 Welcome to Career Hacking Village. My name is Kathleen Smith. I'm one of the village team members. We're so happy that we finally have been able to bring a Career Hacking Village to DEF CON. As we know, many of us are looking for a job. And by recent studies, there were over 43% of people said they did not know how to find a job. So I'm very thankful to invite Kirsten Renner as one of the best recruiters in our community to sort of share some of the best practices, especially now. Please remember that we'll be doing discussion in Discord. We also have resume review and career coaching going on from 10 to 1,700 on Friday and 12 to 1,600 on Saturday. So without further ado, Kirsten. Hello, DEF CON. I know that we all wish we were in Vegas right now, but let's make the best of this. This is actually the first summer in 11 years that I am not there doing summer camp. I know that for a lot of you, it's 20 or more years. So this is crazy, but let's get through it and make the best of it. So this is my talk, but I still need a job. So this will be a conversation for the active candidates and also, and mostly probably, for the passive candidates as well. So I'm going to also offer the perspective of how this can be helpful not just for candidates, but if you are trying to fill a job or if you have in the past, if you will in the future, this is going to be relevant to you too, and here's why. Think about how this is going to offer to you, noticing what are the challenges that candidates are facing so that you can help make things better for them. So we will go through initially what's new in our current times. Although I will say we're so far into this that we're probably all sort of getting to the point of being an expert at all the new things that we have to deal with, but I will touch upon them quickly. I will go through some tips. One thing that I want to do differently is show you how to hopefully take advantage of and use to your advantage, how the new circumstances can actually have a positive twist for you as well, and then we will go through what I like to call the fundamentals, the things that all candidates face and talk about on a regular basis. So who am I? As Kathleen mentioned, I am Karsten Renner. I am the director of recruiting at Novena, an advanced analytics and cyber security firm. I'm a college shop out, started in software engineering, and then I went into IT. And how did that lead to recruiting? Well, when I was building help desks and managing them, that's my favorite part, was building the teams, finding the people to bring on to the teams. And so here I am 20 years later, random personal thing. I run ultras, okay, is there anything longer than a marathon? I've done about a dozen of them in the last 10 years, and I have a almost disturbing love for grand children. Also proud army mom as in the last week. So I'm going to talk to you from a few different perspectives. So I have seen and heard and read many intelligent individuals offering useful advice from their perspectives on how to best find a job in our community specifically. And they're coming from the perspective of having been a candidate or a hiring manager or in some cases a recruiter. So I just happen to have been all of those things. And I still am a couple of those things. So I'm hoping that I can take my 20-ish years of doing this and offer to you the things that I have seen definitely work and definitely not work and make those into tools that are going to work for you. So speaking of perspectives, the survey that you see on the screen is something that I put up on Twitter and LinkedIn. And any time you see a survey in my slides, that's where I got from. Otherwise I would have stated this source. So I feel like it was a few months ago I heard, and this is not an exact quote, but Alyssa Miller was talking about a survey that she had put out for a talk that she was doing. I believe at RSA, which she noted. And she said something along the lines of that there's a certain amount of responses that constitutes data, maybe that makes it scientific. So this is not that, this is not thousands or times of thousands of responses. This is probably hundreds of responses. This is just little snapshots. This is before I started to do or to put together the talks and missions that I was going to do for this year. I wanted my community, the people that I speak to, the people that I interact with in the community to tell me what they face the most. What are they looking at the most? What do they want me to focus on and talk about? So that was the purpose of these. So again, I was actually a little bit surprised when I was looking at this. Are you actively looking? Are you passively looking? Where are you coming from from a candidate's perspective? And I did get Dorkbader's permission to quote him. Apparently, when he responded to the survey, he responded with a comment that it was, it is really good. And I couldn't come up with a better way to say it. So I asked him if I could quote him to guess. It is really good career hygiene to always be at least kind of keeping your ears and eyes open. That's how we do this. And as a random side note, technically, I met the CEO of my current company when I was happily employed and had no interest in ever looking for another job ever again. I was going to retire from the job where I was. So I think that's just a really good testimony to why you should always keep your eyes open. And we met at the Mandalay Pool. So yeah, that's