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Ryan Burgess
Welcome to the 12th episode of the front end happier podcast. In this episode, we'll be talking about recruiting and job searching. To help us discuss today's topic. We're joined by two special guests Chrissy Running and Alayna Ketner. Who are both recruiters and on the Talent Team at Netflix. Christina Lena, can you give a brief introduction to yourself? Who you are, what you do and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages?

Alayna Ketner
Yeah, I'll go first. My name is Alayna Ketner. I recruit for our cloud and platform engineering teams over here at Netflix. I've been with the company for about four and a half years and my favorites. Happy Hour beverage is really anything that I can get but also I'm a gin girl. So I love a fancy G and T will G and T with a twist. Yeah.

Chrissy Running
Hi, my name is Chrissy Running. And I work here at Netflix. I support our streaming client organization as well as our UI engineering organization. I've been here for about a year and before that worked at various different companies, from startups to big companies. My favorite drink in the moment is wine. But I'm also a martini girl. So I like a dirty martini usually

Ryan Burgess
Nice. So favorite wine right now because that's what you're drinking. Yes. All right, let's quickly go around the table and give brief introductions for the rest of the panelists. Jem, you want to start?

Jem Young
Hi, my name's Jem Young. I'm a senior software engineer at Netflix.

Sarah Federman
Hi, my name is Sarah Fetterman. I'm a UI engineer at LinkedIn.

Derrick Showers
Hi, my name is Augustus Yuan. I'm a front end engineer at Evernote.

Ryan Anklam
And I'm Ryan anklam. I'm a software engineer here at Netflix.

Ryan Burgess
And I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a UI engineering manager at Netflix and each episode of the front end happier podcast we like to choose a keyword. And if it's mentioned, we'll all take a drink. What do we decide today's keyword is? Opportunity. All right. So anytime we say the word opportunity, we will take a drink. So let's get started and talk about recruiting and job searching. I'm interested to know I know as an engineer, we get reached out to a lot by recruiting and I mean, I even reach out for hiring at Netflix. But what separates a good recruiter from a bad one,

Chrissy Running
I can share a recent story. Believe it or not recruiting for recruiters is just as intense as recruiters recruiting for engineers. So the other day all of my colleagues and I we sit in the same area. And we get the exact same message from the exact same recruiter at the exact same time. And she literally spammed our entire team of about 20 people without changing a single word. So that would be a bad recruiter.

Ryan Burgess
So in that case, if you were emailing multiple people from same company, would you try and change it up have it,

Alayna Ketner
you have to be smart about it. I mean, sometimes, you know, a lot of people don't have much information on their profile, right. And so as recruiters, you want to do a really good job of customizing your message to your audience, right to make sure that, you know, you're making that person feel wanted that recognized. But you know, sometimes you're reaching out to a ton of people, and they don't have much on their profile, right. And so you're using a pretty formulaic message, because you can only personalize it so much when it says, senior UI engineer at LinkedIn, right. But I think you also to be smart and recognize that some teams are really small, and that people talk about these things. I mean, especially if you're in Silicon Valley, you're getting hit up all the time. And I guarantee you that, you know, especially if there's something that's kind of unique about the outreach, you're probably going to share it with each other. So just be smart.

Chrissy Running
So we would time it or we'd set up you know, for me personally, I would set up calendar invites it says reach out to this person then remind you to reach out to this person then and definitely not reach out to them at the exact same moment.

Alayna Ketner
The worst is when there is like a startup acquisition that you hear about. And people go after that startup. And you know, it's like seven people in a room together and use it like they get the same message from that recruiter. Right. That's poor form. I mean, if you know that this is a small team or a really small company, you better be going out of your way to really customize your message or else you're just embarrassing yourself in the company.

Jem Young
Kind of what we're all saying is what separates good recruiter from bad recruiters effort

Ryan Anklam
getting a person's name right.

Alayna Ketner
Okay, hang on, though, I will say that there have been instances in which I have enjoyed a glass of wine wills to reaching out to engineers. And sometimes Ryan can become Brian I actually have gotten a pretty good response rate of like when I realized like, Oh, crap, I sent the wrong message to the wrong person. Because you know, you have like,

Ryan Burgess
you just you know, up on that because like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Alayna Ketner
So follow me like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Clearly I should not be sending emails at 10pm Obviously, I know you are Ryan. Brian would still love to chat with you if you'll have me. And honestly, that does kind of sit well with people, I might actually respond to that a little bit.

Chrissy Running
I'll just weigh in and say the last candidate that we made an offer to, I called him Richard. And his name was we'll just call him John, for the sake of this because he has a very unique name, but and we ended up making him an offer. But who knows if I would have gotten a response? Otherwise,

Ryan Burgess
yeah, you probably caught him off guard, like, Who the hell are they talking to? And that just that stuck out? That's awesome. That's kind of sad. Yeah. I think what Jem said is going the extra mile is like a huge thing all even when I'm looking for people for roles that I'm hiring for, I actually look at LinkedIn, GitHub a lot, actually, I'll go to GitHub and actually look at people's code, and actually start to reference some projects that I'm interested in and kind of talk to them that way. I feel like that's more beneficial. I'm actually getting a chance to look at this person to see what they're actually coding, and just take that extra time to talk to him about a project.

Jem Young
The main thing is huge for me, I've got to say, literally, almost every other day, let me read one here. General, I'm impressed subjects starts off Hey, Jamie, well, like I mean, my name is right

Alayna Ketner
there. It's very unique name too. So you've really got to be paying attention to that.

Jem Young
And I don't go by General anywhere on the internet. So it's like proof, they just pulled me out of a database somewhere. Like if you need me even like for a second, you know, goodbye gem. It's, it's like lazy, it's just lazy recruiting. That's what I call it.

Alayna Ketner
I think also just really getting to know your teams. I'm so I'm a recruiting manager and I so I'm recruiting for recruiters right now. Anyone looking? I think one of the biggest things is you meet a lot of recruiters who have no idea what their teams really do. Because, honestly, it's intimidating learning about engineering, when you're not an engineer and being really fearless about saying, I don't know what that is, can you help me understand that can sometimes be scary, but I think if you're willing to put yourself out there and really just like ask those questions and, you know, be vulnerable about like, okay, so am I understanding this correctly, you're gonna set yourself up for success even just on the phone with potential candidates about a new opportunity.

