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We’re in the middle of a significant transformation regarding the way we produce and consume, thanks to the digitization of manufacturing processes. This transition is so impactful that it received its own definition, Industry 4.0. This name represents the fourth revolution that has occurred in the manufacturing ecosystem.
In this special episode, Yishay Yovel, Cato Network’s Chief Marketing Officer interviews Alfred Sobrinho, PlayPower’s Vice President and Head of Information Technology, where they’ll discuss how the implementation of a SASE Infrastructure looks for manufacturing companies.
If you are not familiar with the term Industry 4.0, this is the episode for you…
Convergence by Cato Networks is a show for IT professionals made by IT professionals. We'll talk about the most burning questions, hear bolder opinions and mostly learn about what is happening in the IT world today
We are here to uncover the good, the
bad and the ugly of the It industry.
My name is Robin Jones, and
this is Convergence by Cato Networks.
you can't open your LinkedIn or read a
news article without some mention of the great resignation.
The great resignation shows no sign of slowing
down and in fact, maybe ramping up.
According to a recent survey from Microsoft,
52% of Gen Z and millennials are
considering joining the great reshuffle.
This is up 3% from 2021.
35% of Gen X and baby boomers are also
thinking about a job change in 2022 and with
low levels of happiness reported by working It professionals,
putting it in the bottom 43%, according to an
ongoing survey of millions by career Explorer.
CIOs should take this statistic seriously.
On this episode, we are hosting Branden Odell
and Nick Holden, Cato Network's talent acquisition partners
located both in the US and UK.
We'll talk about why talented people in tech
are quitting their jobs, what are the best
incentives, and how to adapt the company culture
to welcome the elusive Gen Z.
Stay tuned, folks.
This should be a fun one.
Hi, Nick. Hi, Brendan.
Thank you for joining me today.
How are you both doing?
I'm good, thanks, robin?
I'm good, sunshine, so I can't complain. Wonderful.
What about yourself, Branden? Doing well here.
How are you, Robin?
Life is good.
Life is good.
So let's start with a big wide range.
And I'll start with you, Branden.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Branden Odell.
I work here on the talent team at Cato Networks.
I've been recruiting in the security space for almost
seven or eight years and seen a lot of
change over that time and excited to talk about
some market trends with you today.
Fantastic dancing question to you, Nick. Who are you?
What do you do?
And an additional question, how did you get here?
Great question.
So, yeah, Nick Holden, based in the UK, currently
responsible for kind of building the Cato team across
EMEA and APG, similar to Brandon being in cyber
for about six or seven years, what brought me
here today was getting headhunted by my manager.
It's the open, honest question, Robin, or answer.
I should say so, yeah. But no.
Sold the dream and decided to try
and take him up on that dream.
That sounds good.
The realm of talent acquisition is all about identifying
the right people, selling that dream, driving that dream,
and making dreams come true to a bigger, brighter,
better future and not to sell.
But Cato has lots of opportunities out there,
if you're interested, if you're listening, catonetworks.com/careers
So, on the topic of new jobs, new roles,
new ideas, if you've looked at the media, if
you looked at any of the press, the newspapers,
the websites, you'll notice that people keep banding around
the term of great resignation.
The idea of a great depression, that's old
hat now, and people are all talking about
the idea of that great resignation.
What is it and what caused this great resignation?
Yeah, I think the great
resignation has always been there.
It's not a new phenomenon.
It's not suddenly something that's cropped
up over the last two years.
What I think has escalated.
It has been covered.
We had a lot of people that were very
reluctant to change roles in uncertain periods that many
people have not seen in their lifetimes.
So I think once that was over, people kind
of said, okay, now I can look elsewhere.
I can change my job.
And I think that's what kind of kicked it off.
And we've seen that over the past 18 months to
two years with people more open to changing roles.
So do you think it was just coveted that
escalated people's willingness to resign, or do you think
there were other facts that was causing the transition?
I think of it played a factor, but I think, really,
13 years of a hot candidate market and a good tech
increase in jobs put people in a position where the supply
and demand for talent drove a candidate market.
People don't quit jobs when they
know they can't find another one.