fun. OK, so things are kind of different now, aren't they? Interviews are happening differently. Everything's happening differently. So we're going to go pretty quickly through some of the tips and reminders. And I am Italian, so I will tell a funny story here. I find it funny. I'll probably laugh at myself as well. But before we go to the tip, I want you to know that one of the things that that I am very passionate about when it comes to recruiting and my everyone that works for me, all the recruiters that work for me will tell you, this is how business is done. You have to treat your candidates like they are the most important thing. The candidate experience is the basis upon which all the processes that I design and implement and analyze are based on the ideal candidate experience. So when I did an iteration of this presentation at B-Side San Antonio a few weeks ago, people on Discord were commenting while I was giving the presentation, as opposed to reporting it the way I am now. And they were shocked. They were shocked when I said that the recruiters should always make you feel like they are your advocate and they care about you. And this is about you, the candidate. It shouldn't be shocking to you. It upsets me that it is shocking. And we can make this better. So we together will make this better. Keep in mind that throughout your experience as a candidate, one thing that is really an advantage to you is that your future employer, which is everyone that you're interviewing with and everybody that you're talking to, is going to reveal to you in all likelihood what it will be like to work for them. I believe. Right in on the other hand, as a recruiter, the way that you're behaving as a candidate is going to give me a little view into what it's like to work with you. So let's be kind both ways. Let's be reasonable both ways. Again, keep in mind, if they aren't flexible, if they aren't accommodating, if they won't give you a break and let you be a human and meet you halfway, what's it going to be like to work there? So keep that in mind while you're facing challenges in our current environment. So let's just go through a couple of the pointers. I sense this is recorded. You can take a screenshot of this. You can save it. I won't read it all verbatim. However, test, test, test. I logged in eight minutes early for this recording. And guess what? I had to fix some things. Some things weren't working. So test your stuff, right? Test your camera, test your microphone, test everything. I will also tell, here's a funny story. When I was presenting at the Many Hats Club isolation con earlier this year, my first ever virtual presentation, by the way, I logged in to Green Room and Ray Redacted was there. And he said, let's test it out. Let's see. So many of us will have many iterations of our browsers open at one time with 10 or 15 tabs per browser at one time. Let me tell you something, close all that stuff. Close all the things. So many things can happen. My company is a Google shop. So if I had any of those Google windows open right now, while I'm trying to do this via Zoom, the camera's gonna get confused and it's gonna say, who's trying to use me and it's never gonna work, right? You may not even realize that some minimized window is stealing your camera up. So very important. Back to the Ray story. Don't just close the windows, close the document. When I shared my screen with him as a test, guess what the first thing that popped up on his screen? I couldn't see it. So a lot of us will have many monitors open at once as well. You don't know what you have minimized. You don't even remember. It was my credit report. I gave my Social Security Number date of birth credit report and credit explanation to a hacker just like that. So close all the things. So when I say close all the things, by the way, I get the song, hack all the things stuck in my head and then I sing close all the things. But I won't sing for you today. I'll go through a few more things. Look out for distractions. My dog right now is about a foot away from me. He's always about a foot away from me. If anything happens, he will start barking. Notice there's a glare on my glasses right now. So do as I say and not as I do. My dog's in the room. My glasses have a glare on them. But notice things like that. Notice what's going on in the background. If I were to take my screen down, you would see my bulletin board and it has a lot of interesting things on it and that would distract you. So if you're going for your virtual interview, just be reasonable and be aware of what could be distracting. I turned off all my phones, which, by the way, is hard for me because my son is at basic training and I'm trying to have my phone ready for any calls. But turn off all your phones. Turn off all the things. So be aware of noises that you make. Don't sip on your coffee. Just wait until it's over. That can sound really gross, especially if whoever's interviewing you has headphones on. If I start shifting the papers around on my desk, doesn't that sound shitty? Don't do that. Don't shift things around. Don't hold your pen in your hand like I am right now. Don't do what I'm doing. All right, another thing you can do. And actually, I'll give ready credit for this one too. I won't tell you what he called it. But look into the camera. So I personally am distracted right now because I can see myself. I can see my slide. I can see my notes. But try to look into the camera to make this more engaging. It