 I'm Bobby Mascara and I am here with Jim Mason, John Carpenter and David Boswell from Hyperledger and we are here to hopefully give you information on the career scene for blockchain. So I'm going to get started. This is the antitrust policy because this is a Hyperledger Linux Foundation event. We have to behave ourselves when we're discussing things and if you have any need any more information, you can click the link there, which will be on the presentation that we will leave for you at the end to read more about it. And we are recording this call. So just take a moment to look over the antitrust policy. Okay, great. So tonight we're here in our second of four part series for careers in blockchain. And tonight is hosted by Jim Mason, and he's going to discuss with the people who have the jobs, what they're looking for and how we can get ready to get those jobs. We're also tonight have Accenture, DTCC and the Judge People Group who help with employment services. So we have a full agenda. So we're going to get started. Hi, I'm Bobbi Mascara and I work for Ledger Academy, which writes curriculum for the Linux Foundation among other clients. And I am working on the giving chain, which somebody just dropped in the chat about NFTs and this project uses NFTs in a really unique way and we'll talk about that for just a few minutes tonight. And I'm also on the technical steering committee at Hyperledger. And I'm going to let Jim introduce himself. Hi, Jim Mason. I'm the public sector special interest group leader for Hyperledger. And so we have a lot of sessions around public sector topics for blockchain and so on. I'm also the Hyperledger meetup leader for the Boston group as well. And I work in the blockchain space for now four years as a blockchain architect and product manager as well. So that's it for me, John, you want to go next. Yes, John Carpenter. I run the Global Blockchain Summit. I'm also the co-chair of the Learning Materials Working Group with Bobbi. And I run the Denver Meetup Group as well, involved in a lot of different aspects of blockchain. Thanks. Okay, so we're going to start off tonight with just some agenda items. And then we're going to move into a little bit about what the hiring process looks like. And then I'm going to turn it over to Jim and he's got great panelists and great questions. So really quick, some announcements. We have the third series happening on November 17. You can go to www.bceemployee.com for all the links to get in all the information. Also on the website is the previous sessions we did in the summer recording and our first sessions recording as well. There's also a job page, lots of information on the website. And that's where you'll find out what's happening next for this BC Employee Series. Also in Hyperledger, we have a new way of looking at ourselves. Let's say a new look for 2022. We're adapting that little card landscape look. So more information is at the touch of a button. You just click on any of the blocks that you see. They can either be the projects. We have our members each have blocks. So there's lots of information, the special interest groups. Everybody's in there represented. And again, if you just click on one of those, a card opens up with information about what's going on with that specific project or tool. If you get a chance to check that out. That is very interesting as also this week in meetups that's happening there are three they are all on the Hyperledger Wiki page under calendar. It is wiki.hyperledger.org so if you want to attend any of these. You'll either get these live links from the presentation will post after or you can just go to the calendar of meetings and grab the link and join them. So leave them up there for a second to everybody see what they're about. We have more hyperledger news morning in the technical steering committee meeting. We approved the blockchain automation framework so that is now a project in incubation in the full arena, it will get its card under live projects. It's very interesting it is a way to spin up a prototype and a actual network without having to worry too much about some of the tech layers that usually bog people down. If you get a chance and you're trying to learn about blockchain that's a great tool to start so again it's going to be moving out of the lab soon and into its own tab under projects. So take a look at that and see what you think we'd love to hear your opinion on it or love to have you join the coding process. And next, we're going to talk a little bit about BC, I'm sorry the giving chain which is my other project. This is a social impact project that we're working on with the Linux foundation. We have three mentees this year, and the project winds up on November 17 at 10am we're doing our final presentation. We have worked very hard just like the people did in 2019 if anyone's on the call from from that time. This project has been going on for two years what it is it's trying to reallocate wealth in times of need so if your community has a crisis and you have to get blankets to the high school. This platform is there at a touch of a button on your phone to organize the back end of that and it creates a transparent immutable record of that donation as well. Now when we did it in 2019 it didn't really work because we couldn't really figure out how to digital twin the giving bags and the donations with what was going on in the blockchain. But as everybody knows NFTs are really cool. And one of the things that the new project at Hyperledger called Firefly let's us do is in the back end the donation will have just a picture which will become an NFT and transferring the NFT from the recipient to the transporter. I'm sorry from the donor to the transporter to the recipient and it's an immutable record quite transferring the NFT from wallet to wallet you can see where the donation is. Then the NFT becomes a permanent record of the donation it's really cool it's just coming it's cutting edge so join us on the presentation on the 17th. If you want to learn more about it on the giving chain has a website giving chain dot work and there is a live demo linked back to the hyper ledger wiki page. That was well it's not live anymore it's recorded demo, but please watch it it is very fascinating if you ever want to help out in your community. You should know about this tool. It will help out a lot of people. And also ledger Academy has a learning hub in the metaverse, you can go to ledger Academy.com if you're interested and inside that building are all the information about hyper ledger, all the information about BC employee. There's ledger NFTs working out of there there's consulting firm is full of information it's like a library of blockchain so current events are listed it's fascinating. Please check it out. If you have any questions. Those are our announcements for the evening. So I'm going to move on now to the second part of the program which is just talking a little bit about what practices people need in their hiring processes to make good decisions. First, what roles and positions are you looking for you have this plan but do you know what you're hiring how many jobs what those jobs look like you have to figure all this stuff out in this big circle that if you're in this now it's never going to end you're going to constantly be hiring and reevaluating your employees and you know this is a good good skill to to learn early. Also, what are the skills needed for these positions these positions some people have never even heard of, and they don't know if they are qualified for them so you're going to have to figure out what people you already have, can they be moved, or how can I retrain the people I have or hire new people and train them quickly. So that's something that you have to considering your hiring plan to where are these qualified applicants, am I looking in the right places, because that's important. You don't want to hire from like a large group that you have to personally train when there's probably places that have been trained already. Research you could probably find that out, and it's most important to know how much time do you have for this, because this could take forever if you don't set a deadline if you don't have clear cut timelines for things. And then most important is my hiring plan inclusive. Are you letting everyone who's qualified for this position have a shot at it. First we can talk about the blockchain roles. This is on the BC website if you want further definition of this. I was just at speaking at the NFT NYC convention in Manhattan on Tuesday, and I have to add like 15 roles to this on the website because there were so many jobs I had never heard of that people were talking about that I just find now fascinating so look for an update on the webpage to add some of those jobs as well. But the traditional jobs for blockchain that people are hiring for, first are the developers. Now there's two kinds of positions for each of these that I'm going to mention and they are because the technology is so new. People are working on the blockchains themselves, but also are hiring for use case work so once these blockchains are made and stabilized and governed properly, people are going to be using them. And so there's two types of developers whether you're developing the blockchain or developing the use cases on the blockchain, they're both called developers. And then there's administrators. I'm not going to go over these again these are on the website we touched on these last week. These are business engineers so any person who is a computer engineer can get up to speed in the training pretty easily. Again, but if you're not a computer engineer you're not really going to want to learn that position you're probably going to want to keep your skills, because the consultants. It's a huge, huge arena now I mean community builders are enormous. It's just a matter of time before metaverse builders become a job. So there's a lot of consulting going on a lot of talking and that is the first step for any blockchain project is the consulting. Does this block, does my issue and my use case better off with a blockchain that basically is the first question. So those are the roles. And then I said you have to have a timeline so you also have to think of developing a hiring plan. So you first have your plan and that's where you decide what your deadlines are how many positions who where you're going to look the whole bit so you get that all on paper before you start. And then you figure out where you're going to find and you start recruiting your applicants, then you do your initial interviews and then you have your initial and not initially your final decision making. But you might have multiple blockchain projects or multiple projects within projects that are going on so you might need different blockchain projects hiring going on at the same time. So you also have to ask yourself, can some of these employees be used right now while the projects are building up 20% here, 40% here and then 10% doing their own job and wherever else you can fit them in. So that will be an interesting thing to see how people will jump into positions that they have never had before, while looking at new opportunities. So your timeline is important, especially your deadlines so keep because it keeps your other steps in key. Oh, I went the wrong way. Okay, so last slide for me management must portray the message of inclusivity. If you are not an inclusive group of people doing the hiring process. No one's going to the culture is important and the culture is seen by the people who are interviewing by the people who are doing the hiring process. That's the excuse me. That's the first step to the whole situation. So, think about this if you were to take everybody's name off the resumes and all of their demographics. Would you look at the resumes the same. That's a good question to ask. So include keep again diver if you're looking for a diverse talent pool have people doing the interview and the recruitment process from a diverse background as well. It all speaks to that culture. Look at the language in your job descriptions, are they offensive sometimes you don't realize how powerful or masculine some terms are or offensive. Try to keep aware of the language you use these days. And again, address bias something in the interview process talk about it say do you think our culture is okay do you you know, don't not mention it or bring it up because it is important. To market to a variety of social media platforms not just the one you're used to or the one you use. It is a good idea to create your own professional organizations and see who shows up. That's a great it's like setting the mouse trap. This is really cool come see and then people come see and then you get to know them and that's a great way to get people out to see what's going on. Seek out diverse candidates don't just go from the regular pool of people you have and publish salaries. It is not fair to make a candidate, guess at what their worth. If you have a job, and it has a salary, you should tell the people what that is. It's fair. It levels the playing field. So, one more thing. Education, Linux Foundation offers free education or I'm sorry complimentary education. If you do want to get certified you would just have to pay to sit for the exam. And these are the courses again they match up with a lot of the consulting courses, a lot of the administrator developers. Again, we have different blockchains they offer different solutions in different sectors. You can take courses, depending on where your particular pipeline or jobs need to be filled what education programs you'll need for your group. And again, Hyperledger is not the only one Consensus Academy offers great classes to especially ones on basu so that's a good thing. And then if you're interested in getting a diverse candidate pool offer you the types of learning on your website and offer it to everyone so Accenture does that. DTCC has a learning center to help you get up to speed again and if you're interested as a candidate in these companies go to their website and take some of their webinars and classes. Everyone has a learning portal. So jump on it. That's it for me I'll be around after for questions and I'm going to turn it over to Jim and his wonderful panel. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Bobby that was a fantastic introduction. So what I'd like to do tonight. Our focus is we have a panel discussion. Our topic is really taking a look at the employer's view from a hiring perspective and talking about in a sense at a high level. What are we looking for in a candidate what would be the process and so on so we've got a series of questions to go through with the panel. I'm very fortunate tonight. Tonight we have a great panel that's really a nice mix of different talents and skill sets. So I've got Richard Mazzaro's from Accenture, managing director of innovation technology and blockchain. I've got Jodi Brockington from DCCC who's focused as a director of diverse talent management there and Drew Santos senior account executive from the judge group. And just giving you sort of a quick list of who's on our panel tonight. I'd like to give the panel is a chance to talk briefly introduced themselves to the audience so Richard if you would mind taking a minute and just letting everybody know a little bit about yourself and the work you're doing with Accenture. That would be great. Well, good, good afternoon, good evening everyone. My name is rich Mazzaro's I'm a managing director within our Accenture technology and specifically with our within our technology innovation group. I am the North America market lead for our blockchain and multi party systems practice. So what that means is I do outreach to our clients to be able to discuss where blockchain can add value to the organizations help to shape those types of communities with our clients and broader ecosystems, and then ultimately also responsible for the overall delivery of those projects as well. I've been working in the blockchain space for the past six years. I come from I come at the blockchain space really from a mix of IOT blockchain, as well as a heavy focus on commerce as well and so really look at how all of those functions. Inter interact to be able to design and create completely new business models, and I am based in Dallas for worth and great to be with you all tonight. Great thanks very much Richard Jody. Can I ask you to introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your background. So you're a Jody I think you're on mute. If you can unmute yourself. That would be great. I'm having trouble connecting with Jody. Drew Santos, senior account executive from the judge group. Drew, if you want to unmute yourself and give us a minute of your background that would be great. I appreciate Jim. So my name is Drew Santos, as Jim has said I actually work as a senior account executive which is on the sales end for the judge group. I think we're probably one of the top 10 top 15 largest professional services firms I think right now in the market. I've been 10 years in this business and I really think blockchain has been a focus honestly for the past three four years of my career given the technology and where a lot of smart people that I listened to have told me it's going to go where things are going and trying to partner with people, especially in the financial services sector to try and help them and find out what we can do to better find people in this space. Try and find people that are willing to take on this newer technology. And I really think this is a cool thing. At this point it's a very pivotal point I think for blockchain technology but it's very new and I think it's very exciting so I'm here for any questions for anybody that's always looking to get answers on our side here so thank you for having me. Thanks Drew. Thanks very much. So Jodi, I'm not sure if I've got Jodi online. Jodi are you on mute. If you're here Jodi unmute yourself. Doesn't look like I can get Jodi online. At this point for whatever reason maybe connectivity problem or something. So I'm going to creative guy that I am. I always have a backup plan, at least one. And my best backup plan is actually fortunately right online. In fact, you've all met her before it's Bobby mascara so Bobby, I'm going to twist your arm and accidentally just ask you to join the panel tonight. And why am I doing that because you have a ton of experience and you actually bring a great perspective on diversity and all that into the panel so if you don't mind Bobby would you mind joining the panel tonight. Not at all. Great. I've done it. I faked her out again. I twisted her arm one more time got her on the panel. Excellent. So smart guy that I am. That said, let's get started take a look at a series of questions we're going to ask each of the panelists give them a chance to respond. So the first question really is what is the demand from your perspective in terms of blockchain related skills and roles that you see in the marketplace today. So with that, you know maybe Richard you can give us some perspective. Sure, absolutely. I mean, the first way I would answer this question is, it's really the full gamut. It's everything from the technology the strategy, the value architects business runners, and also even thinking about the ecosystem management the distribution of multi party systems, and the enablement of that and so when Bobby was doing some of her introductory remarks completely agree with, you know, a number of the roles that she listed there as well. I think from a global organization such as Accenture. We also have a great need for, you know project delivery and management. So the ability to actually execute and deliver these, you know, oftentimes multi client, you know initiatives. Another area that I would say besides you know your typical your developers your software architecture tech arcs is also an offering development so thinking about kind of capabilities and assets and accelerators that Accenture develops to be able to help enable these projects and get them to market faster. That's another area in which we we look for talent to be able to help us do that as well. I think one of the aspects that's really unique to Accenture is that we very much are technology agnostic, although we are heavily involved with hyper ledger and support the work that you all are doing, we actually are agnostic as it relates to the platforms. We're looking for talent across all the different leading blockchain platforms. And I think the last point I would say here is, we're really looking for individuals to come and help us build really the next innovation horizon across a broad set of focus industries. One of the most powerful things about blockchain it is, there are innovation triggers based on these technologies that allow us not just to incrementally improve a process or improve a business but ultimately to completely reimagine a process or an industry and create new products and new services and new revenue streams. So we're looking for folks that are motivated and want to want to help us on that journey. You brought up, you brought up, you covered a lot of ground. The one thing I would say is there are two points that jumped out at me that make this exercise a little bit different in some ways. Number one, it is a technology that you pointed out it goes across many industries. So if it doesn't matter what your industry is what your sector, the point of it is the technology can be used there effectively. So if you have an industry specialization or sector depth of knowledge experience and so on, you're going to add a lot of value with this technology helping out for sure. The other thing you brought up which is not well covered. And it's a huge thing. I mean I've managed a lot of different blockchain projects and some of them were really just technology focused they said just add blockchain to this system. And it's kind of like okay so now I've got this immutable trust ledger fine, but they weren't really I was really taking a company solution, if you will, that might have had their customers coming into it. But all I was doing is adding technology to it. And what Richard mentioned is a huge thing. And it changes the landscape it's not, I don't just need administrators and developers and engineers, I do need all of that, sure. But on that what's so different about blockchain is you're usually not always but usually you're trying to build a network in a different way across multiple organizations and I can't stress enough. Normal IT stuff that I've been in it's focused on a corporation maybe with a couple of divisions departments or whatever and I've been the guy that had to integrate those things. And I can't talk about how important it is. Some of these networks that you're trying to put together, they've never really these are companies that have never played together before. Think about a football team where nobody's ever played football, and they've all played tennis now you're saying no, I want you to all take the field, and I have to find a way to figure out what the value is for each, each member or each company in the network, what's your value point, how do I deliver value to you, and what in a sense do you have to contribute what's the in a sense effort and the investment you have to make. I have to understand that from everybody's perspective, and I have to rethink how these companies work together so sometimes they're competitors sometimes their suppliers customers doesn't matter what it is, but I do have to rethink and re engineer that whole set of relationships. And if you're good at communicating it really means you're going to have to drive into understanding all of these potential participants and really have to work with them to come up with a view that makes it worthwhile for them to want to invest in this new type of relationship not just technology but type of model for how to work together. And I will say different than even things like AI that's new, and, you know, certain types of automation, I add integration, you can have those things, but you're not always going to be changing the way organizations work together in an externally in a network, you're changing maybe how they work internally in some cases, but this one is usually has a strong network focus and if you have skills and building business relationships. That's worth a ton more than many other technologies I'll say. So I think those are great points Richard for sure. Business collaboration piece, which is everything from you know consortia formation governance thinking through the value proposition across the ecosystem. That's actually the hard part. Often times the technology is is a little bit more straightforward, but really figuring out how these parties will work together and reimagine a process and not just think about how I take the analog process today and put a blockchain behind it, but how I use the unique capabilities of blockchain and often other technologies as well to completely reimagine the process. There's a significant change management component to that, which is much beyond the technology. Yeah, absolutely because you're trying to change business rules governance. It's and you're absolutely right. It has the technical pieces of that are small and usually well understood. It's the relationships that are so challenging and so different. And for the projects I've worked on you usually have to have a series of steps in a sense to validate the networking side the business relationship collaboration piece. Even more than you do the technology, the technology is technology that'll go quicker. I think it's the other part that really needs a lot of awkward engineering rework and so on to get right. For sure. This that's been awesome. Thanks. So with that drew any perspectives on your end about the demand that you see for blockchain related skills and roles at all any thoughts on that. Yeah, I was interested probably about a year ago just to see, because I had searched probably two three years ago on blockchain and there really wasn't a high demand, just in just a keyword search on things like dice and LinkedIn for jobs to see what people actually had just the word blockchain and a description. And I think a year ago, I mean through COVID obviously there's been changes since then but I noticed that there's probably in the range of like 100 on something like dice. Yeah, with remote work becoming much more prevalent I think things are changing but I just did it a few minutes before signing on here and it was 291 and I see that even on LinkedIn there are incremental growth now I think as this picks up and I think the bigger thing that I've noticed is looking at the different jobs and what our clients are asking us for is not someone like a senior level job developer with a certain amount of experience in that space but anyone who has a baseline technology background or three years of experience with go C++ Python, or any language of the such that is transferable and passionate to Richard's point getting into this technology. They're looking for right now, I mean people are very willing this is the hottest market. I've ever worked in the 10 years that that I've been in this business, a lot of candidates have an opportunity right now or if there's a willingness or a passion to try and get into this space. You have the opportunity like 10 years ago when I came out during the, the financial crisis in 2010 like it was hard to get a job like especially staffing it was, it was difficult now. Like you can just go to a meetup group and someone who reads a book on the technology will at least be given a shot. It's just how you market yourself. What really drives you and how you make yourself stand out amongst other people that are looking in this space so it's it's growing and it's not going to stop. I think the first time I ever heard about this was like four or five years ago from a good friend who works at Salesforce, and I'll leave his name out of here but he's someone that goes to enterprise organizations that have that kind of relationship with Salesforce like Larry Allison's and the Tim Cooks of the world to tell them what you're not doing with Salesforce given the amount of money you spend on it and he said to me listen you're a fool if you don't really start focusing on getting into the space given how it's going to grow. Because right now there's a gap and he didn't even match in financial services I know we were talking before about this being industry agnostic and I agree financial services is where I really see a lot of this being implemented for a variety of reasons security but I'm sure Richard knows more about that than I but I do see that supply chain and logistics was the biggest component to blockchain development where this was going to be impactful just in daily life in the future and I really do believe that that's still something that we will see here so it's growing and I don't think it's quite at a glacial glacial pace but it's not the boom that I assumed it would be a few years back and I think that we're going to see more of this where if you're interested if you do not have a background as a blockchain engineer as some of the people in the chat said some of the more functional roles that they're looking for right now in blockchain architecture and evangelist program project management you'll be given that chance given what your interests are it's hard to find people I deal with this every day right now. Having to tell managers listen if you want to sell someone on this you're going to have to pay 20% more than what you thought you were going to that applies to blockchain as well. Like if you are someone looking you are in a unique position if you are someone hiring rethink your practices to try and beat up the competition because 10 other people are reaching out to the same person you were. Yeah great point drew thanks very much the your I think you hit it when you said people and I actually this is just Jim's personal opinion but mostly because I've seen a million job description and I've probably written a hundred of myself. I've always gotten to the point now where I grade job descriptions like a professor grading papers that are turned in like a term paper. And one of the things that you'll see sometimes is a job description written where what they're looking for is a completely unrealistic set of requirements and sometimes that can be off putting to a candidate say oh geez look at that. They want 30 years experience as a project manager 10 years of C++ 20 years in networking protocols you know and they go down this long list of things that are almost impossible to fill. And then what happens is you know you a candidate who doesn't have all that experience is going to step back and the reality in a space that is as you say hot and in high demand. You shouldn't back away because you say well I saw 10 things on there and I don't qualify on seven of them at the level they're looking for. There are in a sense roles that are less demanding from a skills and experience perspective when the technology is new. And so if you're bringing something to the table whether it's industry background or some other background technically as well and and as we said earlier especially business development and you know business process knowledge those kind of things. You should be looking at roles and figuring out how to apply. There's definitely a lot of times I've seen in a process where people throw out a job description the first time it kind of doesn't get a lot of hits doesn't go anywhere and they don't really fill the position. And then they come back and they make amendments to it and so on they rethink the process a little bit so yeah thanks very much for that that was good perspective. Bobby are you available. I am. I have a different perspective that's why I didn't consider myself a panelist for this discussion because it's more about filling your pipeline. And I'm an entrepreneur. So I'm coming at it completely