And right now, they have lots
of opportunities coming to them.
And if they see at their current role that they're
not getting what they want, whether it's remote options or
benefits or whatever it may be, they're willing to just
say, goodbye, and I'll go find something better.
So why do good people in well paid
tech roles actually decide to up and leave?
Great question.
You get the promise of the grass
is being greener on the other side.
It can be true.
It cannot be true as well.
But I think people like to
experience different cultures, different environments.
It's become a lot more apparent now that you have
to work a lot harder to retain your staff.
So some organizations, they don't take that
seriously is what they should do.
So having the amount of opportunities, and
as Brandon alluded to, it's a very
candidate driven marketplace at the moment.
So the number of options that
are there for candidates is quadrupled.
Even more than that, each candidate to
speak with has three, four options on
the table when they're considering changing wrongs.
Okay, so it sounds like it's very hot out there.
So if you have multiple different companies all
vying for the same candidates and all vying
for the same metaphorical pound of flesh to
join the organizations, what recommendations do you have
to get people through the door?
If you have four or five people all baying
for the same role, how can you differentiate?
How can you gain the attention of the
ideal candidate and say, yes, we are the
shining star, you should follow us?
I think part of it is having what they're looking for
and people right now, the list is longer than ever in
the past, you could ask someone and they may have one
or two asks out of a new role or a new
company, but now it's almost a ten minute conversation on what
they're looking for and what they want.
It could be career progression, abilities
to grow, great tech, great culture,
awesome manager, salary, benefits, perks.
That conversation is extensive now.
So the way to attract them in a noisy
market is to offer as many of those check
boxes as possible and then really sell them on
what they have to gain in the new role.
Don't tell them something that's not true, but obviously
show them the path of where they can get
career progression or abilities to grow through training, which
Robin knows a ton about that's, I think, what
is getting people in the door at Cato and
other top companies just following on top of that,
candidates aren't necessarily applying to roles anymore.
It's a lot about head hunting, about attracting them.
So we do a great job here at
Cato from a kind of employee brand perspective.
So talking about that, making sure we're visible in the market
to when candidates come to say, oh, I'm going to look
for a new role, I've seen Cato, I'll apply.
And then when we have those conversations, they're
warm conversations, that's a big thing as well,
which we do very well here.
Okay, so, question for you, Nick.
If I was a recruiter or somebody in talent acquisition
and I was looking for an ideal candidate for a
role, what are the general places you would look?
What are the skills you would search for?
How is a person can I get noticed in the market?
Yeah, it's a great question.
LinkedIn is kind of cornered the market
when it comes to selling acquisition because
it's a social platform where you can
sell yourself without selling yourself as such.
So this is talent acquisition.
We speak to the hiring managers.
We are looking to what attributes, what technical
skills the team are looking for, but then
also looking at the soft skills as well.
So the technical attributes there, they're easy to
put on LinkedIn to show certifications, so target
achievements if your sales show the kind of
relevant technologies that you're working in.
And then when it comes to the
softer skills, making sure simple things is
like grammar on your LinkedIn is correct.
That's a big thing.
Unfortunately, homeowners look at that very well.
I've had candidates in the past who they've had poor grammar
in their CV and the home managers pull them out.
They still got hired, but it creates that little bit
of bias from the home manager's point of view.
When they first see it, they actually
know this candidate can't pick up this,
so they don't pay attention to detail.
So it's little things like that.
So making yourself stand out in that crowded
marketplace is key and making sure that on
LinkedIn, for example, you've got your attributes, your
technical skills, making sure they're visible.
So you're saying if I have a CV
with a skill of attention to detail, make
sure I spell the word detail correctly? Yeah.
Or you can go the other route and you
can purposefully spell things incorrectly to get people's attention.
That might not be the recommended approach.
If you've got a CV, you call it a CV and not a resume.
Because it's only in the US.
They call it resumes.
Are you seeing the same on your side, Brandon?
Recruiting for the Americas region, recruiting for
the other side of the pond.
To myself and Nick, what sort of skills
or what sort of stand outs would you
recommend that people do to get noticed?
