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FutureProof You is a team comprised of: Career Pivot Expert Dan Yu, Recruiting Master John Lovig, and AI Consultant Aaron Makelky. Listeners will hear discussions of job trends, career advice, and actionable tips for making sure their careers are future proof!
EP 26 Side Hustles, AI Agents, and the Human Skills That Still Matter
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[00:00:00] Dan Yu @danoyu: All right, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today for another episode of Future Proof Use Podcast. Go F yourself. As [00:00:10] always, we are joined by my co-hosts Aaron Makelky. And John Lovig. My name is Dan [00:00:20] Yu and if you're here today, uh, today we are gonna be talking as always about job and career trends. And one of the things that we've seen, uh, just [00:00:30] recently is Google searches for terms like find job or new job or [00:00:40] even, ask for a raise. It's that kind of economy that we're, that we're looking at. And, uh, the trends are, uh, you know, of [00:00:50] those search terms have never been higher. John, what are you seeing in, uh, in the market these days?
[00:00:55] John Lovig: Yeah, I mean, as much as people are holding onto their jobs, it [00:01:00] seems like so many people are very exploratory, so. Normally, you know, in a, in a normal year, I would talk to [00:01:10] people who would say, oh, yeah, I'm exploring a bunch of different things. I have six interviews, blah, blah, blah. Now I, I'll talk to people who are like, oh, yeah, no, I'm not involved in any other [00:01:20] searches, but I like to keep my, ear to the ground and, and hear about things.
[00:01:25] John Lovig: And if it sounds interesting, then I'll. Jump in and, [00:01:30] pursue it, but I'm not actively looking and it's pretty common. I mean, a lot of people have their open to work op, uh, at least on the recruiter [00:01:40] side, maybe not what you can see on the civilian side of LinkedIn. on the back end, you know, half the hiring managers I work with you look and they have an open [00:01:50] work flag.
[00:01:51] Dan Yu @danoyu: Yeah, I noticed that too with the, with some, uh, clients where the, the hiring manager has their open to work and I'm thinking, Hmm, how [00:02:00] interesting. Right. Um, and so are you also seeing, and this goes to you, uh, as well, Aaron, are you also seeing, um, people looking at side [00:02:10] hustles, you know, the part-time job temp jobs that those searcher are, those search terms are also higher.
[00:02:17] John Lovig: Not even just looking for them. More and [00:02:20] more people that I'm talking to have a side hustle already or are, uh, you know, doing something like consulting [00:02:30] or, or advising in some way, shape or form. I.
[00:02:33] Aaron Makelky: I just had the conversation yesterday, Dan, where. I, how hard was it [00:02:40] to have a side hustle or say, do the consulting that John mentioned three or four years ago before you had ai? What type of skillset did you have to have and how much time did some of these tasks [00:02:50] take versus now with the technology you have, how easy it is to record videos, build a website, do your taxes, stuff that if you were a solo [00:03:00] side hustler or starting from the ground up, those were huge barriers to entry.
[00:03:05] Aaron Makelky: Now you can figure that out from like a one tutorial or one five minute [00:03:10] YouTube video with an AI tool. So it definitely seems like more people are saying, oh yeah, I need a side hustle. I have this skill or this knowledge that I could do on the weekends or do on the [00:03:20] side or during the slow season.
[00:03:24] Dan Yu @danoyu: And, uh, what kind of, uh, tools are you seeing, Aaron, you seem to, uh, be, have, have [00:03:30] the finger, the pulse there.
[00:03:31] Aaron Makelky: Yeah, I, the big one right now is open claw and the way that I explain it to people, it doesn't do anything new. It's [00:03:40] just in a new package. But there are some entrepreneurs and small businesses that say, I'm gonna. I put my money into a Mac Mini and an AI [00:03:50] subscription before I hire an executive assistant or somebody overseas to do a task like data entry, social media posting, answering emails, and try out [00:04:00] this virtual employee.
[00:04:03] Aaron Makelky: And Open Claw is basically a gateway or an app that stays on all [00:04:10] of the time. And I explain it to people that it's like getting. A house, it's open source. You can download it and it's free, but it [00:04:20] doesn't work until you connect it to things. So imagine someone gave you a free house, but it had no decorations, no furniture, no plumbing, no electricity.
[00:04:28] Aaron Makelky: It's not a great house. [00:04:30] Like you have to plug your own things in to make it work. And you do have to pay to run an AI model. And some of the tools you give it cost money, but [00:04:40] you just leave it on, on a device. Uh, raspberry Pie is my favorite, but you can do a Mac mini, an old laptop, whatever, and you can just chat with it through, [00:04:50] uh, any messaging service people put 'em in Discord.
