 Okay, well, hello. I hope you're all there. I guess we can't really see if you're there or not, but we are going to get started and please feel free to ask any questions while we're presenting. We're happy to answer them live at the exact moment we're talking about it. So no concerns there. I am Lindsay Thorn and I'm the managing director of Vaco Seattle's technology team. We specialize in open source and pretty much anything that is a hard to find technical position. Also, open source has kind of been a passion of mine for, I don't know, since 2012 when I started doing this and Vaco is kind enough to let us continue in that space. And so in that same energy, I wanted to make sure that you knew that we are definite resources for anybody and happy to answer questions even after this presentation. Our email addresses are available on the screen and hopefully you can see that. And I will let Mary Kiprios introduce herself and tell you a little bit about her. It's my turn. So my name's Mary as Lindsay just mentioned. She invited me here because I have some experience on the internal recruiting side. So you kind of get the best of both worlds between the two of us. I started actually my career with Lindsay in the open source space at Greythorne and Vaco. Went inside to an open source company after that and I do have experience like Lindsay does setting up recruiting in EMEA and APJ. So hopefully we'll be able to answer all your questions. I just have to make sure I can change my screen around. Here we go. Okay, so a little bit about Vaco. Vaco is a global staffing company and just considering the fact that they are willing to let me do this on their dime, I like to give them a little bit of attention. We are nationwide. We're all over the U.S. We have quite a few offices in Canada. We also have two offices in India, one in London. So just so you know, we can help you in any area and we do manage services, staff augmentation. We have Focus Search, which is a retained partner. So we can pretty much help with any staffing need that you have no matter where you're at. Getting into the beginning, resume, resume, resume. The first thing we like to remind people and I know that it kind of sounds silly, but make sure you put your name and your contact information at the top of the resume. Quite a few times we would receive resumes from people that accidentally left off their email address or phone number and there was literally no way we could get in contact with them. So as silly as that sounds, make sure you have that on the resume. LinkedIn URL is often helpful. A lot of larger companies especially require that. So it's helpful to them. And if you have an active GitHub, definitely add it to your resume. Right there in itself, you're giving people the opportunity to see your ability to code. And most companies feel much more comfortable when they can see that technology as a whole is important to you. Anything to- I think all of those are very important. I cannot tell you the number of times it sounds silly to talk about phone number and email address. There have been a lot of times that I don't realize but that's not on the resume or in the application until like right as I'm handling something and then you have to go back forward. We mentioned it for a reason. So even though it sounds silly, double check. Professional summary, I think that it's pretty important to put kind of a summary of what you're hoping to find at the top and what you're strongest in. A lot of people like to put education and unless you're a new grad, I think that that kind of deters from your experience and what each company is really looking for in a resume. And before I say that, I'm going to add that as silly as some of these things sound. Just remember that most companies, you do not have a live person reviewing your resume and if you do, they're probably very junior and they're just looking for keywords. So some of the basics really are important when creating your resume. I was surprised because recruiting is my second career and some of the things you hear about like pulling keywords from the job description and putting them into your resume. I used to think, oh no, that's not a thing. It is. It was a little bit shocking to me. And I do think the most important thing to remember when talking about experience is I know that it makes you a stronger person to say we collaboratively did something. But a lot of companies or hiring managers get really anxious that that means you were just part of a team and maybe you didn't have your hands in it. So it is kind of important to just make sure that you really explain what you've done versus maybe what somebody else has done if that makes sense. Yeah, I would agree about that, especially in the interview process. I know we're talking about resumes here, but make sure to talk about what you did and not what we did. Yeah. Because a lot of times they just assume that if you didn't print anything there, or if you just said we, then it seems to be a little bit of an issue, I guess. This is the best way to explain it. What else did we want to talk about? Languages. Since this is in the EU, make sure that whatever language the job description is written in is the language that you write your resume in. Did you want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, there's two sides to this here. And I think part of it depends on the role, right? There are and the company. There are definitely some roles where there's a requirement for someone to be bilingual. And it can be or a company that's maybe based in a different country, right? And that's where they mainly conduct their language in. It can be really confusing as a recruiter to get a resume in a language that is not the language of either that they're kind of asking for as a native language in a way, or that they're asking for in terms of bilingual. This has happened to me a couple of times, especially all over the place, sending in a resume for a job that clearly says, let's say, I don't know, Spanish and English, right? And only getting it in Spanish with no mention of whether or not the person speaks English, right? There's a lot of times I've had to go into resumes and Google translate the word for English and then see if it's on their resume. And when it's not, it's not necessarily a total showstopper. I mean, I'll usually forward it to the hiring manager, right? Who's going to know. But when the job description specifically calls, you know, that out or calls out specific languages when they're not mentioned, I mean, now it's a matter of, okay, well, can we want to email this person to find out? We have these other 20 candidates who specifically say they speak the languages required. Just this, this is where it comes into, you know, taking into account what the job post says and making sure it reflects in your resume of important. Yeah, and keep in mind as you're putting your past experience on your resume, professional experience, it should be pretty brief, three to four bullet points. It's not as big of an issue in the EU as it is in the Americas. But the reality is most people want to see a resume that's two to three pages. Anything more is a little overkill, unless you're maybe like a data scientist that's trying to show off lots of patents or papers. But even in that case, I would suggest that you have two resumes, a long format and a short format. And I would always apply with the short format and say even maybe in your cover letter or in the comment section, longer resume available upon request. Yeah, and I will also point out when it comes to those professional summaries, make sure there are summaries. I've definitely gotten, you know, 17 resumes where the professional summary is a bullet pointed list that's a page and a half long, you know, at some point that's no longer a summary. And really, a lot of that stuff would probably speak better in the jobs themselves to kind of show what you did there. And somebody just asked in the comments if they could have the slides. Don't worry. We will work with the Linux Foundation to make sure that they are provided to everybody who is here or interested in having them. What other thing about the summary? I think it's good to first off, maybe tell a little bit about what the company does. Keep it to one sentence, because I know if you think about Google, you know what Google does. But if I just put Vaco on a resume, and you're reviewing it, you have no idea what Vaco is. And the likelihood that you're going to take the time to go and Google search what Vaco is, is slim to none. So maybe just a brief description about what the company actually does. And then make sure you're discussing what you did specifically. You know, if you're building a new database, spell it out. You know, if you actually, you might be coding in Java. Great. But tell them what you're coding in Java. And tell them what the project was. People want to know, have you