Andrew McCaskill, LinkedIn

in the world. I've lived there for two years actually, and my worldview seeing a successful in every industry and not having any limits on our potential largely was shaved by Atlanta. So to be there with you doing this podcast talking about how we build or leverage technology to bill wealth. Come on, man, doesn't get better. I want to see you there. Get your tickets today at Black Effect dot comback Slash Podcast Festival.

did not talk to me a lot about money. Money in my household was grown folks business, and you know, they basically gave me a couple of things is save some money and don't spend more than you make, right, good luck, and you know, call us if you need us. And what I think that that sometimes we do with that is that we don't information share enough. And so I feel like that one of the things that is the beginning of financial mobility, financial mobility starts with financial stability.

And I think that amongst amongst particularly younger black folks, younger black professionals, we have to collaborate and not compete. And that means that many of us are not gonna get somebody from some ivory tower to come down and tell us all these things about money. So we have to peer to peer mentor each other in a lot of ways. Right, My group chat has saved me so

many times from making mistakes about money at work. And so the first time I had a job in tech where I had to actually negotiate for equity, I had to go and look up on the internet what restricted stock units were. I had no idea what I was potentially leaving on the table because I didn't have that information. Luckily for me, I had not even necessarily a mentor, but a dude that I knew in tech that I had met at a conference, and I was like, yo,

I noticed, dude is senior. I still have this number. I'm just gonna roll the dice and call him, and he broke it down for me in a way that man, I could have left so much money on the table as a nine to five or if I hadn't really thought about it in the right way. So the number one to get from that mobility stability is having the most information, and sometimes that information is gonna come from

people who look like us. Right. The other thing I think is is really just the behavioral shift and a mindset shift that you know, I think that we all have to have around that is that many of us who are in that nine to five world, a lot of us are grappling with something that our non Hispanic white counterparts don't have to grapple with. And that's the untold story is the fragility of the black middle class.

Middle class status is very fragile for us in our communities because oftentimes, Man, you know, you might be the one in the family that's got that good job, but when big Mama's water heater breaks down, you getting that call, right. And so I feel like that one of those things that we have to do is that we're constantly sort

of accounting for that. So if it comes down to Gucci versus Grandma, I'm gonna save that money for Grandma every time, right because I want to, Because I think that that's the call that many of us are gonna get. So I think that that mobility of getting to wealth starts with like reimagining how we think about that money in the beginning. That one we get more money when we talk about money and have money conversations with people that we trust that we can you know, we sort

of grow together. You need to grow with your peer group. And so when you're sharing that information, like one thing about me, I'll send you my old offer letter from from Facebook, I'll send you my old offer letter from you know, previous companies that I had. So at least you should know that this is where you should level set. Right. The other thing is like, we know that we're gonna get hit in different ways, so we have to think

about money and stability just totally different. And here's the thing that I think is more in line with what I think everybody really wants the answer to be from this question is like, can you build wealth while working for other people? Absolutely? You can. It happens every single dissa, Right. You have to just really plan for and account for your career in certain ways. Yeah.

you speak my interest on. And so I've read some of your posts and you had talked about how the job market has tightened and there's one job for every two applicants, right, and how can black people, black professionals negotiate effectively to secure competitive conversation, not just accept what they give you, but to negotiate that compensation and ensure that you know financial reward is there in the market where employers have a whole bunch of options for who wants this job.

you tell your story. And that is how you tell your professional story, how you talk about your superpowers, what you bring to the table, how you talk about your skills, how you match up the skills that you that you have with what the company is actually asking for and desiring. And a lot of that comes from really being able to practice and rehearse that. That's just table stakes practicing and rehearsing how you tell your story and how you

talk about it. But the information piece of it. If you're really trying to negotiate for a great for better compensation at a job that you already really want, I think there are a couple of things that you have to do. One is make sure that you understand sort of the value in the marketplace in terms of most of the companies now will give you a somewhat of a range. We all want the top of that brain right when we see it. I think that what you have to then do is negotiate for why you want

that at the at the top of the range. Also, there's gonna be it's really competitive, and I think that you know, yeah, we all want to get that next job. But the worst thing that you can one of the worst things that you can do, unless you just desperately need a job. If you desperately need a job, do what you got to do in I respect, right, But if you're in a position where you actually have some choice, and we have a lot more choice than we truly

have been, you know, sort of conditioned to believe. If you've got the choice, I think you do have to go in and sort of negotiate for what you want. That negotiation begins with how much information do you have about the role? How much information do you have about the company. You're eight times more likely to get a job at a company if you know somebody who's at that company, and that doesn't have to be your work best friend. That could be somebody that you worked with