[00:04:53] Aaron Makelky: I have mine in Telegram. A lot of people use Slack 'cause they're just in Slack for their business. And now they have Slack [00:05:00] channels with AI agents instead of just with, you know, external partners or agencies or employees, there's one for their open claw agents. And you give it skills and [00:05:10] tasks and it can basically do anything you can do on a computer, which is equal parts amazing and, and terrifying.
[00:05:17] Aaron Makelky: Uh, but it's. Led [00:05:20] to the question of should I hire a person or should I try to build one of these, especially if I'm an entrepreneur or a a founder of like a early stage startup. Could I get more [00:05:30] use out of this $600 device and a $50 AI subscription than I would hiring a human?
[00:05:37] Dan Yu @danoyu: Uh, it's probably a good time, you know, that, [00:05:40] uh, if you are a, a shy person that you don't like talking to people, but maybe, uh, it's also a great way to scale up your [00:05:50] efforts, especially if you're an entrepreneur, right? And you focus on your customers and, uh, and really provide that white glove service by just being in front of them. [00:06:00] John, any thoughts on tools?
[00:06:04] John Lovig: I am pretty tools agnostic when it comes to what people are using. I think for me it's [00:06:10] about how much of, of the tool are they using at any given time. Right. We, we all use perplexity a lot. It's my favorite, just 'cause of ease of use. connects to a lot of [00:06:20] my information. So it has a good running history of the things that I might be interested in. Um. But it's about how often does that impact your day [00:06:30] and how do you run it? You know? Now it's not just go to prompts. For me, it's like spaces that I have that do things that, you know, speed up my time. All my colleagues are [00:06:40] like, how are you able to work on so many searches? When I have a ton of searches?
[00:06:43] John Lovig: They're like, how are you able to do that? I was like, I don't write my writeups anymore. Like, and I don't have to [00:06:50] do, it's a pre press of a button pretty much in order to get it done. They're like, wow, can you show me? And then for some reason they struggle with, sometimes people struggle with [00:07:00] getting the right response and it's like you just not think you're not testing it enough.
[00:07:05] John Lovig: So I did all the work to test it. Just do what I copy my prompts.[00:07:10]
[00:07:12] Aaron Makelky: Yeah, and I think for career oriented people, an underrated reason to use tools like John is [00:07:20] describing. Everybody thinks it automates, it saves me time. I can do the work of five or 10 employees. There's truth in all of that, but there's also a lot of value in [00:07:30] knowing what those tools are not good at yet, and only people who are doing the work daily with them.
[00:07:36] Aaron Makelky: Like John knows where the margin between, say, a [00:07:40] perplexity space and John Lo, the career recruiting expert with these skills. There's still a space there that. That couldn't [00:07:50] be automated. I couldn't trust it to do that. It can't get the same outcome as me. And so many people look at technology as like, oh, I'll just take a nap and let it do my work for me, [00:08:00] which is really a lie anyways.
[00:08:02] Aaron Makelky: But even if you don't use the output, you're finding the boundary and the boundary moves every day. There's a new [00:08:10] model, there's a new app, there's a new thing that didn't exist. If you aren't somebody who lives in that world like John does, then you need to find. Someone at your company or [00:08:20] in your network who does and say, give me the TLDR, save me the time of the 90% that is worthless, or a a rabbit hole, not worth going down.
[00:08:29] Aaron Makelky: [00:08:30] And help me find the 10% of the hype and things out there that's actually gonna be valuable to me.
[00:08:35] John Lovig: We were even, we talked to a company, uh, [00:08:40] make and they do all sorts of agentic automations and things. It's very similar to a Zapier. [00:08:50] Um, and one of those tools where if you don't know. The use case, you're gonna struggle, right? [00:09:00] Um, but there's so many use cases for it. We could literally take something like that and follow what I do and build it for everyone on our team so that it follows their [00:09:10] particular tool set and their workflow, and automate almost everything that we do.
[00:09:16] John Lovig: From a, from an admin perspective, is it gonna be [00:09:20] cost effective? It doesn't sound like it, at least for now. So, you know, it's like, well, why would I switch when I have my setup? [00:09:30] Why would we spend X number of money to, it's to save time. Whereas, you know, I think AI as a, as a, a revenue [00:09:40] generator is the part that a lot of companies really need more of. you know, my company's like, how are you gonna get me more business?