Ryan Anklam
I'm glad to be finally got this opportunity to take

Alayna Ketner
thing you know, if you're having trouble understanding what it is that they do, just being real with and being like, Hey, I'm new to this space, like helped me understand because I think that human aspect to it. I think that's what makes a good recruiter, right? If you're not trying to be something that you're not right, and you're not an engineer, so don't try to be one.

Ryan Anklam
I guess that brings up a good point is how technical should recruiters be? I talked to a Facebook recruiter about a year ago, and they were actually asking me technical questions like destiny about scope and JavaScript and event delegation and stuff like that.

Alayna Ketner
I mean, I would just be surprised if they actually knew your, what your responses meant.

Chrissy Running
You know, I think any recruiter can jot down technical questions that their managers give them that's more prescriptive. I think what makes a good recruiter is being able to go off the cusp, and really talk about what the teams do and answer questions. So something that's been really helpful for me in my career is actually shadowing my hiring managers doing their phone interviews. So how do they pitch the role? How do they answer those questions? And then having them shadow me? How did I pitch the role? How could I have done it better? And so Elena said, really being vulnerable and trying to understand it, at least at the level that I can? Because I think, you know, when recruiters ask you a question, they ask you a second question, they say, answer a and to be answer see, like, that's not really knowing the work.

Alayna Ketner
I think a lot of companies though, don't set their recruiters up for success to be truly great recruiters because any Netflix we have a really amazing opportunity to partner so closely with the teams that we support, where they make themselves super available. Like I've sat down with even engineers, that you guys, MSL it's very awkward trying to take a drink, while I'm telling an anecdote where you have all this access to information and a lot of companies set you up as this paper pusher who's supposed to come in with very little information and very little access to the business and be able to serve up all these resumes. And so you're kind of set up for failure from the get go. So I think there's you know, there's just being a great recruiter and having the aptitude but then there's also being a part of a great company that gives you the resources to do that. So, you know, I think recruiters take a lot of flack for it, but it does kind of, it helps to have the information.

Jem Young
So this is something I've definitely noticed and someone saw me if I'm wrong, there's a clear difference between in house recruiters and like, oh, yeah, what do you agencies? Yeah, there's it's like night and day. And in house recruiters are always always really good. Unless like the company terrible, which happens but agencies are like, almost universally bad. Well, they're not invested in it. Like it's just a numbers game like 20,000 here, 30,000 here, but they don't know the people that work here. Like Chrissy you know, Ryan, he said, like, oh, he would get along great with Ryan anklam. And like, you know, that versus agency, they don't they don't know, you know, anybody. They don't really care because like once that person is hired then they move on to the next person.

Chrissy Running
I'll say it depends on the agency. So I came from an agency recruiting background, I think that's what you know, my, where my roots are and what really trained me to be a good recruiter. But I also think that it's about caring. So I would take all of my, you know, the folks that I'd hire, I'd take them out to lunch, and I check in make sure they're happy and really understand what they do. So I think again, it goes back to the individual, but there are some agencies that it's just there purely based off of commission. So it is more salesy versus like genuine and finding the right fit.

Ryan Burgess
Well, some internal companies are also numbers as well, like for you, you have to hire so many per quarter. And to me, that's where it falls short and bad are recruiting at that point. How are you supposed to do your job? If you're like, Oh, you just have to get 30 people in the door and hired? Well, you're just going to push to hire anyone at that point?

Ryan Anklam
Yeah, before Netflix, I worked through an agency to get the job before I had Netflix. And actually, it was a really good experience, they actually really seem to care about me, they did follow up on me all the time. So it's not universally bad. But I'd say very, very high percentages. But

Alayna Ketner
there's good agencies and there's bad agencies, there's we've hired some great agency recruiters. But we've also talked to a lot of really bad ones too, just like we've talked really great and really bad in house recruiters. I think it's just it's an industry where there's so many people needed that you do get a pretty big disparity in terms of who's great. And who just, you know, is butts and seats.

Derrick Showers
Yeah, I feel like it like makes a big difference. If for like, at least from my experience, like as recruiters like, you can actually comment on what it seems looking for. I mean, like really know, the kind of know the team, whereas like, at least my experience with some agencies, like, you know, they don't they usually are like, I can't give you that information right now. You know, you have to speak or you're interested. And it's really hard for me like comment, like, if I'm interested, I don't know much about the position.

Ryan Anklam
They send you a Word document with the position? Yeah.

Chrissy Running
So here's a question I want to throw out to the group, then while we're on the topic of like, your initial contact with recruiters. How do you feel as engineers about exposing your compensation and what you're currently making on that initial contact with a recruiter? Like, is that something you divulge? Or

Sarah Federman
don't ever do it? Never do it?

Alayna Ketner
Do I sound someone's been burned a little bit?

Ryan Burgess
What makes you say that to like why?

Sarah Federman
So you're basing your worth on what you're being paid instead of what the market is paying, which is entirely different things and like you can, like your worth has to do with the market, it doesn't have to do with what you currently make, because you could be underpaid. You could be overpaid. You could I mean, usually you're underpaid, but and it like, especially if you're a woman, and you're underpaid, because you're a woman or just the situation, it anchors you in a lower salary. You should definitely like give them a range if they really push like what you're looking for. But don't ever, like reveal the first number and don't ever tell them what you're making.

Ryan Anklam
That's interesting, because I think in working for Netflix of burn kind of a unique situation. So Netflix pays very, very well. So I always have that conversation right away with the recruiter, I'm like, This is what I'm making. I don't want to waste anybody's time. If you're not gonna give me something that's gonna

Sarah Federman
absolutely, unless it's anchoring you really high like you set your salary in the.com, boom, there are people that did that. And it's still not reaching, or like you're in a situation where you're accidentally overpaid, or you're purposefully paid really well, like, that's great.