different. I've worked on proof of concepts. I'm taking a proof of concept and making an MVP minimal viable product. And it's hard work and I have mentees working on this one project with me. And we've been doing it for six months and the last month of the project was when we started coding. The first five months were building business relationships were trying to figure out someone mentioned in the chat work processes a new way to look at things. And in this technology it's all about community and you're going to hear that from the teachers you're going to hear that from the hiring people because it's it's all about people who have not worked with each other before now can work with each other because trust is in the system. So people need to be able to relate with each other and that's not easy so there's there's jobs for that but just coming from the entrepreneur standpoint. You need. I've taught my mentees project management I've taught them wiki pages we've learned how to use all kinds of software programs all kinds of like graphics oh my gosh trying to social media trying to get the message out there just trying to printing up t shirts I mean there were so many little pieces in the process of getting this blockchain social impact project off the ground. Now it's different people who are on the project right now because it's not a, you know, minimal viable product yet are all working with just out of the goodness of their hearts because it's a social impact project so it's hard for me to say you need these skills you need these skills because I'll take anybody and in this new technology there is a role for everybody. That's all I need to say on that. Just one thing Jim I saw someone in the chat that was discouraged I think so they had a high level of anxiety given that they're not a developer but have 20 years of sales experience. Send me a message like just I want to help people and the bigger thing to convey as I know we're talking about this from an employer standpoint but if you are a candidate again like if ever you were going to be frustrated, filled with anxiety and searching for something new. This is the market to do it in. It will not always be like this and I'm sure a lot of people on this panel can agree with that. Like take advantage of it now. Help yourself. My fiance recently was looking for a new job. And I told you the key things you need to do is market yourself the right way. If a manager is looking at you you probably are the 100th person they've looked at for everyone that's applied but do it the right way when you're marketing yourself. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is a reflection of you. Like a lot of people sometimes just put blockchain in their summary or things that they're passionate about. Great. Someone's going to search just like I did minutes before this the term blockchain you will then show up. Make sure when they take 15 seconds of their time to review you that you're marketing yourself appropriately so you stand out give yourself a shot you can do video messages on LinkedIn now that last for 15 seconds when someone looks at you. Help yourself and if you're discouraged just like this other person in the chat message shoot me a note I'll try and help because I was a recruiter for longer than doing sales and I hate to see people on a state like that so that's what I was going to say I apologize for interrupting Jim. Oh thanks Drew yeah and you're right thanks for the comments to that Bobby if you want to move on to the next question I think we're going to hit some of the errors drew talk about. So the question is how do how do companies define hiring goals roles and opportunities and within that space and Bobby added a third category I forgot about but there's contract roles are permanent roles as well and as Bobby has talked about in her case. In her case, there's in a sense of unpaid roles in a sense where you're learning something but you're not actually getting paid for it. It's more of a volunteer process as well so some of them are paid some of them are. So, Richard if you could help me a little bit think about, in a sense, from your experience at extension, when you have multiple initiatives I'm sure you've worked to lead. And from your perspective how do you need to find in a sense, given what you set as goals for an initiative, how do you define the right roles and opportunities to support that. Yeah. So when we look at when we define a project I mean we'll go through and develop a solution and that solution includes looking at what are the, what's the talent that we need to be able to deliver this project. And it is almost always a mix of kind of three different things, tech talent, functional talent, whether it be, you know, a specific type of process or whether it be, you know, business case or change management. And the third thing is domain knowledge. And we need all three of those mixes to come into the table to be able to deliver a complete solution for our client. And so we'll start there by really understanding what are we trying to do with the client what value we're going after. What are the business objectives that we're trying to achieve develop that solution and then we'll start to say, okay, where do we find the talent to be able to deliver this with for our clients. We look at both permanent and contract road roles. We are doing quite a bit of hiring in the permanent role perspective right now, looking for both entry level as well as experience in blockchain and multi party systems. We are willing to train folks on blockchain even into the technologies where we'll do our own technology deep dives onto the various platforms as well. And again, we're looking at from a domain knowledge perspective. You know, we are looking across a number of different industries if I look at North America, specifically, you know, financial services and banking obviously that's an industry that there's a lot of activity in the space. Consumer package goods. Industrial is another area energy. There's lots of activity and energy right now. And again, it's because what's happening here is people are starting to understand the innovation triggers that this technology leads to, and companies are coming together and say, Okay, how do I do something completely different than what I'm doing today. When you think about energy, think about energy transition. And when we when we look at that type of a broad initiative to where almost everything has to be re looked at and rethought of the ability to start to apply some of this technology to be able to help derive that that innovation and transformation. You know, is paramount. I think the last thing I would say here is from a functional perspective, although central works on use cases across a wide gamut of areas, we do have specific focuses on financial infrastructure. So this is everything from digital currencies and central bank digital currencies and thinking about digital assets, both issuance and custody and trading. And also thinking about kind of financial infrastructure modernization so things like exchanges and payment systems. Looking at digital identity. So looking at the identity, you know, self managed identity of individuals companies and things. The things is a really interesting aspect and thinking about how you have a connected device, like a vehicle or an industrial machine, and how thinking about that identity of that thing across its entire life cycle. So really an interesting area as well. And then lastly, supply chain, anything supply chain, not just the physical movement of goods, but thinking about the financing and the payment of those goods but then also thinking about all of the documentation associated with the movement of those goods. So those are kind of people who have that domain industry experience people who have that functional experience, or people who have that technology experience, all are welcome from a blockchain perspective. That's some Richard. In fact, there are a couple of points you hit that I really liked so the, in a sense, I'll call it the device or the internet or things approach. Absolutely right. The technology has changed and the networking has changed. I mean I have been building a device networks going back 30 years, but the technology so much more advanced now. And in fact what happens in the old world I'll say when I was an IT. You would look and say oh I've got to hire people to manage these things now we actually because devices are more intelligent. We literally can think of them as actors as part of our solution, we can actually assign them responsibilities the way I find people responsibilities which is pretty cool it's all And you can actually as an architect in a sense assume that you can give responsibilities to devices and that they're going to meet those responsibilities. They're going to in a sense produce events as part of their responsibilities they'll be able to consume events and react to them. All the kinds of things you actually expect to people you can now do that with devices in many cases. The other thing you hit and I got thinking more about it again is the point about the fact that it is a consortia or a network that you're trying to build in many cases and you're trying to operate it's not that you didn't operate with these companies before maybe in a supply chain or financial network, but the difference is you're trying to change the way they work together. And that takes a lot of creativity and I'll throw this out there as a quote something way out of bounds so to speak, but I think there are people. If you think about it you're trying to rethink understand the incentives that are in place for a consortia or a network today. And you're trying to say I have to come up with a different model to get them to work differently. Okay, so who might have that actually skill right off the top of their head who's actually had experience. I think of people I know who are what I call heavy duty gamers gamers all about behavior incentives and designing that stuff. And so if you're somebody who thinks along those lines, you're probably going to be really valuable to helping design a network if you will that's going to work effectively is it's all about behavior incentives that you have to motivate each of the actors to get the whole team to be effective if you will. Jim, if I can if I can tell you a story about that my background before joining Accenture is I worked in financial services and I happened to work at MoneyGram International, which is a network company. The MoneyGram International for those of you who aren't aware is a global money transfer company that actually allows people to send money cross border over a network of over 250,000 agents worldwide. The real strategic advantage of the company is the network. And, you know, you start to think about businesses like Visa Mastercard you think about MoneyGram International, you start to see where this network is really an incredibly important element of the business collaboration that we're trying to drive with this technology. Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, and you're right. So great point. There are many companies who they're one of their main assets is the network of relationships they already have. And then you wind up connecting networks of networks at a point so you can think of Visa, you know, American Express whoever you want to talk about his payment network, Stripe and so on PayPal, there's millions of them. So when you think about connecting them, they at a point to be even more effective they have to in a sense be able to integrate both with their customers and their suppliers. So there's lots of what I call redesigning and rethinking how those networks can work more effectively than just traditionally moving forward the way they have. And that's pretty cool stuff. So your thoughts, Bobby, as well. Well, I just, when you're looking at this question and there's been some ideas flowing through the chat about ageism and about remote work. First I'll take the remote work. Remote work is basically all that you do hyperledger doesn't have an office. You work from home you go to meetups virtually or you host them and then put them online. So remote work is nothing if you're in India my two mentees are from India their college students in India, and they are doing fabulous work. They show up at every meeting. Geographic barriers don't matter. Physical barriers don't matter your work from your computer you do hard work people appreciate it. So in terms of ageism, the hosts on this call can speak to that the three of us are in our early 20s, and we've been working 50 years. But again, it's just the amount of work you want to put in, whether it's remote. I don't even know if you would find an office. If you wanted to and not in a big city at this point, you'd have to probably look real hard, but again remote work is not frowned upon. Bobby it's around lifelong learning we just done we've just done more of that lifelong learning. Yeah. So, Drew, can I jump in and ask for your thoughts as well. I looked at this question before I thought the contract versus permanent okay so how are things changing and both sides because it's two separate budgets a lot of time. Like I think when I was a very young naive sales person just saying I'll take whatever you have like I don't care if it's contractor perm, you start hearing them talk about okay well my budget for permanent is far different than the money pot I have for contracts staff I think the documentation a lot of times is warranted for contract work there's some SW type work like deliverable based stuff that we do, and I've seen over the past several years and the numbers reflect this that permanent has become far more prevalent. I feel like for some time, especially when I was early into my career like 10 years ago recruiting contract was very desirable there's a lot of people that thought that that contract work was synonymous with you can do nine months worth of work and it equates like a year salary for three months and in some respects some people still do that but a lot of companies realized or became wise to the fact that you could pay a little bit more incentivize like the permanent process and joining something and the fulfillment with being a true part of any kind of company culture permanently versus contract and we're seeing more candidates drawn towards that contract work is still very popular but especially in the blockchain space when I was just looking at some of the opportunities internally with my company like they're looking for people to join, whether it be at a direct customer or weren't or internal. And I don't think that that's going to change anytime soon quite frankly. I mean I I've had offers kick this week unfortunately good jobs project managers that pay a lot I'm paying them a lot out of my and they took permanent full time jobs with companies that they had been talking to for a little bit now so that I'm finding is is kind of where we're at in the market right now and I don't see that changing as I said before. Yeah, good thought it you know it's funny because I've been on both sides of my career. I'm not 5050 exactly I don't even know if it's more contractor more perm over my career but, as Bobby said, only a 22 year old kid. But the deal is having done both. I'll say what's kind of funny is what you really you work on something you have an assignment you want to be successful at it you want to deliver value back to the people who employ you, whether you're a contractor or your perm. But the one thing I'll say that is a little different with the perm side. If you jump into a team that you like working with and you feel you add value and they like working with you. It's like any team sport. At that point you go you know this was a great great experience for me. And I just if it's a contract it maybe ends at a year or whatever it is and you move on to the next one you start over again. But if you really like working with the team, and you really feel you've added value they