[00:09:48] Dan Yu @danoyu: And so, uh, if you [00:09:50] flip it to the other side job seekers. Right. Um, the, uh, we've all seen, and John and I, you've seen it, uh, uh, a lot, [00:10:00] especially over the past year, people using AI to write the resume or write cover letters. Right. And, uh, kind of the AI slot that that [00:10:10] gets out there. Uh, what I've also, uh, scene is, uh. Candidates blast out using, using AI to blast [00:10:20] out applications. And that does create a lot of noise and for recruiters like us, it's, um, it's kind of muddling the noise from the [00:10:30] actual signal.
[00:10:32] John Lovig: The record, I heard a record number of applicants for a position the other day that no one else has, has commented on [00:10:40] higher number so far, 18,000 one job, 18,000. [00:10:50] Um, so like, you know, it keeps going to show the application process is not, it's not gonna be the way to get a job these days.
[00:10:59] Dan Yu @danoyu: Right. [00:11:00] And so that, that brings us to, you know, the things that we teach, right? It's all around the emotional intelligence. Right. And networking and building relationships [00:11:10] so that over time you'll be out there more and you'll have that, that connection to be able to find that job or help you find that [00:11:20] job, right?
[00:11:21] Dan Yu @danoyu: So when it actually, uh, comes to pass. And so one of the things that we like to teach at Future Proof View is really you have to network. You gotta get out there, you [00:11:30] have to, Put more content out there so that you create some scale to your reference. And so all of these concepts, these are the things we teach. Aaron, [00:11:40] do you, uh, do you still feel that there's a place for authentic relationships in, uh, you know, you work for a tech company? So, uh, what, what is [00:11:50] your thought on that?
[00:11:51] Aaron Makelky: Yeah. No, there has to be, and it's one of the things that. Inevitably will not be replaced by ai. There's what can this [00:12:00] tool do, or this technology or this software, but it, it's not gonna replace authentic relationships. Even if you said, Hey, chat GPT, go through my phone and emails and make me a [00:12:10] CRM and try to like turn your relationships into spreadsheets.
[00:12:14] Aaron Makelky: That's actually the opposite of, uh, authenticity and. And meaningful [00:12:20] relationships. Uh, there was a, a social media post that went semi viral where a guy tracked all of his relationships, including like how many hours he put in and what, what type of [00:12:30] activities he engaged in with people and turned it into a spreadsheet.
[00:12:33] Aaron Makelky: And his conclusion was, new friends after your mid to late twenties are ROI negative and they're not [00:12:40] worth the time 'cause they don't turn into something useful. And I'm reading this going. The fact that you tracked this and turned it into a spreadsheet to try to automate it [00:12:50] says something about you.
[00:12:51] Aaron Makelky: That's not like relationships, that's not the other people. That's what you brought to is like, I'm gonna measure how many times Dan and John text me, or if they [00:13:00] invite me to their wedding or we hang out. Um,
[00:13:03] John Lovig: Quantity isn't quality either.
[00:13:05] Aaron Makelky: yeah, exactly. And. Our AI [00:13:10] bots, our perplexity spaces can trade notes that does nothing to build meaningful connection with each other.
[00:13:16] Aaron Makelky: So as more of that work is [00:13:20] automated, I see this every day for myself and the people that I work with. It makes the authentic relationships more valuable and the skillset of being able to build [00:13:30] and maintain those. Therefore becomes more valuable because I'm not gonna say it's the final frontier, but it is a frontier that's not gonna get replaced or automated [00:13:40] out ever.
[00:13:43] John Lovig: It's so funny too because like I'm in my forties now. Uh, [00:13:50] two years ago met a couple people at a local establishment, bumped into them again another place, and then ended up. [00:14:00] Meeting a big group of people at the same place over multiple weeks and they, they actually just texted, 'cause it happened on Valentine's Day, two years ago, [00:14:10] that we bumped into each other again. And it's like, I can't tell you how many of them have looked for a job, asked for advice on, on how could they negotiate their offer. All [00:14:20] those things. And then are there for me if I have anything. Right. And it's usually more like, oh, I have this conflict, or this is upsetting me or something, you know? I've only [00:14:30] known these people for two years. Um, but you can't put a price on sort of rich relationships that you've the work [00:14:40] towards.