stinks that I can't see all of you. I love you. I wish I could see your faces. But look into the camera. It makes you more engaging. OK, so one size does not fit all. What do I mean by that? In my upcoming slides, when I go through the fundamentals, I'm going to be mentioning to you what I think are going to be useful ways for you to be your own best advocate and be successful as a candidate. Are all the things going to fit all the people all the time surely not, right? Because we already covered that many of you are in different stages. So frankly, if you're in the I don't have a job, I'm trying to keep the lights on. I'm trying to get a paycheck. You're going to have different standards and perspectives that are going to make you make different decisions during your candidacy journey. And all of us, the best of us, a lot of us have found ourselves at times unemployed not by choice, right? It's happened to me. And guess what? I had to take the first thing that came along so I could pay my bills at that time. So that's another stage that you could be in throughout your career. So just keep in mind that I'm offering to you different tools that will make sense at different times. So my recruiting team, where I currently work, is not part of HR. And I'll tell you why. We're part of operations. And this is something that I always hoped I would be able to do. And I'm thankful that I can now be part of operations so that we're not working against our customers, right? Because if the talent that works at the company is just as much of a tool, commodity, if you will, as the hardware, as the software, then, in fact, recruiting is part of the operations of that company. To provide the services, to provide the software, or the products, or whatever it is, you need the right tools. People are tools in this instance, in this metaphor. So when I look back at my very brief time of being a software engineer, back in the early 90s using Visual Basic, as a software engineer, when you're trying to solve a problem, what did I do to solve the problem? You do intakes. You do intakes for the purpose of what? Defining requirements with all of your stakeholders, with your customers, and so forth. Then you do what? You plot, and you plan, and you life work, and you try to come up with a strategy, and you implement, and you test, and you analyze, rinse, repeat. That's also recruiting when done properly. Just listen to me. I'm going to do what as a recruiter? I'm going to talk to the candidates, make it about them, figure out what their requirements are, preferences, requirements, and rank those requirements, right? I'm going to find out what's most important. I'm going to do a proper write-up. I'm going to deliver that to the customer, in this case being the hiring manager, okay? I'm also, as a stakeholder, a stakeholder is also your customer, and that would be the hiring manager. So think of the recruiter as an engineer, in this case, or as a hacker, if you will, because what were they going to then try to do? And I don't mean hacker in the sense of, people think of social engineering and manipulating, and being tricky and crazy. I'm not thinking about that. What I'm thinking about is understanding the machine of the human, getting to know them, finding the requirements from each individual. Every single one of them is different. The hiring managers are different. The candidates are all different, and then finding the right match. So it's not so much hacking, manipulating that sort of thing. It's not social engineering. It's really engineering. It's really designing and really finding the solution that will make the problem happen in those two parts to get them all the way to the finish line. So let's talk about item number one as one of the areas people want help with. They want help. I said, what do you need the most help with? Is it searching? Is it finding? Is it resume writing? Which I thought, and I used to always hear was the big problem, but they said networking. I posted my very first job opening, printed it, fasted it to a newspaper, a paper newspaper. This is when the internet was but a thought. And we've come a long way since then. Let's talk about what we can do in the networking area. We all know about job boards. I'm not gonna list everything on here. I am not here, oh, by the way, to promote for docs anything that I have listed here that is a product. I put that out there, but I will talk about how some of them are useful. All right. Everybody knows about job boards that you may or may not know about state employment sites. And here's the reason I'm going to mention that to you. If you go, every single state has one, promise. Now, because their local government municipality run websites, they might suck. They might not be user friendly. They might not be easy to get your way around on, however they are there. They are there and they are listing. They are supposed to list every opening. And here's how that works. All the companies that are hiring probably have an applicant tracking system. And they have scraping tools that are happening in the background, isn't it, are delivering those job openings to all the state employment boards. The reason that this can be useful to you. And when I did this talk and Tampa in person, I said, let's do an experiment. Everybody whip out your phone. So do this later if you want. Whip out your phone. Go find either your state employment job board or the state that you're targeting that you want to move to or