ten years ago. That could be so that goes to your church, but you you don't really know them, but you know of them, right, because that just even that conversation gives you a better idea of what the culture is and how much and how much you can think about it. They don't have to tell you how much money they make or any of that kind of stuff. But the little clues that they can give you, or even just then mentioning your name, puts you in a

better position. Your network really really matters. And I think that we have been sort of conditioned not to think of our network as the way I feel like our non Hispanic white counterparts think about it, right, is that we oftentimes get caught up in thinking that if I'm networking with you, it's got to be like a business cards exchange or at a party or something like that, or a cocktail hour or that, like it's got to be some kind of quid pro quo or I'm asking

you for a favor or something like that. Our white counterparts don't even think about networking in that way. They don't think about, Okay, well, look, will gave me your number. So anything you anything you say to me is a reflection on will. That's just not how That's not how anybody else thinks about it, right, It really is will gave me this person's number. Maybe something comes from it,

maybe something doesn't. My connection, my connections that I sort of share that network sharing man, your network is so powerful. So I think using your network to get a better idea of like what your opportunity is. But don't just take the first offer. I always say that you have to negotiate. Even for that recruiter to really or that hiring manager to truly respect you, you need to and at least negotiate something. And you negotiate like that.

you know, to use that phrase. So how are you advising professionals to acquire in demand skills so that they can be you know, still marketable in the years to come in the professional workplace?

day you started to today. And you know, when I have these conversations with my uh with my white counterparts about AI, they're like, oh, man, it's gonna change the world. We're gonna be doing all these crazy cool things. And you know, sometimes I talk to my friends in the group chat and they're like, man, the devil is busy with that AI, right, Like, you know, you're getting different

impressions about it, right. But we actually, we actually talked to a large number of black professionals about how they were feeling about AI and sort of what's happening. And what we found, man, was that actually most black professionals were actually were actually really intrigued and excited about AI. But what they also said was that about forty seven percent said that they didn't know where to start getting AI skills and getting up to speed. And so's the

that's the hook right there. What we did at LinkedIn when we saw that was we said, okay, well we're gonna make our top ten AI courses free for everybody. You don't have to have LinkedIn premium or anything like that. So we've made our top ten AI courses for free, and that's everything from understanding you know prompt engineering to understanding you know AI one on one. We've even got

some more advanced courses. And if you if you follow my newsletter The Black Guy in Marketing on linked and then I've got all of the courses listed there, you can literally click on the courses and take the courses. Right.

It's like tons of free courses. But I think that that's the key to it is that for black professionals in particular, I think that if you don't know what a large language model is, and you're listening to this conversation right now, I know there are a lot of tech people who probably do know exactly what that is. But if you don't, now is the time for you to start at least get the language and the lexicon of AI down because we need more black people using

the tool. We need more black people getting the skills and getting the certifications because major revolutions in work have not always been kind to us. But now we're in a space where the information is literally at our fingertips. If you've got a computer, you've got a smartphone, you can get access to starting to learn how to use these tools and play with these tools. And I think that that's the key to it is to get in there and start playing with it now because AI is

coming to work. It's at work already, and I don't want us to feel like that it's this scary thing because we've been I mean it, all it really is, as you know, is like really well educated guesses to what you to answering questions for what we all need. And if you've used you know, almost any technology tool that in the last you know, five or six years, there's been some bit of it that is making some educated guesses for you. Right then, completely on the Google

search bar. Absolutely, I use that example all the time auto completely on Google. Right. But here's the other thing is that I don't want people to have this. I think that people have this fear, Oh AI is going to take my job. That's not what you should be afraid of. AI is not gonna take your job. But someone who understands AI, who has AI skills, may take your job. And so that's where that's that particularly. Yeah, Yeah, to that particular point you just made.

go learn the code. Now, there's twenty thirty different languages, these Ruby on rails, there's Python, there's C plus plus, there's all these things. So I'm like, I don't I'm swimming in the sea of options of what to learn, and you don't know everybody's gonna tell you something different. And so when I say, okay, the earning high earning potential is in sectors like AI is sustainability, What should I be going to learn when I go to that list that you talked about what should.

do is learn how to harness the tools right. Because there's a bunch of tools that are to tell it what to do. You got to learn how to tell it what to do right. And that's the biggest part is that because garbage garbage prompts give you sort of once you learn how to right, once you learn how to really harness the technology, there's a lot of fun

to be had with it right. And I think that that's the that that's where I think people should start to go and then think about what it is that you do every day or what it is that you eventually want to do. So if you're once you start to understand the technology, then you understand how to actually use it and how to make the technology do what you want to do. Then I think it goes into where then is the technology being applied in your field?

