¶ Navigating the Recruiter Relationship
Hey Wiremonkeys , welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling . On this episode we're going to talk about how to get past the recruiter . Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers , technicians , project managers , estimators , project managers , customers . We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world .
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As I said in the beginning , right now is a time in our industry where there's a lot of people looking for jobs . They're looking to expand their horizons , they're looking to move to new areas because they don't like living in the area they're living in anymore . And you put out enough resumes . Sooner or later you got to deal with a recruiter .
How do you get past the recruiter ? Because the recruiter is the gateway to talk to the people inside the company . You got to impress that recruiter . You don't impress them . Guess where your resume is going In the circular file . Look that one up . All you youngins , all you youngins .
So I brought on a subject matter expert today to talk to us how to get past the recruiter . You might be wondering well , how does he know how to get past a recruiter ? He is a recruiter , he knows how to get past them . Welcome to the show , david Gittleman . How you doing , my friend ?
Good Chuck . Thank you so much for having me this is awesome .
My pleasure , my pleasure .
Yeah , I appreciate you coming on the show so yeah , the word thank you and yeah , sometimes the recruiter is viewed as the bad guy . But think of it this way we have leverage to dozens of different clients that we , that we're dealing with currently and previously , so , so we , so . So we have a lot of leverage that that companies .
So we have a lot of leverage that companies individual companies don't have .
So , yes , we like to be viewed as the bad guy , the gatekeeper , but a recruiter is different than an HR person , because an HR person is just counting resumes and looking at resumes and putting them away , but the recruiter , even though he can be the bad guy , he can also be the best friend . I didn't even think about that until you said that .
Because you know I was thinking of , because whenever I've looked for jobs , the times I've gone through recruiters , the company that I was applying for ended up hiring me .
But you're absolutely right , if I'm a technician or somebody looking to apply for a job with ABC company and you're the recruiter for ABC but it's not quite the good fit , you're working with other clients where it might be a better fit . I never even thought about that .
Never even thought about that I might not think of you , chuck , for three years . But a job comes in three years down the line and I'm calling you up and saying maybe we talk once a year or once every six months . I drop you a note and I am on LinkedIn and just say , hey , how's it going ? How's everybody , how's the family ?
And you respond to that message and you say , hey , dave , everything's good . I have a friend that's looking for a job . You put me in touch with that person . That kind of thing . That's how you build your relationship with your recruiter long term .
It's all about networking , all about networking . So why don't you go ahead and take just a few seconds to tell the audience who you are and a little bit about your background ?
My name's David Gittleman . I've owned the Woods Group . I'm coming up on my 30th year of recruiting . It's all I've actually ever done . Chuck is recruit for people in the IT industry . My dad started the business in 1990 , and he brought me on into the business in 95 . And he brought me on into the business in 95 .
As soon as I finished UMass I went to school for hotel restaurant management and realized working nights and holidays and weekends was not for me . So I went to go work with him , gave it a try and just loved it ever since . The ability to make a difference for people is really great .
I mean , there are a lot of people that I got jobs for that are now my clients , you know that are looking for people and hire people from me and it's just , it's a very tough industry and it's become a lot . You know industry and it's become a lot . You know a lot more . Uh , it just transactional is the word that I guess I was looking for .
Is it so ? It's so . It's not as much about the relationship as it used to be , but having my own firm and being able to do what I do . You know , I still value the relationship above else with my candidate and telling them hey , like this might not be the right opportunity for you , so that's .
You know that's as important as anything is building that trust .
Oh , absolutely . You know I worked for many companies over my 40 plus year career in the low voltage industry companies over my 40-plus year career in the low-voltage industry , and one of those companies was a very large cable contracting company .
As a matter of fact , when I worked for them they were the largest privately held communications company in the United States and I worked for a division that did low-voltage out of the DC area and we had our own recruiter .
That was all that guy did was he went to job fairs and he , you know , and then he would filter , you know , the HR people would filter him hey , here's what we're looking for . And the recruiter would go out and find that person .
And I'm telling you right now because I've , you know , as an estimator , when I was in the office at that time for that particular job , when I would see people the technicians come in , they'd always gravitate right back to that recruiter and they talked to him for like 15 , 20 minutes , like hey , like it was their old friend or something .