I think looking for a job ends up turning into
sales and marketing, and that's easy if you're in sales
and marketing, but if you're an engineer, that's not naturally
maybe one of your skill sets or your strength.
I always tell people.
Especially if they're out of work and looking for a job.
That it's a full time job and you have
to treat it that way and kind of pick
up some skills that maybe aren't in your strength
when it comes to getting yourself out there. Networking.
Talking to people. And then. Of course.
Having a profile that's interesting and highlighting
your experience in the right way.
It's very difficult, it's very hard if you are an
extroverted person, if you're in sales, marketing, if you're in
recruitment, your job is to talk to people.
And all day, every day, you are talking, you
are engaging, you are interacting, but you might not
be focused on some of the more introspective qualities.
Now, from my own experiences, the majority
of engineers, developers, DevOps, SRE, the nerds
of the world, and I say that
as myself, we are generally more introverted.
And when it comes to hyping yourself up,
getting yourself noticed, saying, these are my fantastic
achievements, it feels very weird, feels very foreign,
and the imposter syndrome runs wild and strong.
The best developers I know, they think they're
terrible developers because 90% of the code comes
from stack overflow copy and paste it.
But the true intelligence comes from knowing what exactly
to copy and paste and what it does, or
if you don't know what it does, at least
how to hide the bugs and then blame the
junior dev or the person at work behind you.
So if I was an engineer and I
wanted to get a little bit of self
confidence to get head hunted by somebody, are
there any small recommendations that you would suggest?
I do?
Just we're very minor ones, and
I'll target that at you, Brandon.
A lot of times when we interview technical
folks, they have really exciting experience, but you
have to pull it out of them.
So I think then, kind of looking at what they've
actually accomplished or created in their career with a sense
of pride and being able to say, you know what,
this project actually turned out really good.
And my company and my manager were happy about it.
I should highlight that because when we asked them, they're
like, I did this, I did that, it was okay.
But in the end, they created amazing
things like what we have at Cato.
They created that.
And I bet if you asked some of them, they
would just be like, oh, well, it needs this.
I have to improve on this or this could be better.
And they don't really focus on
how far they've come sometimes.
So just kind of stopping for a moment, realizing
and highlighting that experience is what I would recommend.
The self criticality, the constant desire to improve,
the constant push to make yourself better than
the day before, that's what keeps people going
and that keeps driving that approach.
But I like that you mentioned confidence, because
confidence is often closely equated with ego.
And some folks see people that are
overly vivacious and confident and loud and
think they're stupid because they're loud.
Now, that's kind of a little dovetail.
I'm not going to go too deep down that path.
But ego does play a very large part in
people's career development because titles directly tied to progress.
So, question for you, Nick, when you're hiring,
are you identifying that better salaries or interesting
positions, title, what is the driver?
What gets people's attention most?
Yeah, I think it depends on the new
number of factors, culturally and kind of geographically.
We have some regions that are more focused on
the title, more focused on the career development.
We have some areas that are more
focused on the salary, for example.
I think a large part of it comes down to a
where is that person in their career at the moment?
What are they looking for?
Is their next steps?
I speak to many candidates that often say,
oh, first call, it's not about the salary,
I don't care about the salary.
And then you get later on.
And actually it's all about salary.
So it's about understanding that people have their
own motivations for taking a career change.
I think it's about being honest with yourself.
And just as recruiters, we're not here
to try and catch people out.
We're not trying to here to get
the best deal for Cato because we
can find someone that's $100,000 under budget.
It's not about that.
Look, people will pay market value if you think
you're worth it and kind of go back.
Confidence is the biggest thing.
And being able to talk to yourself, be honest with
yourself and say, look, I'm going to make a move.
This is what I need, this is
what I can feel comfortable with.
But, yeah, some people are truly motivated by title
alone and some are purely motivated on salary.
Are you seeing similar in the US.
Brandon, like Nick said, it's case to case.
You'll come across a candidate who's been trying to
get that manager title for two years, and they
weren't able to get it in their current role.
And that's what's really driving them.
They know that's the next step that they need
to get where they want to be, and that's
really important to them at that time.