Chrissy Running
I think often when when engineers don't are not willing to talk about their current compensation, it creates this untrust within the the candidate and the recruiter and potentially the hiring manager, at least from Netflix point of view, right. So we're very transparent. And so often we're going to be willing to tell you what we think market value is until you how we came up with that compensation. So we expect the same amount of transparency. But I do think that the way that other companies approach offers and negotiation creates this environment where people feel that that's not a safe place to talk about that.

Sarah Federman
Well, why do you ask? Like, why do you need to know what a candidate is currently making? Well,

Alayna Ketner
for Netflix, we take data points from hopefully everyone that we talked to, so we have a really good understanding of the market. And then what we want to do is evaluate that and when we hire someone, really make them the best offer that they could be getting for the work that they'll do. Now, that's not why most companies ask, right? I would say that you Netflix is very unique in our, in our approach to compensation. So you know, I think that if you're making far less than you would like to be making, I would hold that number pretty tightly to yourself to be completely frank, and I would really think about your negotiation strategy. Going into that. I think most people are not very good at negotiation. And honestly go on Forbes, like look up some articles on how to be a better negotiator because there's a lot of resources out there. You know, I think if you're dealing with Netflix in particular, honestly, you can rest assured that we're not going to lowball you just because we can that's definitely not the goal, but We're also a very unique company in that regard. You know, I think when someone does or doesn't share compensation, I think the way that you have that conversation is like, if you're going to share it, just share it. Right, you can share that your your feelings about it at a high level in terms of, you know, I feel like I've been underpaid because of XY or Z, but don't spend too much time on it, honestly, because especially in the initial contact, it's just, that's not the time in the place for it, right? Let's figure out if this is the right fit overall. But if you're really unhappy with your compensation, and you just don't feel comfortable sharing it, it's okay. You don't have to, there is no law that you have to share your compensation. And I think if you're open and transparent throughout the rest of the conversation, that's not going to ding you. Right, but just, you know, I would just keep it short and sweet is my general kind of rule of thumb. And if you're not comfortable, no problem, right. Like, I think, I think we get pretty obsessed with compensation and sharing that but get very focused on it. So I would just honestly go in deciding if you're comfortable or not, and then make that a rule of thumb for most companies.

Chrissy Running
Yeah, I think I would add that a lot of the big companies here in the Bay Area, at least have preset salary ranges. And those salary ranges have to fit within their leveling of their company. So often, recruiters are asking that to determine what level do you fit in, before they even understand your technical competencies. And so I think that you can push yourself in a corner, if you're making, you know, on the lower range, then you're potentially walking in as a lower lower ranked engineer versus if you're on the higher end and you're above market value, they can make a case to bring you in at a higher level. I've seen that happen multiple times. And so I agree with what Elena said, if you're underpaid, I would hold that a little bit closer to your best because it could put you at a complete disadvantage.

Ryan Burgess
When you're initially looking for candidates. What what kind of resources do you use when you're looking especially specifically to engineering? Where are you using to recruit and like look for a candidate and reach out to them? Is it LinkedIn profiles, GitHub resumes, like what's the most important thing that engineers out there that can be prepared for looking for jobs?

Alayna Ketner
Honestly, write your resume for recruiters, I think a lot of engineers write their resumes for other engineers, and you have to recognize that you probably have a recruiter with a year or less of experience screening your resume, and they need to be able to Crystal Clear say this is going to be an obvious fit for this role. Or you're getting passed on, I think that's the bare minimum. Hopefully, you get a great recruiter, and they're able to kind of parse through your unique experience. But I too often see people getting passed on because, you know, we just don't understand their backgrounds, right. And if you're applying to a role, you don't have that person on the phone to be like, Hey, let's talk about this more. So write your resume for a recruiter,

Chrissy Running
I'd say a strong network. So usually, I find a lot of engineers who referrals and mining people's network, so connect to people on LinkedIn, connect to your colleagues connect to your former colleagues, connect to your friends, because often if I see someone that's connected to Ryan, for an example, I'm going to go straight to Ryan before I go straight to this candidate. So I think that's the number one thing that I would probably say, I think, to Elena's point, also to writing your resume so that it's readable and so that it's understandable. I will say that I really like it when engineers argue back. So when I close out with an engineer, and I say, sorry, you're not a fit for XYZ, I like when they say no, no, I am and here's why. I will always pick up the phone. Hear them out.

Alayna Ketner
See I feel a little bit differently. Like if I'm closing out with you, this is not a conversation. And there have been times when someone has written really thoughtful responses back. But I think too frequently people are overconfident about, especially if you're I mean, if you're just passing on a resume, right? I think like hearing why you're a fit is useful information, especially if there's just added information that we didn't have going in, or like why you're so passionate about that one space, right? But if it's an interview, and you're getting passed on, like, I would ask for feedback, don't tell them that you are a fit and the person's wrong. Just to

Chrissy Running
clarify, I met at the resume. Oh, really nice green stage,

Jem Young
I think would be interested in a lot of people because we we speak like we're senior people like we generally don't send resumes like don't reach out or we reach out to a company though like oh, yeah, we know you. But a lot of people that listen to us are like brand new, like straight cutting school, college, something like that. How would someone that is brand new, never worked at a big name company, get your your attention, go to events

Alayna Ketner
go Netflix hosts a lot of meetups and I think if you can go and build your network again, I think you know, too many people get behind a computer and they start obsessing over their resume and they obsess over their applications and cover letters. But honestly, if you have someone at a company who can vouch for you, that is the most valuable way to get your foot in the door. So build your network. I would say get involved in projects like if your company that you're interested in whether it's Netflix or any other company has open source projects. Try to get involved with open source projects, right like show them how good you are. You don't have the experience and resume to back it up. So show them with your skills. Like I think that kind of scrappiness. And, you know, I think if you can, you can build that experience for yourself.

Ryan Burgess
I liked what you said about events too, because I think a lot of the tech companies are doing a lot of events where they actually have people speaking at them. And if you see someone speaking on an event, and you're interested in the topic that they're speaking, not pull them aside after they're done talking and talk to them about what they were just talking about. And ask them if there's opportunities at their company, because more often than not, there probably is, and they will put you in touch with people like the recruiting team and, and go from there.