So you know , there's a lot of relationship . That's really going to be critical there , especially in your position because you can represent multiple companies . But that's actually a great point . Let me ask you probably the most common question . I get right . What are some of the most ?
common mistakes that somebody makes that prevents them from getting past you , the recruiter . I think in the cabling industry the biggest thing is that the technicians are a little bit too casual in the way they speak to me .
On the phone it's just hey bro , or hey man or you , as opposed to maintaining just a regular level of professionalism , not trying to be my buddy . It's what I tell my kids all the time . You know it's like it is like when you're talking to an adult . Show respect in the conversation . It's the same thing here In your initial conversation .
Once you get to know me , you can call me bro , like Chuck you can call me bro after the call . We're bros , it's fun . In normal friend conversations it's fine . But when you're setting the table , set the table properly , try to speak in complete sentences , be ready to explain what you've done in your job , what you do on a daily basis .
A lot of cabling guys say you know , I did this and I cabled that and they just don't give enough detail . There's too many one-word answers or three-word answers and it's really a dig Sometimes even for the really good technicians . Chuck , you really have to dig . On the PM side you've got to bring the same thing .
The clients that I deal with are high profile , deal with Fortune 500 companies . They're looking for a certain level of polish . So on the PM side , same thing .
Sometimes they act like , if you're an IT cabling guy , you're a professional , you know you're not a construction guy , okay , like you're a professional and you should be able to bring your trade to your skill set to anybody . It doesn't matter if it's a Fortune 100 , fortune 50 , or not . So I think that those are some of the biggest things that I see .
I see with that the RCDDs tend to give good level of detail and they take their time . Good interviewers just take their time .
Make sure you understand the question before you answer the question , and it's not a bad thing . You tell me if I'm wrong . If you ask me a question during an interview , if I don't thoroughly understand that question , it's okay for me to ask you . Can you say that ? What was that question again , or can you restate that question ?
yeah , that's . The biggest thing is oh , chuck , you got that question wrong in the interview and you come back and you say I didn't get that question wrong in the interview . What are you talking about ? And nine times out of 10 , it's the communication between the two parties .
You know a lot of . I didn't learn this lesson until late in my career probably entering my third decade in this career I learned that preparation is key . Right late in my career , probably entering my third decade in this career , I learned that preparation is key and so it's okay .
I know this is going to probably sound stupid to some people , but if you know that you're going to be going to do a job interview and you haven't been doing job interviews for 10 years , five years , whatever get your wife or your spouse or your brother or your sister sit down to act like an HR person to ask you questions .
Think about your responses ahead of time .
Right , you know , think about what you're going to say , not necessarily memorize what you're going to say , but think about bullet points and then that way , when you know because there's a lot of common questions that get asked by you know recruits in HR and you can prep for those and that's just gonna make you come off a lot better .
And that's , and that is 100% the right way is to interview with someone who doesn't understand what you do and I'm talking to the technicians right now .
So talk to people that don't know what you do on a day-in , day-out basis and explain it to them in a certain level of detail , and you can ask the person you're interviewing with let me know if I'm giving the right level of detail , like , is that what you were you answer ?
Ask and answer the question and then say was that the right level of detail of what you were looking for ? But you don't want to run on forever and and it becomes a monologue .
Because you know when you especially when you get , not necessarily to you but to the HR people you know a lot of HR people don't know that they're well versed in human resource management but they're not well versed in , you know , copper and fiber cable installation , certification and documentation .
So you might , when you're sitting there , saying , ok , well , we pulled in OS1 fiber and then we did tier one testing , and then the customer acts come back and do tier two testing for real , you know , for spool testing , blah , blah , blah . That might be too much detail , right , unless that , unless that HR person is extremely versant in that .
But that's that . That happens quite a bit , but that's not even really their . Their job , right ? It doesn't make them a good or versus a bad HR person , even if they don't understand what you're talking about . That's not what they're tasked with doing . What they're tasked with doing is how does he respond to questions ? Does he hear the question properly ?
Because that's how he's going to deal with our user base , so that's how he's going to deal with the , you know , the , the person , the , the maintenance guy or the , the C level . You know that's . Those are . The keys , you know is to is to be patient and not just try and get done with the answer . Hey , I'm great , I can do .
You know what you hear a lot of technicians do , I can do everything . Yeah , right , and that is , and that is the kiss of death right there .