that you're interested in and search around and see what's posted. And you know what you're going to find out that there's jobs that you had no idea that that company was hiring in your state. In fact, in our current environment, you are more likely to see jobs that you never knew were available where you are because they're available virtually now. So enough about that. No, I'm not getting paid by the state government. I just wanted you to know that people may not realize that that's for the overall. So please, here's another thing. Actually, somebody split up in my last talk and told me I was, last in person one, told me that I was incorrect of, but in this case I'm not. Don't pay. Don't pay anyone for anything. Sorry, people get paid to do stuff, but there's way too many people willing to help you for free. Way, way, way too many people willing to help you for free with your resume, with your interview skills. It's happening right now here today at DEF CON. It happens at all to these sides. Thanks to Kathleen. There are people who will help you learn how to interview better. There are people who will help you write your resume better, okay? Well, in particular, one of the things listed on this slide says, hey, user, do you wanna be a premium user? Pay me lots of money. And then the recruiters will be able to find you better. Actually, there's four or five people listed on this site who probably are mad because their sites because they want you to pay as a user. Don't do it and I'll tell you why. Because the recruiters, because the companies who are hiring are already paying the money. Lots and lots and lots of money to find you regardless of your account, regardless of whether you have one and certainly you don't need a premium one. Promise. I just don't want you to waste your money. But you can if you want to. So I haven't recruited in a while, excuse me, but I know that pretty much all recruiters have a LinkedIn account and we will get to how to communicate with them through that and most of them have all of the ways that you can connect to them open as well. I know it's hard right now, but conferences are amazing. I can't speak enough about it. I can't tell you how much they have been valuable to me in well over a decade. The greater part of my success and I'm a pretty successful recruiter is through the conferences, through the community and through networking, not just the happy hiring hours and all that junk, but the industry conferences in particular are the most valuable. And if you have the opportunity ever to volunteer at one of them, I promise it's going to be multiple beneficial to you. It will be so advantageous to you to be a volunteer. And you will learn and you will grow and your network will flourish when you volunteer in any way that you can. So raise your hand, volunteer. Okay, so real quick about this, you may or may not be able to see these images. I threw them together very, very quickly. I hear you when you said, the recruiters are horrible. They're horrible, they reach out to me and they say horrible things to me and they say things that make no sense and why are they asking you all these questions? I get it, I'm gonna talk to you about two different perspectives this year real quick. The top is a quick snapshot of my LinkedIn. My LinkedIn says, oh, by the way, if you're a recruiter and I don't know you, I won't accept your connection request. PS, I'm not looking for a job. It says it right there. However, you can also see this dude reaches out and says, do you wanna recruit for me? So I get it, buddy, you're doing a thing. My recruiters do their thing as well. However, I also hear a lot of you saying or I see a lot of you saying, are you serious? You just ask me if I wanted to be a Java developer and I'm a CTO, which is kind of like that, right? No, I don't wanna stop being a director and go source for you. I get it, it happened, I'm sorry. But it's also an opportunity and this could be an opportunity even if I had time for me to talk to this person and to say, you know what? You'll notice that, no, I'm not looking. However, I do know somebody who is or maybe you should look in this direction or that direction. So everything's always an opportunity to network and to help others as well. Also, real quick snapshot down here, it's 15 or so people who are, all they said to me in my DMs is, hey, and that's all they said. Sorry, not answering you. So I'm not saying you have to tell me something super clever or write a whole dissertation or anything crazy like that, but you have to compel the people you're reaching out to to take the extra step. I heard, I read, yeah, three to five seconds. All right, so just do slightly better than just, hey. Because frankly, people like recruiters who open up their DMs to you on social media are kind of making themselves vulnerable when they do that. They're doing it for you so that they can help you, but we're also opening it up to creepy things that people send us every once in a while. So be kind. Okay, so let's talk about resume real quick. Obviously be truthful on your resume. I will go through the guidelines that I think make your resume most effective for you. However, remember what I said about responses and communicating on DMs. So let me tell you what to do real quick. And I really want to hear your responses someday, however you get around to it, letting me know if this worked for you. People don't get back to you. I could be one of those people. I am guilty of it. It