like you. It's, it's nice to be able to continue that relationship and build on it actually so I can say a lot of times you build great relationships inside of companies. And if you come back for what I call a second season as the permanent employee, then that's really fun you can leverage and continue to sort of improve what you're delivering because you're building off that base, which is nice. Sometimes there's also long term contract things so drew could say hey I like Jim so much I'm going to hire is Jim is my assistant, and I'll keep them on a contract for 10 years. But there are those. They do exist as well, but I think the perm thing that's one of the biggest attractions I've seen over my career is the idea that you have that team that you really like being a part of in so many ways, and then it becomes easy to say gee I want to stay on that team. The contract to hire model is one that makes a lot of sense, and I tried to advocate that to people on the candidate side I came to recruiting background so I try to keep the relationship with the management team but especially in this market you need to bring out the guns to get a good candidate and I'll get involved and sell them on the opportunity and why this company makes sense over the other things you're considering but one of the things that is routinely said to me is that contract to hire is a distant second to either contract or perm whatever that person's looking for they feel like that's just why am I going to why am I going to try out with this company when others are just going to give me a direct full time salary or pay me an exorbitant amount of money on a contract rate and honestly I don't have a great answer for them. If I'm being candid other than the opportunity to work with what organization I am so if I'm lucky enough to have a great client that's backing me and the rates good and the salary down the road is in line with what they're looking for. Awesome, but in general especially in a piping hot market like this. It's one or the other and I think a lot of candidates are making that option versus going contract to hire right now. Yeah, thanks. So I see Jodi Brockington I have you here now right Jodi if you can unmute yourself. Sure. Hey Jodi nice to see you. I want to welcome you onto the panel obviously and then thank you Jodi's from DTCC and she specializes in diversity talent management. And Jodi I'd like to give you a minute just to introduce yourself to the audience. Well I came in the middle of a great conversation I just left a group of budding entrepreneurs or small business owners black females specifically working with us at DTCC. But I am the director of diverse talent management and advancement and specifically work in diversity and inclusion sourcing. So most of us at DTCC we're the backbone of the financial services but we are more tech than we are Finn. So we compete more with the Microsoft and cloud AWS and all of them just as much as we compete with other banks who are looking for specialists. But for us I was about to type into the chat that we have been very successful in converting most of a lot of our contractors and vice versa where sometimes some people have worked with us permanently have become consultants so we are a pretty fluid company but we are definitely looking for permanency so places within our company that we might have contracted out to EY and other companies to do some of our work we are now hiring those teams so those are teams of 13 to 20 people 10 to 15 people depending on what it is and everything from blockchain Bitcoin management app development anything that you would find in the technology space so cloud C++ SQL Java Python you name it you got it we want it. But, you know, in this space it's even more difficult to find diversity and for us at DTCC. I'll be very clear that diversity for us is just about anyone but white men and Asian men because we have plenty it's not that we do not hire them they're just not considered to be diverse. And in some instances though there are white men that diversify and a department so our legal department is very women heavy, and I had to get on them for not hire having men in the hiring process just like I would get on another department so we are constantly looking for great talent in the tech fintech space. And right now we have about 300 open roles, but the best part about us is that we're small so we're tiny and mighty so we're only 5000 employees total. We hire three people it's a big shift 10 is a major shift and 20th so we have also hired over set over 600 folks through coven. And just continuing to move down our pathway we've been very consistent. We have a really good. We only have a 6% of, you know, in terms of turnover. And that's just gone up recently there you always teeter between five and six. And now with the great resignation we're still strong steady and stable so this is a great place to work. If you're able to get a contract through someone good. It's very hard to get a contract with us. But once you do you are there for at least a few years we're a little bit longer in our contract space. And then we do look for permanent home so the hardest challenge I have is trying to bring people from the outside in. People never leave DTCC once they're there so you'll meet most people and they'll say 10 years 15 years 20 years 30 years. I'm only there two and a half. So far, but that's a long stint for me. So that's my spiel. I hope that there's something that you're interested in at DTCC you can definitely reach out to me I will put my LinkedIn profile link in there. Please connect with me. And I'm here to answer any other questions that you might have. It's great to bring a quote a perspective it's obviously DTCC is a quote aggressive when you think about the numbers you said, you know 5000 people more or less total, but you're adding, you know, 600 during the pandemic 300 now kind of a thing. That's a big percentage increase for an organization that's not Microsoft or IBM or somebody at that scale. So, obviously there is a big need to add talent there which is a good thing so. And it also helps a lot to think about the other thing I really like is the fact like Bobby had said earlier. In a sense, there's a wide open door for anybody regardless of your background, and there are different types as you've heard before kinds of, in a sense skill sets we need, not only technical but ones, you know built around, you know project management and other things not just alone. So, and we again have a mix I think is we heard earlier from Richard that Accenture's in a different model. They're doing a lot of different types of business consulting solutions for different types of industries. So they may have a different skill set different types of roles and DTCC is looking for as well across the planet. So, yeah, thanks for adding that. I wanted to at least add to you. Yeah, we have, we have an internal consulting arm. So we, we brought our into our consulting in house also was was done externally. So, you always need a variety of different talents which mixes between technology finance and then business development innovation and strategy. Excellent. Perfect. Yeah, that right that's another area that you can manage and again I like the idea, because I've been part of what I call those enterprise type teams before in the past. And again it comes back to the same role, you're instead of going through outside consultants and sometimes those have long term relationships when you bring them in house. There's a chance to focus for those teams more permanently in a sense, understanding in a sense the environment the landscape they're in, and hopefully over over several years, they build a deeper knowledge of each of the business departments they're supporting and servicing, which is really good so I've seen that work out very well. So with that, let me go on to the next topic, which makes sense for all of the panel. So Richard, if I could ask you, it's how, how do we have candidates in a sense build their skills, brand themselves from your perspective maybe, and how should they be, how should they think about maybe training for roles that they're interested in any thoughts on that. Sure, I mean I first of all I mean I think get involved in the energy and the industry groups and consortium just you know, you know exactly like what you know hyper ledger is doing today I think that's a great way to get involved. I think read the thought leadership that's out in the marketplace. There are luminaries that are focusing on, you know what's going on in the space, whether it be from a technology perspective or some of the leading use cases. Keep up on that I even personally myself have about five Google alerts that come out to me every day on specific topics in this area and it helps me to just keep informed of who's doing what and what's going on and what, what the current chatter is about, you know, in the in this space and I would encourage all of you to do that as well. I think the other aspect here is, you know it's really, and I saw a lot of in the chat we're talking a lot about curriculum and and and how to learn in this space. And yes that's a great place to start but it's not just about, you know, my technical knowledge or how I study about what's happening in the space, it is about its application. It's about how you jump in and do something, whether it is something where you volunteer for some type of a project, or you are fortunate to get on to a role on old project. It's about the application, I can't tell you how many folks that I talked to personally, where, you know, I asked them two questions to find out about blockchain describe it to me. Like I'm your grandma, your grandfather, and to tell me how it's going to change the world. And that is, to me, can you easily explain what is often a very complex topic. And then secondly, tell me how you're going to apply it to really create value. And, and I think if you can kind of think about that, as you think about what your skills are your brand, your story, as it relates to blockchain and multi party systems, I think that will serve you well. There are two great points, one keeping that make the technology easy to understand, because for a lot of people it isn't so they read articles or whatever they're trying to get into it. And it, the way it's presented many times is complex. But yes, I think you're right. Somebody who is going to really add value is going to be somebody who can understand everybody else's perspective and make it simple. So that's one key part. The other thing that actually was just the opposite of that in my mind was now tell me how it's going to change the world. I mean, that's one of those things that I could answer it in two questions like oh it'll be much better. But you really have to be more concrete than that you have to apply it to an example kind of a thing so both good points. Jody, let me switch over to you and get your thoughts on, in a sense, let's say I'm a candidate out there no matter who I am but I'm, looking, and I go out there and go oh my god there's a million jobs at DTCC. I think I want to apply to all of them. Tell me what would I logically do when I look at your website. First of all don't apply to every job that like a crazy applicant, meaning like you have no direction and granted I will take full premise, you know, responsibility that I don't think that our job descriptions are some of the best. So sometimes you can be skewed one way but I would always say it's almost like it's like football you want to go for that quarterback role. The one you really want is the one you want to apply for because you do want to get in the pipeline. And once you're there, you know, in most cases in this case if you're going to apply for DTCC job and now you know who I am you can definitely use me to help you navigate, but then navigate slowly. A talent advisor who might reject you for the job that you got that you applied for can help you navigate for the next one. And something else also our ERGs within DTCC all have a recruitment have two recruitment chairs that will also help guide you through the matrix of our job descriptions. And also our roles our departments are kind of cryptic as well so not everyone has a BTO and a GBO and a DTMA like all these acronyms that mean nothing to you on the outside world. They can guide you up even within IT we have multiple layers within a department right so you have, you know, so one apply for one role, but admit, like say in your cover letter in your email that I'm applying for 2275, but I'm also interested in 2274 2273. So they get an idea and tell them why. And then I think the other false, you know, thing is that we all try to hire or over hire at times or there's 20 things on there. And we really only need the five and we really want to train you on stuff you need to have some growth too so I think often candidates feel like they have to have everything. And don't apply, or they're over qualified, and that's a bad space to be in as well because we then think oh you don't want to stay here like you're just going to come here for a minute and then go take that contract or do something else. So there's a fine line. And to make sure that your resume if you're applying for a second role after applying for a first one, there should be some changes in that resume and often people send the same exact one. I think on our side definitely pay attention to that. And then there's parts of technology for sure that's trainable. So, or that we know if you've done Python, you might already know some Java, you know this then you might know some like that you don't have to have everything that's on there that is like the wish list versus the must have. So often you get information from the talent advisor, as you're applying. Well, a couple of things I really like number one, not every company does this, but the fact that I can apply for a job. Not get chosen for the job, but in effect through your quote recruiting team, take a look at me as a candidate and say hey you know what, we should give this guy feedback other than the simple thank you for applying letter right. So, I'll get to thank you the automated thank you for applying but we've already filled that position thanks anyway. But what's kind of cool is if you looked at me as a recruiting team and said hey you know what, we didn't pick him for that role fair enough. But he is, he has these skill sets and maybe these other things I'll send them an email and say are you interested in one of these two other jobs, you might be a good fit. That kind of interactive feedback, if you will, is not common today from I'll say 90 something percent of the companies. So most companies whether I don't know if they're not staff well for, you know, I'll put recruiting or whatever but they don't give you that kind of feedback. For sure that's a, that's a huge win for us and the and you make a great point. Not only the resume but even my cover letter obviously both of those should be targeted more toward the job I'm going after. So if you tell me. Hey Jim, take a look at 2274 that might line up with what you want to do. I should actually go back and honestly try to take a hard look at not only the job description try to read between the lines a little bit understand it and then try to figure out what makes me special about 2274 how do I fit, because it shouldn't be just up to the recruiter I should be able to do enough to try to think that through and maybe tailor my resume to fit that so those are great points. And I can attest that people who have applied for roles and didn't get the first one kind of like running for elected officials have come back and then very successful the second time because one they understand our company better. They understand what they needed to come with. And we can be the advocate the second time around saying oh my God the first time john applied. You know, this was already down the pipeline too far they already almost were at offer we just didn't have something that