Upscale Your Team Without Slowing Down

[00:00:00] Hello social media followers, LinkedIn, Facebook, and everyone tuning into our show. Welcome to Beyond the Offer Podcast. I’m your host, Rosanna Snediker, joined by my co-host and friend Bill Gates. Thank you for tuning in as we tackle the latest trends in talent acquisition and human resources.

[00:00:16] Today we are sitting down with Evan Shy. Evan is the CEO at Coding Temple and HTD Talent where they train thousands of professionals in software, cybersecurity, AI, and data. They then plug them in directly into enterprise teams tackling emerging tech challenges. Before that, Evan built and invested in startups, so he brings a unique lens on how to actually close the gap between what companies need and what the workforce is ready to deliver.

[00:00:42] Evan, thanks for joining us and welcome to our podcast Beyond the Offer. Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited for the conversation. Excited to have you. We do appreciate it. Yeah. And as I was doing a bit of just research on you and background, it was very obvious you’re certainly a [00:01:00] serial entrepreneur and you’ve been a part of a lot of companies surrounding wellness and learning.

[00:01:06] Where does you know that passion of learning and kind of wellness stem from? Yeah, probably a lot of things. I think what kind of initially springs to mind, my dad was my hero. He is an African American man, grew up in the fifties. He was president of, you know, basically an all white high school.

[00:01:26] He is a professional football player. Ended up being in Sports Illustrated twice, once for, you know, being a football player, another time for business. And this was the man that I grew up watching and ultimately emulating. And a few years ago, you know, sadly, he passed from pancreatic cancer.

[00:01:44] But the thing that springs to mind is that up until the last minute, he was kind of fighting with doctors to let him go to the gym five days a week. You know, despite his body being kind of riddled with cancer at the time. And I think it’s really emblematic of [00:02:00] just a mentality where he was just perpetually pushing himself to get better, and that that was the point. That there wasn’t, he would, you know, wasn’t doing it for some kind of end in mind.

[00:02:10] It was just about getting a little bit better every single day, and that was the mentality that, you know, helped him succeed even in an environment that maybe wasn’t necessarily set up to help him succeed. So I think empowering people to self-actualize their potential, whether that is through their wellness or through learning, I think has always been a passion of mine as far back as I can remember. And my entrepreneurial journey

[00:02:37] it’s certainly easier to kind of look backwards and connect those dots, has been in one way or another, trying to develop solutions that help people do that effectively. Wow. How cool. Yeah. What a story. What a story. Yeah. I’m sorry to hear about your dad’s passing. What team was he on and what position did he play?

[00:02:55] Yeah. He played running back for the Dallas Cowboys back with like Roger Staubach. And, [00:03:00] yeah. Yeah. How cool. Have you seen that documentary on the Cowboys? I’m sure you- I loved it. You probably jumped right into that. That was cool. And I don’t even particularly like the Cowboys, but- I won’t hold that against you.

[00:03:14] Yeah, no, what a cool story. I mean, do you still keep up the same passions on kind of wellness and learning, obviously yourself? For sure. As you guys have probably seen in my email signature, it’s 1% better every day. I definitely live that across my own, you know, fitness. I’ve even, like, I have a personal trainer and a coach.

[00:03:34] I started playing pickleball. And from a learning perspective, I’m a voracious reader and learner. So, long-winded way of saying for sure, I live that every day. That’s awesome. Yeah, I love that. When you said Sports Illustrated, Bill’s ears perked up. I saw it. And NFL, you know. Yeah, NFL. That’ll get me going for sure.

[00:03:55] What a cool story. Yeah. Well, tell us and tell our [00:04:00] listeners. We’d love to hear just more about HTD, what the company does, some of the growth, kind of the future direction of the company. Let’s dive into that. Sure. Yeah. So really our business is a collection of three businesses that, you know, each were started a little over a decade ago.