But generally, I think you could almost draw like a
circle diagram of overlap of the things that people want.
And again, there's a lot of boxes, and they're
going to look at an overall opportunity for what's
going to put them in a better place.
Salary is a huge part of
that, and it's really competitive.
So in this type of market, people aren't taking pay
cuts generally, they're looking for a step up, and they're
not going to settle for less than that, even if
they feel like the opportunity is really exciting.
How about people just entering into the workplace?
There's no denying that the Gen ZS and
the millennials are now effectively running the next
wave of people in the market.
So if you've just come straight out of university
or if you only have a couple of years
experience under the belt, are you seeing the same
level of salary expectation and desire as you would
for somebody in their late 40s, early fifty s?
I think even more so maybe they have
really high expectations of their worth, maybe even
an inflated version of that sometimes.
And there's so much information available to
them that wasn't in the past.
First of all, people talk about compensation.
It used to be really taboo, but now I think people
are open to having a discussion about it with their peers.
Then there's glass door fishbowl rep you.
There's so much information for them to say, this is
what the market gets for this type of position.
And if they see that that's what they
want, they feel like they deserve it and
they're not going to settle for less.
That transparency is both a blessing and a curse.
It's a blessing to promote work of fairness, salary
equality, and get people having those discussions to make
sure your employers are treating you fair.
But if I was a fresh Grad and I
went on levels FYI and was seeing what a
level six Google Senior Associate Fellow is getting, I
would start thinking, yes, that is achievable.
I'll point this one at you, Nick.
Do you see many candidates, especially
younger or junior candidates, being unrealistic
with junior entry level roles?
Yes is the short answer.
And I think that's where it comes back
down to the recruiter to level those expectations.
Because it's okay saying, I want this really
high salary, but a do you have the
skills and experience to go alongside that salary?
And B do you have the ability to achieve that?
Because if we turn this on sales, for example,
if you're getting a large amount of OTE, then
you're expected to hit a big target you're not
going to get a million dollar OTE and then
have a 50,000 pound a year target, are you?
So it kind of swings and roundabouts, and I think that's
the same way for tech, for example, that you got to
be able to understand, yes, a role may pay that, but
do you come with the necessary experience and are you going
to be able to perform that role up to that level?
I think that's an important conversation
for us as recruiters to have.
It's about setting expectations on the salary, but
also setting expectations on the role requirements.
It's a key element of what we do as talent acquisition.
You're effectively the key masters and
the gatekeepers to accompany success.
If you have a strong pipeline established for roles
and you identify the best candidates and criterias, well,
the company will grow faster and more rapidly.
So in doing your initial candidate vetting
and setting your expectations, you also need
to start looking at culture and personalities.
So what sort of personality assessments, tests, or
vetting do you do on your initial calls?
And I'll start with Brandon.
I think a lot of it is, again, going back
to what people are looking for and what they want.
If they value diversity, if they value a
good manager in a collaborative work environment, those
are going to come up throughout the process.
Naturally, they're going to highlight those things.
Examples of when they've done that, examples of
when they wanted that, or examples where they're
leaving because they didn't get that.
And those obviously resonate here at Cato.
And when Nick and I hear those examples, we smile
a little bit because we know pretty quickly if someone's
going to fit in or not based off of how
they operate, how they answer those questions.
So I think it's a total picture.
It may not be that we're just driving at one thing
because it's more than one thing that makes a culture, but
by the end, we can tell when someone's going to be
fit in at Cato pretty well, I think.
So that's interesting.
You mentioned that if they're fitting with
a culture, culture as a company is
a very organic, living, growing thing.
Any company that tries to force a
culture generally doesn't have a culture.
It's not something you can automatically force.
So if I was a recruiter, if I was somebody
that worked in human resources or similar, and I was
finding it hard to bring in young, fresh talent, what
advice would you give to me to help shape my
corporate culture to meet the needs of the Gen Z,
Gen X millennials of this world?
What I've learned about that generation is really
what they want, and what they want the
most is career progression and learning.
And a company that cares about those things looks
at where they stand in it and says, here's
what we need to do to make those better.