shipped anything in production? Is that something you have experience with? Make sure that you are leaving that information on the resume so that they don't have to ask a lot of questions. Because like I said, it's going to be somebody really junior. And they're going to be looking for keywords. And if it's a resume aggregator that pulls it out, it only looks for keywords. It's not going to be able to read between the lines. So keep those things in mind. Yeah. And as we talk about professional experience, I would also keep in mind that not all professional experience has to do with companies, right? As we talk about open source, as we talk about participation in the community, I think it's very appropriate to put in any, you know, active open source projects that you can contribute on. Any presentations, talks, papers, patents, I think those are all relevant. You know, how you want to handle that, whether it's just within the professional experience part or in a, you know, a different section. It's kind of up to you. I don't necessarily have a preferred way to do that. As long as it doesn't look like you're holding multiple jobs at once. And I think if you're using open source and you're contributing to open source with your company, you should definitely call that out. But if you are just volunteering and contributing to open source outside of your company, I would still include that. Maybe just underneath the company in position, oh, I've been doing this open source project for four years. I've been at three different companies during that time, but I'm still contributing to open source. I would tell you once again, like GitHub, if they can see your code somewhere, if they can understand that you actually know what you're doing, you instantly move to the top of the pile. Is that fair? Yeah. I mean, it makes it faster to, you know, know the quality of your work, right? At that point, if the quality of your work is good, it's a matter of, you know, culture fit, right? Are you going to fit into the team? Another thing, and we're going to make sure we cover all of this in the next slide, but keep in mind only things that you know you can talk about in an interview. I know a lot of people go, well, you know, I'm an expert in Java and I'm an expert in Go, but I've also kind of worked and see a little bit after school. And yeah, I mean, I know my way around. If your interviewer is stronger at C, they're probably going to ask you questions about C. If you really haven't used that since university, I wouldn't necessarily be adding it at the very front of your resume. Yes, I've seen it, but I would call out the fact that, you know, maybe lower level understanding or it's been four years so that a lot of hiring managers will go, well, if it's on the resume, I'm going to ask them about it. How many times have we heard that? Yeah, I told you that his expert language was Python. Yeah, but he also had C on there, so I decided to ask him a C question. Okay. And she's right. It's not, we're not necessarily saying take it off, although if it's really like Microsoft Word to me on there, right, we don't know, definitely take that off. But find a way to distinguish, you know, the difference between, you know, I'm really good at these languages versus, you know, I've had experience with these languages in the past, but I'm rusty versus I'm interested in learning more about these languages. Yeah, yeah. Certifications, there's a spot on here. If you have given talks, if you do have papers, that's the area I would personally call it out in. Outside of open source contributions. So that I would list, especially if you've done it for multiple years, I would want that on my resume. But one thing I will tell people is if you've held different jobs at the same company, create the company and your time for the whole entire company at the top, and then call out the different positions. A lot of times people look too quickly and they'll think, Oh my goodness, this person has hopped around all over the place, because maybe they're still at Dell, but maybe they've held three different titles at Dell and the way that they wrote it makes it look like they've jumped three times in two years. And companies get really anxious about that. Same thing with acquisition. I've been through this a couple of times myself. I think it's fine to keep that separate, right? Because if you're required by a company, maybe the job you're doing is different. But in the new company and even in the old company, I usually do company name, fill in the blank, whatever you want to there, parentheses, acquired X company on the state, and then an X company where I'm talking about what my responsibilities were at the prior company. I usually again have parentheses acquired by X company, just so it's clear that that is an acquisition and not a job change. There's been a lot of times I've ruled someone's companies because you just kind of see it constantly and you're like, Oh, that company was acquired and then acquired again. And then, Oh, okay, well, they're, they survived all of that, right? But not a lot of people are gonna go check. So make sure you make it pretty clear on your resume and maybe even ask somebody, your friends with that doesn't know what jobs you've had, how it is interpreted by them. You know, just to see because you look at your resume so much, just like writing a paper, you know, you read it in your head and then you've missed words, but your head naturally puts them back in. How somebody that doesn't know exactly what you've done go, Okay, is this clear? What do you see? And that probably will help you a little bit. Anything else or should I move to the next slide? Um, well, we, we had two other things here, don't include a picture, like unless it's, it's really, really, really taboo, not to in, you know, the country that you're working and applying in. I see this a lot more in EMEA and in some areas of APJ. I would still not include picture. Um, just it's, it's unnecessary. Same thing with personal details, unless it's like really a, a, you know, requirement or expectation in some way, which I doubt it is. Yeah, unless it's called out in like the application process that you need to include that, I definitely would not be disclosing my marital status or children or birthday birthday. Yeah. You know, I know that the laws are a little different everywhere, but you don't necessarily want to give any information around that, that allows for discrimination. Well, or an unconscious bias, right? If we're telling somebody that you have two kids, you know, maybe they're concerned that work isn't as important to you. It's not really something they get to judge from your resume. So don't give them a reason to judge it. All right. I'm going to move to the next slide. I think I hope. Oh, yes. Yeah. And again, like Lindsay said, feel free to ask questions as we go to. Yeah. I'm really surprised there's no questions yet, but it's okay. I'll get over it. All right. So debunking resume, this included GitHub link. I can't emphasize this enough. If you have an active GitHub, please include it. It just it provides so much detail. What do you think about Stack Overflow? Oh, that's a lot of questions on that. Yeah. I think if you have a good representation of yourself in a certain environment, people aren't particular about what the environment is, but make sure it's relevant to the job. Okay. I'm trying to think of an example, but nothing's coming to mind. Well, I was too. I think we discussed this already, but utilize one to three pages depending on experience. I would keep it to one if you're a new grad. I might be different on this, and you'll have to tell me if you see it differently. But from a staffing agency perspective, if I'm trying to help a new grad, I just want to know maybe where they've interned, when they graduated, what their major was, and relevant projects. But don't make it try to look like all of your projects were jobs. I feel like a lot of new grads do that, and we know you're a new grad. So it's okay to just have, hey, this is what I've done since I've been in school. That's perfectly fine. But I do think it's a little misleading if you make all of those projects look like separate jobs. Yeah. I'm trying to think if I see that very often. I definitely do see projects appearing in experience. Yeah, I would agree with that. And also, when it comes to school projects, you don't have to list every project. Maybe pick one or two that's either relevant to that job, or one or two that you're particularly passionate about, or maybe really led. So that you're not just when you get to that interview talking about, oh, a project you weren't really interested in. It doesn't really say a whole lot. Then it just kind of seems wishy-washy. Yeah, and if you've done a lot, I would tell you, take the top two that you're the most passionate about. I'm proud that you were involved in it. Because when you're