[00:04:15] HTD specifically is a talent development and deployment company. And through those, you know, couple brands that I mentioned, we have trained thousands of professionals as you illustrated in the beginning across software engineering, data, cybersecurity, increasingly AI as you would imagine.

[00:04:34] And really we try to match them with, you know, our enterprise partners that are trying to unlock new kind of technical capabilities. So, you know how that ultimately plays out, employers will come to us expressing some type of challenge around capability gaps that they have. And typically either trying to fill specific roles in AI or in the technology teams, or [00:05:00] they are trying to level up their existing teams with these new capabilities.

[00:05:03] And we ultimately have solutions on both sides of those equation where we can, you know, provide new talent, both mid-level to kind of more senior talent. But mid-level kind of specifically, who have those capabilities and have really been trained in a enterprise grade environment. And then we can also do our guided development experience, which is we are embedding their teams with experts and helping level up their teams and those capabilities as they’re in the flow of work.

[00:05:34] Absolutely. How does that work in regard to, I mean, you know, as you’re bringing in a lot of these professionals from that standpoint, does it usually happen to where, you know, they’re voluntarily folks are coming to HTD and getting involved in these programs? Or does a client essentially come to you specifically and say, “Hey Evan, we’ve got this deficiency in AI or [00:06:00] whatever”, and then you go deploy a team out to essentially, you know, bring that talent to fruition?

[00:06:05] Sure. Good question, Bill. So that’s part of the advantage and why we brought these brands together. So the other two brands that you mentioned one of them, coding Temple and App Academy, and then the HTD Talent. App Academy and Coding Temple have historically been kind of consumer facing, right.

[00:06:23] So we have inherently just a replenishing pipeline of professionals coming through that part of the experience getting, you know, in most cases they have computer science degrees, but they’re getting additional kind of advanced training. And the top of those professionals going through that experience go into what we call a tech residency experience, which is an enterprise grade,

[00:06:48] you know, simulated environment where they’re working on cross-functional teams, building real enterprise products and solutions. And then the top of those professionals ultimately become available for, [00:07:00] you know, deployment into our enterprise customers. So it does happen from both directions where we do have an enterprise team who’s hearing the specific talent needs and problems that enterprises have, and we’re trying to match those needs with the pipeline that I just articulated.

[00:07:15] Got it. And how do you distinguish yourself from your competitors? I would probably, it sounds like the three different companies kind of have their own angle, so they might have different competitors for each organization. But how would you say you, you know, you distinguish yourself from your competitors.

[00:07:30] Yeah, sure. So part of it is the kind of natural arbitrage that happens on both sides of that equation, being that we have employer partners and what that provides to on the consumer side and similarly what that consumer side and the kind of stage gating and vetting process of talent, what that ultimately provides for our enterprise partners.

[00:07:51] I would articulate it for our enterprise partners as twofold. So when we have new talent, it’s a really, [00:08:00] really extensive kind of vetting and technical screening process that goes far beyond just kind of like standard practices. So our enterprise clients will see fewer folks from us, but they’ll be really high quality folks.

[00:08:13] The visibility that they have over those people, you know, it’s effectively a three to six month on the job kind of performance evaluation effectively is what we try to unpack for them. And then for guided development, which is when we go into their teams, it’s really about

[00:08:30] embedding them with senior experts who have the expertise and the capabilities that they’re trying to level up with their team and not create kind of separate spaces for learning. In fact, just actually helping them ship their product roadmap faster and use modern technologies and best practices as they’re doing it.

[00:08:49] So it’s capability development in the flow of work effectively. Interesting. Yeah. That’s cool. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit just about hiring, you know, what’s [00:09:00] your approach to hiring at HTD, Coding Temple, your organizations, and what challenges have you faced as a CEO in a hiring capacity?

[00:09:08] How much time do we have? Let’s keep it short now. Sure, sure. I guess maybe the two things that are top of mind. I mean, no doubt that the hiring landscape and talent landscape,I guess always, you know, changes through cycles to some degree, but it certainly feels like it’s changed a lot over the past several years.