I've said many times on my podcast , I am a 40-year veteran of this industry . I am an RCDD , a Bixie technician , a former Bixie certified trainer . I've sat in tons and tons of manufacturer certification programs . I don't know everything . The more you learn , the more you realize you don't know .
So if someone comes to me and says they know everything , that's like someone saying oh , I'm an expert , Cuckoo , cuckoo . No , you're not . That just tells me you're blatantly oblivious to what you don't know . It happens right .
You become an expert when you know you don't know . Yes , a lot of things .
I run in a lot of circles and I do a lot of events speaking events like that and I've got a lot of people who follow me on my social media stuff and when they meet me in person they say oh man , you're an expert man , you know everything .
I'm like whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , easy with that e word , because because the more you know , the more you realize you don't know so and if you think you're an expert , then you think that nobody can tell you anything and that you're perfect .
Great point . Because if you yeah , if you think you're an expert , you're not willing to listen to . You know alternate ways because I can go , I can .
I might turn into an hour show on how people argue over stuff all the time , but you know , just because that's the way your granddad did it , your dad did it because he used to be in communication , doesn't mean that's the way that we're still doing it today .
And if you think you're an expert , you're not going to be willing to listen to the new methods , the new procedures , the new standards , the new best practices to help for the latest and greatest cable you were installing . So that's actually a
¶ Importance of LinkedIn Profiles for Technicians
great point . Now you and I met on LinkedIn . You'd sent me a friend request and then you shot me a message , asked me about some RCD stuff . Let me ask you this , because I get this is one of my pet peeves my brother .
He's also in communications , he's a field supervisor , he's working for a very successful company and I said to him one day I said are you on LinkedIn ? He's like why would I be on LinkedIn ? I'm like what you should be on LinkedIn .
Let me ask you this how important is it for a technician not only to be on LinkedIn , but to have a well-maintained LinkedIn profile not only to be on LinkedIn , but to have a well-maintained LinkedIn profile .
I think it's very important , chuck . I really do . I think that recruiters and HR people that's where they're going to look for it , and if you have a decent picture on your profile , it's going to make a big difference . Don't have sunglasses on in your picture . You don't need to be wearing a hard hat either .
You know , like I see , I see guys with hard hats on . It's kind of cool , like I get it All right , I get it , you guys , but you don't , you don't need it . Just have a regular picture wearing your Bixie shirt or wearing a collared shirt , like that's great . You know what I mean . Just a normal picture of you . That you know .
Don't put your wife or your dog in your picture , like we don't want any of that .
I love that when someone takes a picture of like him and his wife or her and her husband , they're obviously like at a wedding or something . And then their profile picture they zoom in on just them . But you could tell they're like , they're like a tux and there's , like you know , like you know , welcome back or congratulations , mental .
I gotta write this note down before I forget . Mental note talk to brother to update his profile picture to remove the hard hat .
And that's actually my fault because I I told him with that picture , that's , that's my fault to remove the hard hat and that's actually my fault Cause I I told him with that picture of that's , that's my fault and because the other picture he sent me was like one of the ones I just explained . Yeah , it just , it was .
You don't have to go have you don't have to go out and spend a couple hundred dollars on a , on a professional headshot . I mean literally , just you .
Literally you can go outside of a building , like a brick wall building or something , stand 10 feet off that brick wall , so the camera focuses on you and the brick wall becomes like bokeh kind of Take that picture and make that your profile picture .
And with Canva and AI there's actually an AI program you can send them a picture and it will turn it into I don't know how many , but it turns them into professional headshots for you , for your social media .
Wow , right , yeah , that's great . And also it's really important to at least have a little bit on the companies that you work for , even if it's just a few sentences for each , just so that you get picked up , the keywords get picked up by . So , as a recruiter , if I do a search on Riser or TI , I mean like these are searches that I was doing today .
Chuck Bixie , I do . You know I did a search on Bixie today in New York . You know like these are . This is real stuff . You know EIA TIAork . You know like these are . This is real stuff . You know eia tia . You know like I'm .
You know I'm not that technical , but the , the I am get , I am trying to figure out what the good keywords that I can use here's a tip for you , david eia is an old acronym that's not really used anymore in our industry .
Just kind of get a real , a real quick lesson . It used to be the EIA TIA standards , but the TIA kind of absorbed EIA so now it's the TIA ANSI standards . So if someone says EIA to me , what that tells me is man , they've been around this industry for a while because we haven't used that term in a while .