Sarah Federman
On that note, like, when I came out here, I specifically came out to the Bay Area for an internship because I wanted to, like, get into this whole network. And I went to like a bunch, like I signed up for the Facebook intern Bay Area group I signed up for all of the events like big companies will, like send out like recruiting things during the summer when everyone's around, like their career fairs like all the time. And I would say probably 85% of my leads came from that. That's awesome. It's really, really easy to get callbacks. to

Chrissy Running
Jem's point, I would say the one thing that you like shouldn't do is recruiters get spammed almost as much as engineers do. So a lot of new college graduates or interns will say, available for new opportunities. But really, recruiters are getting hundreds of emails a day. And so what you can do is be really helpful. I'm looking for new opportunity opportunities. And machine learning in big data in mobile, and I saw positions XYZ that looked at fit my background. Otherwise, you're asking a recruiter to do a lot of work. If you're messaging a recruiter that's working for Google, Facebook and Apple, they probably have 1000s of jobs open. So if you just say available for new roles at this time, then likely the recruiter is just going to delete your email.

Sarah Federman
Yeah. And in my experience, like I specifically reached out to companies that I was interested in and like I'd never sent anything besides something that was specific to the company like, hey, I want to work at Firebase, because I use this on this last project. And this was awesome. And like, even if there weren't any opportunities, like I say, probably 90% 90% of the time I got a response, even if it was to say no, we don't have anything but keep an eye on our jobs page.

Ryan Burgess
One, I think that point you've at least open some of the conversation to which is good. Just because they don't have a position doesn't mean that one won't come available months later or a year later. And you might be top of mind for that later down the road.

Alayna Ketner
That's a great point, though, because I think too many people wait for when they're desperate for something new and they can't wait to get out of their current job. And that's where you get yourself into a situation where you're just trying to take that first offer you can get, figure out what you want to do next, craft your career and take it into your own hands and add even when you're not looking like be searching for those opportunities that are going to get you to that next step. Oh. Just trying to get you all drunk so that you can just take that into your own hands.

Chrissy Running
I think that's that's a good point. Because it's really transparent to not only the hiring manager, the recruiter, but the rest of the team when you're running away from something versus running to that next best opportunity. And I see us pass on a lot of candidates for that exact reason of they don't want to work at Netflix, they want to work anywhere else.

Alayna Ketner
Totally. Yeah, I really respect someone who clearly has made very deliberate decisions about their career like that, to me is someone who is motivated. They are thoughtful. They're just on top of their game.

Ryan Burgess
How should an engineer prepare for an interview, whether it's a phone screen or an on site interview? How should they prepare? I'm interested, like, from engineers perspective, but also recruiting.

Ryan Anklam
I think when I interviewed for Netflix, I woke up early and I went to a cafe had some coffee and just did a bunch of code kados and JavaScript, I just got my brain warmed up. And I was ready to write code. So I knew it was going to be a code heavy, you know, interview so I just got my brain warmed up ahead of time and came in ready to write write a bunch of code.

Jem Young
I like to cheat and hopefully a good company will tell you who you're interviewing with. So I'd like to look up who I'm interviewing with. That's cheating. That's a good idea. There's like a lot of tricks you can use, such as ask them a story, like the more someone talks to you, the more they're gonna like you like that's just psychology. So if you just want to tell your story, they're probably not my impression on you. But yeah, I looked up Ryan anklam. I looked up Mike. people interviewed me at Netflix and just like found out what they do a little bit about them and it didn't never came up the interview, but it's just good to know. Also what I found and I didn't do this with but I think everybody else has looking up if the company's public look up their investor portfolio just to see like what the company is doing, what the company is about what how they make money, like what are different things they're interested in, which is a really good overview of what's happening at the company.

Sarah Federman
Don't forget to check Glassdoor.

Derrick Showers
Yeah, I was just gonna say I always on Glassdoor.

Ryan Burgess
I struggle with Glassdoor. I don't know if I should take how much weight I should actually put

Sarah Federman
not that much. But it is information that you can use?

Chrissy Running
Sure. How do you prepare for the non technical interviews, whether that be with a recruiter or an HR business partner, or VP,

Sarah Federman
I think about why I want to work there. And if I don't know, I find out, like, especially if a company's recruiting me and I, on the technical side, I'll check their, like engineering blogs, if they have them. See what they're working on there. Because a lot of times, those are really detailed, and they're kind of, you know, for people like us, what if

Alayna Ketner
you're not sure that you want to work there, right? Like if a company's recruiting you and you're not really convinced about the company, but you're talking to a VP? Like, what's a good way to basically say, Why should I work here?

Ryan Burgess
I mean, ask them questions, right? Like, it's like, ask what their initiatives are and understand what I mean, I hate the whole, like, what's your five year plan? But something like what what are some of the top initiatives or things that they're wanting to prioritize? I think that's important to better understand some of the challenges that they're having. And I feel like that shows some interest in it. And it also lend itself to knowing whether or not that's an interest for you as well,

Sarah Federman
if you know, like, the things that you want. And you know, what points that company might not hit? Like, I interviewed with the company that wasn't in the location I wanted, I asked them, Hey, why should I come to this location? What's so great about it? Can you like sell me on it? And they were like, oh, yeah, it's great for like outdoorsy stuff. And I was like, Well, I'm not really that into it. And they were just like,

Chrissy Running
sounds like Seattle.

Derrick Showers
podcast where we talked about interviews, I remember a good question that you guys mentioned was like asking a manager, like, if you have someone who's struggling, like, how do you deal with it? I think that's like, really like, an awesome question to ask the manager to see how they will, like, help the team out really what their role is.

Alayna Ketner
That is such a great point. I mean, so often, you hear about people, you joined the company, you leave the manager, right? Interview, your manager really get to know this person, is this someone that you want to work with someone you trust with your career, because if you don't have a great manager, you're not set up for success, you're not going to be happy. So it goes both ways. You should definitely definitely be vetting them just as much as they're betting you. So does

Sarah Federman
that mean you think you should interview by team? Oh, yeah.