[00:09:28] Yeah. I think the two kind of quick things is how we think about generalists versus specialists. And then this kind of on the job interviewing, where our evaluation process of new candidates really straddles the kind of onboarding experience. The first, I think we used to feel more comfortable hiring specialists and now we really prioritize

[00:09:55] adaptability and resourcefulness and being able [00:10:00] to learn and leverage new tools and practices to move fast and solve problems in really high quality ways. I think we can’t be too kind of rigid in how we think about the ways that we work, especially with so many of the kind of foundational ways in which we’re working, changing so meaningfully.

[00:10:18] So having people that can adapt and thrive in that type of environment, I think is critically important. And the second, just in terms of like how we move through our acquisition and hiring process, for lack of a better way to put it, we hire fast and fire fast. Yeah. As an employer I’ve learned that kind of, you know, no matter how well structured the interview

[00:10:42] process is defined or designed ultimately, it seems like there’s only so much we can ultimately filter for, whereas, you know, usually in a week of working together you can pretty quickly determine whether or not this is a good fit. Bidirectionally too. So that’s informed how we structure our [00:11:00] initial engagements

[00:11:00] typically, whether that’s like a contract to hire or kind of engage people as consultants first. Or of course if they’ve gone through one of our programs, then you know that more than suffices because we’ve seen them in action. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I feel like you know pretty quickly if someone’s going to be a long-term fit, you can obviously grow their potential.

[00:11:19] They can grow their skillset, but you know, at least for us, if they’re going to fit within the first, you know, 30, 60 days. So. And given you guys are a learning and teaching, you know, company, I would hope that from an onboarding perspective you’d be able to bring em up to speed pretty quickly.

[00:11:35] But I was curious though, do you, I mean, I’m assuming like do you hire a good amount of, like if they don’t come from your program and whatnot, do you hire a decent amount of like teachers that are high school teachers or you know, even other teachers at that level that have more of that background? Or is it, do you shy away from, because you had mentioned there’s sometimes it’s just more of a specialist and they need more of a, probably a computer science background or something like that.

[00:11:57] But do you ever organically kind of look at [00:12:00] just folks that are really good teachers and then teach them the more specifics to teach the rest of the folks in your program? The short answer is no. I think, you know, historically there was a period of time and this is when bootcamps were really growing meaningfully where the kind of hiring market was

[00:12:20] a bit of people just needed bodies with, you know, some basic foundational capabilities and a lot of which could be kind of learned on the job. I think there was more of that type of approach. I think increasingly, certainly for us, as we kind of move down the capability spectrum, you know, we’re generally optimizing for practitioners, people with experience in the field because it’s not just the technical aspects

[00:12:47] that are being trained. It’s the interpersonal and functional dynamics that are important to create value inside an organization. And I think having firsthand experience there is critically important to being able to do that. [00:13:00] Interesting. Yeah, that makes, it makes a lot of sense. Well how about like in terms, we talked a little bit about the job market, but how about in specific to kinda recent undergrads with their CS degrees?

[00:13:11] That’s just, obviously we’ve seen it shift dramatically. I mean, I remember when Ro and I started in you know, 2010 ish timeframe. I mean, you came out with a computer science degree, everyone was dying for, you had a job at no matter where you looked at and you were making probably double what we were making as recruiters.

[00:13:28] But you know, that’s definitely shifted in the last three, four years. Has it become more or less difficult for students to kind of find jobs after the program completion? No question about it. It’s definitely become more challenging generally. And a lot of providers, especially on the kind of classic kind of consumer side of the equation, have really struggled to navigate.

[00:13:51] I mean, as you indicated, the market has been flooded with, you know, computer science graduates. I think it’s like two and a half x in the past several [00:14:00] years. And meanwhile, the kind of having of entry level roles or certainly how entry level roles are being defined. So you’re seeing this kind of growing population of folks that are really motivated, really smart, that are competing for, you know, a smaller and smaller number of opportunities.