But sometimes that's good , because I'm looking at resumes that are . I have a .
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Now let's get back to the podcast .
Let me ask you this question . This is not on our , on our , our prearranged question , but I'm pretty sure you can answer this . Let's say that you have somebody who's been working for a company , I don't know , five years , 10 years , 15 years , whatever . They're not actively looking .
Should they keep their resume up to date even though they're not actively looking , a hundred percent ?
They should absolutely keep their resume up to date , even though they're not actively looking 100% . They should absolutely keep their resume up to date because you want it to be ready for when that opportunity does come around and you don't want to be scrambling .
I mean , that's the basic thing is , you know , sometimes you have to have your resume for your own company if you're going to be as part of a proposal . So to have something just ready and you know what , you could be dropping your kid off at school next week and your boss asks you for your resume to put into an RFP and you have nothing .
So you're pulling your jobs back from when you got the job . So I think it's really important and it just is like there's a reality to it , where we live in a world where there isn't that much loyalty between companies and people .
Forty years ago I got into this because of my father-in-law . He worked for AT&T and at the time when I got into this because of my father-in-law , he worked for AT&T and at the time when I got into the industry , he'd worked for AT&T for 30 years out of the same garage , right , and that's just not what you find today . I mean today's environment .
You'll see people . I don't know what the average is , maybe you might know what it is , but when you look at a resume now , people tend to stay around five years . It seems like to me . That seems like to be the magic number to me for some reason .
Let me ask you this question as a recruiter if you get a resume that somebody's only had let's say they both have 20-year careers and let's say one of them had only two jobs , the other had seven jobs Does that make you ?
look at one resume or another resume differently Depends . So sometimes having so , if you have seven jobs over a 20-year career , that's an average of three years If there's good progression in those jobs , then that might make them a better candidate than someone who's been at the same company for 20 years .
So so the the famous word that the clients use is they become institutionalized , which means they become part of , they start talking like , like they're in their own company's cult . Basically , I mean the most famous ones are AT&T and Verizon .
It's so hard for these guys to get out of AT&T and Verizon and to get you know without them going back and forth between the two of them , and we all know these people out there and it's it's hard to break out from these companies
¶ Career Progression and Self-Improvement
. So there is , there is good reason for you to at least look at , look for a job and look to change where you are .
I mean interesting , coming from me who's been at the same company for 30 years , um , but but there are a lot of reasons for you to that's your company , though right , yeah , it's different , but still it's a good way to increase and show progression in your career by getting different experiences and meeting different types of people and dealing within different
industries the way that I because what I like to do is I like to take what I just heard and just kind of like rearrange it in my brain so it makes sense to me .
And so if I was a , based on what you just said , if I was a recruiter and I look at that 20-year history and they had those seven jobs and one was a dishwasher , one was a cable puller , one was working at an auto dealer . That doesn't really that , just kind of , like you said , doesn't show that progression .
But if I see , okay , one job they started off as an apprentice . The next job they were a technician . Next job they were a lead tech or supervisor . Next job they were a project manager . That's what you're kind of talking about , correct ?
And you know it's funny , I never thought about that because I always would have thought that the person had the two jobs , would have had the one up .
But until what you say , because you rang the bell in my head , because I work again , going back to that largest privately held communications company I work for , we're bringing in our super I was a project manager . We're bringing all of our supervisors to do their yearly review and one of the supervisors great guy .
I mean , he'd be an asset to any company he worked for and we were talking to him about you know well , where do you see yourself five years from today or 10 years from today ? He goes I like this job because you don't want to become a project manager . I like what I'm doing right now . I don't want to change it . I was like I didn't think about that .
You just said that , like that's what you were just talking about . He'd been a project foreman for so long that he was comfortable with what he did and he's working inside of his comfort box and he didn't want to change that .
And that can be fine for certain jobs , right . But what you want to show is that you , you , you want to find that middle ground between like I'm , like I want to sit in your seat , like you don't want to be that aggressive , but you want to show that you have some drive , why not be ?
that aggressive I've actually told about that once . Well , some people think that that's the most brilliant I told about that once when doing a red , we're doing a during one of my year reviews and he says , well , where do you want to be next year ? I said in your chair .