I know we've invested a lot in
learning and development since I've been here.
So that's one checkbox ticked and then on the career
progression side, I think probably that's an area we can
improve for the Gen Z within our company.
And I'm sure that we're looking at that
and planning on improving that over time.
So would you say having a consistent learning and
development, an L and D plan is the best
incentive to keep talent within a corporation?
Or are there better ways to retain talent?
There's no right or wrong answer
when it comes to retaining talent.
You've got to look at what's important to your
team, to your culture, what might be important to
your kind of L and D team.
Robin may be very different to
our sales organization, for example.
Each part of the team is
going to have different motivators.
So I think it's about utilizing tools that
are on the marketplace to stay in tune
to what the business is looking for.
And that culture really starts from the top.
So CEO down has to be all
talking the same type of culture.
The best organizations that I've worked in, with a
good culture in inverted brackets, is somewhere that is
open, it's engaging, is being driven from the CEO.
It's not a HR initiative, it's not
a recruitment initiative, it's a leadership initiative.
And that's the biggest thing.
And then taking the time to listen to your employees on
an individual basis, but also on a team basis and saying,
look, to keep this team happy we have to do X,
and to keep this team happy, we have to do Y.
But obviously that's not scalable.
So trying to keep it in a way that encompasses
everyone and listens to as many people as possible.
I've heard that one of the most profound reasons
people leave a company is often because of their
manager instead of the actual role itself.
But there's quite a few things happening in the
global macroeconomic climate currently, which are leading to quite
a few people being forcibly pushed out.
Websites like Thelayoff.com and others seem to be
going through a period of growth currently, as
unfortunately people seem to be made redundant and
corporations are downsizing or going through hiring freezes.
So how do you think this global situation is
going to play out over the next twelve months?
I don't think it's going to improve.
I think there's going to be more kind of
storms before the weather brightens up a little bit,
because we're seeing now a lot of organizations cutting
back or hiring freezes, for example.
I think until the market understands what's going
on in the world and react to that
efficiently, then unfortunately I think there will be
more layoffs and it's about how people react.
So we kind of talked about early banking itself as
attractive as possible to your employer, and I think it's
also from the employees point of view as well.
It's not holding those lay offs against people.
We've come out of the kind of climate of COVID into
the kind of potential recession we find ourselves in now, where
people may have gaps in their TV, where they haven't worked
six months through no fault of their own.
So it's about removing that bias as a manager,
taking the time to kind of have that conversation
and understand why people are in that situation.
So as the quantity of candidates available in the
market is, as you mentioned, predicted to increase, do
you think this will reflect on the total overall
compensation packages people are asking for?
As you mentioned earlier, it's very much in
employees market currently where people can ask for
inflated salaries, whether they have inflated sense of
self worth or they're just trying to keep
up with established amounts.
Do you see overall comp packages changing
over the next twelve to 18 months?
I think it depends on how long it goes
on and how many people remain on the market.
It's an odd market right now because you have the
hottest twelve year stretch of hiring, followed by COVID, where
people still continue to hire even though people were hesitant
for maybe a couple of months, and then you have
these questions about a recession now.
So I think it's hot and cold at
the same time, which is probably the first
time I've ever seen this in my career.
And I don't predict that hiring is going to slow down.
I mean, there are companies that have 300
positions that have been open for several months.
Even the people coming on the market aren't
going to be enough to fill those.
They're not going to be enough to fill
the increased demand between now and what they're
projecting for between now and 2025, which it's
doubling and tripling in the tech space.
So my thoughts is no, it's not going to affect
the salary of the market enough with the layoffs.
And I think even some of these companies that have
layoffs are going to continue to hire in other departments.
And then after six or eight or ten months, if
the recession doesn't hit very hard, we'll be hiring again.
I think during this period of uncertainty,
companies should look forward to condensing the
amount of services and vendors they have.
They should look at simplifying their overheads
and try and reduce their operational costs.
So maybe look for vendors that can do multiple
items rather than one, and try and find ways
to simplify their entire operational day to day runnings.
And there's several companies out there to
do them, one of which is cato.