[00:14:17] And I think what you’re seeing from employers and that’s informing what is going to be needed by candidates, but is them moving kind of up the capability spectrum as well as the kind of experiential requirements, right? So it’s like entry level now mean three years of experience. So I think what candidates are needing to do is really get creative with how they can earn real high quality enterprise grade experience.

[00:14:47] You know, you can get a flavor of some of that maybe through kind of gig work, but it’s a little different than kind of enterprise work. But that is why we’ve, you know, really for our tech residencies are, it’s an enterprise grade [00:15:00] experience and it’s designed to address that particular,

[00:15:03] that particular challenge. But it’s definitely harder for folks in the market. And we’re seeing that even outside of computer science, I mean other skill sets. We talked to folks graduating, saying, you know, it’s the hardest, one of the hardest job markets they’ve seen in a while to just get that entry level job.

[00:15:17] Exactly what you said, like the jobs stay entry level, but they want two to three years of experience. And how do you go about that? Well, it’s perfect storm too for those CS degrees too.I think some of it was, it never used to be cool to be a computer science person. And there was such a low supply of people with degrees in that space back in like 2010 ish timeframe.

[00:15:36] And you know, now over the last, what, 10, 15 years, it’s become cool and you know, there’s probably more people out there that are getting it. But at the same time AI’s jumped in and has eliminated a lot of developer roles, some of these, and so they don’t, you know, there’s also the offshoring aspect of things too.

[00:15:54] So there’s definitely a more of a supply of individuals that can do that, and [00:16:00] obviously less jobs. So it obviously isn’t necessarily a surprise that the job market is a little bit more challenging, but distinguishing yourself and figuring out a way to-and you know, having a bootcamp like this in many ways to gain that specific enterprise experience is important to distinguish yourself from another candidate that might have a similar background.

[00:16:21] But yeah. It’s a leg up outside of just, you know, the typical internship or something like that. So, yeah. So talking a lot about recruiting, let’s move on to kind of learning, teaching in the corporate world. We know that’s, you know, easier said than done. Every person learns very differently. If they retain information differently. Is there a universal way of teaching that you think can engage all different types of learners?

[00:16:42] And I guess what’s your approach through your programs? Sure. I would start by saying I think everyone is unique and has kind of particular methods of learning and I guess where they’re starting from. So I think, you know, AI just as kind of one fast aside, I [00:17:00] think will help a bit in terms of meeting people where they are, et cetera.

[00:17:04] But that said, from our perspective, like how we try to address this across both sides of the business, is we do believe that there are some kind of methodological approaches that are consistent and have been very, very effective. What ultimately this has led to for us is, you know, with our guided development approach, we have a, what we call a dive model. And ultimately, as I’ve alluded to before, it starts from a place of

[00:17:31] do we have the, you know, subject matter experts that we can ultimately kind of parachute into a team and leverage their expertise, our methodology, our tools to diagnose what’s going on, right? What are the baseline skills? Identify the gaps between those baseline skills and where we ultimately want to be.

[00:17:51] We then integrate those experts and best practices and potentially new technologies into their flow of work so that [00:18:00] folks are learning within the unique and relevant context that they’re going to be using those skills on a daily basis. And then of course, on the backend of that, how ultimately are we validating not only that we were shipping, you know, features with high velocity, but that the skills and capabilities that have been developed have been truly adopted and retained.

[00:18:21] And then how do we expand from there? Ultimately, how do we empower the folks that learn to disseminate that knowledge and to share the new habits that have been ingrained across their teams? That’s really been the kind of feedback loop that’s been super powerful for us inside organizations and really reflects a lot of what happens even on the consumer side of the business as well.

[00:18:42] How long are these programs too, Evan? I mean, I’m assuming probably range depending on the skillset. Exactly that. So when we’re talking about going in and engaging an enterprise and leveling up their teams, generally the engagement’s going to be between, you know, eight to [00:19:00] 16 weeks. And there it’s going to depend on exactly in part, as you articulated, the capability gap that needs to be bridged.