was in alignment and often will even reach out back to you. And our system is set up that once you have a profile which is why even if you don't see a job today, something can come up later like Amazon you brought these shoes you might like these shoes you bought this jacket. You know so you apply for this kind of job, and we will also then move like when something comes up that similar. They will get it they don't always get it right because I'm still on the list, and I sometimes get things that I'm like, I would never do that but we at least try to match based on what you have put into your application so that you should also take some time to really fill it out, and really get as much information there as possible. Thanks, Drew. So I've drew and I don't go back 20 years, I do go back more than 20 years in jobs and career and all that, but I do like working with drew a little bit and I'll say why. In a sense, he tries to help you think through who you are and what you're trying to get done so I can go to drew and say hey I see a job for director of it for company X. I can get that job center my resume, and instead of just shoving it over the wire and saying hey no problem will just dropped in there. He actually did spend the time to go through and say hey let's take a look at some options to think about what you want to and I know. I can talk directly or indirectly through the hiring manager try to get you a better feel for than what you see in the job description for what they're really looking for as you already said where are they really in the process. They already made an offer to somebody else and in a sense they may open the door again if that person turns them down who knows but in a sense if you have somebody, whether it be Jodi on the inside in HR. If you're lucky enough to get a direct contact with Richard or if you're talking to drew. If you have somebody that can help you understand more than you know about what the company's looking for that's a really valuable thing so drew your thoughts. I'll be redundant but I appreciate we said Jim you've made me look good a few times there and I appreciate that. Being transparent, like, let's take it to bare bones, like the process is typically about your brand. It was always in the past about let me see your resume do you have the years of experience are the things that I need on there the technologies. How did you go to school name recognition is big, especially in this market that I work in here in Boston it's very big. And it's, how do you present when you have a 30 second snapshot. People don't have the attention span to go through your background for 30 minutes, some might, depending on the job you will I don't want to exclude people of doing that but typically you're up against 300 other people that applied for the same job that you are. Look at your background, and your LinkedIn profile. And as I've seen in the chat here. I don't think there's anything wrong with the people that have been outside of this market for 20 years and you're trying to get in now. Okay, show me how you're passionate about getting in their certifications that you can get with them blockchain there's different meetup groups that you can go to. There's things that you can do where even if you are working as a barista. Make that be the eighth thing that they see on your resume. When they search about why are you applying to this job, Jodi brought this up if you're applying to the same job over and over you don't change your background. I don't take you seriously, even if it is a piping hot market right now, and very candidate driven, but as Jim and I were looting to like you want to go through and be methodical about this. This is chess not checkers why is the manager going to want to talk to you, and not one of the other 300 people what is it going to do, think put yourself in their position in closing. Think about if you were reading your resume and then immediately you see an icon pop up that the manager viewed your LinkedIn profile. Why are they going to respond to you and not just gloss over and go to the next person. Always think that way that's the best advice I could get anybody who's looking to either break into the space or try and go deeper. That's it. It's maybe old school but think about being in an elevator with the CEO of the company that you want to work for right right that's great between floor one and five. You've got to tell them what your brand is. And if you can't easily say I'm, this is what I do and this is what I can do for you. You need to practice that you need to write it down and you need to be you need to own it. Yeah, great point Richard you're right when I, I've done a bunch of things in my career but one of them was financial advisor and in that role they said, you'll be lucky if you get 30 seconds to explain who you are to somebody. You know 30 seconds the outside it's probably going to be more like 10. And if you can't get them interested in what I call that elevator pitch of going from floor two to floor three. You're, you need to sit down and rethink in a sense what you want to put on the table for people to see first, for sure. So, and you don't and the way to think about it is you don't have to get the job in the 30 seconds. You just have to get them to ask you the second question. That's exactly right. So in fact, a really smart guy who was much smarter than me, when he was trying to teach me how to do this job he says, I was already I was all pumped up they said go write your elevator speech for this thing I said oh yeah I'm going to be a great financial advisor. So I wrote down all the things about why I was so smart right. And he says well, he says when I meet people, they, you have that initial thing hi Richard, you know, and they always say, if you're spending more than five seconds together. They will who are you. And so that usually you get a chance to define yourself quickly and he says when people ask me that question he says I only I only have one answer. It's I help people. It's like what. And so you're always because it's such a short answer, you're probably going to get a follow up if you don't get a follow up, not a problem. It's very productive. I want to ask you how you help people, boom, you've now got a conversation going, as opposed to me launching into the first half of my resume and saying hey Richard I've done all these 20 things and hoping that throwing out all those 20 things one of those will interest you. It's, it's far better to open up that real door to a conversation that way. So that is a great thought. Let's move on to the next one Bobby, if we can. Slide. Thanks. So flipping it around. We've talked a little bit about this but again, we're going to ask how we've talked about in a sense what a candidate can do. This may be a simple one. I'll say as a question but think of from a candidate's perspective. Richard if you can think about this how how should candidates go looking for companies and jobs that may fit them well. You have to do your research. You know, look at the types of projects the company's working on what ecosystems are they participating in leading, read their thought leadership, follow their luminaries in the business engage with them. You know through LinkedIn comment on their posts. And really look at the industries in which they're focused on to ensure that their industries that you also are interested in working at. So that's kind of I would say the mechanics of getting kind of the is the is the domain the subject matter that they're working in right, but then I think I can't over impress enough, you also have to look at is it a cultural fit for you. Are they doing work that interests you. Do they have the work environment that meets your needs. You know are you working for a team and a company that values your voice and your input. And also look at how they're, they're giving back in the market looking at, you know, the tech for good initiatives that they, they may be investing in or leading in or supporting. So I think it's it's really a combination of looking at the work that they're doing from just a practical perspective, what are the use cases, what are the industries, but then I think it's also about are they the right fit for you personally. Yeah, great point. Right, I've thought much more about the concept of, I think of it, I almost think of it as like teams that you want to play on. You like the people that you're playing with, are they going to like playing with you kind of a thing. That whole culture fit. It's not just what the business does but it's actually what are they focused on and the people and I can't say it enough I worked in one place and it was amazing. I really used to come to me and say what's it like to work for this company said look, I said the thing about this company it's so different than other companies have worked for. When you sit on the bench and you look at who else you're playing with you look to the left, you look to the right, and you go, Oh my God, what a team. I feel like I'm in the Barcelona dream team sitting here with these people. It's that level when you feel like you're on a team that strong that solid. It's a unique feeling. It's not one you probably want to move away from. That's why those permanent roles that offer that kind of opportunity are really good. The other thing is, in a sense, trying to understand that from the outside a little bit is different. It's not easy to do. And so as you said, follow the company more, not just don't just go to indeed and say oh look job description project manager. I think I want that. I think Accenture is a good company. You know, whatever their market cap is, really, as Richard said, do the homework a little bit more, especially about the area you're going to be working. And the other point you made that's really good, which is good for Bobby, I think, is that if you don't have any background in blockchain, why not start working with Bobby on the giving chain, right. And then, yes, you're doing some stuff on your own training, which is good technically to say I understand this stuff better. But if you can get some real experiences Richard said that you bring to the table it's not like oh yeah I passed this course that's good. But more than that, I actually contributed to this thing that is he said is social good focused. You know I didn't get paid for it, but I was an important part of x whatever x was on delivering that that really gives some experience as well. I've always really personally. I'm sorry Jim. No go ahead Richard. As he said I'm always personally impressed when I'm interviewing somebody and they asked me about work that Accenture has done. Because it shows me they've done their research. And what I'm also intrigued at is what the question they're asking me about that, because perhaps they're they're coming after coming at the credential or the use case from a slightly different perspective that I am. And I'm interested to hear their point of view and what they think about the credential as well. So when a candidate asked me that that's a point where I lean in, because I want to I want to learn more about what they're thinking, as it relates to, you know what something we've done in blockchain. Excellent. Yeah, Jody can I get your thoughts. I think Richard covered most of it I call it the trifecta of your passion your paycheck and the environment, you know, you're getting paid enough so that you're not really thinking about what you're like you're doing the work you want to do because you're passionate about it and you're around the people you want to be. And I often start with younger folks to think about like what brands do they love what are they eating drinking wearing seeing every day, because those places have jobs, right. So it's not like oh I just want to do this for the money you want to do for the money and you want to do it, even for that so. For me, I think the sooner you find a company the better. And I think often we overlook companies like myself at DTCC that are smaller that are not as well known. A lot of people still don't know what a center really does right. So when you, when someone does some research and they can really come to you and tell you about your company, maybe some of the stuff that you're doing in the community. The initiatives you have that are larger than the company that are impacting the communities they live in. It's how I ended up at Merrill Lynch they supported every nonprofit I ever volunteered for worked at, loved and was a part of so that was my first bite into the financial services industry. Unfortunately it's during the recession so that was quick, you know, a couple years and out. But I think if you find that right environment. And that they're going to help that there's growth potential for you and that company, you can stay there for a long time and continue to reinvent yourself that you're not kind of stuck doing that one thing unless you really love that one thing. Like there's people at my company that I'm like you've been doing this for 20 years the same thing. And it's like the roles evolved, but, and they have evolved as people and technology has changed but they really like what they do so they stay right versus someone who comes in new for some integration and idea that you want to look for a place where you can grow. And I don't know if there are any students here are those who are finishing up school but we have always about 75 to 100 internships and we start as early as freshmen, and we look for multiple year interns to come back so that gives you an opportunity to be in different departments and try new things. And then we have an edge program for those of you who might be graduating from graduate school or undergrad, it's like winning the NFL lottery, because you have a job for two years, and we spend about 150k or so in training in that first year so you're getting paid to go to school and learn all the stuff that you didn't quite have or you said you know Python but not to this degree. So we do a lot of training and even for our new incoming employees, we're not expecting you to know it all and if you took the same job with Richard as you would with us. So what you how they would do it, how Richard folks train you and what we need you to do are slightly different we all have our own secret sauce. So you don't want to come in as a know it all. You want to come in as someone who can modify change flexibility and know that you're going to have to learn something new on an almost a daily basis. We look for the people who are trying to roll up their sleeves. And also potentially jump in for someone else if Richard's out one time or I'm out one day that the wall and the world can keep spinning so that that trifecta of passion pay paycheck and your environment is key to your success. And also when things are not going so well in the work or at the company that you still have your passion, and you're still able to find yourself so I think that research piece is key, like do as much research as possible about that company how long they've been involved how long who founded it who's, you know how many times have they had turnover, if that's a concern for you. So there's there's things that are going to be more important to you as a person, then as your and then it'll attach to your profession. So everything Richard said, times 10. I'll just steal two words I heard there you said a lot. I'm just going to pick on two number one. You did say passion, and I think you're right that if you're going to go, it's not just the job. The goal is you got to care about the job but the bigger thing is you have to be passionate about what you think you're going to be adding and what that company's doing, you have to be passionate about that. So, hopefully you like the skill sets you bring hopefully you'll like the experience and the kind of work you're going to do. But you really have to be passionate about the whole thing and that does make a huge difference I've seen that when I was on the hiring side in the candidates right. I