happened, I'm sorry. Remember that you're not the only person that they're hearing from, okay? So how can you get them to respond to you? Because I'm betting that most of them, them being the recruiters, want to talk to you. They want to help you, right? But they have a great volume of people that they're trying to help. So please remember that you're not alone. There's a lot of people in the inbox. How can you get them to respond to your application when you apply? Apply, wait, wait a couple days. Not longer than that. Then go to LinkedIn. Look for ABC company wherever you apply. Probably a recruiter works there. Certainly click the people button. You look for who has the recruiter title. You send them a DM. Hi, Jim. It's me, Mary. I apply for ABC. Look for an identifier when you apply for the job that can help them look and find the job. It's usually a rec ID or something like that. Look for that. Mention it. So then they're going to go look for your application. And when you reach out, you say, I applied for this. Can't wait to hear back from you, okay? Probably they're going to reply in one business day. They're going to see your message. They're going to reply. They may have never seen your application. Sorry, it happened. They probably have 50 jobs to fill. They probably have 50 applications per week or more per job. So now what are you going to do? If you don't hear back from that recruiter, first of all, if it was one of my recruiters, tell me. If it was any recruiter, they don't get back to you in a day. If you want, the next step could be look for a director of whatever the engineering department is, VP of that department as well. You say, hey, hi, Jane. I applied for this position. I reached out to so-and-so. Can't wait to hear back. Let me know if you need anything else from me. Now really probably, I just kind of got through the period of trouble, but you're probably going to hear that. Okay, so let's go really quickly through how to write your best resume. Start, please, please, please. Here's my name. Actually, with or without a name, here's the most important part. I'm a this and I want to be a that. This is the block. This is the bottom line up front. I'm this and I want to be a that. Do not assume, assume that the person reading your resume has the time or the technical qualifications or that they're not totally fatigued out on resumes to know, to be able to look through your resume and know what do you do and what do you want to do? Hi, I'm a systems engineer looking to be a solutions architect. I am a developer looking to manage programs. Just one or two sentences, help me out. Then I know how to proceed with you. Then you're going to do your technical put the technical in there. The technicals that you've used the tools, the software, the hardware that are chronological. People argue about the length of resumes. Obviously, shorter is better. It's less to have to read, but don't feel like it has to be one or two pages. You know, we are reasonable. Frankly, if you're in the cleared space or if you would like to be in the cleared space, it's helpful to either mention that you do have it clearance and or that you are eligible and willing to get one. PDF is fine. If it used to be fine, it is fine now. Remember, if no one was responding up to you to ping, send a message, send a little reminder, be patient and customize each resume per the job within reason. Does my resume make sense? As your experience grows, it may become harder for whoever's looking at your resume to get to realize which thing you're trying to do. So on to the interview. Try to do a little research on the company upfront. It doesn't have to be that big of a deal, but just, you know, don't be so, I'm interviewing at so many places, I can't even remember who I'm talking to. You know, do a little bit better than that. Do a little bit of research. Try to find a way when it makes sense to answer as many of the questions as you can in the form of a story. What's your strength? What's your weaknesses? You know, all those standard questions. Well, funny you should ask. One time I was building a robot and it was supposed to cross the street, but it actually blew up in the middle of the street. And so I learned that in the future, if you don't cross the red and blue wires and you always bring a fire extinguisher, whatever, you just revealed to me the way that you learn from mistakes, the way that you prepare to solve problems in the future. You invited me into a little bit about your problem solving skills and so forth. So look for a way. Think about it in advance. What are some stories that you can tell, you know, kind of about things that have occurred for you. Also, this is where I'm gonna ask you to give yourself a chance to be a real person and put the person on the other side of the table as a real person as well. They almost always say, go and make questions for us at the end, right? So hopefully they're not a grandstander and they've been trained properly, how to interview and give you the opportunity to shine and not make it about them and all the things that they've done. However, make them into a person and they won't be ready for this. Say to the interviewer when they ask, do you have any questions? Yes, actually I do. When you were looking at coming to this company, did you have any reservations about working here and how did that turn out? Wow, what a question. That's gonna tell you a lot. Maybe they're gonna say, you know, actually, my kid has