[00:19:07] But also the kind of projects we’ve identified on their backlog that we’re going to be shipping together. More complex ones might require more time and more kind of leveling up that has to happen more time as well potentially. But generally it’s between eight and 16 weeks. On the consumer side of things, we have both the kind of core program and the overall residency.

[00:19:30] Just broadly speaking, you can assume about six months overall if you’ve gone through both of those training components. Got it. On the enterprise size, the eight to 16 weeks, do you typically see those kind of stick to that timeline or will they get extended? You go in there, do good work, move around, what does that look like?

[00:19:48] Yeah. So definitely they end up getting- because of the kind of model where we’re embedding an expert, it’s very easy to kind of point us at a different team, and that’s typically what ends [00:20:00] up happening is, you know, either the team grows, a lot of times it’ll grow even, you know, as we’re launching the particular engagement.

[00:20:08] But almost always on the back end of that, they’ll point our team at another team and we’ll do the exact same dive process. That’s nice. Can kind of get in there, rinse and repeat. Exactly. What does like a typical size team look like? Or does it vary depending on- It varies. But generally you can assume between 12 and 18 people.

[00:20:28] So like, you know, 10 to 20 grossly. Yep. I see. Got it. Evan, you used a term before, never even actually heard before, guided development. But what is that and how does embedding senior practitioners alongside, you know, teams defer from relying on consultants or staffing firms like us or other AI tools alone?

[00:20:53] Sure. Yeah. So guided development, just like the kind of name would imply, we are guiding your [00:21:00] development process. Right. So generally it’s in a product or technology context generally, although it’s very kind of intuitive to see how it would apply to other types of teams and roles. We are embedding experts that ultimately are guiding your team through your standard development process.

[00:21:19] And I guess I would say standard 2.0 because we’re elevating the kind of ways in which, and the practices that are being used in order to drive that development process. A lot of times just to use specifics, companies are coming to us when they’ve had fits and starts trying to drive an agile development type of methodology across a growing technology team.

[00:21:42] And we’re coming in and making sure that that agile process actually gets ingrained and sustained. And that’s in part one of the kind of differences between leveraging kind of an external consultancy where there’s an inherent dependency that gets created where [00:22:00] you are, you know, reliant on these teams to continue being part of the development process and driving capacity.

[00:22:07] What we are doing is we’re coming in and our goal is not dependency. It’s transformation ultimately, so that your team isn’t just shipping a solution. You are more empowered to ship the next solution, right? So you actually have the capabilities that you need. Similarly withAI tools, it’s really trying to accelerate the human learning and the human capability side of things versus just kind of a point and click solution.

[00:22:35] Yeah. One thing I quickly thought about was, I don’t know why my head went to this point, but let’s say a client of your guys has you, you know, you’re going to need 10 individuals, right? You have 10 of them in a program. How many actually survived that? My brain kind of went to like Navy Seals and whatnot, right?

[00:22:53] Like very few of them actually get through an actual program. But I would imagine some folks, even though you’re guiding [00:23:00] them through this development, can’t necessarily cut it for one reason or another and won’t necessarily be able to do the things needed at your guys’ client. Or maybe, you know, maybe not. Maybe it is a high percentage of the folks actually succeed andfinish the program.

[00:23:16] So very importantly, the guided development, it is the employees that are already at the- Oh, gotcha. The company. Yeah. Yeah. So our part is the experts and subject matter experts that we are dropping into those teams and we’re effectively, you know, PMing, that experience. Gotcha. Now, in some cases, we will improve their capacity by

[00:23:37] embedding additional resources and people in those teams, and in those cases, a hundred percent of them are retained in through the entire engagement. That also though, can answer your framing of the question. Even on the consumer side for sure, there’s a natural attrition that,

[00:23:56] you know, is healthy and happens throughout the experience where there’s a [00:24:00] smaller percentage of folks that continue to get through, kind of each stage gate ultimately to arrive at, in the event that there’s an opportunity to plug them in at an enterprise customer. Whether that’s in guided development or staffing.