Yeah so , but it's , you know , but that's always depending on the situation , but mostly , but mostly , that's not the right answer , cause you don't want to be , you don't want to view the person you know , you don't want to become viewed as a threat , you know , to your manager , or this person's going to get really bored in this job in about two weeks .
So you have to find that middle ground between the two , and it's not easy . It's more of an art . I'm always on the path of self-improvement on everything that I do . It's more of an art .
I'm always on the path of self-improvement on everything that I do and I always look at you know . That's why you know when people my day job . I'm an instructor , so I get a lot of feedback through survey mechanisms and stuff like that , and I get a lot of man , you're the best instructor , blah , blah , blah , blah .
Okay , I kind of let those kind of go over my head . I try not to dive into those . I always look for the , the , the on the survey , where somebody says you know , maybe maybe you should use talk about this more , maybe , man , I noticed you a lot of filler words , right ? Those are the ones I always focus in on , you know , cause it makes me better .
Right , or you focus on the ones that give a little bit more detail about the things that they liked you , as opposed to just throwing platitudes at you . They said well , one thing that really , really struck me about what you were saying was was X , so that's so .
That would be the other thing that you would pay attention to Someone who took a moment and didn't just touch the surface but wrote a little bit of a detail of what it was that you said . And that's exactly the same thing in an interview .
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¶ Maximizing Resume Impact for Job Applications
.
So we were talking about resumes and one of the most common pieces of advice I give people about resumes who are currently in the job market don't just have one resume , right . So , for example , I'm not looking for a job . But if I were to look for a job , there's lots of things I could be .
I could go project management , I can go estimating , I can go training right , I can go QA .
I think to me it's always it's always been great advice to think about the one or two , maybe three positions you want and then tailor maybe a couple of your resumes to those positions , because you don't want a resume that's focused on estimating when you're applying to something that's maybe for QA , right .
So what are some tips that candidates can effectively do to tailor their resumes to stand out for , like , say , lou Voltage ?
I would . I would say that if you're a technician , you probably only need one version of your resume . I think if you're Unless , well , you could have a . You have a resume that you put out to the general public , let's say on LinkedIn .
But if you're a technician and you really want to become a project manager and you're applying for project manager jobs and technician jobs , then you have more of the aspirational resume where it's like I've taken a couple classes on LinkedIn about PMP certification , you know .
So I would say that that would be a good way to go is to have more an aspirational resume and then a regular , standard technician resume , because once again , you don't want to . Oh , this guy wants to be a project manager . He does . He doesn't want to be a technician . Well , that's .
You know , maybe you would be much happier technician somewhere else , at a different company , and then you can work your way into being a project manager . So an HR person will hear that and they'll be like , oh my god , this person wants to become a project manager and he doesn't want to work with us .
But meanwhile you're working at a small dinky cabling company and like that was , that wasn't an issue at all . You know what I mean , like you'd be happy to go work for this company as a technician and then , when you're , and because you're really good at what you do , one year from now you will be a project manager .
And I see another layer of complexity over this Right Project managers .
So a small company that might only have five or ten technicians , you might be given the title project manager , but you're really just acting like a lead tech or project foreman when then , when you go to work for a big company , you know that's got multiple branches and 50 people in each of those branches .
To them , a project manager is the true definition of a project manager . They're managing schedules , they're managing timelines , they're managing materials and labor and they're reporting . That's what a true project manager does . Sometimes the smaller companies will give a person the title project manager so they can do multiple stuff right .
So , especially when you throw that extra layer of complexity on that , I could see how that could really confuse an HR person trying to evaluate , you know , trying to get somebody from a to come on as a project manager within their organization , especially if that person's coming from a small where they're ?
They're , they're thinking I'm a project manager , I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing . And then the HR person well , you say you're a project manager but you don't list Excel or word as as Excel or Word as any of your skill sets . And you never said you never heard of .
You know , you know AutoCAD or stuff like that , where those are things that a good project manager man we could go really deep .
But the same thing in reverse can be true , interestingly enough , as well . Whereas the guy that works for the small cabling company has to wear so many different hats that he is doing project scheduling and going to a big company . You become you , you you become tunnel vision and you only get to do one piece of it .
So some of the best guys that I find found in ict are out of tiny companies that and the guy was just was just working his ass off doing a little bit of everything .