soccer three times a week and I was concerned about the commute and turns out they gave me a chance to do this, this and this to make that better, right? They're gonna make themselves into a person and they're gonna help you envision being an actual person working there instead of being all technical. Other favorite questions? Oh yeah, actually tell me, I see you've been, how long have you been working here for years? Cool, what have you learned? Wait for it. What a revealing thing for them to have the opportunity to tell you. What have they learned here? Because if they haven't learned anything and if it's, I'm just gonna stop and I'm gonna say, it's gonna be very revealing, right? So I'm not telling you to trick them, right? This isn't a social thing. This is making them into a person. They're really gonna tell you. I often liken interviewing to dating. I actually don't have any dating experience but I imagine that if you went on a date and you sat down and you said, I love kids, I love traveling, I go to church every Sunday and none of those things are true. You have probably just guaranteed that that relationship isn't gonna work out. So don't show up at the interview and be like, I love solving problems. I'm an independent worker. Actually, I love working on teams. All these things that you're saying about yourself, if they're not true, you're hurting you and them, right? So make it real. And here's the thing. You might reveal something about yourself and then the interviewer might say, you know what? James, what you told me means that you won't be a good fit for this. But turns out you're a perfect fit for this other thing that we didn't even know we should be talking about, right? So if they're doing a good job, the more you tell them about the real you, the better off you both will end up. Okay, so really, really, really, really I want you to be yourself. I want you to be honest. My hair was blue at my last interview. It is what it is. It's okay to pivot. I mentioned that I was a software engineer. I ran a help desk, right? It's okay to change. It's okay. There are so many opportunities out there. It is okay to pivot. I want you to find your next best opportunity. I really, really do. I want you to be where you're happy and where you're comfortable. And I think there's enough opportunities out there for that to happen. Really, really be who you are. Do what you love. So real quick, I think this is my last spot. Negotiating. People really, really struggle in this area. I have screwed up in this area. I have undersolded myself. I have. And I've seen others do it as well. Here's what's up. Do not tell anyone how much money you make. Don't do it. A, they shouldn't be asking. Every federally mandated ordinance in the U.S. anyway, says that they can't ask you. So I guess I should practice that. A lot of you aren't in the U.S. Sorry, this is applied to the U.S. I don't know the laws everywhere. But I will say this, regardless of where you are, the amount of money that you currently make has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of money you should be making or could be making, okay? Because it doesn't speak to your bonafide occupational qualifications or your education or your certifications or the most important thing that every single one of you has to offer is your willingness and your ability to do the job. Regardless of what you have done, right? What are you willing to do? And what are you able to do, right? What can you learn? You know what? I don't even know how to spell Python, but I know how to script. I just proved to you that I could be a Python developer willing, I'm able. So please don't tell them what you make, think about, but also answer the question when they ask, what do you wanna make? And think about how you're going to deliver that question. What matters to you more than just your paycheck? Is it shares? Is it 401K? Is it flexibility? Is it the ability to go remote? Is it performance bonuses, incentive compensation? Think about the total package of things that matters to you in the long run. Is it the insurance premiums? Man, I'll tell you what, the difference, I won't, I'm not gonna dox anyone, but between two paychecks of two different companies where the salaries were very similar, but the premiums were significantly different, boy, that makes a huge difference. So, okay, and that's pretty much it. So let's recap, always be open, be your own best advocate. I get it, descriptions suck, sometimes so do resumes. Let's find a way to meet in the middle, be exactly who you are, be yourself, you is good enough. Notice how you're being treated all throughout your candidate experience. That's very, very telling. Remember that these challenges are like the ones that you will face as an engineer, right? Look at them that way. And you can't make them go away, but you can hopefully beat them. Thank you, DEF CON, thank you, Kathleen. And if there's a way for us to do questions and answers in this court or something, I am always open. Thank you. Thanks so much, Kirsten. I really appreciate all of your great points. You've been just an amazing asset to the entire community. Yes, everyone can ask you questions in Discord Channel, and I'm sure you'll be hanging around the con throughout the entire weekend and can answer other questions. Please do connect with her. She's always open to answering questions. And be sure to follow us on Twitter at hackingcareer. And that's it for today. Thanks so much, everybody.