that's where we generate revenue, but since
we started the business, I've always, believed in the term of kind of business
karma, you know, like if we're, you know, So, creating this, this free
event community and resource for people across Canada and North America, and
we're contributing to the ecosystem.
Good things come off the back of that, and we have just met so many
fantastic people, clients, and candidates alike through our events.
So, yeah, that's what we do.
But yeah, don't, don't want to plug the business too much.
If you're hiring or you're looking for work, always happy to have conversations
I think recruitment's probably I don't want to call myself an expert
because I don't like to, so I just, I know a lot about recruitment and,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: I'll call you an expert.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: okay,
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: you don't want to say it, I'll say it.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: yeah, you get called these types of
things that when people are like, oh, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm like, I think you
get called that, you know, that's, it's like a nickname, you know what I mean?
Like nobody's
like, oh yeah, I'm like Jimmy Jones.
It's like, does anybody call you that?
Or is that what you want people to call you?
You get awarded a nickname, you get awarded those types of titles.
So, Yeah, I think we do cool things with our results speak for themselves and
yeah, happy to chat and help anybody who's looking for work or struggling I know
it's pretty tough out there at the minute.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Yeah.
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much.
We're going to wrap this up with, the small tech question.
So I hear you've brought a, a small tech product to, talk about something
that you use that has Meaningfully affected your life in some way or
that you find neat or fun or yeah.
What you got for us?
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Yeah, so there is this
app called , PDF Filler.
Now
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: PDF
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Yeah, when we get CVs in from candidates,
they have all their details on there.
And there are some things that we want to scrub off, i.
e.
Personal contact details when we send them to the client, because we
don't want them to call the candidate directly, and then we miss out on
that, and the conversations, and the follow up, and blah, blah, blah.
So we say, hey, if you want to talk to Jim or Jane or Raph, let
us know, and we'll coordinate that.
PDF filler has just been like super useful, where you just upload any
document, specifically PDFs, which you can't edit, And then I'll go
in and I'll draw a square and I'll say, remove, and then I'll add logo.
It, I don't know how many users they have, but it's just been, I mean, we,
we used it for the last four years and it's just like a no brainer.
It's like, yep, cool.
We need this.
, so there's that, which I found was, super handy and useful for us.
Also, if you're like, just an average Joe or Jane, Carrot is a
mobile app that I also look and use.
I've used it to buy some things.
So basically it's like eBay, but it's like hyper, super localized.
So the idea is that like, you're selling stuff to your neighbors
and people in your community.
So yeah, it's free to use and download.
I've bought some random stuff off there.
So I would, yeah, totally plug them.
And, the last one I'd say is, uh, TinyURL.
It does what it says on the box.
They've been around for ages.
I did used to use another one , URL shortener.
I think it was called Bitly.
But then they, monetized it and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, ugh, I don't want to pay to make my URL shortener.
So, TinyURL, shout out to you guys.
Thanks for keeping it free.
And, yeah, basically you just, if you need to shorten a URL,
you just throw it in there.
TinyURL, bing, and it gives you a, you know, HTTP, LARIBAR, 506letters.
com, and you just click, you can send that link, and people click it,
and it takes them to the full URL.
So, uh, yeah, there's a few little products that, hopefully worked
for me, and, and hopefully your audience can find some value there.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: I love it.
I find it so awesome how there's like.
There's so much space for so many different like little products
that serve a very specific purpose for a very specific audience.
And you can just build
a nice solid business running these small tech products, which is amazing.
So, yeah, thanks for sharing those.
I will definitely be checking out Carrot, and the PDF filler
sounds pretty great too.
And TinyURL, I already knew.
They're pretty cool.
Thanks for sharing.
And thanks for coming on the podcast.
I appreciate it.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: Very welcome, Raph.
Yeah, man.
It was good.
Good to catch up and chat.
And hopefully the audience is, uh, you know, learn a thing or two about
recruitment in the market and what's happening, but, uh, yeah, I think that
this, the market, the last thing I'll say is that, that, honestly, tech , hasn't
had its best year in the last 12 to 18 months, but from what we're seeing.
So I predicted at the end of last year, I said Q1 is going to be a kind of wait
and see month, if we got through the end of the quarter and didn't see a
bunch of Canadian layoffs, I think Bell and a couple of other large corporate
enterprises have decided to make some layoffs, which is cool, but as long as
we're not seeing a bunch of startups VC funded make I think Q2 is probably going
to be the unthawing and then hopefully Q3, Q4, we're going to start to see
some good movement again in the market.
We're starting to see some clients like pop up again and start to have
people get back in touch with us and say, Hey, can you help over my goal?
Okay.
So it's starting to see things move.
Anybody who's out there struggling to find work, just be patient , happy
to help you if you want to chat and have conversations about that as well.
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: awesome.
That is very hopeful sounding, and I love it.
So, great note to end it on.
Thanks for coming on, and I'll talk to you soon.
adam-delgado--he-him-_1_03-26-2024_180225: man, take care, all the
raph_1_03-26-2024_150226: Alright, see ya.
RaphaÃ«l Titsworth-Morin: Folks.
That was my interview with Adam Delgato of north technology people.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I hope you've learned some interesting stuff about recruitment.
And make sure to keep an eye out for whatever Adam is brewing on the
side, this exciting new product.
So thanks again for listening, you can go find Ephemere Creative at goec.io.
You can subscribe to the podcast at smalltechpodcast.com.
Find us on YouTube on Spotify, everywhere that fine podcasts are found.
You can subscribe to our newsletter smalltechpodcast.com, which is
where we will be sending you all kinds of neat tips and tricks
about building small tech products.
So that's it for this week's episode, we all want to do some good in the world.
So go out there and build something good folks.
I'll see you on the next one.
See.
Yeah.