asked about that, your enthusiasm is going to come through. And I think that sometimes people forget, like, companies want to know that you know the job, but they also want to make sure that you would be an enjoyable person to work with. And I think sometimes when we're in the interview process, we're not thinking about it from that perspective. And we're just trying to make sure that we get the technical questions correct. And sometimes then it comes across, I've had this a lot lately, so maybe it's really top of mind. But it comes across as like, oh, they're really hard to talk to. Or it felt really awkward. And I've heard all, and I'm like, they just for trying to think about their answer. But remember that they want to see how you would interact in a working environment too. So try to be, I guess, open. Yeah. And it's okay to like, I'm gonna say it's okay to think out loud, right? Because part, I would say part of what my companies have looked for in the interview process is also not necessarily the right answer, but how someone thinks, how someone collaborates. Because in our interview, trying to get the right answer, it's not how the real world works, right? So most people know that. And are really just trying to see how you solve problems and how you work. And before we move on, I will say one thing, if we use an idiom or an expression that is confusing, I know it's habit for us, just put it in the chat and we'll clarify. So there's a question now. How do I give a job description in a short resume? I'm working on quite a complex project. So just writing about what I work on won't give clarity and explaining it all won't look good for a short resume. Well, I guess here's what I would challenge about that is think about your hiring manager. This person's going to be an expert in your field. They probably will understand. It's probably the recruiting coordinator that wouldn't necessarily understand. So I would say if you can keep it to two sentences and make sure that you include a lot of the keywords that would get picked up. And keywords are usually technologies or certain languages or certain databases. Yeah, I mean, it could be more than two sentences, maybe. I don't know. It would depend on why you think it's complex. Because you don't need to describe step by step the whole project. So maybe it's focusing on a summary, like she said, because I will say hiring managers are still in the blank a lot because they'll read something and be like, oh no, this person definitely has experience in this and that. Like they couldn't without doing that, you know, that project. Like it's no way they could have done it. But also focus on maybe if there's a way to focus once you do that short summary, focusing on accomplishments or improvements that that project created, right? Did it change the runtime from two days to two hours, right? Some of those are going to be, I think, important too. And I would also add it like you have a specific question for you. It's perfectly fine to send Mary and I your adjusted resume and see if we can give you suggestions on what we would do to tailor it. We're happy to do that. I ended up doing that with about 60 heard people from our last talk. So I was really surprised people just started sending me their resume and they're like, what do you think about this? How can I change this? And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I got it. Yeah, that might be an easier one to see. Yeah. Kind of just depends on what you mean by complex. Fair. All right. There's another question. Let's see. How do we dismiss it? Oh, yeah, that big thing that says dismiss questions. I'm the one with the bad vision, right? Okay, Robert asks, is it better to tailor the resume to contain more relevant items that better match the job you're applying for? Or is it okay to just have a general resume? Well, how bad do you want the job? I see this from two different ways, right? If you are just creating a resume so that, hey, I have a job, but maybe I'd be open if somebody reached out to me, it was the perfect job. Sure, maybe keep that resume. But if you're really searching for a new job, and you don't take the time to tailor it to the job description, you're really shooting yourself in the foot. Because they could be using an applicant tracking system and ATS to collect the resumes that that system could be screening just purely for match on keywords. So keywords in the job description that match your resume. And it doesn't even get to the hiring manager until you've done that. The other scenario is, like I said, it's a junior coordinator that doesn't know, for instance, it's pretty obvious to people in technology that if you are working in Java, and you've never worked in like a Microsoft situation, they know that you know Linux, but a junior coordinator wouldn't necessarily know that. And so not having that in the job description could negatively affect you. And also, if in the job description, it calls that out, not having the two key words that can match up can also kind of hold you back. Yeah, and I think I have said this before, and there's a way to that the way I handle this is obviously you don't necessarily have the time, especially when you're actively searching to customize every single resume to a job. If there are particular things that you're interested in, I think it's fine to have a couple more tailored resumes, general resumes started that can more easily then be adjusted so you don't have quite as much work to do when you find that job. For example, when I was a writer, I had a resume that was writing focused, a resume that was editing focused, and a resume that was mixed writing and editing focused. And my responsibilities and what those resumes said didn't really change all that much, but the focus of the resume changed. So then I had those three base resumes, let's call them three general resumes. And then when I saw a writing job, I didn't necessarily have that much to edit in it other than looking at that job description, making those changes versus having that generic writing, editing resume, and then having to go back and change it up for writing. So if you have an open source resume and maybe a resume that's I don't know, more enterprise folks, fill in the blank on what that means to you. But I think it's okay to have that set up so that when you see that job, hopefully there's not quite, it only takes you a few minutes to make those changes for that job versus 20, 30 minutes. Yeah. And another thing that has come up recently for me when talking to candidates is, for instance, I have a candidate right now and he's been an engineer for 20 years. But the last three years he got a job in a very certain project that was not necessarily as enjoyable or as easy to kind of connect the dots between technology. So he was really concerned that this was going to push him out of finding an engineering job. And I was like, no, because look, your 15 years of engineering is going to surpass the fact that the last three years you've been working on this really niche project, especially if you don't want to stay in that really niche project. So I would even suggest, you know, maybe you have one resume for maybe you love C. If you love C, have a C focused resume for, you know, every job you come across that is primarily a C developer, or if you are passionate about distributed systems, make sure you have any distributed systems resume that really shows off how big of systems you work with and maybe really goes into some of the problems you've actually solved and been involved in in a real time manner. Does that hopefully that makes sense. And Robert, hopefully we answered your question and it wasn't too long winded. Let's see. The next thing on the slide include at least four bullet points, no more than six. Okay, let's let's keep it from being like one page per job. I know you probably did a lot. And I know that you're probably wanting to share that and show people. But let's just keep it to things that you know you're expert level or advanced in that you're really calling out. Let's see, we got another question. Should every section contain bullet points? Or we can write short sentences to explain our experience open source contributions and more. Well, like I said, I would do a sentence or two to explain the company. And then I would do three to four bullet points of your, I mean, the bullet points can be a full sentence. I'm okay with a mix. Yeah, I will say though, I'm in reading resumes. For example, a few months ago, I probably had to read like 100 HR resume. After a while, it's kind of easier to read bullet points versus, you know, massive, massive paragraphs, you know, once you read that many resumes. So I think a mix is fine. But I wouldn't say do all paragraphs and nothing else. It's just it's too much. Your brain kind of goes mushy after a while. Yeah, make it kind of easier to consume. Yeah, and I think that the key here is you want to give enough information that they want to talk to you. So you are not trying to tell them everything you've ever done. Because you just want to make sure that you catch their attention. And then in that first interview, you can kind of dive into more. If possible, hopefully we answered that question. If possible, demonstrate your growth. You know, let's say in your first job, you know, maybe you were only responsible for one siloed section of the business unit. If maybe in the next job you've progressed or you're working on four different platforms, you need to really kind of explain that so that they can see your ability to grow and increase your knowledge. That's that. Absolutely. Yeah, that comes up a lot, especially the more senior you get. Right. They want to see that you haven't been, you know, stagnant or content, right, that you're still learning and growing, especially if you're supposed to learn any language on that new job. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know why this just popped in my head, but keep in mind if you don't get too stuck on your title, for instance, if you only have four years of experience, but maybe you were a senior director because it was a small company, you wore a lot of hats. Great. I wouldn't necessarily print too high of titles on your resume unless you really feel strongly that you only want votes. And by that, I mean, if you were an engineer, but you held some senior title with a company, somebody might look at that and go there over qualified and not really dig into what you did. You disagree? I think you're right. I think that recruiters, though, don't put that much stock into title. Well, I think you and I as recruiters don't put that much stock into title. Hiring managers can, though. They can. And I think the problem is the titles don't really mean a whole lot, right? A director title at a 20-person startup, it's totally different than a director title at Oracle, right? So I get, her point is valid, though, and I get your point about making sure you focus on what you did in that job, right? Yeah, the title is, the title doesn't necessarily say what you did in that job. So also don't rely on, I think we don't rely on the title to show. Well, I think some people get pretty excited, especially when you're younger in your career, if they've been promoted in title, and they think that that's something to show off. And I don't disagree that it's not worth showing off. I just want people to think about if it applies to the job that they're trying to get. So I mean, if the position isn't maybe a senior level, but you're still wanting it, you might want to downplay. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, because they might think, they might not think you're overqualified for the job. So I don't necessarily, it always goes that route. They might think you're over the salary range. Well, yeah. They also might think like, I'm trying to think of a good example. Maybe it's like a director applying to a manager or like they might just think like, why do you want to do it in a sense of you're gonna like, are you, do you really want this job? Are you gonna be bored and unhappy and leave in six months? Like I think that, yeah, I get your point. But I will say if you've been in a company a while, well, I agree about the title thing. Um, you know, if you've been out of a company for 10 years, I do, I wonder what you think, think it makes sense to, you know, if you've got, had a lot of promotion in that time to make sure you, you know, separate those out and you don't have to separate them out into different jobs. Usually what I do, and if you go to my LinkedIn, I think it'll show it. I usually like, at Vaco when I was working with Lindsay, you know, I started, I think just as a technical recruiter and then maybe senior recruiter and then I became recruiting manager. So just under that company, when I put, you know, company total number of years and then normally you have the job title next, I usually would just put, you know, recruiting manager X years, X years, next line, senior recruiter, X years, X years. I do think in that case it's important though because that goes back to your previous point about it, then that shows growth versus, oh, I was at this location, you know, this company for 10 years, not that I was there for 10 years. And I like, was a senior recruiter. I would have kept her there for 10 years, but she didn't. But yeah, so I think that does help show that growth, right? But she's, yeah, titles, I don't know the best way to handle that though. Because you don't necessarily want to like leave the, the, your title off. Sorry, I'm trying to think if I've seen it done really well. I've seen some resumes where it says like, CTO in title, as it was a startup, and I was the first engineer, you know, things like that. So I have seen that done. And I do think it works for telling your story. You know, maybe you would never be a CTO of a 50 person company, but hey, you had a five person company and you were the strongest engineer, and you were making the technical decisions. Then, you know, CTO, or yeah, I like the CTO in title. I haven't seen that. That was good. I think, as you were talking, I also think that could be a good thing to address in your professional summary. And or, you know, maybe there's just a couple sentences about what you want to do next, right? Hey, you know, this is a small startup, you know, that's where you want to be, you want to be hands on, you want to be, you know, in the weeds. And maybe, frankly, that's not what they're looking for. You might be making an assumption there that could be looking for someone exactly like you. But that could be a place to address that too, in terms of why, you know, you're a VP somewhere and you're interested in, you know, me and the term. Yeah, absolutely. We mentioned this already. But unless you're a new grad, I would feature education at the last part of your resume. Because most people, most people don't care. They want to know what you've worked in, in production. They want to know what hands on experience you have. Yeah. And I don't, I don't know if there's as much of a thing in me, I can't remember. There wasn't necessarily hiring junior people there, but I wouldn't include any, any GVAs, unless they're really stellar. I did see an intern resume recently that was close to, you know, the highest GPA you can have in college, and they were in a collegiate sport. Oh, wow. That's awesome. And especially a couple years out, you know, definitely take it off. If you're five years out of college and you still have your GPA, take it off. Nobody cares. No. Let's see, include specific contributions and their impact. This is a big one. And I think it's really hard for people to think like this, but think about what your company was trying to accomplish and what part you made happen. If you weren't there, 100%, if you weren't there, they would have had to hire somebody else to do this part. You need to call it out and you need to really explain that this was your piece. Because a lot of times people just don't know like, okay, it sounds great, but what did they do? You know, sounds like they had an awesome team, but what were they working on specifically? So just try to keep that in mind. Definitely the impact achievement. Also the technology. Yes. Yeah, I know that there's, you know, the technology section at the bottom of your resume. But this has come up so many times throughout my career, definitely your career. You know, when you are describing a job and I don't know, throwing out, let's say I was, you know, building an application that, you know, I don't know, did something awesome. That sounds great. But building an application in Java, you know, with that system and acts like that last bullet point that says recap of the technologies used. Make sure you recap all the technologies that you were reusing because let's say in this role, you were using JavaScript, but you've been using JavaScript at the last four companies you've worked at and you think, I already mentioned it. Mention it every time because that shows that you're really knowing a certain skill at a bigger level. Yeah. And I think that that the other thing is if you, how can I explain this? So I think of like Hadoop, right? And lots of people print Hadoop on their resume. Great. But there's two different things here. Were you just creating information into Hadoop? Already set up instances? Or were you actually involved in creating that? It is a different skill set. And so a lot of times people just print the technology and they don't explain their involvement or, hey, I've used this framework. I have no idea how to write code in it, but I can copy and paste this framework into what we're doing with no issues at all. But I can make no changes to the code. Those are totally different. And I think it's very helpful to call that out. Again, assume the person