Yeah , I find the biggest frustration with anybody coming from a smaller company to a larger company is they get frustrated because larger companies move slower . A small company , you got to be nimble and quick and as a project manager you can turn on a dime and maybe send the guys to a different project or do something different .
With a larger company , you know there's it's like , it's like the Titanic . It doesn't stop on a dime , it doesn't go around icebergs , it goes well , it doesn't go through . That's why we have a Titanic on the bottom of the ocean .
But yeah , Well , at least we still have some icebergs to talk about , yeah , so going from a small company where you're used to making your own decisions and shooting from the hip and being able to make stuff , if you get great satisfaction in that and I'm not saying all big companies are like what I just described , but there are a lot of them that can be
frustrating , absolutely can be frustrating 100% , but showing if you're out of that small cabling company .
Those are the guys that , and the ones that want to make it into a big company . Those are the guys that end up doing so well . So it's it . It's it's worth noting that , like sometimes it takes a little bit for you to get used to it , but once you do and you understand it and the reasons that things move slower , it's worth it .
A lot of people are going to bigger companies because it's more money , but money is not the only motivator for somebody looking for a new job . Some people thoroughly enjoy being a big fish in a small pond . They don't want to be a small fish in a big pond , it's true , it's definitely true .
So that guy might just stay at the same company for the next 20 , 25 years and there's and there's a market for that . You know , if you have to move , yeah , there's still a market .
Yeah , fine , exactly right , you know , small companies , what happens is 10 is if the owner dies , they tend to fold up and go away . That's the only . That's one of the bad things about small companies , but also big companies go broke too . I've seen that too .
Or they get acquired and they just shut down the ICD commission .
Right there's positives and negatives to both working for small and large companies . Now you and I met because you shot me a message , because you were looking for , if I knew , any RCDs looking for jobs . So how valuable do you think having a credential like a BICC technician or an RCD ?
How valuable is that when you're assessing the candidate and to follow that up ? Do those certifications significantly increase the candidate's chance of getting an interview ?
100% . If you have an RCD , especially here in the New York tri-state area , you're gold . Right now . Young guys , the trades are looking for people In New York hard to find good young guys .
So if you're out in Kentucky or wherever you are in the US and you're a young guy in RCDD and you want to move to the New York , new Jersey area , there are jobs available here . There are good jobs . There's so much new building going on in New York city .
Sure , we're not doing as much cabling to the desk anymore , but that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of cabling going on . It's just higher . It's just higher level stuff . So I would say , yes , having your RCDD is a huge plus , but under the minimum in ICT is understand .
The first thing that clients say to me is as long as they understand the Bixie rules , the Bixie guidelines , then I can work with that . So having some exposure to some of the training that Bixie offers is a huge leg up , because otherwise you're not getting your foot in the door at all .
If you don't know Bixie standards , forget about it in the world that I live in , oh absolutely , absolutely .
So let's focus on like , say , technicians , just for a brief second . If they're on LinkedIn or submitting resumes , how can that candidate demonstrate their hands-on abilities through their resume or LinkedIn profile ? I ?
think it's just writing down specifically what they did . The type of equipment that they've worked on , utilizing the words hands-on with X equipment is going to be a huge , huge leg up . I mean , one of the searches that I'll do is , like I said before , is Bixie .
So just having any , just mentioning the word Bixie as many times as you can in the profile without it being obnoxious , obviously .
Without being accused of being the Bixie police .
Exactly . Somebody accused me of that once . Sometimes I'll do only a search on Bixie under training , but sometimes it does . It doesn't necessarily all show up in the same place on LinkedIn , so the algorithms are constantly being tweaked on LinkedIn , so it's good for you to mention it at least at some point . You know utilizing Bixie standards .
You know utilizing Bixie standards . I , you know I I cabled a you know 300,000 foot square foot data set , so that's , you know that kind of thing . So , yes , it's putting in specifically and giving some level of scope . What was it for ? You don't have to name the client that you did it for . You know usually , usually you don't .
You definitely don't have to name the client that you did it for . You know usually you don't , you definitely don't need to do it , but give some level of scope to it . Like where did you do it ? Was it a new , was it a greenfield or was it an already existing space ? And that everybody can understand . It doesn't matter if you're hr or not .
And by giving that person that level of detail , it allows them into the conversation and that's what you want is .