[00:24:15] It’s probably two to 5%, the top two to 5% of the, of the overall students that started the journey. Interesting. Got it. Yeah. And you kind of touched on this already, but how does that guided development accelerate the delivery? Well also, you know, you’re leaving eventually, how do you leave this team stronger in a better place, long term, so that they can continue to like

[00:24:36] grow and accomplish what they need to without you all there. Totally. Yeah. A lot of work. A combination of, there’s asynchronous elements. Sure. I think that’s just kind of like a bit of an amplifier, but it’s just critically important the work that the subject matter experts and the scrum masters, the principal product managers that we’re embedding in the team, they are very, very hands on.

[00:24:58] It’s effectively [00:25:00] kind of having a pair programmer alongside you, you know, at all times. And then we’re doing constant kind of validation measures throughout, and course correcting or refining the approach as we go. Got it. So when you talk about that team of 10 to 20 people, it’s developers, it’s a scrum master, it’s project managers, you assemble the whole, whole team.

[00:25:19] Yeah. So the 10 to 20 people would be 10 to 20 employees that have been identified at the company. Got it. That need to have the new skill. Right. Got it. So it’s effectively upskilling that team. We would add an additional, let’s call it two to three people that are the experts that get dropped in and help level them up.

[00:25:39] Yep. Okay. Yeah, that’s super unique and cool. For sure. Is most of that being done on site? I mean, with the world of remote work, like how much of that is hybrid? How much of that is, you know, sitting next to each other in an office, working together? It is all remote. Currently a couple international customers where the

[00:25:57] 15 people are in Peru. Wow. [00:26:00] So, yes. So we have bilingual folks, fortunately that are able to drive those engagements. But it is remote. There would be incredible advantages to being able to do it in person as well. But just because of the nature of our client base, we’ve had to do it remote.

[00:26:15] Yeah. But that’s even better because you’ve got clients all over. Yeah, sure. It’s a good problem to have. Yes. Well, shifting gears to kinda last question regarding digital transformation. Why are so many digital transformations and agile initiatives stalling inside large enterprises and really how does the rise of AI make these challenges even more acute?

[00:26:38] Yeah. I think, you know, we come in a lot after kind of a failed attempt at a digital transformation or trying to implement AI and I think oftentimes what has happened is, you know, folks are starting at the surface where we’re trying to swap in either simple tools [00:27:00] or simple methodologies instead of actually improving how the teams are actually working at the foundational level.

[00:27:08] Now I don’t think you have to reinvent everything overnight, but I think it is valuable to look one level deeper than just the kind of tools that folks are using. So for AI specifically, it’s like before adding AI and automation, ask are there workflows and decisions and handoffs that are happening between the team clear enough and well designed to actually adopt this new technology and leverage it to its full potential?

[00:27:36] So I don’t think AI necessarily requires kind of tear down of the entire kind of org structure, but in some cases it does require rethinking of how a team’s operating in order to get the truevalue that can be unlocked. And that’s in part what will help our clients do. We’ll help them think strategically about, you know, how their team is operating today, both from [00:28:00] a technical analysis standpoint as well as a behavioral analysis standpoint.

[00:28:04] And are there opportunities to really address things at the foundational level to ensure that anything that we implement is being retained and fully leveraged for the value that, you know, is designed to ultimately create. Interesting. In regard to AI, I know I said last question, but I was just curious.

[00:28:24] I know we’re a little bit, we’re newer into it all, but- sure. There’s some great things about it that I’ve noticed and I know we’ve used in our day to days, but do you think it’s, you know, flash forward 5, 6, 7, 8 years down the line? There’s aspects that I do think it makes people get more lazy and loses some of the characteristics, whether it’s writing or whether it’s, you know, there’s so many different things that you can use it for. But

[00:28:49] where do you think that down the line, I mean, do you think it’s, AI is going to be a bit of a challenge and obviously it’s already started to replace jobs. But [00:29:00] where do you think it’s going to cause problems and just kind of the mental and learning capabilities of everybody? Yeah. I think it’s a good, a good point and I appreciate the framing.