But I'm not here to talk to you
and sell to you because heck, you recruit
the people who make the dream happen.
But it's a pretty scary market out there.
As you've mentioned, we've had a twelve year
hot streak and the world of tech is
booming and bigger and better than ever.
But the global situation of our markets at
the moment has a lot of people scared.
And believe me, just don't look
at the crypto markets either.
Unless you want to cry yourself to
sleep, just pretend it doesn't exist.
Crypto markets are bad.
So during this time of uncertainty,
how do we keep employees happy?
How do we keep our internal teams smiling
and feeling like their jobs are secure?
And there's so much question marks
just out there in the wild.
How do we keep people happy?
I think, like you said, there could be
a consolidation, and our strategy feels like we
could reap the benefits of that.
If the market does go south,
we could be positioned well.
And that's something that people want to know.
They want to know that our company is stable,
that it has a good strategy in place, that
there's money in the bank for a rainy day,
and that we're going to continue growing because our
market is going to continue growing.
Our leadership publicly has talked about how
companies shouldn't be consolidating right now because
it's still going to be growth.
And they also continue to grow.
During COVID, when a lot of people said, we're going
to slow down, they said, we're going to speed up.
So they've shown a track record of making it
through tough times and making the right decisions.
And I think not only do they say the right things,
but they've shown that they'll do the right things, and that
gives people a sense of security of the future.
Security of the future is
something that everybody wants.
Sadly, we're not in a position anymore where there's
jobs for life and roles that offer final salary.
Pensions are few and far between, which is a little
bit different to how it was in the 70s.
Hopefully they'll make a comeback at some point in the
future, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I think that's kind of a bygone era.
So when it comes to acquiring talent, say
you have an open role, you've scoured LinkedIn,
you found the ideal candidate, you've reached out.
How often do those leads go cold?
Are you having the majority of your
leads come back with a response?
Or do you feel like you're shouting into
the void the majority of the time?
Shouting into the void is a good word to use.
As recruiters, we sometimes have to be pests.
I'm pretty sure you've encountered in the past probably
where you get 50 messages from a recruiter and
there's only so many ways you can say no. Yes.
Quite frequently I get messages saying, hey, John, to be
a Java developer, we have a short six month position.
I'll ignore that one.
Again, I think you'd be a good
Java developer, Robin, so you shouldn't put
yourself out the window all the time.
But now it's about understanding it's, having the
conversation with the right level of candidates.
You've alluded to that.
From a recruitment point of view,
it's about being very specific.
With our targeted messaging, only reaching out to people from
what we can see would fit that they can see
the role could be of interest to them and making
sure that we're going to them with something that we
feel as a recruiter is going to be of interest.
Candidates quickly get turned off when they
hear something that is way outside their
experience, out of their comfort zone.
On top of that is the networking side.
Brandon alluded to it early us as recruiters, when we have
a role coming on top of our desk, we know pretty
quickly the types of candidates we want, the types of candidates
we know, and who we can reach out to.
So it's about building that network.
And on the flip side, candidates point
of view, I always recommend having two
or three recruiters in your network.
You're not speaking to them every day.
You're not having a cup of
coffee with them every single day.
But you know, if something were to happen, you know the
people to go to who know you as a person, as
an employee, and we'll be able to help you pretty swiftly.
Yes.
I've always kind of wondered that.
So if I was somebody looking for a job and
there was a company that I wanted to work for,
but they didn't have an open position, that suited me.
Do people in talent acquisition like it
when strangers reach out and say, hey,
here are my skills and abilities.
Let me know if you have a role that opens up.
Is that generally liked or do you
dislike it when people do that?
I personally like it.
My job is to talk to people, as you alluded to earlier.
Strangely enough, my wife would probably disagree,
but I like talking to people.
I'm always open to having conversations, be that
with experienced people or be that with people
who are just starting out in their careers.
I'm always happy to offer guidance or offer support when
it comes to TV or LinkedIn, just to kind of
help people in the Social Security space, because at the
end of the day, it's always about paying it forward
and helping someone else, because unfortunately, some of us will
always be on the time of need at some point. Okay.
