Shutting the door, she turned facing me sitting on the floor. “How much longer?”

“How much longer what?”

“Until we start moving forward with our…

“You don’t have any experience. You know what you need to do? Come work here so you can get your nose bloodied a few times.”

I don’t remember how I responded. I think I said “okay.” The subject changed and a few minutes later his time was up. The interview ended, and they walked me out of the office. As I walked down the hall, I was still sweating, exhausted,…

“You know what your problem is? You read too many of those self improvement books.”

I didn’t feel anything that moment. I accepted her words and moved on.

I don’t process things people say in real time. Later when we were apart, I thought about the words she said. Then I felt it; her words cut…

“We went to SourceCon last year.” Interrupting him mid sentence, I asked, “How was that?”

I always wanted to know if it was worth the cost. “Would I gain anything by attending the conference?”

His face hardened a bit, I could see from the tightness in his face muscles that he had not been impressed.…

I want to learn everything about certain topics. As a kid I studied vertical jump training so I could dunk.

I ruined my legs. But in a good way. My leg muscles still remember the training and I can still dunk a basketball to this day.

Cold email is one of the topics I study now. I started studying it 6 years ago.

More important than learning…

Ideas are powerful because they give us hope.

The more ideas you have, the more hope you have for your life. Hope that you can make it one more day. Hope that good things will happen. Hope that one day you will win.

Hope is the most powerful drug you can't buy.

People love to say "ideas are a dime a dozen" and "execution is…

There were times I couldn't remember the last time I read a book. I wasn't happy, I felt stuck. Sometimes I was mad at other people for no reason.

I had problems I didn't know how to solve. And I was stuck without an idea to spark my creativity.

Starting to read again seems like a huge task. A whole book? "That will take hours and days", I…

"I didn't get enough sleep last night"

"I don't feel good today"

"My allergies are acting…

I don't seek to gain from a "something for nothing" mindset.  In fact, I give away some of my best work. I also like to review my work and apply the 80/20 rule to be more productive.

Here's why I quit sending InMails....

1. Incomplete Data At A…

I’m not in a good mood right now. I'm pissed to put it bluntly.

I finished reading through 1017 cold emails and InMails sent by recruiters to a technical candidate.

The recruiters were junior and senior technical recruiters (at staffing agencies and corporate recruiters at tech companies) located all across the US.

I’m…

One thing seems small, too small. I use to think I need to do a bunch of things to make a change happen.

I failed. I couldn't do all of these at once and ended up doing nothing.

I learned to do one thing and improve by 1%.

1% is a small change but over time 1% compounds and creates a great deal of change.

Everyone is capable of 1%.

None of…

If you are new to recruiting don't skip over this. If you've been recruiting for a few years and you're not sure what to do next, keep reading.

Don't listen to recruiters that tell you to stay away from lazy corporate recruiters. Or the corporate recruiters that tell you to keep your distance from staffing agency recruiters or the solo…