Tag: hiring managers

Podcasts and Launch of Talent Jockey

Being a Recruiter has it’s ups and downs. You get the high of making an offer and getting back an acceptance. The lows are when that acceptance does not happen. You make a lot of different connections. One of them I made was my buddy, Brett. He was a contractor at the time and my employer was looking to bring him on as a full-time employee. Later on we realized we were both gamers. Since then we’d do lunch every couple weeks, or Brett would stop by my desk, and we’d talk about roleplaying games.

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Behind the mic for Gaming and BS

I have always been an avid listener of podcasts, mostly ones that relate to roleplaying games. Then it dawned on me, Brett and I talk a lot about them, why don’t we do one? At the time of this entry we have completed 15 episodes of Gaming and BS. Careful, we have an ‘explicit’ rating on the show. We tend to be passionate about our hobby and it comes through like a couple long-shore men. I love doing the show. I can’t believe we have listeners and subscribers, and that we have been at it consistently for 15 weeks!

Somewhere I came across Cliff Ravenscraft. He’s known as the Podcast Answer Man. It might have been one of his tutorials. Regardless, I have been devouring his episodes and has been quite an inspiration. It’s not just his show, it’s his genuine nature and his transparency. His show started out to help people do podcasting but it’s morphed into a mix of different topics. There is still podcasting, but there is also social media, personal/professional development, advice, and much more. It’s not hard technical, which is a turn off for some, but I don’t mind. It’s really a show to help people take their game to another level. Some day I’ll meet Cliff and personally thank him.

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Talent Jockey logo

All of the above has lead me to launch TalentJockey.com. It is starting out as a podcast that helps job seekers, recruiters and hiring managers navigate the world that is talent acquisition. Eventually I will do workshops, public speaking, and advising. It is truly exciting. It will involve hard work and diligence, no question. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Even in roleplaying games we say that the journey is the fun part of it all.

If you’re interested in podcasting or obtaining advice on new media, then Cliff’s your guy and you should check out PodcastAnswerMan.com. If you like roleplaying games, and the occasional f bomb doesn’t offend you, then check out Gaming and BS. G&BS is what I do for fun. Talent Jockey is truly a new venture, and a professional one at that. I try to keep it light. Anyone that knows me, knows my demeanor. Check out the website for episodes and resources for my three audiences – job seekers, recruiters and hiring managers.

New Projects – Future Endeavors

I was raised by my mother and I had a younger sister. My mom did a good job at hiding the fact that we didn’t have all the money in the world, and I look back now and thought that my sister and I had it pretty damn good.

I was a bit of an audiophile when I was young. I wanted one of those massive stereo systems. You know, the ones that had multiple components, flashing lights and gauges with bouncing needles. What can I say? I liked the look of analog over digital, at the time. I started my amassing my collection of music growing my selection of cassette tapes. I eventually got a Symphonic fm/am/turntable/cassette all-in-one stereo system. At the time, I thought it made my music plenty loud. It wasn’t everything I wanted, but I thought it was great, so the desired bells and whistles didn’t matter much after the fact.

If you were a child of the 80’s then you know the role boom boxes played. Man, I had friends who had some monster boxes. The bigger the box, the more awe you got. Even if guys you didn’t like had one, you’d still say “I can’t stand that guy, but damn, does have a huge boom box.” My boom box. HA! It was a Sanyo half of a boom box. No EQ. It had treble, bass and volume knobs. It wasn’t even lit. The eject for cassettes wasn’t even slow or simulate a hydraulic opening. Mine was more like a bullet from a gun. Press firmly down on ‘eject’ and the damn drawer opened with a crack. Oh, did I mention why it was half a boom box? It was because it only had one speaker. That’s right one speaker. The two benefits it had, it played music just fine and it was light-weight. I would walk a couple miles with that thing and my arm never got tired.

I remember having a DJ setup in my small bedroom. I had headphones on, plugged into my stereo and then I’d have my half boom box sitting on top. During the Memorial Day weekend a local radio station would play the top 100 hits of the year. I would play them from my Symphonic stereo as loud as I could get away with and record it to my half boom box while adding my own DJ style commentary before the song started playing. I’d go through a few MX90 Maxell blank tapes, stacking them up as they got full.

So why do I mention all this? Continue reading New Projects – Future Endeavors