Alayna Ketner
But I mean, I think it depends on where you're at in your career, right? Like, if you're brand new in your career, and you don't really know what you want, right? I think the it's this model of interview, and then see where you best fit from there and having a few options in front of you to choose. I think that's a great option, right. But if you're someone who's you know, you've been doing this for a while, you kind of have an idea of where you want to go. Interviewing for the team really allows you to pinpoint that perfect opportunity where you're again, going to get to craft your career. I said opportunity.

Ryan Burgess
Even to the point where, like you're asking about interviewing for a team. I also think going back to like the very first question, what makes a good recruiter, I think are recruiters job is also to help understand what the best fit for you is, especially at large companies, there's probably multiple job openings. And there's lots of opportunities in that company that they can help find. Sure.

Ryan Anklam
I think Google does it. Interestingly, when the recruiter reaches out to you, and you interview with them, and you get past all the tech stages, you actually interview all the different teams that are interested in you. And you can pick what team you're the most interested in.

Chrissy Running
Although I will add that it's not always a mutual decision from what I've heard, especially when you think about not only Google, but Facebook and some of these other companies, the group whom you may want to join has to have the budget to take you on. And so that's something to be mindful of, if you're top of market, let's say you're an architect level, I don't even know we don't have levels here. So let's say you're eight, nine, what the highest level is that company willing to take on a six seven figure engineer, and so that could also be very limiting. So and I think the other thing I think about is, for me, some of my colleagues who I'm going to learn from who I'm going to look up to who are going to be my confidants, my partners, you're at work more than your home, you know. And so for me, that's extremely important. So personally, I could never join a company where I didn't know exactly what I was going to

Alayna Ketner
when companies set up their interviews so that they are essentially choosing the opportunity for you rather than it being a conversation. Oh, cheese, I'm sorry, I'm the worst. So buzzworthy when they're setting up that conversation around which role you will be stepping into next, if it's a conversation, or if it's just them telling you what you're going to do next. That's probably going to be what your career trajectory looks like at that company. They're probably going to tell you which options you have for that next move, it might be a little bit more rigid, right? Versus if you're engaging with them on okay, what's going to be the best fit for me and you together? That's going to be how your crew jerk trajectory looks. So I think it's also a window into the culture, when you interview with a company.

Ryan Burgess
Now that makes that's very good point, giving feedback to candidates during an interview process is that like, good, bad neutral? What should you walk away with, if you're even being turned down an interview, like,

Jem Young
I would hope for feedback, I could come back a year from now a much better engineer, and knock off all the things I said that about me and, like, be a fantastic candidate for the company. But I know, I mean, I'd like to hear from recruitment standpoint, but our general theory of feedback is companies don't give it because they're afraid of lawsuits. Is that true or not? It's true. But

Chrissy Running
in the case of Netflix, we don't worry about it too much, because we don't have as much formality. And I guess, accountability as a lot of other companies do. So I think typically, we like to provide feedback at all the stages. So I give feedback after my, you know, initial phone interview, after the tech screen during the on sites, even when we're going to make an offer, which is interesting. I remember when I got my offer from Netflix, my manager called me and was like, so here's some of the areas where we were a little bit concerned. And so if you want to join that, I was like, Oh, that's interesting. But it lets you know that here are some areas where we think you need to grow and where you can grow here, and we're still willing to invest. And I think every engineer that takes on a new job wants to go into that job, knowing that they're going to grow as a professional. And so I really appreciated that aspect. I think, where I see engineers shy away from feedback is actually then when I asked get back from them in return, and I will have just given them all this feedback. And I say, Hey, I know our process isn't near perfect. What feedback do you have for us how we can make it better? And I'd say only one out of 10 will actually give me legitimate feedback. So I think it also has to be a two way street. Because when a recruiter or a hiring manager asks you that question, they're still interviewing you. And they want to say, Okay, you're open to feedback. But then the first chance you get to give it you shy away.

Ryan Burgess
That's hard, though. I honestly think, Steven, I get your point, too. And I know that that is something that we would look at is like, a good thing is like, Hey, can you are you comfortable giving us feedback. But I don't think that's a typical thing, and a lot of interviews or a lot of companies where they're comfortable giving feedback. So I struggle with that as being asked that as a candidate. Way, what can we do better in our process? Especially if you may have just turned that candidate down? They don't care, they want to get off the phone? So I don't know. That's it. That's a tough one. I don't know if I agree necessarily. With that.

Sarah Federman
Coming from a new college grad standpoint, it's hard to know, because you haven't done a ton of this, like, it's hard to give feedback because you don't know what is normal and what's like bad. And sometimes it's just a matter of experience,

Alayna Ketner
I think it's okay to say, Let me think about it. And if I have any meaningful feedback, I'll get back to you. That's a

Ryan Burgess
good way to end it too. So when you actually are coming down to an offer, what are the pros and cons of leveraging competing offers? And how should engineers negotiate their way through these conversations,

Chrissy Running
I think it all depends on the way you communicate your different offers to both the recruiter and the hiring manager, it's very obvious if you're shopping around and going just for the offer that's going to pay the most instead of walking the recruiter and the hiring manager through the pros and cons of how you're looking at your next job move. So whether that's I'm interested in this job, because of the technology, or I'm interested in this, because of the impact, I'm going to help with the overall company. I think all of those things have much more of an impact and compensation, we all work to make money. So we need to talk about that and be real about it. But if that's your main driver, it's going to come through. Now that said, I think it's absolutely acceptable for you to say, here's the offers I have here, here's what they're at, and do the breakdown and expect something comparable from the company that you're interviewing with.