reviewing your resume is not technical. Most often it is somebody who, you know, maybe this is their entry level job. And maybe they're not interested in technology at all. Maybe they're interested in HR. And they have no idea, you know, what Java is other than coffee. So keep those things in mind when you're creating your resume. As we mentioned before, show off open source contributions. I don't care if it's the Apache Foundation, it's the Linux Foundation. Make sure to show off what you've done. I don't think that there's any company out there or any open source foundation that people wouldn't respect. I can't think of one. So yeah, I've also never had that hurt someone on a resume. There. There. Totally never helped. Should we insert hobbies and achievement section or do companies only search for technical skills nowadays? Hobbies and achievements if they relate to the job description. And it's not saying that they don't care, but it's just bluff at some point. If you're trying to apply for a project manager role, and maybe in the past, you know, you've done some volunteer work for the Girl Scouts Association. Well, then I would print that because then it's important to try to understand I'm used to working with people in an environment where they're not being paid to participate. And for instance, I had a hiring manager tell me if somebody doesn't have any open source contributions, but they want to, they show off your volunteer work, because that shows them that you know how to work in an environment where it's all volunteer and you kind of have to work together as a team. Not everybody's good at that. Yeah, relevant is the key. Yeah. Yeah. Although I never really would have thought about the volunteer work and showing that. Yeah. And that's mostly like I said, if you don't have, if you're searching for a way to get into open source and you find a job that would let you do that, but you don't have any open source contributions already, then a hiring manager, I respect a lot in the open source world and told me, yeah, she always looks for volunteer work. The only other thing I would say to that is I understand the kind of want behind wanting to include hobbies. I mean, I think achievements are cool regardless. The resume is not going to show your personality no matter how much you try, right? That's for the interview process, right? You're connecting with people a few minutes before the actual interview starts as you talk to people already. That's kind of those places to make, I think, those connections unless going to relevance. That hobby is, I don't know, wind-sailing and you're applying to a tech company that's somehow creating some new fancy, you know, wind-sailing that's relevant. Yeah, if you're applying for a company that I don't know, let's say is a sports company and you've played that sport for the last 10 years of your life, you're definitely printed on the resume. Let's see the next question. I've got a lot of experience about community building and event organizing. Is it a good idea to include this in my technical resume? Absolutely. Absolutely, because the number one thing I think of when I hear that is, oh, that you could be perfect for an evangelist role. People want to know that you have community experience and that you're used to being involved in whether it's conferences, whether it's virtual conferences now. They want to know that you understand that ecosystem and that it's something you enjoy. Even outside of that, say it's an engineering position, I can't think of one company I've worked for or with that was closed off to their engineers, evangelists, recruiters, fill in the blank. They shouldn't go talk at conferences, they shouldn't do ads. It's free advertising. A lot of them want engineers and people who want to go do those things. So absolutely, I would. Yeah, and I also, maybe this isn't a popular thing to say, but there are some technologists out there that maybe aren't as great with the people skills. And so showing off that you've been involved in a lot of community building or event organizations, it shows that you might have those people skills more than somebody else's resume next to you that might be a little bit more heads down of a person. So I think it is definitely a selling point. Yeah, it's definitely fun. On the roll, frankly, there are a lot of people out there who don't have this technology. True. Met some recruiters. And provide reference testimonials. That piece is, look, if somebody gave you a reference, maybe they gave it on LinkedIn. And I'm just gonna come up with the perfect example for you because I don't think it has to be on your resume. But let's say the VP of engineering says Chad was the strongest Python engineer I've seen in the last 10 years. I would take that line, I would quote it on the resume under the job, and I would highlight that that was the VP of engineering at Splunk. Because I think that it does say a lot if somebody is going to speak on your behalf and willing to say something. Now, don't make the step up. And I also don't think you have to put it on there. I'm just saying that if you have some great references that you really want to show off, throw the best line in the reference on that job. Don't include the whole paragraph or let's say I just said, Oh, Lindsay's nice to work with. I mean, she's nice to work with. I don't know if like, when you would put Mary said she's nice to work with, you know, right, keep it to the impressive. Definitely true. You're very nice to work with. Oh, okay. That's not completely true, but we'll go with that. Okay. Please don't. Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo, whether you think so or not, they actually aid you. I would tell you, especially in technology, either you've created your own domain or use a Gmail. Because I just think that it's one of those things that I look at sometimes and think, how are you staying relevant if you're not using a newer system? And does that even show that that you really are interested in what the newest technologies are? And I know that it's not a deal breaker for everybody, but I will say that it's something that can be judged. And so to me, if it was me looking for a job, I would literally, you know, Lindsay, job search, add Gmail. I mean, I would take that over a lot of numbers. Oh, yeah. So let's see. There's another question. What type of tense grammar should we use in our resume so that the interviewers don't misunderstand? I'm going to let you run with that. I'm not sure if it fully matters. Stay in the same tense all the way through. So I will say, I think, I don't think I'd do that. If I think on my resume, I think my gut reaction if I were writing my resume to put my current job in the present tense and everything else in past tense. But to be honest, I've never considered it one way or another when looking at a resume. Yeah. So I would say either keep it in the same tense or only include the current job in present tense. Definitely. Yeah. I guess I find it weird when some of it's in present tense and some of it's in past tense, only when the present tense doesn't involve the current job. Like, they forgot to update that. Yeah. And I just assume that's because I'm a next editor. Like, I don't actually hold it against that one. I don't think I've ever had a hiring manager comment. Have you? I've found weird things that hiring managers decide to pick apart on resumes. Okay. How do we ask our peer for a LinkedIn referral? On LinkedIn. Oh. I would literally, I mean, I think both peers and managers, especially if you have a good relationship, it's perfectly acceptable to, if you're working with them and talk to them, hey, I'm trying to build up my network. Would you be willing to write a reference about me? And then it's as easy as sending the LinkedIn request, but I would make it personal and at least ask them in person instead of just through LinkedIn or send them an email. I've done that before. Hey, Sarah, it's really awesome that we've worked together for so long. Any way you'd be willing to write a reference for me? Absolutely, Lindsay. You know, so, so those type of things, I just, I would lean away from just sending out the reference requests without talking to somebody. Yeah, I don't, you shouldn't do what I do, which is I don't, I don't, because I really would prefer not to be on LinkedIn as much as I have to be on LinkedIn. So like going on LinkedIn at any other time that I don't have to be on it. Now, I do have a question for you. Do you think that asking your manager or a colleague for a rough, a referral on LinkedIn would, do you think that that colleague or manager would think, oh, they must, you know, be gearing up for a job change? I'm just throwing it out there because I don't know, I'm trying to decide like, so like how maybe, maybe this is literally like, how would you approach that? Well, I guess I'm one of those people that would look at it from a different