[00:14:41] Dan Yu @danoyu: You know, there's a, uh, the book that we like to. Site in our classes. Uh. Ferrazzi never eat alone, which [00:14:50] is what I still consider the networking Bible. And one of the things that, uh, he really tries to push, it's, it's [00:15:00] not what you know, it's not even who you know, it's how much time you spend with who you. And so if you want, you know, [00:15:10] relationships to work and you want your network to work, you know, the art of network, the word network is the work. And so you have [00:15:20] to put in the time. Um, and, uh, I think the transactional nature of, of how some people view networking, it's, you know, what can I get out of [00:15:30] it? we teach this all the time, you know, it's, um, you, you gotta give, give, give and, you know, don't count points. So, and I, and I [00:15:40] think that's really a bit of how the three of us really came together, right? And, uh, we were just helping each other without really counting points.
[00:15:49] Aaron Makelky: Yeah. Well, [00:15:50] and, and what's the antidote to this problem of job postings have, uh, my company, one of the HR people told me the other week, they had [00:16:00] 800 applicants within an hour of a job being posted. Okay. That's clearly a problem, not just for the hiring manager and the firm, but for the applicants in the [00:16:10] pile.
[00:16:10] Aaron Makelky: What if you're actually a good fit? There's. Hundreds an hour coming in. One of the answers obviously is authentic relationships. If the hiring manager [00:16:20] knows you and you stayed in touch, or you built some sort of a relationship that automatically brings you to the top, whereas a lot of 'em are chat [00:16:30] GPT resumes or automations or whatever kind of AI spam that's clogging up the system, that just makes the relationship that much more valuable and important for both [00:16:40] sides.
[00:16:43] Dan Yu @danoyu: Well, in a world with open claw. And AI tools, uh, you know, we still [00:16:50] firmly believe that, uh, relationships and networking in EQ is the way to go. Um, John, any final thoughts? [00:17:00] I.
[00:17:01] John Lovig: Yeah, I think, I think again, you know, when we even say networking, the. of the key things that I think people get too distracted [00:17:10] about is who that has to be, right It. And sure, there are some instances where you might wanna plan. If you're going to a conference and there are people you wanna speak to, you gotta [00:17:20] pregame that and you know, kind of look for who you're gonna want to meet.
[00:17:23] John Lovig: And if you know who's attending a networking event and there's someone you want to talk to, sure. Some of the [00:17:30] networking that has really yielded success for me, and I know, I think for you guys too, is really, again, that non, you know, non [00:17:40] purposeful, just checking in, right? It's the, Hey, how's it going?
[00:17:45] John Lovig: What's new in you, your world? You know? It's caused a lot of [00:17:50] conversations for me where it's turned into something. Better. Um, and it, it's, it's either led to a conversation about a job or a client [00:18:00] or, um, some sort of meaningful impact without even trying, because it's all, oh, you know, what you should do, you know, even [00:18:10] just getting ideas. You know, if I didn't regularly talk to you, Dan, I would've never started my own business, would've never felt comfortable doing that. [00:18:20] Um. It was such a good experience and lesson, uh, and something that like I'll never regret doing because it was, it was super [00:18:30] worthwhile even though I joined a company after a year.
[00:18:34] Dan Yu @danoyu: But the, but the lessons you learned, right. You know, and, and having that support network [00:18:40] to give you courage, right? That only comes from relationships, networking for having the emotional intelligence, uh, going back and forth [00:18:50] between you and whoever you're spending time with. And that's kind of how, uh, Aaron kinda came into the fold too. You know, [00:19:00] Mr. X mediocre high school history teacher, uh, made his successful pivot. Right. And, uh, and I just made [00:19:10] my pivot as well, right? And so, you know, having, having the relationships, and by the way, my mine was a long tail. I mean, that's 20 years,
[00:19:18] John Lovig: Yeah.
[00:19:18] Dan Yu @danoyu: building that relationship over [00:19:20] time. And so, you know, that's, um, the long game is usually the more fruitful. So,[00:19:30]
[00:19:30] Aaron Makelky: and I think.
[00:19:31] Dan Yu @danoyu: thoughts before we sign off?
[00:19:32] Aaron Makelky: Yeah, the psychology and the trap behind the, I'll just apply a bunch. I'll spam my resume to every [00:19:40] job and every LinkedIn posting I can find. It makes sense because you go, well, I may not have a good shot, but I applied to this many jobs and I'm doing [00:19:50] something and it feels productive.
[00:19:52] Aaron Makelky: The problem with that is scaling is so easy with ai, that's not the velocity of [00:20:00] applying is no longer a barrier to anyone with an internet connection. And it doesn't feel like this. But the time you spent building relationships and networking authentically take [00:20:10] longer to come to fruition and you can't track them.