You want it and that's why it's so important , like what we were talking before about explaining it to your brother or your , your cousin or somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you're doing in a day-in , day-out basis , because that's what you're going to be encountering when you talk to that HR person .
You might run into legal problems if you start naming customers , especially if you've signed like an NDA . But you can certainly say , hey , I've done five data center projects X , an average square footage of blah , blah , blah .
And this is the type of killing that way , it's broad , it's generic , it's not specific to you know the actual customer that they did the work for . So let's talk about again . Looking at the technician . Let's now let's look at the , because part of my audience are people who are new to the industry or maybe wanting to get into the industry .
So what advice would you give that candidate who may not necessarily have a lot of experience but they're eager to get into this industry ? How can they make a compelling case to you to get past you , to get hired ?
I would say go to a crew force and be willing to do whatever it takes . I would say go to a crew force and be willing to do whatever it takes . Those guys that go into the tech systems crew force and become part of a crew .
It's not , I get that it might not be what you want to do for a long time , but if you can get a little bit of actual hands-on experience , because some kids go to the trade schools but they never get to work with the gear so they can explain it in a way that actually makes sense .
So they have the training , but they're like but then you're looking at their resume and that's like well , what experience . You worked at Starbucks , you know . Like got to , you got to get your hands on the equipment . Yeah , I mean there's a training school here and it's great , you know , for them to get the training .
But you have to get whatever job you can get at a school , part-time , anything to show , initiative , volunteer , you know I mean whatever it is , whatever it takes , just to get your hands on that equipment . Because everybody's going to say , oh , it's so hard to get a job in IT . Yeah , it is hard to get a job in IT .
But once you get the hardest job to get in , it is your first job . Once you get your first solid , in-road IT job , yeah , because there's book smart and there's street smart .
right , you can have that book memorized forwards and backwards , but sometimes when you get out in the field there's some variations that happens in the field that the book doesn't really discuss .
The book can't really cover every single scenario for every type of environment , for every type of customer , for every type of cable plant that's out there in the world , so it's kind of generic . So putting your hands on fills in that gap .
It's your ability to pivot and show that you can work in a corporate environment and with specific guidelines and know how to deal with people . So even though it's a technical , you know we're technically focused , you know in our careers you have to be able to bring that back out .
So let me ask you this in the terms of job readiness and overall appealing to say the hiring manager . You have two applicants , not clients , two applicants and you push them both through . One of them has credentials like Bixie Tech , rcdd , foe , cfot , and the other one doesn't . How do those two compare to the hiring manager ?
Which one do you think is most likely going to get hired If everything else is ?
taken , I mean the person with the certifications , and they're going to get paid a lot more too . Like , yeah , there was a guy that I spoke to today that had his pmp , his rcdd and his ccna . It shows so much diversity in in skill set because cabling guys shouldn't just be cabling guys . They should understand how the technology , how a router works .
They should not just showing . Just showing some interest in that is helpful too . I mean , that's another good one , getting training . Sure , you could be a good cable tech . Maybe one of the things you could do is do a CompTIA , you know , and get a network certification .
You're already meeting down . I have an additional question here . So we talk about the Bixi tech , the Bixie RCDD and stuff . What other certifications do you see customers desiring from their applicants ?
Oh , yeah , I mean PMP , ccna , prince , itil . Yeah , I mean I think that they're all you know . Those are all really valid . My cabling tends to be more IT focused because I come from more of an IT background , so this is kind of like an offshoot from my technology side . So I would say but I see a lot of that . Let me ask you this question then .
So I would say but I see a lot of that .
Let me ask you this question then Do you ever see , or have you ever seen , customers putting in their , when they put in their request to you to find this person , because this is a lesser known certification the FOA Fiber Optic Association ? They have their CFOT , which is Certified Fiber Optic Technician , and they've got a couple others too .
Do you ever see those kinds of certifications ?
I haven't , I haven't seen the requirements .
Good fodder for people to think about there . Don't get me wrong . The FOA has a really good certification program , but it's not exactly the same as the Bixie program and the Bixie program is more well-known . So , dave , what a fantastic conversation . My friend , I appreciate you coming on .
Thank you , this was great . I appreciate you having me on .
That's it for this episode of today's podcast . We hope you were able to learn something . Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content . Also , leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications . Until next time , be safe .