Alayna Ketner
Totally, I think if you have competing data points to solidify kind of what you're looking for, that's just it's a really concrete way to say this is what obviously what other companies think I'm worth, this is kind of the minimum that I would be looking for. And it's a great negotiation tactic. Now, that being said, if you're a company that's on the end of a candidate who is really just trying to get competitive data points out of you, it is the most frustrating thing and probably the quickest way to get yourself on the shortlist of that company. Because frankly speaking, like if you're, you know, coming to me and just trying to get a data point for me, I know, right? Like as I'm talking to you, it's very clear to me that either a you are telling you what I want to hear or be that you are not putting in the effort that you would be for a company that you're truly passionate about. So I know if you are trying to get competitive data points, be smart about it. Choose companies that frankly speaking you know pay really well but You might not be super interested in long term, right? Like if there's a company that you think would be something that you would want to revisit down the road. But ultimately, your end goal right now is just to get data points. Don't do it, because you will burn yourself, you will like applicant tracking systems are real, those notes will be in there, they will remember that right. And that leaves a bad taste in recruiters mouth, it tastes leaves a bad taste in hiring managers mouths. But you know, from the perspective of interviewing, I do think you need to be informed of your value as a talented individual, whatever it is that you're doing. So you need to know what you're worth. And you need to know how to advocate for yourself. Because most companies will not advocate for you. They are trying to get you for the cheapest amount that they can get you and you need to go into that being able to show your value to the company and negotiate based on that value, not based on feeling. So be smart. Go and figure out how to negotiate talk to someone who's really great at it. But don't go about it with a company that you might want to revisit down the road. Because I can guarantee you you will burn yourself.

Chrissy Running
I think it's also worth noting that Glassdoor does not count as a data point, engineers will often say well, I looked on Glassdoor, and I saw the range was between 100 and a million. Well, yeah, those are the ranges. You're not in a million. So I think the Glassdoor is not a data point. And so it's about your personal market data, not what Glassdoor says a software engineer will make think it's

Ryan Burgess
even asking and being open, like to the community and kind of trying to get a sense for what everyone else that your peers are. Maybe talking compensation is not in not something that we're used to talking about.

Alayna Ketner
People need to get more comfortable talking about money and advocating for themselves, especially women have other

Sarah Federman
offers, though. Well, I think I mean, it happens. It's like, like my problem was I had like a ton of companies I was talking to but the timelines never added

Ryan Burgess
up, you should have an idea what the market is paying like. And even though Chrissy said like Glassdoor is not necessarily a point, and she's right, there's other ways to try and find like, what are engineers being paid? I don't know, city in your area. For your skill set,

Sarah Federman
you say that, but like, I'm constantly floored by finding out how much other engineers make. Like, I thought I made a lot until I started talking.

Ryan Burgess
Because you didn't find that out earlier, though. Like oshi. My, my

Sarah Federman
data sets, like, always pointed to me being overpaid for a new college grad. Whereas like now that I'm talking to other people, it's like, wow, these jumps are ginormous, and like, the ranges are insane. There's just no way to know, are they new grads as well? Yeah, some of them. And some of them are like less than three years experience.

Chrissy Running
I was just gonna say, I think the more you interview, the more you are able to juggle timelines so that they line up. And so I would encourage all of you engineers to leverage recruiters and say, here's who I'm interviewing with, here's where I'm at in the process. How should I timeless accordingly, because as recruiters, we know, you know, Google's going to take X amount of time because they have a hiring committee, and this company is going to move really quick because they are startup and we're able to say you should interview with us at this time. And here's when we can get you an offer. And so then you're able to look at all of your offers within a few days of arrange and make a decision and you set yourself up for success. Versus like keeping that really close to your chest, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage, because we talk to candidates all day long. We know how fast these companies move. And when you're transparent about that we can expedite the process or slow it down. Like most importantly, we can slow it down so that we're in line with Google, Facebook, and all these other people. Do you ever

Sarah Federman
feel poorly when I can make tells you like a bunch of companies that they're interviewing with? Because like I basically interviewed with every like big name that will talk to me. And like when I told one recruiter like I listed places, they were like, well, that's quite a lot. And I guess I got the impression that I wasn't really specific. And what I wanted,

Alayna Ketner
I mean, again, for me, you know, I really want people who want to come to Netflix specifically, right, and there's, they're being really logical about their interview process. When you're starting off in your career search, you're really looking for somewhere that's going to let you come in and grow. And like you want to learn a lot about your different options. And so naturally, you're going to kind of open up that funnel really, really wide to figure out where you want to go. I think the thing about when you're interviewing or looking for a new job is there is a story that your background tells and your action tells. And it's kind of like PR where they say there's a conversation that's happening about you and you can either participate in it or let the conversation happen without you. And you really need to participate in this conversation and come up with a really good narrative for yourself to so you understand, like how are you spending your time like what are you focusing on? Why are you looking at these companies like how did you come up with that criteria and if you can be smart about that and articulate it like that makes a lot of sense to me as a recruiter right. But if you're just kind of going out there, willy nilly just like looking for different Companies then that to me is someone who is really just looking for the best offer that they can get. And they're really not thinking about what's best for them. And, again, crafting your career. Like, I think that's just something that's super important to me and someone, but going back to comp data, you should be looking at comp data, even when you're not looking for a new job. Because the truth of the matter is that there's a lot of people out there who are great at selling themselves. They're great at negotiation. And that's what hikes those salaries up. And especially for our female listeners out there, like, advocate for yourself, go and get data points, like know your worth, and get factual about it. Because if you are not, you will be taken advantage of and you really have to participate in that process. And so try to understand, like, how do different companies compensate? Like, what does that structure look like? How do they think about competitive offers? And you can even just ask recruiters just any, if you approach it more, in a sense of, hey, I'm just trying to get a feel for like, what's out there, not so much as like, I need this information from you, because I deserve it, you're going to be much more successful in getting that information and really just being able to look at this in a very logical way.

Chrissy Running
Yeah, I would add that, you know, if you think about the employers that you work for most companies evaluate their employees annually, quarterly by annually. So why should we not evaluate our employers? And if we're getting paid? Like, are we meeting? Their they're asking us like, are we meeting their standards? Well, are they meeting our standards? And what are they adding to me and my career development and my compensation trajectory? So pull your head out, take a look around, see what else is out there and evaluate? Am I working for the best company that I should be working for?