[00:20:13] Aaron Makelky: At least not in an authentic way. 'cause I don't think you should put that in the spreadsheet, but it always pays off [00:20:20] more in the long run. And an example for me, I had a thing come about and I asked the person, you know, how did you, how did you find me? Like, [00:20:30] where did this come from? And they said, well, we met at our, our kids were at a birthday party together.
[00:20:36] Aaron Makelky: And we just talked. And I surely did not [00:20:40] go there trying to source leads or sell anybody anything. But then they thought of me when something came up and like, oh yeah, we talked and I know him. It [00:20:50] turned into something. It, it took a year or two, but that was more productive than if I just spammed resumes or pitch decks at people, even though it may not feel like it [00:21:00] at the time.
[00:21:00] Aaron Makelky: So I, I've fallen into that trap personally, but I'm telling you, it's everyone else is firing off chat. GPT generated resumes at high speed. That's not the way to win the [00:21:10] game.
[00:21:11] John Lovig: No, because it all looks like the same resume at a certain point. And, uh, I think one, a lot of thought leaders are starting to suggest, [00:21:20] which I think is scary for job seekers in some ways. Uh. No longer posting high volume jobs and just hand to [00:21:30] hand recruiting it's too chaotic and it it, you know, recruiters don't want to be resume paper pushers [00:21:40] either.
[00:21:40] John Lovig: They want to be strategic partners. And you do that? Well, you go find the talent. Um, and so, you know, in a world where that's the case, then how [00:21:50] do you stand out even more if you don't even know the jobs there? You gotta be top of mind for someone who has knows that the job exists, you're only gonna do that if you network.[00:22:00]
[00:22:01] Dan Yu @danoyu: I have a job right now, um, pretty much, uh, head of sales a financial services technology company. [00:22:10] And put an ad out 400 applicants within two and a half, three hours, and only two were even [00:22:20] sort of close, but it was still not close. And um. It's, it's unfortunate, but I mean, I, I had a farmer, [00:22:30] apply. I had somebody that was in dental school apply. So what, you know, it, it just goes to show that the velocity, it's just not, it's [00:22:40] just, um, it's not effective.
[00:22:42] John Lovig: and here's the thing, all right? If you're a farmer and you can do the job, then it's your job to connect the dots. How? [00:22:50] And you know, maybe because, you know, we also say, Hey, you can pivot. You know, and so that's about taking a look at what your skillset [00:23:00] really is. Finding a job that's related to your skillset. think the challenging thing is we, we a society have created [00:23:10] very specific. Criteria for a job. I heard this one person on TikTok the other day. She was blown away. She's in [00:23:20] Germany, an American citizen, moved to Germany. She got a part-time job there. process, the interview process was they said, Hey, we don't do [00:23:30] interviews.
[00:23:30] John Lovig: You just do come. Come down to the cafe for a day and you'll work and we'll see how it. It goes, and [00:23:40] if, if it works out, then we'll give you a job. And the person was like, oh, okay. And so the hiring manager [00:23:50] said at the end of the shift, so are you interested in working for us? She's like, wow, I've never had that experienced before.
[00:23:59] John Lovig: [00:24:00] Where they're the ones like kind of wondering, it was like the decisions in my hands. It's like that's how it, it's [00:24:10] not necessarily how it should be, but that's how we should think about it. In some ways. It's not just employer's decision, it's just we grovel to that idea that [00:24:20] they have the money to give us, instead of saying, we have the skillset to give them.
[00:24:28] Dan Yu @danoyu: It's, it's a, it's a demand. [00:24:30] Versus supply Type of dynamic that, um, it's just, it's, it's very different over here, I think, than, than most of the world. But, [00:24:40] um, well anyway, this has been another episode of Future Proof use podcast, go f yourself, where we talk [00:24:50] about careers and job trips and we talk about helping you futureproof yourself. My name is Dan Yu. I joined as [00:25:00] always by my co-hosts, John Lovig and Aaron Makelky. Thank you gentlemen as always for being here. Uh, it is always a good time, uh, [00:25:10] talking about, uh, fun stuff with you guys, everybody. Good luck in, uh, whatever you're looking to do. And, uh, hope that, uh, this is helpful for you. [00:25:20] Please follow us, on our website, future proof dash y u.com, where you can [00:25:30] read our blog, check out our content. Check out our classes. We have a lot of live and downloadable classes, everything from LinkedIn to [00:25:40] interview skills and also networking at scale. So hopefully, uh, we can help you and if you have any questions, please feel, reach, uh, to reach out to [00:25:50] any one of us. Thanks very much and have a great day.