Question for you, Brandon.
I apply for a role.
Should I include a picture of myself and my resume?
I'll use the American term.
Should I have a picture of myself on the resume?
Should I upload a video resume?
What's your preferred style?
I think you want whatever a person
submits to be a reflection of themselves.
So if that means video, great.
If you feel confident about that, do that.
If that means you don't want to
show a picture, don't show a picture.
And kind of every flavor of that.
So my style is I want you to be
you and feel comfortable in that and be authentic.
And then the rest will kind of fall into place.
That's a very optimistic and lovely
way of looking at the world.
The old statement, you be you
because everybody else is taken. I like that.
Love the skin you're in.
Very positive messages. Go, good vibes. Good vibes.
So if I was to reach out to you folks
and say, hey, I've seen this fantastic role, it's brilliant.
I think I have all of the prerequisites,
but I don't really have the industry experience.
You've asked for ten years of usage in this tool.
I have two years.
Is that an automatic discount and shutdown,
or is there still an opportunity that
you might sneak through the door?
Sneak through the door is an interesting term.
I'd always be open to having conversations with people.
Even if there's a small kind of match on the
skill requirements, it's always that person could be the next
big thing when it comes to that given job.
So I never close any doors.
All right, I guess I'll start applying for heart surgeon
roles and see what terms I might be lucky.
I've got shaky hands and no medical experience,
but I'll fake it until I make it. Fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed.
Kind of goes back to
our previous point about confidence.
When you're applying for a role,
it can be very disheartening.
You're putting your entire life on the line
and you're selling yourself as a product.
So when I bear my soul, I bear my all and
say, hey, Brandon, here I am, here's my experiences, here's my
skills, here I am, and I don't get the role.
How do you go back to that candidate?
And how do you make them feel like they've put
the effort in, but it's not ready for them?
How do you deliver that message without breaking
their heart and leaving them feel like they're
a shattered vase on a glass floor?
It can be very disheartening in the job
market because a lot of what you face
is no way more than yeses and for.
Again, sales, they're used to that in some ways,
but not everyone in life is really what people
want to know is the real reason.
They want to get quick and relevant feedback, and that even
when it's not what they want to hear, I think is
the best way to give them closure on a roll.
It's like, hey, the manager liked your background, but
you didn't have this piece, and other people did.
Unfortunately, they can relate to that because they see where
their shortfall was, and then they know an area that
they could come up to get there in the future.
Fantastic.
So, Nick, if I was an aspiring young person
who wanted to get into the world of tech,
either in sales, marketing, or other, what one piece
of advice would you give them today?
I would say network to your heart's content.
Don't be scared to put your face
out there in terms of relevant.
People obviously don't become a
pest when you're doing this.
And certification, I think that's a big thing as well,
that more and more they can start to look for.
So relevant cybersecurity certifications, go to relevant forums,
go to relevant trade shows now that we
can infosec or black hat, attend those and
be visible in the marketplace.
That's the biggest thing is all about visibility when
it comes to talent and knowing the right people
to speak to at the right time.
Okay, that's great. That's really good.
Industry experience, exposure, all great.
Not so great if you're a starving
artist getting paid in exposure, but being
exposed to the world of it, great.
So, different question for you, Brandon.
What one thing do you know today you
wishing you at the start of your career?
I know Nick and I have talked a
lot about networking, but not just networking.
People's willingness to help.
Like neither of us would have been successful in recruiting if
a lot of people didn't help us along the way.
So reaching out to ask for help, realizing that people are
generally good and want to do the right thing is kind
of the one thing that I did a lot of, but
I do wish I knew did more of, because you never
know what connection is going to really lead to something.
Okay, great advice. Great advice.
Keep your horizons open, help other people, and you
never know which path life will take you.
So thank you both for joining me today.
We have some really insightful topics.
You've given me some things to think of
and it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thanks, Roy.
Thank you, Robert.
That was all for our episode today.
I hope you've come away feeling
a little more educated and empowered.
In case you forgot, I'm Robin Johns, and
you've been listening to Convergence by Cato Networks.
Don't forget to hit subscribe and
I'll see you next time.