did have two people that look similar but one was dramatically passionate like gee I really understand what you guys are doing I've done the research I've been whatever looking at something like this works in a space similar. If they've really driven deeply into it. You can sense that difference right away. And you realize that when you hire this person that they're bringing a higher level of energy and probably commitment to the team and that's a huge thing right so you and Jody said it. I think, you know, you can say well here's another candidate that has, you know, whatever years of experience not five. They've got all that, and they're, I'll call it not as passionate about the role, not as passionate about the company and what your team is going to be doing. They're going to bring it, certainly good skill levels in. But the question is, when you look at it, do you really want somebody that's really going to, in a sense have the energy to drive forward on a consistent basis number one and number two to your point. The hardest thing in all these things I would tell you anybody that's really working today. The business is changing the company that you're in is changing and the technology is changing at a rapid rate. So what does that mean that means you have to be set up to be highly adaptable above all else. So it doesn't matter that I'm the world's best mainframe cobalt probably we're on planet Earth. What matters is when I go to work for that company, even if that's the skill set I'm starting with, I have to be in a sense probably more flexible today than I was five or 10 years ago to adapt to the way the team has got to work and what they need from me getting back to your training point as well. Drew, can I get some thoughts from you. I think, I mean, what Jody and Richard said I completely agree with and I once again don't want to be redundant here but I think if you're looking for something right now, especially in this market people are looking for you, like you're in a very opportune situation where trying to either look on LinkedIn or dice or career builder or just Google search companies that are looking for people like yourself. It's very easy to align yourself with them. The thing that I don't think people take advantage of is networking. Like I remember years ago, I couldn't find an angular JS developer to save my life. They all were making way more money than I could pay. And they seem to not exist right around when the technology got really hot so I went to meet up groups and I started talking to people, and I started better understanding the tech and getting to people who didn't even have a LinkedIn profile, or a GitHub or a resume, but they still got jobs. And I think sometimes it's trying to think outside the box of just, okay, a resume, I'm going to submit something and trying to meet people. Also, if I was applying for a job, I don't know, with Richard or Jody, I'd probably look at them on LinkedIn and see if they're connected with anybody I know. Hey, can you make a connection? Can you at least take five seconds out of your day to make the intro because they know you and I know you and I need your help. I knew a friend recently that just applied for a job at a company that's really well known here in the Boston area. I knew the recruiter of that job that was linked to it. I shot them a message. They were ushered to the front of the line. You're not always given that luxury, but you got to at least take a stab. This is a numbers game. You can't treat it like that though. You have to be particular with changing your resume, your profile, your background, everything that the job is looking for, at least give yourself a chance. Don't be discouraged by the jobs that are posted. They have a laundry list sometimes of what they need, not what they will accept. A lot of people, managers, I talk to, I say, please consider someone who's 75% of the job given the market right now. Give yourself a chance or, okay, keep looking for 100% of it. We'll talk in three months from now about what we need to do. So try once again, not to be redundant, but put yourself in the shoes of the people looking for you and try and connect with people. This is not about resume anymore. It's about your brand and who you know. That's always been the case. People hire people they know or at least have a referral from someone or know that you're real or you've done a good job. So references go very far. So that's probably my best advice I can give, especially in this space to find something. Cool. Thanks, Drew. Bobby, do you can move us on to the next one? Thank you. So now I'm flipping it a bit and I'll say we've covered this to a degree. We'll try to hit it. If you have anything new to add, I'm going to say how do companies find candidates and create a candidate pipeline for roles. Obviously, we're all familiar with either company sites where you can go out and look at roles that exist. We're also familiar with the third party sites like Indeed or Monster or any of those other ones, DICE and so on, that also list jobs as well. But let me, Richard, let me ask you, you talked about how you think through the goals, how you think through the resources that you might need for a new project or a new area you're working in. But give me a picture a little bit of, from your perspective, how Accenture thinks of setting up a candidate pipeline. What do you do to find resources in a sense to fill your pipeline? Well, this forum. All right, there you go. Thank you so much, Richard. That was all of my answers. I didn't want you to know, I haven't paid Richard a dime. But I will say we are very, we are active in these types of organizations and these types of efforts. We've actually posted roles, you know, on your site and others networking. We also look at who is commenting about this space in the market and we'll do outreach. So we'll directly outreach people if we see an interesting point of view, for instance, that aligns with something that we're working on or where we need talent. And so we've done that as well. Yeah, it's a great thought, a great point because some people I know who work in these roles, not everybody, but some people in a sense will take the experience they've done or the things they're focused on and they'll actually write a link in post or something like that. And they're sharing in a sense what they're what's important to them a little bit and giving people to see who they are a little bit at least indirectly on a small topic. So that can be helpful as well. Jodi, your thoughts. You know, not to be repetitive. I mean, I think, you know, you have to find the talent in the spaces that are important. Right behind me, you'll see all the HBC us that are, there's hundreds of them. But we did a lot of research to narrow down which schools had departments and specific areas computer science that made sense to us and where our offices are and what the communities were in. So although there's a lot of places that we could go. You know, I think companies are very targeted as to what their needs are where they need them from. And so instead of just casting such a wide net, because we also don't need large numbers. So the idea that we can be very targeted and we do our research just like we asked, you know, candidates to do theirs to find them. So, making sure that we have matched up the right talent with what our company is going to need now and also looking at it more futuristically so also reaching down younger. And so earlier on, so we become a brand that people know everyone drinks Tropicana because their parents drink it, or whatever in your house. So we want to also become that name with some people who can grow up with us and others now that are kind of getting to know us. So, I think we continue to create that and like I said before, someone might not be good for a role now or something that's not available. So the graphic design, you know, role opens up and when they first apply there was nothing right or they're looking for a marketing role or UX role. And so we continue to stay in touch and always look for a BCD plan for any of our candidates as as long as we've had some communication with them they've had some success, and really hone in on our what we call our, you know, bronze and silver projects, those who made it kind of to the final rounds, but we just didn't have another spot for them at the time. So, we stay in touch. So yeah, it gives me a great thought on how you manage. I'll call it that pipeline. And it is interesting to know. It's nice to I guess it's nice to see that companies will actually spend a fair amount of effort to try to look out the other direction and say who's out there. And who are we interested in. Who do we want to follow up with, not just individually but you know potentially as you pointed out organizations like certain colleges certain places. I might go to try to fill those intern programs you talked about earlier and so on. That's interesting drew on your thoughts on companies building pipelines. I think for us is different obviously the way Jody and Richard would find someone. I mean, especially right now it's about their brand and what they're selling and why you would want to join for. And I feel like for both companies I know them very well like there's a reason to join for us to build a pipeline I mean we have a database that's 50 years old now. We have millions of people that we've had relationships with people who have worked with people that we're familiar with in this network I've been in Boston for a decade doing this like with that I have relationships with people like you Jim and others in the space that I want to help. And I feel like really having a relationship and a relationship driven industry just like what I do, you have to be able to sort through keywords and buzz word searches that a lot of managers do and tell them listen. I'm talking to a manager now to better requirement I say to them I need to know three things that you're looking for the keys like what is it because I can send you a resume and they might have the right keywords but this is what I need to describe to someone. So when I call them or my recruiters call them and I'm their 14th call that day they'll pick it up and they'll talk to me and tell me why they're looking and you have to match those two because I feel like people treat our line of work sometimes like it's very transactional and you're ordering a pizza that's not how you find good people. Like you have to be willing to put the time and especially right now and invest in someone like myself to go find these people it's hard. This is hard and it takes a lot of work and takes a lot of networking and I mean what we're doing right now I think is a great thing you're putting in the effort and you're showing that you care about something a lot of people don't sometimes and they get overlooked so I always say that if you're going to try and build out a pipeline of candidates for any specific requirement there's probably things that are transferable. I placed a cyber security architect three weeks ago someone else in the same department's looking for somebody I three people to interview for that to did well. One got the job the first person that I'm marketing to the second job was the silver medalists like hey this person did great for your colleague and it's very once again relationship driven and networking with that's that's very important here so you're going to get creative. And I feel like some people don't do that my kind of work but they won't put in the time to do that they do think that if you have a certain amount of words on your resume it'll fit that just doesn't people. People want someone that's not going to be there just day one to fill a seat they want to think about who's going to be there for the next three four years. Why are they going to want to find my job better than someone else and that's an important thing to understand. Yeah so you make a great point you know I'll say and I'm reading between lines like I like to do but I'll say that the way you describe it what you're showing is respect for the client who's doing the hiring you're showing respect for his time. Because what you're saying is I'm not going to take five or 10 resumes and throw them over the fence and say hey here's 10 I saw that job description I hope one lands. It's no if I think I have done his to do diligence for the client. Then I'm going to say OK Jim I will think you know that yeah you're a candidate I can put you in the pool but I'm not going to just throw anybody over the fence to get that job. As you said you got a million people in my database of which probably 50,000 say I'm project manager and I could easily do a scan and say here's 50 I'll send you 50 names why don't you tell me who you want. What you've done if you do that is you're actually abusing the client's time and you're probably less likely. As you point out to be able to have a solid relationship with a client they're not going to come back next time and say oh yeah. I'm going to go through his phone call because last time it didn't end out well so you're right you have to be very careful and very selective in a sense who you push forward and how you help the candidate get there obviously which is really a different approach I think for recruiting as well. So Bobby if you can go to the next slide. So, actually, you know what I'm not going to push this one. We actually covered this, I think with all three. So I want to push the next slide Bobby. Alright, so this one actually matters. Um, I've been there on both sides of this one I've been the guy that was the new guy coming on to a team, but I've also in a sense on boarded people on my side of the fence who are new to my team. And I've had to think on this problem in both ways. And so I'll say the best person I ever worked for as a manager was awesome. He had a model and he would say. His, his model as a manager which I clearly stole from him was just to think about carefully. If you were putting a team, he used to say I'm the coach. And he says I want you as Jody said earlier to be the quarterback I want you to go out there and be the quarterback of the team I want you to take the field and I want you guys to. It's on your team to win the game so to speak but he goes I don't want you to go on to the field. If I haven't done my homework as the coach to properly prepare you for success. And it was really a great model because he would say he'd say to me and he would do it to anybody that worked for me goes look, you got to tell me what do you need to be successful. You know we talked about what the assignment is what the role is what you're trying to get done. Now that we agree on those objectives and what your teams responsibilities are going to be. I need you to tell me what you need to be successful. And so it was that negotiation he would literally take his homework assignments and do them. So, when I think about the first 90 days of getting somebody onto a team if I'm a manager, I'm thinking about what do I want that person to accomplish. How am I going to set him up for success, the reverse of it is I'm the guy coming into a new team. I'm asking myself, I need to understand the team better, how I can help the team as a whole, not just try to learn new stuff which is but also understand, in a sense what I can bring to the team, how the team works, how do I learn to be a part of that team effectively. So I got challenges on both ends so Richard your thoughts. Yeah, I mean obviously we have a when we have a new we call them a new joiner, when we have a new joiner, we go through an orientation program. But then one of the things that we do very quickly as they come into the practice into the blockchain and multi party systems practice is we pair them up with a buddy. Because of the fact that you know we are a very large organization. We have I think the last number I saw 624,000 employees globally. It's probably a low number it's probably higher than that. And so it's a big place and so we want to make sure that