Alayna Ketner
Again, money is not everything. And so choose the opportunity that is going to get you to where you want to be right and understand where you're at in your life, right? Like, sometimes you're at a point in your life when you need to go for that extra money, because you've got a family to pay for. Right. And that's important. And that's great, right? But sometimes you're at a point in your career, when you can take a little bit of a bigger risk, and you can go for that opportunity. That might not be the smartest one financially, sorry, oh, my God, I am the worst. Or you can go for that position that is going to really kind of feed your career and your knowledge, but it might not necessarily feed your bank account as much.

Jem Young
So just so we can dispel this urban myth. That's top tier recruiters. Have you ever turned anybody down? For trying to counter off?

Alayna Ketner
Absolutely not? Like if someone has legitimate data and reasoning behind why they are looking for more money? I'm absolutely willing to entertain that conversation, right? Calculators around what you should be making in different cities are useless glass door is useless, right? But if you have legitimate kind of questions and reasoning for why you think you should be making more, let's talk about it. Right? I want to have a dialogue around it. I might tell you still like, No, you're not getting any more money. But I would never turn someone down for asking why we

Ryan Burgess
offer is not off the table, I guess. So even if I you offered me like 100k. And I'm like, I need like 500k. And it's like completely five times more unrealistic. We would just tell you,

Chrissy Running
we think you're overpaid. And here's why. Or we think you're asking for out of market. And we're not about

Ryan Burgess
what the offer doesn't come off the table, right? Like, you're just going to help me understand why you've offered 100k versus 500k.

Alayna Ketner
I think you just again, it goes back to how you approach it. Because if I think you're approaching it more from a standpoint of well help me understand how you came up with this number because I had different expectations. Like if you go about it from a reasonable human being to another reasonable human being, you're going to be fine, right? But if you go about it, and from a standpoint of like, well, I wanted this much and why aren't you giving me this much? You know, that's just not an adult way to approach situation, you're not going to set yourself up for success. So again, any it goes back to the you know, just the way that you're approaching it. But I would always ask how did you come up with that number, what data points went into this so that you can understand for yourself to like, how does this company come up with compensation? Because that, again, is going to impact the way that your compensation is reviewed later in your career?

Sarah Federman
So about those data points? Are you saying basically, the only way to get data points is to have alternative offers?

Chrissy Running
No,

Ryan Burgess
no, I think it's like doing research and like and you have to be creative. You

Sarah Federman
say research you say all of these like aggregators are false.

Ryan Burgess
And yes, that can be difficult to look at something like Glassdoor it's a point to go look at maybe it will help you question that someone's getting paid a lot more than me. And it's showing that it might give you to actually start to ask the question. Maybe it is asking other engineers.

Sarah Federman
I mean, like, you can't say to a recruiter. Oh yeah, I talked to this other engineer and they're making this much like that's not a real deal.

Chrissy Running
Okay, and take opportunistic calls. You don't have to go through the entire interview process, whether that's with the hiring manager, take a call with recruiter understand your market value talk to other engineers connect with other female engineers in the market. But don't use like a relocation calculator or Glassdoor as your source of truth, because that's not specific look at what are people in UI and web making with my amount of years of experience. And that's going to be the relevant data. But often I do have candidates say to me, this is my data point, because my friend that I graduated with is in the same field working for XYZ company, and he's making this or she's making this. And I'm like, that's relevant. That's a data point. That's great.

Alayna Ketner
Yeah, I've definitely it's helped me also understand how is the market shifting and because I think the thing is, is as recruiters we have a lot of access to data points from candidates who are looking, right, and a lot of the reason people look is because they're not being paid enough. So naturally, those data points are going to be lower than for those people who are very happy in their roles, because they're being very well compensated and very well taken care of. So talk to your peers, talk to your counterparts to companies that have no interest in leaving, because they're probably being compensated pretty well. And that's honestly really useful data points for companies that are looking at you to know what your colleagues are making when you know, they're, they're happy, and they're not looking.

Jem Young
And I think most engineers, if they don't look, the same company will tell you how much they make. Like if my friend asked me like a job, how did she get paid? I'll tell them because like, it doesn't affect me. And it's good for them for future negotiations,

Alayna Ketner
they see a difference in the way that women approach negotiation versus the way that men approach

Ryan Burgess
approach actually touched on that because it is completely

Alayna Ketner
it's so different. And I think that it's just as women, you have to recognize, like, you have to advocate for yourself. And I, you know, I think practice was someone get comfortable with the way that you're asking these questions and presenting these data points. Because for anyone, whether you're male or female, or whatever your role is, it can be really uncomfortable and can feel very personal when it comes to compensation. Right? And it is. So practice with someone make sure you're being very impartial to you know, your own personal wants and needs, right and really basing it on the facts. And I'm also a big fan of power posing. I'll just do a quick plug for that. You haven't watched the TED talk? You absolutely have you absolutely should.

Chrissy Running
So I have a question, because I think that you brought up a good point that compensation is personal and those conversations can feel personal. So as the market gets more competitive, I've seen hiring managers take a more hands on approach with hiring and their engagement throughout the process. So I'm curious, curious to hear from the engineers in the room? How do you feel about the hiring manager talking to you directly about compensation versus a recruiter?

Ryan Anklam
It's a good question, I think I would put a little bit more weight behind the hiring manager because I can ask them direct questions about exactly what my role would be and kind of how that compensation would mean play into what my responsibilities are.

Ryan Burgess
I think typically I've had recruiting do for the most part, it's usually at that part that hiring managers kind of not a part of the process anymore. It's it's usually you're dealing with like the recruiter at that time.

Derrick Showers
I would say overall, I'm indifferent. But I do you see, like, the argument of talking to your hiring manager, and then like working on if they want to add a basis, especially if you're trying to negotiate for hire like I don't know if that leads to an awkward,

Jem Young
I'd much rather talk to the hiring manager because I can say like, oh, I want to be x. And they're like, well, we can only put you here. But if you work on this, this and this, I feel like you could have the skills, we can definitely move you to this level. For as if you're talking recruiter, it'd be, I think, a much harder conversation,

Chrissy Running
easy jam as your recruiter? I asked, because I've had candidates tell me, you know, I was really disappointed that the manager uses time to talk with me about compensation versus learned about my expertise and what value I would add to the team. And I felt like that was really precious time that you know, I couldn't use otherwise.