standpoint. And that's probably because I've been recruiting for so long. And I would make the argument that I'm just trying to keep my electronic version of my career up to date. And I know that if it's four years down the road, you're not going to remember all the things that you liked about working with me as much as you are when we're still working together. So maybe I would even explain that to a manager, like, hey, it's really important to me that I keep my, my LinkedIn page up to date. You know, you just gave me, maybe they just presented you with a great review. Would you be willing to write a short reference on me on the LinkedIn page? And I think, or you, yeah, send an email and request, like, would you be willing to write a letter of recommendation? And that's always something that you can refer to in your email, you know, references upon request and those types. Yeah. And you know what, you can always, here's the thing, LinkedIn isn't only providing finding jobs to you now about it, right? I've gotten connected into Meetups via LinkedIn. I'm sure we found clients on LinkedIn. We've gotten connected into the open source community on LinkedIn, right? So LinkedIn is also a method for getting invited places. So it could be that. I'm personally fine with you throwing us under the bus and saying, Hey, I was like, you know, at the Linux conference, and I hear it's really important to make sure, you know, where we have referrals on LinkedIn and to do it live versus waiting to do it 10 years later. Would you be willing? Yeah, it totally throws under the bus and you can even reference the link to the talk and even prove that you're not making it up. Yeah. Fair. Let's see. Let's stay connected. Consistent with fonts and font sizes. Don't make them super small so you can cram in more information. They don't need to be super big either. Make sure it's aesthetically pleasing. Or just, you know, not bad or not like she's right, not even just on the fonts, but also making sure that it is consistent, the style that's what it is. You know, I've seen resumes that use, you know, the pool of points that are hollow or the solid bullet points or use different fonts. And it's mainly because I think, you know, you take an old resume and you're updating it to add the new stuff. And then, you know, five years later, you're updating again, and you don't necessarily notice that you did something different before. I mean, I just corrected that earlier this year for a friend, you know, who I've known for like 10 years. And I was like, what, why are these two different styles in the beginning of your career and now, now? So like when you're updating your resume, review the whole resume. Right. I'll just update that one part. There. Yeah, but they don't like that. Hiring manage. It's an attention to detail thing more so than I would say spelling. Well, yes, don't forget to spell check. I feel like I just went on that. Okay. So I'm going to tell you both things are critical. And that's because I can't tell you how many hiring managers tell me like, no, the most important part of this job is having a high attention to detail. So they couldn't use spell check before they sent me their resume. I'm not interested. Or, you know, if they're not noticing that there's four different fonts on their resume, I'll pass. I know it sounds really difficult with some hiring managers or that specific. Yeah, I don't like it though. I didn't always mean when they get that. I mean, the font and the style thing, yes, you misspell one word. Like, I don't know if I would want to work for that hiring manager as a manager, right? I mean, we're still human. Now I did get one resume that literally had probably 40 misspelled words. Totally different situation. That was not good. So I said that you can print like your favorite lines from referrals on your resume, which you can. And you also don't have to. You can say references available upon request. But please stop printing the names and contact information of your professional references on your resume. I'm going to tell you a trade secret that is going to make recruiters sound awful. And some of them are, but we're all not awful. A lot of people will just reach out to those folks. Maybe they need somebody at that level and hey, Mary, I came across your information yesterday from a friend that worked with you and said great things. Is there any way that you would want to talk about a senior director position? Is that even something that would be open to you? And then all of a sudden, you know, Mary has no idea how I got her information and I'm faking it, but I stole it from your resume. Is that fair? I mean, I just wouldn't put it in general. Also, I wouldn't even bother with the references available upon request. Yeah. Personally, I mean, I think that's a standard. If they're interested, they'll ask you your references or not depending on their process. Yeah, I agree. Do not do not lose track of where you have applied or been submitted to. I can't tell you how many times we'll see a hiring manager that goes, oh, this person looks great. And then you've got some candidate that goes, oh, I have no idea. I didn't know that I applied there. And then you'll have hiring managers that go, how do you have no idea if you applied at a company? So if you're in a super hard job search, keep an Excel spreadsheet, know where you applied. And it'll help your recruiter too. If they're trying to help you find positions and they want to know, hey, tell me where you've applied. If you've applied at 40 companies and you just have a list that you could send to them, that's saving me so much extra work of submitting you somewhere and then just being told like they already applied here. Yeah, it's awkward. It reflects awkwardly on the recruiter, it reflects awkwardly on the candidates because, you know, the candidate maybe should have told the recruiter or the recruiter should have been, it's just it's awkward. Yeah, keep a list. Also, just so you don't like apply for the same role over and over and over again, like every week, that too. Because it does, you kind of start forgetting where you applied or whether it's a new job. So yeah, just keep a list. Yeah. When you talked about this a little before, but don't include skills that you're not confident in. Just make sure whatever is on your resume is something you would be comfortable speaking to in an interview. I think it's just that simple. And as we already said, don't include a headshot. It's just weird. And it also allows once again for unconscious bias. And as like we can connect that back to LinkedIn, like I think it's fine to have a picture on LinkedIn and I don't think it has to be a professional headshot, but it should also not be a, you know, a picture you would include on your Tinder or your Facebook. It should still, you know, be a good picture. I do think that it should somewhat show off your personality if you're comfortable with that. And if you, and I can go back to the slide that has our two LinkedIn pictures from the front. But for me, it was actually a picture at a restaurant where you could see all my tattoos because I wanted people to know that about me. Just because I feel like it's more approachable and more acceptable in the tech environment. So I do think that that's okay. But I mean, mine is the headshot that our marketing person took years ago. And frankly, I really needed to update it because that was like six years ago. Also, for some reason, people think I'm really short when they look at me. Yeah, I get that all the time. I don't know. I think because it's pointed downward. Anyways, also, I'm mainly just lazy. And, you know, my hair was done and it looked nice. But I really need to one day update that. There. All right. Should we exclude jargons and short forms and experience an educational section of our resume? I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by jargons. If you can give any more detail. I mean, I think if it's a technical resume and it's a technical, like, short word, you know what I mean? Yeah. Here's what I say. Not everyone who looks at your resume or on your interview panel is necessarily going to be technical or technical on the same job as you, right? Some engineers still, you know, meet with someone in marketing or someone in sales, you know, because you're trying to get that cross functional abilities there. So if it's really jargony jargon, I know I just said that, but just keep in mind that not everyone that you're going to interview with is necessarily going to be technical or going to be technical in the field that includes that jargon. So, you know, right now I'm working in a fintech company and, wow, there's a lot more jargon than I knew, right? If I were interviewing there or interviewing someone somewhere else and included a lot of that fintech jargon, they might not know what I was talking about, right? It might not be relevant. So, you know, keep