people have someone that can help them with the everyday questions that will naturally come up. But then the second thing is we get them working on stuff in this space, immediately, whether it be, you know, working on POV, or maybe we're doing so type of a point of view or, you know, proof of concept, maybe we're building up an asset. And, and I personally try to get them working on client deliverables as quickly as I possible again, because that's why they join a company like Accenture is to do that type of work with clients. Secondly, one of the things that we really encourage is, we talked about networking a moment ago to find jobs, well in a company with 600, 624,000 plus employees, you also have to network. So it's about networking within the company. Someone told me when I first got here is that there is an expert in everything at Accenture you just have to find them. And so that's really interesting words to kind of live by to make sure that you constantly are building up your network. And you rely upon that network to say, can you help me with this or do you know somebody that knows this to bring them in when we're trying to do solution for clients. And then lastly, you know, be inquisitive, listen, right, you have two ears in one mouth, so do it in that order, provide inputs and ideas. But focus on the client need is at the center of defining the approach and drive action so it's always focused on, you know, the objectives that we're trying to drive for a client. Yeah, great perspective because what I just heard, and it's maybe I'm slower than the average person, because I think I learned those lessons but it took me a while, is that you really, it's listen first and understand before you respond period, whether it be on my own internal team. In fact, when I used to talk to clients the thing that I always found fascinating was it's nothing to go into a client, and it has the president of the company say hey, help me understand with your team what you're trying to do. Right, help, and then help me understand how you think you want to get there. Those are more normal questions in fact usually they'll offer those up right away saying hey Jim, you know I want you to partner with us help us do it. The thing that's always interesting, if you really want to get somewhere is try to understand the history of the team you're looking at whether it be an internal team, or an external team, every team that's been around has successes and failures in their backlog so to speak. And if you listen to what their goal is, and you understand a little bit more about their history, you probably have a better probability of being successful in helping shape the strategy to move forward. So, I like to focus on the client side, like I say, and I think Jody mentioned it before to enterprise teams if you're working internally for a company, you still have clients they're just internal they're not external. So, exactly right. Thanks, Jody, your perspective. I don't like going after Richard he says all the stuff. We only have 5000 employees. Yeah, you have about 2500 contractors, more or less but they're not included in some of our onboarding but we do have buddy system as well. And there are a lot of onboarding activities that happen for all new joiners. I must say I still remember mine quite, you know, quite nicely where I met everyone from security guards to people who spoke text languages that I've never heard of all in one day but to kind of give you a good flavor of who's going to be around in the environment that you have chosen for your workplace. But we do a variety of mentoring programs, both peer to peer, same level, different departments different areas. And we even have a reverse mentoring program at DTCC so you can be in a senior associate and mentor someone in the C-suite, because they need some help and some, you know, action so we're trying to even the playing field and allow people to meet as often as possible. Plus we rely on my department and the ERGs we do a variety of different programs, voices of inclusion different issues that are going on from burnout to, you know, Black Lives Matter, depending on the topic of the of the moment and the day to just get people connected and as Richard was saying networked within a network that you have access to everyone's email but if you don't use it or there's someone you need to reach out to on team so getting people familiar with the tools that can help you do better at your job and do better as your as you develop your career. We have a whole bunch of resources I'm sure similar to Richard of, you know, learning and development tools training executive presence anything that you'd want to learn, we have it's just, can you find it, and you need that buddy and other people to help you find that there's things now that I can't find or that I need that I know you have to eventually know who to go to to get something done. So that's kind of part of the puzzle and the fun in those first 90 days is yes, you're getting your work done. There's probably some mandatory things you need to learn for your company so we have a whole bunch of compliance stuff that you must go through. So it's getting you through that that first month is probably the toughest in terms of like you're eating from a fire holes of information of stuff that you possibly don't think you'll ever use. And it's kind of like going to college all over and then things even out in that next 30 days, and in that last of the 90 that that first quarter. You should really be ready set to go and execute on what your actual goals are, but not every manager is created equal. Sometimes you need more than the tools that we've given you so you can rely on the ERG's you can rely on HR BPs and other people, which are HR business partners to help you kind of navigate what else you might need so I always encourage people to work with an employee resource group. When you get to a new company, if they have them, or something similar that can help make a company, even as large as Richards, and as small as mine, a little bit smaller and really help you be successful and be noticed. That's actually great so I think it's not just you both have I'll call it the mentorship or the buddy programs to get me started which is great. But what I hear is you go beyond that so it's not like I'm joining this team yes I have a job yes. I'm just going to tell me what he wants for me, yes, but I'm actually going to wind up in a quote a buddy program to learn more how to be effective in this company, which is not just the assignment that I have, but it's more about. Let me help you understand what works what doesn't work kind of a thing. The other thing I think, and I'm thinking both your companies probably do it is that I see now things that are not always what I call work task related they're not task oriented I was going to a team for a square meeting or whatever it's going to be, but in many cases a lot of these companies now are saying wait a second we want to, in a sense have people think in a broader context. So as you both said, we have these tremendous resources, not just on your team but outside the team. And so we in a sense have to have an ongoing effort to try to continually educate people about those resources. I had my own stupid thought when I worked for IBM as a many thousands of years ago in the old IBM they had over 300,000 people they were big company and when I got a chance to move around and see different divisions of IBM. I found out they were doing the same thing over and over again for no good reason. And I thought my job the only job I really wanted at that point was to write a job description to the chairman says hey my only job is to travel around IBM and figure out what's redundant and let you know have lunch with you once a month and say hey look, we're being redundant we should reuse this work over and over instead of repeating it. And there's so there's an efficiency opportunity but there's also a benefit for everybody personally to have a better understanding of what those resources are within a company for sure. And certainly that even applies to clients when you're looking at a century as well. Drew your thoughts. It's different for permanent work. I don't like to ever overstep as far as the type of communication because I'm used to the consulting side of things where what I used to do. I mean before cove it would sit down with someone and their manager and go over just the things that sometimes aren't brought up that are basic, like if you're not available. Who can they report to for time cards things that we do. If you can approve it. Who can they go to who can we consult with what time do they need to be here what time do they need to be signed on if they're ever going to be running late what is the just a lot of things that I feel like are on set sometimes, and especially right now with cove it where a lot of remote work is becoming even more prevalent than it ever was before, and will continue to be that way. A communication plan has to be put in place. You can't leave things up for interpretation because that's when they go awry and the first 90 days like that's the maker break like you're going to find out if you want to be there, or if you want to be there for people and you need to give yourself a good chance to really figure it out if this makes sense from a rapport standpoint, do they follow do they take direction well standpoint, and just if this mesh as well with what you were short and long term desire is for that role, like you really have to set up a good communication plan and I'm always willing to help, just because sometimes people don't have that as part of the process seems like for the people that just spoke I mean they are great, but not everyone does. So you have to address those very what seem like basic things day one or day two just to make sure it's addressed. And then I always try to add certain time invites to the manager and the candidates calendar just to follow up with them check I try to have a relationship on both sides so they feel like they can confide in you to especially for contract work where sometimes maybe it's a hard to find skill set but this person isn't the right fit. If we feel like we're we're in the know and we want to help address these things as it's going on people will adjust they'll realize like listen, we want to make it work with one another it's much, it's much harder to fire someone or leave and find something that is to address the elephants in the room sometime about what isn't working or what should be addressed or hasn't been to that point and I feel like just basic communication alleviates some of that awkwardness sometimes are just having to let someone go. So it's basic but that's, that's one of the things that I've always tried to be true to to make sure that everyone's communicating even if they're, if they're not or if they don't want to you have to you have to be able to have those conversations at the same time so yeah it's I think it's great thing as a recruiter to say that I want to continue to have the touch points with both the hiring manager the team and the person I brought on to the team, and in fact to make sure that, at least for this minimal entry time but for the first three months that those kind of potential issues are being identified and ironed out. And to your point, it's a lot easier for Richard to talk to me to, in a sense, if I'm a new guy on his team to figure out in a sense how to change and your understanding of that can contribute the biggest thing is that, as you point out you can listen to Richard and Jody talk and it's the same with a lot of other companies to try to fill jobs is not cheap. It takes a lot of time, a lot of money, it's an expensive thing. And if you've hired poorly, and you in a sense can't, in a sense, get about the right fit. You have to work on that together and build the right fit it's an expensive thing to have to restart to refill those positions for sure. That's, I'll quote the worst case scenario is that you can't move forward with that so great perspective. So that's it on the set questions we have john. I'm going to pick on john carpenter who has been kind enough to look at the chat. And john. I want to ask you, are there questions. I covered a lot of ground with the three experts on the panel tonight. Do you have some specific things that are big issues that we haven't talked about that you can see. Oh, hold on. Bobby, yeah, go ahead. John gets to the q&a I just want to point out a resource for everybody. This is the learning materials working group wiki page, which is open to the public. Why I'm pointing it out is that we have bi weekly meetings and john and I are the chairs of the group, where if you come to the community, we will introduce you to the community of hyper ledger, we will get you pointed in the right direction for resources, and we will show you things our homepage has information on the giving chain project it has great resources here's that landscape tool I had showed you earlier. This is a resource for presentations that the special interest groups have done so if you're interested in our special interest groups, you can see what they are by clicking that group button down. Usually, it works. Because I'm on zoom it's not working, but it'll list all the special interest groups click on their homepage read about what they're doing. Please boy or this website we want you to look we want you to read we want you to take. All the information is right on the front. Here are a library of resources from all the projects use cases key terms. We list the meetups that are happening during the week. Current affairs great new projects that are coming out we give you links to test them. You can play with mini fabric and there's a whole resource. But one of the things at the bottom of this page always are those links to those education programs everybody was asking about in the chat. So if you want to take a beginner class again all of these classes are offered through the Linux Foundation and edX. If you want to get a certification in these classes, all you have to do is pay for the exam. All the classes are free. Nothing is stopping you from getting this education. And again consensus Academy offers the same thing because we like to say it hyper ledger, we're peanut butter and consensus is the jelly. So go learn about base to learn about our connectors were working very closely with them. Thanks to their educational programs. So again, please take down its wiki dot hyper ledger dot org and just drop down these projects click on any of the projects. My groups isn't working. Not working, but I'll turn it over to john for the q&a. Before you jump over there, since you talked about the learning materials working group. What I'd like you to do is at least drop the URL for the group into the chat for us. Did that already. Oh, you did. I'll do it again. All right do it again. It doesn't hurt to repeat good things. And I'll say the same thing I was lucky tonight because I've had three great panelists that all brought different perspectives so I really can't thank each of you Richard, Jody and drew. Thanks for what you've added to our discussion tonight it's been a honestly very different very wonderful. I'll call it discussion panel because of what you each brought to the table that I haven't had before. So that said, if you guys want to drop links into what's going to happen this thing is being live streamed on YouTube, and we're going to wind up with you can go out to YouTube. We're going to post the link to the YouTube site as well on the hyper ledger stuff and BC employee so you can go see the video, but there are also the chat that we're doing as well if you've asked questions in the chat if you're looking at these links that will be in the chat as well. So, in a sense everybody who's attended will easily be able to follow up and get the information from this as well. So with that said, john let me turn it over to you and see if we've got a couple of key questions that