And where do you feel like the inking one make your job easier, make you faster, make you smarter, make you be able to you know, maximize your workload. And that's where you start is then take your time and your attention to Okay, what are those tools. The other thing I would say is there's been there's no better time than now than to start talking to other people in whatever your industry or your profession is about how

they're using AI. I would say too, for most people, once you get some some basic language around on how to talk about it, I would start talking to people at work like, hey, how are we thinking about using AI? Talk to your manager, how are we thinking about that? There's probably an almost everybody's company right now, there's an AI task force or AI or you know, an AI like working group. Start to figure out, now that you've got some information about it, how do you get on

that AI working group? How do you start to have those conversations? And if you're a member of you know, any other groups or professional ORGANI start talking to the people in your profession by yo, what are y'all seeing? So that you can be ahead of it. Information sharing is again one of the major things that I feel like is one of our biggest gaps to career advancement.

And now they're tools that can collapse geography. They're tools that can where you can go out and you can say, you know, okay, I'm gonna just jump on LinkedIn and connect with people that I used to work with in my old job or in my industry and say, or join one of the groups on there. If it's an engineering group, lem's join this engineering group. Is if it's

PR group, let me join this PR group. You know, if it's nurses or people in the medical field, let me join this and see how are y'all using this right? And I think that that's the way that you figure out what's next, because what's next isn't gonna come to you. You gotta get to what's next, or you got to start to investigate what's next, because by the time it comes back to you, is somebody asking you to do something that you may or may not have the skills to do that.

And I think most small businesses might think that way because what we need is people who can hit the ground running faster. And your credentials don't necessarily say that you can hit the ground running faster. What you can show me shows me that you can hit the ground running faster. And I think I feel like what that as more small businesses hire more people. Number one, there are more people who are employed by small businesses than

anything else in the country. Yeah, so as more of us think that way, then the degree the credentials mean less over time. And so can you talk about help me think about think that through yep.

more and to a more equitable workforce. Having a four year degree requirement actually just puts tons of jobs that don't that should not be out of reach, out of reach for large swaths of people of color in particular. Let's just point blank period. I mean, that's just it

is what it is. Yes, our educational attainment is going up every year, particularly by black women, but if we took away the four year degree requirement, it would open the aperture for many, many more people of color to get knowledge, knowledge based you know, air quotes white collar jobs. So I do think that that is where we're where we're going to go. I think that it's going to be. But we're not completely there yet, right like we I just be honest with you, We're not completely there yet.

But it is where people are starting to go. Even our company, we've removed four year degree requirements from most of our jobs at LinkedIn, and we're a tech company, right. I will say, the thing that I want people to understand, and even people who are at universities and who are who are getting degrees and getting master's degrees and all those things, is that you still are going to have

to talk about your skills. Regardless of how great your grades were, You're going to be able to talk have to talk to recruiters about what you know how to do and where you have done it previously. You've got to have a skills conversation. I want to see your portfolio. I really don't care ABOUTIO, right, And that's that's just what matters like listen. I mean, I love to tell

people that I graduated from Morehouse College. I love to tell people that I have a business uh NBA from of course what a school of business at EMMRA University. But ain't nobody asking me? Not usually, you know what I'm saying, Nobody's really, ain't nobody asked me yet? Ain't nobody asked me? And here's the deal? Is that? And what what I will say? And here's this goes back to the AI thing to a little bit. Is that

we just released our most in demand skills. These are the skills that companies are asking for most for all of the out of all of the job postings on our entire website, right, and the number one skill across the board for the second year in a row. Most in demand is communication and so part of that is human skills, people centric skills. The future of work is going to be human, no matter how pervasive AI becomes. You the people skills are really in Those human skills

are really what's most in demand. Yeah, and more technical jobs. There's gonna be other parts of it, but leadership, management, team work, analysis, communication, those things really matter. We see so many recruiters who say to us, we've got people who are in their early careers, who are graduating from college and they've got, you know, education, but they can't present, or they can't write, or they can't or they can't

make a concise or data based argument. They're arguing with feelings and what they you know, and what they think as opposed to facts and data. And they're like, we, you know, we're trying to grapple with how do we train them to have these skills for these skills of analysis and things like that. We talk to recruiters and over forty eight percent of recruiters say that they are

using skills to source for talent. And we've got to teach candidates how to now reimagine how they talk about their skills in job interviews, and employees how to make sure that they're always upskilling and keeping their skills fresh and tight, and looking at how they continuously talk about their skills and action.

at least historically, longevity in the role meant trajectory. It meant that you were gonna make more, you were gonna get higher.

a little bit older. Now I'm almost fifty, and I am thinking about how I spend my time very differently, right, And so money is still a great motivating factor in my career, but I'm also thinking about where do I take my skills and my talent? Right, So I think that that's part of it. What I would say to people in their careers of like, okay, yeah, you have the agency piece comes in. I have a plan for my career. I see the pathway forward. Most jobs are

vehicles and not destinations. And I think that once you sort of get that as part of the mentality, how does this job as is this a vehicle that gets me to the next opportunity? For if visibility is important to me, if opportunity is important to me, if money is important to me, how does this job become a vehicle that gets me to that next destination? And that vehicle and that job becomes a vehicle to get me today next destination. Sometimes that that move may be within

the company. I tell employers all the time that your next best employee might be your current employee. You just have to move them into a space to where they can thrive.