[00:29:11] I think in the near term, you’re going to see a lot of kind of a paradox of challenges, if you will, where it will result in kind of just like maybe a intellectual laziness of how we execute roles. But I think over time what it ultimately ends up doing, it amplifies the things that make us uniquely human.

[00:29:31] And instead of spending time on things thatwe otherwise wouldn’t have to, we can spend more time on creative, you know, thinking higher level strategic decisions. Things that are more interesting and fun and certainly complex. But I think it allows us to do those things.

[00:29:50] I think in terms of replacing jobs, I think the extent- AI’s going to replace tasks and to the extent that a [00:30:00] job is comprised of 70% of tasks that can be automated by AI. I think those are jobs that, you know, are at risk in the near term, but it’s going to create all these new jobs that, you know, that ultimately that same person could be spending their time doing to create more value.

[00:30:15] So I think like a lot of other technology waves, it’s going to create new opportunities. We don’t know exactly what those are and what they look like, so feels uncertain and precarious. But I think ultimately, it’ll have that type of effect in the long term. Yeah, it’s interesting and it’ll be, you know, depending on what you do and how often, you’re obviously using the tools, but you’re right.

[00:30:38] If you can eliminate a lot of the, you know, administrative tasks and whatnot, and focus on kind of the more competencies of things that are more important to a business or day-to-day, why not? Why not have those things? Totally, right. This is a played out example, but you know, something like the calculator, right?

[00:30:55] You could easily envision people being like, well, it’s going to make people lazy, [00:31:00] and now they do math. But it also unlocked the, you know, unbelievable things that we were able to focus on mathematically that we weren’t able to before and there’s probably a thousand other examples. Even from coding and technology.

[00:31:13] It’s like, yeah, it’s going to replace a lot of the things that entry level coders did before, but now instead of spending timecorrecting some inconsequential line of code, they’re focusing on how do you make customers’ lives better, you know? So just, it’s a bigger impact I think.

[00:31:30] And the entry level jobs will still be there. They’ll just look different, you know. You’ll be using AI as part of your job. It just won’t be what an entry-level job looks like right now. I like the calculator example, but I’d like to use more of like spell check or just Grammarly not. I mean, think about-

[00:31:48] I’m a terrible speller for those. I mean, I know it’s not exactly AI. I mean now that grammarly’s around and whatnot, but you know, the easily typing something into Google and correcting it accordingly, you have no, [00:32:00] you know, you put me up in one of those ESPN spelling bees, my God, I’m getting crushed just based on that.

[00:32:06] So that, so that’s my worry longer term, but. You know, guess a little- it’s hard though to envision it because we don’t know the maturity of it. It’s going to look so different than what we see right now. But I agree. You think about like kids too learning and like, are they even having to learn to spell, you know?

[00:32:22] Sure. Yeah, sure. It’s a valid point, but you know, that’s more simplistic than obviously how so many of these tools can be used in the most effective way. Yeah. Well we like to wrap things up, Evan, with just some we call it our unfiltered kind of random question section. Just want to get to know our guest a little bit more in a fun way.

[00:32:40] So a few questions for you. If your companies had a theme song, what would it be and why?

[00:32:50] Look, it’s been a tough couple years, just the industry at large for sure. So probably, not Eye of the Tiger, but maybe Stronger [00:33:00] by Kanye West. Good one. I think what we’re trying to build is, you know, people and teams that come out of every challenge sharper than they were before. I think there’s one thing that I know for sure is that, you know, there will be more challenges ahead of us, and to the extent we can have a posture of getting better and improving ourselves through those challenges. I think that feels like the right theme.