haven't been answered that we want to close out Yeah, so I've been going through and really dealing with all the different questions that have come through the chat and I'm amazed at just a good volume of questions and engagement we've been getting in the chat. So I think some of the key takeaways that I've seen is basically one is a lot of re skilling. Basically, if we're looking at, you know, people that are coming into the blockchain space, they may have not had, you know, experience as a developer, or they may have had, you know, other experiences unrelated to blockchain. And how do they really engage and start to work with a company that's hiring. And knowing that they want to, you know, they're excited about wanting to engage with blockchain. I think that's one of the first key questions and maybe I'll just throw it out to the three panelists and see what are your thoughts around that. Yeah, anybody want to respond to john's. I'm taking that I think it's you have to realize you can't go back and change your career you're not going to be able to add years of experience other people have but you're going to start from beginning, whether it be some of the certifications and the class work that you can do that Bobby just brought up or one of the other courses that you can find online that give you this opportunity to not only add this to your skill set and your LinkedIn page and your resume but also learn about this Richard was bringing up like you want to be able to speak to this stuff do the homework. You have to if you're going to really just take the stand and show someone the one day you had an epiphany and you really wanted to make a transition in your career like you could show them that you're really passionate about it. Like, as long as you can add certain things whether it be education meetup groups, different things you've read interests like those are all things that people look for whether it be your personal profile your resume or even on social media, show that there's interest there and why they should take your call. And at that point it's all on you to prove to them that like you'd make a difference if you joined. Yeah, I was going to say he's really bright on on target at least you know if you're making a career shift. Most of the role open roles that we have our at the lower end of our house so we're looking for you know we have probably one to three years of experience roles are the majority are associates are analysts. Those roles are not requiring you to know everything and we would actually prefer you not, because then you, you know what you've learned you kind of can't unlearn right so there's other things there's going to be some basics that you need to know. But you know you can be young and starting out and still only one to three years of experience in this space you can also be making a career shift or a sector shift and having work experience and being in a work environment now that we are mostly remote, although going back to hybrid will be also a value, because they know that you know how to work right and then this is something new, we will continue any company who wants, they know that you're going to have to continuously train you. So you don't also be over certified like you want some certifications, but don't go crazy with those either that's just like applying to 20 jobs is having 20 certifications that you may or may not use. So choose the ones that are really going to serve you right well, and get you the furthest. Yeah, I would add. Yeah, go ahead Richard. Just to say, I would add embrace your experience. And so when I first joined Accenture I was looking across at my fridge and trying to figure out how it would order milk and pay for it. And the economics of things like debit cards just aren't really sought for those types of micro payments. So I started looking at Bitcoin, and I decided this was back in very late 2014 I would read everything I possibly could for a week on on Bitcoin and I realized halfway through the week that Bitcoin wasn't the innovation. It was blockchain. And fundamentally we had a completely different way to manage data across different parties. I when I made that epiphany I saw the use cases everywhere and literally said to my practice lead, we're starting to blockchain practice today, because it's going to change the world. So embrace your experience because if I didn't understand payments, I wouldn't have had that epiphany that day. You're right, you bring your experience and look at the new opportunity together and see what you come up with creatively. And Richard you both made the point earlier to that, like you said, Jody you don't want to be worried about becoming the best Python programmer that ever existed that's not the key. You said that and you're right. But the thing that's interesting is not only you carry in your experience not only carry in whatever homework you've done, I'll put on the new technology say yes, I can more than spell block chain at least I did some research on it. Other than that, the other side of the coin is also you both mentioned show some interest in a sense what the company is about what they're trying to do, what in a sense things they're focused on, even if you're not going to wind up under the team that you're talking about at least they'll realize that you did the homework and did the research to say hey, I didn't just read the job description of the DTCC I actually tried to understand what they're doing and see what the business is about as well. And as Richard said if you marry the two, you're probably going to come up with some creative ideas to put on the table at least that'll make sense in an interview process if nothing else. So, john anything else that you saw, I think the other thing that I thought was interesting is you know we talked a lot about great opportunities with all the companies for internships. And so I know you know that's active recruitment at the university level, but then I had quite a number of people that said, Well, you know I'm an older job applicant but I'm still interested in an internship. So maybe the group could talk a little bit about that. I want to speak to I know well it was focused on women, but at the I relaunch and society of women engineers, and now both have about a 10% male population it is for those who've had a break in their career for whatever reason so you can be early, but it is to also hold you back into the workforce. We have a non technical track which I guess no one here would be interested in, and then we have a technical track for the non technical it's 12 weeks that you get ongoing coaching along but you come you are in the workforce, but within those 12 weeks, we and you would decide whether or not you want to stay. So it's a blessing release so you might not like DTCC, although you just got all this training for 12 weeks and decide you don't want to stay. And we can also decide the same thing. But during that you are actually taking on a role to really work at our place and the advantage of being older or more seasoned is the fact that you've had some work experience versus a student who has, you know, lots of great skills and talents to but has not put it all into effort in the same vein. So we do have programs like that and we're not age discriminatory so you can still apply for a role as an older, more seasoned professional for something that might not be at the level that you are now in what you do to make that shift to tech. So that's the only opportunity in terms of this. We have a few other programs with year up and some others so definitely take a look at our website there's quite a few programs and ways to enter as a more seasoned professional as a fellow or intern if you want to call it back. Great Jody. So now I can tell everybody honestly, no I'm not 22 I'm not that young kid starting out as an intern. I can admit I'm a few years older than that. Now that I know that there's a possibility for older people in the workplace as well. And it's nice that there are different many paths to get in there as well. We're seasoned Jim. That's right. We're super seasoned right in my case. To the point that it's almost spicy. So other thing I'll just bring up that I think was a, you know, constant in the chat was around. What is the best way to really get your networking done in today's environment to engage with the blockchain space so maybe we can talk just a little bit about networking and avenues and channels that you think would be helpful. I've seen a ton of invites come to my LinkedIn just in the short time that I've been speaking here with each other. Help each other connect with one another. Every time you connect to someone like you're opening up your network to be able to do what just the example I've given before. Hey I'm applying to this job here. This person, we know one another is there any way we can set up a few minutes to talk to each other. Those are the things that stand out. You don't want to badger someone. And it's kind of like the same example that Jody was given about don't over certify yourself. Don't overdo it to try and get in front of them. But what's your elevator pitch? Like hey, here's a LinkedIn message. There's a reason it's 200 characters when you connect with someone. This is what we share in common. This is why I want to connect with you. Help yourself. It's a numbers game from a networking perspective. Don't overdo it, but be ready when you get that chance and you see that you applied to something or you're trying to work in a space that you've never done before. If you have a connection, utilize that. That's what this market is nowadays. It's different than it was even five years ago. I think also the fact that, you know, both with COVID and because of the fact that we're talking about technology, more and more of this is online. And so the ability to actually, you know, join a group for 15, 20 minutes in between a couple of calls that you have, it's far easier than it was, you know, two, three years ago, even where you had to, you know, he had to drive somewhere or you had to be at a conference. And so it was just a bigger investment in time and resources to be there. So I think it's easier to do that networking in this environment. You know, and then followed up with the LinkedIn invite that's personalized. Yeah, great point. There are many more ways to connect now and it's a lot easier, especially with the newer technologies that are matured than it was in the past. And, you know, it used to be, as you say, getting a car and go somewhere. And, and that even gets back into the whole, I'll quote pandemic impact on the rethinking the way we work together now. All of a sudden everybody goes, wait a minute, we've got to find better ways to connect faster. And we can't be going back to what I call the old travel models as much there's still reason to do that. The hybrid model is coming back, but it's not the same model that we had before it's at best a hybrid model in many cases at this point for sure. So, let me get anything else john that jumps out or have we hit the main topics that you know the panel did a wonderful job of addressing all the things that were in the chat just in the normal panel discussion. And I think there's really a lot of appreciation from the attendees for sharing the links. And also, you know, as you talked about being able to get in contact with you via LinkedIn. Or I know that Richard you shared Cynthia's information for connecting with Accenture there so that's all perfect stuff. And Jody thanks for sharing all your great links to because those were super helpful to the group. And I think we've really pretty much covered it Jim those were kind of just questions that weren't covered. All right well again I can't thank the panel enough you know Richard Jody drew you guys are fantastic. Obviously the audience is really appreciated tonight. Any last comment Richard on your end. I appreciate all the great questions in the discussion, please check out Accenture.com for blockchain reach out to our dedicated recruiter in the in the in this space Cynthia, and looking forward to hearing from y'all. Great. Thanks so much Jody. Any closing thoughts. Thank you guys are all clearly doing some networking by being here curiosity is being, you know, I guess answer. You come to some of the right places. Definitely, we do not have specific blockchain roles, I will say that, you know, completely differently, but a lot of our roles still feed into the same stuff and the skills are the same so we might be the place for you to start and maybe to go directly into blockchain elsewhere. But it is something that we do deal with, but it is not the breadth of our work so we, you know, protect the money with cyber AI and other things that are in the same space. If you go to our website, if you put in blockchain, you're not going to find a role there. But if you need some navigation, plenty of people will help. So, looking forward to anyone who's coming our way. And if it's not you and you're the elder and you have younger folks we do have great internships we're in the middle of our, you know, season now recruiting, we hope to give everyone a holiday gift and know by the end of this year, where they will be in the future. So, you know, get those in sooner than later. Like I said, the 300 roles that we have open love to fill them. So, great, awesome. Thank you, Jody drew any closing thoughts other than the fact that you got too many links now. Send more, please. Like, I was never going to be a physician or a doctor anything like I can't help people in that capacity but I love helping people find a job. It's a very big part of your life so if I can help you if you're connected with someone that I am. We have that mutual connection. Let me know. I'll try and help you where I can and I'll see if we can find something for you between our company or anywhere else like there's a lot of job out there's a lot of opportunity I would prefer this market any day of the week to any different kind it's piping hot and it's easy for me to grab the attention of a manager even for someone who's transitioning into a new line of work I just placed three college grads in the last 24 hours who are going to be doing some work that's going to add to their repertoire things that we were talking about build your skill set. Think about it as why would someone want to respond or why would someone want to hire you help yourself so help yourself send me a connection I added my LinkedIn public profile before, and I really enjoy this conversation panelists are great. I think I was in great company. And no, I would join us any other time you asked me to so thank you Jim. Well, thank you again to the panelists I want to thank everybody who attended tonight I saw that there was a high level of engagement, and hopefully you found it valuable, both in the presentation, and then it's going to help you afterward as well. Obviously this is going to be out on YouTube there will have a transcript out there as well. And then we already have, you'll get to look at the transcript seal the links that Bobby already had given you before the different ways to get started both on education experience you know in the giving chain and other volunteer projects if you're not already working in the space. So once again I want to thank everybody it's been a great great session tonight, and wish you all the best of luck, and you know we have two other series and the program coming up as well, session three and session four to follow this. So encourage you to come back for both of those. Bobby any closing thoughts on your end. Just thank you very much Jim you did an awesome job, and my look forward to the next meetup for this is more marketing yourself how to again put your best foot forward. Great. All right well I want to thank everyone tonight it's been a great time really enjoyed it and wish everybody the best of luck. So thank you and look forward to seeing you in the next session. Thanks Jim. Thanks everybody. Thanks everyone. Good night. Thank you.