it, just keep that in mind when you're thinking about it. Yeah, unless you want to add in, unless we didn't hit your question. How do you react to those, to those resumes sent in by folks that say, for example, dyslexic or, or has an expert at ADHD or blind or has hearing disability? So, you can really read that out loud. Oh, sorry. Do you want to read it? Yeah, so the question is basically asking, you know, how do you react to resumes, sent in by folks that could be dyslexic, could have a disability like Aspergers or ADHD, could be blind or hearing disability? This is a big one. Do you want to go with one? Yeah, I got this. Here's what I would tell you. I don't think, I mean, maybe we should ask Evie just to make sure, but I don't think that it's required in the EU to disclose that on a resume, is it? I mean, it's not required in the US either. Right, but that's what I mean. And I'm going to give you an example. I have multiple sclerosis. So, I have brain fatigue. I walk with a cane sometimes and I have trouble speaking later in the day. I would never tell a future employer that on a resume. Once I started the interview process, if I needed accommodations, I would, I would make sure to bring that up. For instance, in my current job, even though I'm in the Pacific time zone, I start work at 5 a.m. and I stop working at 3 p.m. So, I work very East Coast hours for being on the West Coast. And that's because I don't do as well with my word functions later in the day. And I had told my employer that before I started. So, I did not have it on my resume, but I did disclose it. And keep in mind that when you're filling out applications, it does ask if you have a disability that you need accommodations for. No, it should. Well, it's not always required on the country. I would make sure in the interview process that you definitely disclose anything that you need an accommodation for. If it is a disability that you don't need an accommodation for, don't worry about it. But if they say, let's say they've advertised the role as remote and then they say, but we really want you to come into the office once a week, once, you know, we get to that point. If that's not a possibility, if maybe because maybe you are blind and maybe you don't drive, then definitely disclose that. Like, I am great. I have worked remote for 20 years, but I am not going to be able to come into the office because that's not conducive to my life. You don't necessarily disclose it on the resume. No, no, no, not on the resume. I don't think it should be disclosed on the resume whatsoever. I just think that you can get yourself into situations if you don't disclose it before the point of offer. Well, yeah, and depending on the disability, you might need to disclose it sooner. I have three thoughts on this. First of all, to your point about if it's a disability that, you know, doesn't affect anything, like I have ADHD, it's not something I ever disclose even during the interview process. Sometimes I bring it up later as I'm working with hiring managers just because my thoughts can go like crazy and a mile a minute. I think sometimes they struggle to figure out what I'm saying. And I have had this come up in two different situations. I remember there was one time where we did have someone say, I think they were low vision. And it was a remote interviewing and we had to make some accommodations and it was fine. And, you know, we did have to look at, okay, if we were going to make an offer to this person, you know, tell us now what do we need to make this work. And then I had another situation in which someone required accommodation but didn't tell us. And it was a really, they didn't go well because of it. And it wasn't until after the fact that they told us, well, you know, I was expecting to have this and this and this, you know, have a monitor set up to go with the technical energy in the office. We didn't know. Yeah. So come back and we'll get you those things right if you need those things. But, you know, we can only work with the information to give us. So if you do have something definitely I would I would disclose it during the interview. I am getting better at. I think the new recommendation is especially as the world moves through mode. I'm going to change our onsite or just interview confirmations to include specifically calling out if you need an accommodation. Let us know. Yeah, that makes sense. And let's see, we've got about 15 minutes left. So if you have any other questions, make sure to get them in the chat. All right. So a few things I want to point out from this slide. We have a resume templates at the VAKO website. So feel free to find that the webpage VAKO is very well advertised. And you can find multiple resume templates, whether a county in finance, whether it's technology, they're on that website to help you work with a recruiter. I know that here I'm saying, yeah, we can help you find a good recruiter. But if you're job searching, there's no reason to go at it alone. It's free. It's intimidating. It's overwhelming. Working with somebody that does that every day. They know exactly how hard it is. And they know what they can help you with. So keep those things in mind. And keep in mind that there are bad recruiters. And it's okay to make sure that this recruiter is right for you. I think it's also okay to be honest and say, I'm not comfortable with you representing me. If you start talking to a recruiter and you don't want them to be sharing your resume, you don't feel like they understand what you're looking for. You feel like they're going to misrepresent you. It's okay to tell them that you are not comfortable with them representing you. And thank you very much. Before we get to this question, one, also limit how many recruiters you are. One or two. And B, Lindsay, how would you interview a recruiter? How would you decide on what recruiter to work for if you went and started a job? There's a few things I would look at. How well do they know the space I want to go into? Is this, am I explaining everything to them? Remember, I don't have a computer science degree. But I've also been working in open source now for nine years. So I'm not going to know everything about technology like you do, but I understand how things work together. If somebody doesn't know at all, it's okay to be afraid. Like, that's perfectly acceptable. I do think it's important to make sure there's a connection that you trust them and that you feel like they have your best interest in mind. And I do personally think that it's really important to find just one person, maybe two. For instance, when I'm working with a candidate, if there's companies they're interested in, I say, just tell me if you haven't applied. If I have a connection there, I'm going to let you know. If I don't have a connection there and you can find a connection from somebody else in your network, absolutely go for it. But if I'm not going to be able to help you, then I'm going to tell you to apply directly and I'm going to help you figure out the best way to get their attention. So any recruiter who's good at what they do should want to help you whether they're getting credit for it or not. It's just that simple. Also on the VACO webpage, we have professional development blogs, kind of on how to prep for your interviews, different things to think about that maybe don't normally cross your mind if you're not professionally interviewing all the time. And I'm really sure we're the only ones that do that. And there's also a podcast series on the site. Does our work experience always outweigh our educational background? Yes, for the most part. And let me expand on that just a bit. Let's say you're a PhD data scientist and that's a lot of school. And the school you go to is very relevant and important for that position. But at the same time, they still want to know what you've done with it. So like, I might be really proud of it. And I might want to show it off. But I would still print my actual professional experience where I've utilized it above an education. I would say education is just a facet, right? I am and Lindsay and I have a lot of friends who, for example, have PhDs who work in industry as data scientists. That PhD was a gateway, but it's not particularly relevant anymore unless for some reason they're going to work at a national lab or something. And frankly, there aren't that many jobs that I think require necessarily a degree, right? There are plenty of self-taught engineers. I mean, I'm not saying that a degree is. Yeah, if you have a degree, definitely credit on your resume. But I would not credit as the focal point unless you're a new grad. Yeah, it's a facet, but it's certainly not going to make up for something else that's lacking in your resume necessarily. Yeah, it's a piece. So let's see. Any other questions? Because we're kind of done and there's only, well, there's 10 minutes left. So there's any specific questions you