[00:33:24] Absolutely. No, good answer. And then our last question more on the unfiltered questions. When was the last time you did something for the first time and what was it? Hmm. Uh, yeah, maybe two things. One is, I guess we’ve been talking about it in kind of every day. We just got done with some M&A and we’re combining a number of companies andthere have been a lot of first times, just as a leader through that journey, which has certainly been rewarding.

[00:33:55] But also challenging and stimulating. Maybe a more [00:34:00] fun one is I picked up pickleball for the first time. I mean now probably a year ago, but I’ve been absolutely obsessed since, since I started playing. And now that’s like, it, that has just been such a mental unlock for me and ability to kind of get competitive and find flow.

[00:34:20] And it just reminded me that, you know, it’s not all about kind of strategic work type of focus in terms of how I spend my time. So that’s been, that was a really nice thing to find for sure. It is strategic work. I played college tennis growing up and it is strategic work to figure out how do I not get in the kitchen in pickleball.

[00:34:41] I can still not mentally grasp the concept of how you, you know, hit the whole dink and whatnot, but that’s the fastest growing sport in America. Yeah. You’re speaking to it. Amen. Amen. Naturally, my mind immediately goes, every time I’m playing to some business opportunity that we can unlock, but right now it’s [00:35:00] just for fun.

[00:35:00] I used to think it was like a 70-year-old sport but not anymore. Not anymore. Yeah. It’s where you play retired in Florida and now it’s in Chicago. I mean, it’s in the West Loop. The hottest neighborhood in Chicago has a huge pickleball court. Exactly. Exactly. Well, Bill you ever want to get out there,

[00:35:17] you let me know. Let me know. He can show me how tonavigate the- the scoring was the hardest part also to kind of figure out too. But you know, once you kind of figure it out, it’s a little bit more like volleyball, but yeah. It’s, yeah, it’s a fun sport and it’s a little bit easier on your body than some of the other ones out there for sure.

[00:35:33] How does it compare? Because Bill’s a big paddle player. How does it compare to that, Bill? Is it similar or? Well, she’s referring to platform tennis. Yeah. I mean, there’s similarities. I mean, there’s two sides. The court’s a lot smaller than a tennis court. You can hit off a wall, but it’s a much heavier ball, which is felted versus a wiffle ball is what you’re obviously using in pickleball.

[00:35:55] Okay. And it’s, I mean, it, I said it’s a lot easier on your [00:36:00] body. The platform tennis sport completely destroyed, my hips and I’m not even 40. So it’s pretty pathetic. But, I wonder why that is. It’s just a different, different platform? You’re playing on a, you’re basically playing on painted sandpaper, so you can stop pretty much on a dime on a platform court, whereas, and it’s just, you’re, it’s also just complete steel underneath there, so. Wow.

[00:36:22] Yeah, it is just a little bit harder, I think on your body and you get put into a little weirder angles I think, than pickleball. But, you know, both are fun in their own right. Sure. But I just haven’t figured out how to play pickleball at probably the level I’d like to be able to play well.

[00:36:37] The skills transfer for sure. I feel like everyone I play with now is a former college tennis player. Yeah. Yeah, so it definitely transfers. Yeah, it’s easier to pick up pickleball, I will say, than platform tennis, whereas like you kind of have to have some sort of background on racket skills because for the most part, the ball bounces more so in platform tennis than [00:37:00] pickleball where, well, I guess it still does bounce, but you can kind of have an unorthodox form without having the result you actually need.

[00:37:08] So, yeah. But well, yeah, we’ll have to get out there sometime for sure. You lemme know. Yeah. That is all the time we have for today. Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode. Today we met with Evan Shy and we learned about and discussed guided development, changing job market for tech professionals, and AI’s impact on transformation.

[00:37:30] We’ll be back again next month with a special new guest. Quick reminder again on how you can support our Beyond the Offer podcast, you can find all of our content on Hirewell’s social media platform. Which you can find through hirewell.com. Take care everyone, and thanks for tuning in. Thanks, Evan.

[00:37:48] Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you so much.