have a network where I'm keeping people. I've got my personal border directors in place. They can help me walk

through that. Right. I've been thinking about what my next opportunity should be or could be anyway, so I don't have the same emotional attachment to this particular job, even if I enjoyed the work, because I'm thinking about what my next move could be Now, I may be disappointed, absolutely, but I'm not gonna be disillusioning and not gonna be defeated because I'm thinking about how do I protect myself at all times and if I'm in a job where i feel like that I'm contorting and I'm you know,

assimilation is exhausting, and if i feel like I'm balled up in a not all the time, I always tell people like, look, do not let these jobs rob you of your hairline, or your edges, or your relationship, or your happiness, or your joy or your time with your kids. Like there's so many places out here that will actually appreciate the goodness that you bring to a professional setting.

And I talk about work in this way because we when we talked about code switching at and our latest survey with black professionals at LinkedIn, sixty black professionals felt like that they had to code switch at work, and forty two percent of them said that their parents and their families told them that they need to do it right.

And so what I try to do is speak agency into the professional lives of my friends or people who see me on TV, or people who who I'm giving career advice to because I recognize that nobody was speaking agency over my career until I was almost thirty or forty years old. They were saying, don't do this, don't do that. Better be thankful for that right, And I'm like, you have agency if you put the right strategy in place, You're looking at your network in the right way, you

get your skills to where they need to be. You understand what your superpower is and what you bring to the professional world that is special and you that helps people solve problems that are important. You gonna be okay. And you don't have to be in a space or a job or a role for long periods of time where you feel defeated or that you feel like that there's no opportunity for you to grow. You better than that you better at a.

to go back into the lab. They're going to go back into the lab now with attorneys. They're going to go back into the lab now with policy folks. And that they and if they do the real work of saying, Okay, how can we make this work unassailable? How can we still get to what we need to do and make this work unassailable. Let's go in and go under the hood and actually take this moment and fix all of

these things. Let's fill in these gaps. And because Deus has had some gaps, even the companies that have put in major work, how do you now say, Okay, we're about to go back into lab and what comes out of this is gonna be unassailable. Right, It's gonna work. We're gonna take the best of what we've seen and we're gonna kick the old stuff out. Right. I hope that we see on the other side of this is that a whole new strategy emerges, a whole new way

of talking about this. The legislation and the potential court cases is gonna make us use different language and different words to talk about this, right, And I think that we needed a language overhaul in DEI for a long time anyway, And so this may be the forcing factor that takes us from good to great. That's the way I see it. I think the people who are truly committed to it may be quiet in this next view,

this next eighteen to twenty four months. Some of the people that have been really loud may have to get quiet for a little while. But when they come back, my gut says to me that a lot of people are gonna come back, and they're gonna come back with better ideas, better impact, better innovation, better ways of measurement, and better ways of thinking about what impact looks like.

Because here's my think on it, will is that if I go to a company and they say, oh, well, I want you to know that they're fourteen percent of the view of the of the US population is African American and we have you know, ten percent African Americans at this company, and you're like, oh wow, that's crazy, Like that's crazy good for most companies in terms of representation.

But if all of those all of those black people went to Dartmouth, went to you know, they went to Dartmouth, they went to Harvard, they went to Yale, talk to me a little bit about representation again, right, Because you can go to some companies and all of the black folks came from the same three schools. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. I'm saying it ain't necessarily

representation thing, right, it's a thing. It's a thing. It's a thing that we don't talk about because you know, oftentimes we just happen to see some more black folks there, you know what I mean. But I think that we're gonna come back smarter, We're gonna come back stronger. And listen, you're right about them. This is the last thing I'll say is you're absolutely right about the the These companies

need representation. Ninety percent of the population growth that has happened in this country in the last fifteen years has come from communities of color. If you don't have black, Latino Asian folks and listen also LGBTQ plus folks in your companies helping you decode culture, you're not gonna sell You're not gonna sell products in the way that you

need to sell products because you can't just engage. You can't engage us in the same ways that you did because the younger, younger people of color and younger women of color in particular, are just not down for to take the same things from companies that they do business with that you know, previous generations were down to do.

And you've got to have that representation to really understand culture, and I think culture is going to be particularly in as the country becomes more and more diverse and becomes majority multicultural in just a short order of time. It's going to be even more incummon upon these companies to make sure that they not only have representation, but they have representation that they're listening to and that they are giving voice and optionality.