have, let us know. Otherwise, we'll try to think of anything else. Maybe we didn't mention what we have on our list. I feel like there was something important when we talked about last time. Now I can't remember what that important thing was. Dang it. I know. I'm really not good at thinking on spot. It should be. I would say be yourself though. If you get a first interview, please make sure that you act like you. Because you're also, I don't want you to think about it in a way where you're so full of yourself that you're not aware that they're the ones offering you a job. That you're also interviewing them at the same time to make sure it's an organization where you would feel comfortable and where you would be successful. Nobody wants to be miserable in their job. And if you're not yourself during those interviews, you know, there's no way to know whether you would get along with that company. I still remember your story about interviewing here and you kind of came into the interview room and I think you had a moment of, wait, am I being myself? And I remember you telling you rolled up your sleeves and put your tattoos like on the table just to make sure. Yeah. And that's, I always think about that now because then I think about my ratio. That was important to her. I still want to wear a jacket all day and it was part of her personality. Same thing in terms of how you communicate, how you solve problems. It can be frustrating because you can. I've had friends who have gotten feedback that they were messy thinkers and that's one reason they didn't get the job. And that's frustrating especially if you're looking for a job. But at the same time, I always kind of think of it as like, well, is that really going to be a good company for you? Especially if they care about that. So yeah, stop sharing. So they're going to see us. So definitely I think it's important to be yourself as much as possible. Yeah, absolutely. Don't be inappropriate. It's still a job. But yeah, I mean, you have to want a life where you're working, right? And it's okay to be concerned with that. Maybe we should talk about how to express when you've been laid off since there is COVID. And I know that there's been a lot of people that have had certain situations come up where maybe they've never had to hunt for a job. Maybe they were just laid off and this is very overwhelming. Do you have any advice for those people? Putting me on the spot? Yes. I can jump in. I think it's being honest to a point to say, right? I think you can be honest about what happened or maybe why it wasn't the best fit. But I still wouldn't trash talk employers. Like for example, if you didn't get along with the manager, you didn't have the best manager relationship or the manager relationship is not one that you wanted. I think it's fine to say what you're looking for that you was different from before. I guess that might be important to you. I work with candidates where the manager and the manager style is incredibly important in their job search. So I think that would be the way to do it. I mean, I think in COVID world, from that standpoint, that's kind of a given. Yeah. And I also think just on that note, I have a really great candidate that I happen to be working with right now. And he's been at the same company for 14 years. And it's been acquired two times. And both the acquisitions have been quite messy. And I think he was a founding member of the first company. But I think he stayed because it was comfortable. And he liked what he was doing. But at the same time, it had run its course. And he was feeling really frustrated, stagnant. Every word you can think of. And so he got all the way through the interview process. In the final round, he made so many comments referring to, well, I was there for 14 years, probably should have only been three. But then it scared the hiring manager and the team, because they thought, does he not like his job? Just trying to understand why people think things and say the things that they're thinking. You might think that and share that with your spouse or significant other. But I wouldn't suggest sharing those random thoughts with somebody in an interview process. And I wouldn't cover it multiple times unless you're specifically asked. Like I would cover it with every interviewer. Yeah, I don't think, you know, most interviewers are going to talk to each other. So if you've told one person in the interview panel, like, yes, you know, it's just time to look for something new, I've been here so long, I'm no longer being challenged. But it's, it's just not, it's not something you should bring up in every interview unless it's specifically asked, because then it just sounds like you're kind of being negative about the job. Let's talk about gaps. Gaps and employment. The big one. You take it. Oh, okay. I think, you know, you need to be really honest. It is perfectly okay to take a sabbatical. Most companies are very comfortable with that. But then call it out on your resume. Let's say you decided to take a year sabbatical. Great. But I would say, you know, in between Google and Facebook, you know, that year gap was because I decided to take a year sabbatical and go study in Europe. You know, maybe, maybe that's not what you decided to do. Like be honest, but like I decided to take a year off to spend with family or my grandmother was ailing. I had this yesterday. A gentleman I was talking to had a great job. They were doing layoffs for COVID. He was going to get to keep his job and they were going to lay off his counterpart and he found out. And so he went to the CEO and said, you know what, keep Brad. Brad has two kids and a spouse. He needs this job. My grandmother sick. I should really go take care of her. And that was an awesome thing to do. But I would definitely call that out. You know, volunteer, volunteered layoff to, you know, to save somebody's job so that I could go take care of an ailing grandparent. And you don't have to be super detailed on the resume about the gap. I mean, I would make it clear. I think it's it's better if you took a year off to put year off sabbatical, whether or not you were taking, you know, care someone or whatever, whatever you want to, you don't have to put that much. But at least it's for me, I prefer to have it addressed rather than wonder, like, if you what happened in that year. And I think on the call, if they asked about it, then you can offer whatever you're comfortable with. But yeah, I've had this come up to you. I had a candidate who is, you know, at a full time job a few months, and then left into the contract for probably a year or so. And that was a red flag, like why would you leave a full time job for a contract for the hiring manager and dug into it and found that, you know, the person's, you know, mom was was dying and he they found it too stressful to have a full time job and, you know, really just wanted a contract position where, you know, they didn't have to worry about goals, they didn't have to worry about, you know, just getting your job done. Yes. Come in eight hours, do your job, go home, be done, perfect. They just couldn't, you know, couldn't and they thought it's totally valid. Right. So yeah. And it also, if you decide to take a contract job, I don't think that it's a red flag. I just think you need to be able to tell the story. Why did you decide to, could you not find a full term job? Were you really passionate about, like some sort of project? And this was going to give you an opportunity to learn more about it. And now you want to get back into a full time job, like if you're always a serial contractor, that's fine. They're never going to ask you, because they're just going to be looking at you for contract jobs. But if you want to be a full time employee, and you happen to take two contracts, you should be able to at least explain that in a story or be prepared to explain it for an interview. So well, there's no other questions. And we've got three minutes. So I think we'll see if anything pops up and then probably wrap this up. Thank you all for joining us. And we really appreciated it. And thanks for the great questions. We were a little nervous. The last talk we did was in the US. And they said 90 minutes. And we went, what are we going to talk about for 90 minutes? And then there were so many questions that it really flowed. And we were really excited about it. And so today was just as good. And we really appreciate that. Yeah, it's actually fun. And it feels better, right? Because you're going to have specific questions dealing with it. And I think a lot of people don't get the opportunity to ask recruiters. So yeah, it's fun. And please feel free to email both of us. We are on LinkedIn. We are always available. And happy to help. But thank you so much for joining. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your evening. All right, bye. Well, no, I have to take a bit out of the room. Go for it.