Ryan Burgess
I guess I will pretty much wrap up today's episode. But before we finish up, let's go around and share pics for this episode. Jem, do you want to start us off?

Jem Young
Yes. So I have non technical picks this time. My first pick is John Hopkins. Kind of a little bit ambient, a lot of just it's good background music for coding and just fantastic, really fantastic artists to the playlist added to the playlist. My second pick is Star Trek Beyond. I saw that last weekend. And it was terrible. It was terrible. I can go on a long rant about why this was the worst Star Trek yet. Why? Because I want people to know it's terrible. It is insulting the franchise. That's my pick. I want them to see it and then send me tweets about how terrible it was. Okay, I'm

Sarah Federman
Sarah. So my first pick is an older article from the internet's it's from this blogger His name is Helene. Something that wrong, but that's a screening. It's about salary negotiation for engineers. It's absolutely the best thing I've ever read about it. It includes it just gets you in the right mindset. And he goes through every different scenario that a recruiter might say with you, and get tells you what you should say in that scenario. So it's just like everybody should read that. I read it like every other month and then my second pick is the macro Which is why C's publication, they've been publishing interviews for, like the first employee at companies. So there's one with like the first employee of Airbnb, and one, the first employee of Apple, and they're really interesting. You should definitely check them out.

Ryan Burgess
Awesome. Gustus, what do you have for us this episode?

Derrick Showers
Yeah, I'm a nerd. So I have technical pigs. I guess my first one is.single.com. It's basically a bunch of illustrations that is made with just a single div really shows the power of CSS. So definitely, you should check it out. And this other one is this HTTP oxy vulnerability that came out recently? I have ever been out but I think it's like, good to raise awareness. And like, guys definitely like, remember, like security is important. efforts, b2c? Great,

Ryan Burgess
Brian, what do you have? Yeah,

Ryan Anklam
my first pick is a link to a YouTube video of the STS 121 Shuttle Launch. It's just a bunch of clips from that launch. And the audio is kind of synced up with those clips. And there's something about watching the shuttle go up into space, that just gives me the tingles. So my second pick, I think this is actually my first Netflix related pick, but it's a Bojack Horseman. The fourth episode of season three, it's um, it takes place all underwater, so there's really only dialogue before the the main title and then a little bit towards the end, but it's all the sound is all adjusted to make it feel like you're underwater and all the physics and everything are underwater. It's just absolutely brilliant. There's the music is unique. The visuals all unique. So it's definitely what happens.

Ryan Burgess
It's pretty interesting. There's like literally sound interaction like fish making sounds to Bojack. And yeah,

Jem Young
it's really really brilliant talking about it for like a week.

Ryan Burgess
So please, everyone, go watch it.

Sarah Federman
So make it stop.

Ryan Burgess
Elena, what do you have? Um, well,

Alayna Ketner
I just watched the Fundamentals of Caring on Netflix. It's a new Netflix original movie, and I really, really enjoyed it. It's with Paul red, and some other video, Selena Gomez is also in it, which not a big fan of Selena Gomez, but I actually really liked the movie. But I've been thinking a lot about the fundamentals of caregiving, which is basically you have to take care of yourself in order to take care of others which really spoke to me cuz I'm a real hippie on the inside. So that's my pick of the week.

Ryan Anklam
I wanted to like that movie so bad. I really really want to like that movie cuz I love Paul rod. I just

Jem Young
hate Selena Gomez.

Alayna Ketner
I you know what, though, I was in the mood for some real feel good shit. So it was good.

Sarah Federman
Drink wine while you watch? Oh, yeah,

Alayna Ketner
I was like, in my sweatpants on the couch with like, by myself with my wine. It was a good setup. So that's my pick of the week. My other pick of the week is Song exploder, which is a podcast that breaks down in song, the kind of the meaning behind it. It's pretty awesome.

Jem Young
So you'd like Song exploder. Over all songs considered. I haven't listened to all songs considered new paths a good NPR new pick.

Chrissy Running
So my pick of the year is the Culture Map. If you haven't read the book, it's a great book that talks about how companies can successfully do business, working cross culturally and globally. So it gives extreme examples of different cultures working together. And it's great if you're looking to expand the way that you interact with individuals from a different culture or if you're in a leadership position, the way that you lead a team that has different cultural backgrounds. So that's my pick of the year. My pick of the week is probably the night of the new series on HBO, keep you on the edge of your seat even from episode one. So

Ryan Burgess
great. I'm gonna pick the React CLI tool. I haven't fully looked into it. So maybe that's bad to pick it. But I was reading the documentation on it. It's it's pretty exciting to see that they have a CLI tool to get you started on a project. Definitely I'll be useful. And then I have a music pic. I've been I don't know why. But I've been listening to the young wild and free song by Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa and Bruno Mars. Such a good song. It is about weed. I mean, so it's like a happy song.

Alayna Ketner
It's pretty old. Is it? Yeah,

Ryan Burgess
I just started hearing it again.

Chrissy Running
We'll do weekly pick so that's sort of Ryan can get up to speed.

Ryan Burgess
Thank you so that at least I'm a little behind on that one. But

Alayna Ketner
if anyone has any new songs that Ryan can listen to, I can send them to our Burgess flicks.

Ryan Burgess
This is actually not my email but thanks. Alright, I wanted to thank Cristina Lena for joining us on today's episode is awesome having you both and you've shared a lot of good knowledge. Where can people follow you and get in touch with you?

Chrissy Running
I'm just crazy running on Twitter. So

Alayna Ketner
I'm Elena SK my initial spell ask in case you're wondering. So if we have questions for you, we can ask you can tweet me but I might not know How to check that you tweeted

Ryan Burgess
All right thank you all for listening to today's episode make sure to rate us on iTunes and Google Play and subscribe to front end Happy Hour on your favorite podcast catcher

Jem Young
and join our mailing list and remember recruiters

Sarah Federman
are people to try that