Stop Hiring People You Like: The 2026 Guide to AI & Data Talent

Are you hiring for "culture fit" or for outcomes? In 2026, that distinction will determine if your Salesforce team sinks or swims.

Most hiring managers are falling into the "Mirror-tocracy" trap—hiring people just like them instead of the talent they actually need. In Part 2 of our ecosystem outlook, Josh Matthews and Scott Stafford reveal why "gut feel" is a career-killer and how the hiring landscape has shifted.

If you want to build a high-performing team that can actually orchestrate AI, you have to change how you interview.

In this episode:

• The 20% Rule: Why paying more for "Orchestrators" saves you $100k in the long run.
• The Live Prompt Test: A simple, 2-minute tactical test to see if a candidate is faking their AI skills.
• Data Literacy vs. AI: Why your AI will break if your new hire doesn't understand data relevance.
• The Tom Graber Story: How a "weird" first impression led to one of the best hires in Josh’s 35-year career.
• Merit vs. Familiarity: Practical steps to override your brain's hiring bias.

Featured Opportunity: We are currently hiring for a Salesforce Marketing/Data Cloud Pro (Chicago/Hybrid). View details at thesalesforcerecruiter.com.

Connect with the Show:

• YouTube: Joshforce Channel
• Web: thesalesforcerecruiter.com

Transcript

Setting The Stage For 2026 Hiring

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Hiring Edge, the podcast helping leaders navigate the age of AI, create teams that thrive, and build a workplace people never want to leave. My name is Josh Matthews. I'm here with my co-host, Scott Stafford. Scott Stafford is an incredible solution architect here in the ecosystem. We are so excited. Gabby loves her avocados. That's great. We are so excited to be here for what is part two of a discussion about the talent and uh the Salesforce talent ecosystem, the hiring ecosystem. What's happening? There's so much going on. It's 2026. We've got AI, we've got layoffs, we've got mass hirings, we've got mass firings. There's so much to unpack. And last week, what did we do? Well, we unpacked a lot, but without our live audience, that was on me. I didn't hit a button that I was supposed to do, or I hit a button that I wasn't supposed to. And it kind of jacked it all up. But here's the good news in about 28 minutes on YouTube, on the Josh Force channel, that episode is going to be available, but a little bit better quality than you would find right here on LinkedIn. So make sure that you go ahead and check that out if you want to catch up on what our recommendations were for people in the ecosystem who are looking to protect their careers and advance their careers in 2026. So today, Scott and I are really interested in unpacking a few things. The first part of this program is really going to be talking about something that we didn't cover much last week, Scott, which is really hiring managers. Who are the people that are bringing people on? Like what can they expect in 2026 and what can they do to adapt in 2026 when they're looking at protecting or expanding their team? So I think we did mention last week that there are going to be likely fewer, fewer hires in general, not fewer than 2024. We are seeing an increase, a growth in demand for Salesforce professionals. But we're going to see teams either stay the same through attrition, right? Like instead of increasing a lot of headcount, they're more likely to hire fewer people. But if you want the top people, the people that can do that orchestration that we talked about last week, they're probably going to be looking at paying a little bit more, 10, 20% more to get a top performer. Now, hiring managers are like, yeah, that's great, Josh, but my budget's my budget. What am I going to do? Unless you're the owner or the CFO. You might have other people in your company weighing in on what you actually get to spend. And so you're going to absolutely want to make a case for what output looks like. What are the outcomes that the company is actually paying for versus the headcount? Does that make sense, Scott?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

That makes sense. We're kind of raising the bar. So you're trying to say you're going to pay a little bit more, but we want to really understand what you're getting, right? What is the value that people are bringing to the table, right, in this beginning of 2026? I love that.

Slower Hiring And Protecting Your Career

SPEAKER_00 3:01

That's right. Yeah. So just be aware, you may have challenges if you've got a bit of a stuffy accounting department or HR department or senior manager that can't see the value. You're going to have to come up with some pretty darn good word tracks to articulate and prove why it might make more sense to spend$175,000 on an employee instead of$150,000 on the same employee because you might get 40 or 50 or 60% more output because of their capabilities, their ability to orchestrate AI, their ability to understand data and protect the organization from massive, massive goof ups. So that's definitely going to be one aspect of the reality moving into 2026. A little bit more of a delay on hiring, slower hiring, because people are like, and I see this with all of my clients, they're like, look, we just want to make, we're in a rush, but we don't want to make a bad decision. People are like, hey, once bitten, twice shy. I feel like enough people now have made bad hiring decisions in their careers. The ones who are left in hiring positions, they've made enough mistakes. They just don't want to make another one. And the reality is, is if you make a bad hire, it's on you to feel the pain, right? And your boss doesn't necessarily feel the pain you do. It's okay to make a bad hire. It's not okay to make two or three bad hires in a row. So you've got to protect yourself as a hiring manager and approach this as a career opportunity for you, not just to grow the team, not just to solve the challenges that the company has put under your purview. It's to actually augment your career. I don't know if you know this, but most people know that people who hire really well tend to grow their careers and advance. So if you're a director and you want to be a VP, hire a great team that can replace you. If you're a VP and you want to be in the C-suite, well, build a great team underneath you. If you want to stay exactly where you are, make average hiring decisions. And if you want to lose your managerial title, then make really bad hiring decisions. There you go, there's the playbook. And guess what? It's not just for 2026. This is this is for life. Now, with that in mind, yeah. Look, I really want to make sure that people, and by the way, thanks everybody for joining us. It's great to see some friends here. Gabby and and uh Anthony, Corey, thanks for joining us today. I want people to be able to walk away with some like real, actual things they can do to prevent. I think we're muted there, Josh. My God, how long have I been muted? Well, I just said the best stuff of my life. So we're gonna dive in right now, I think, a little bit more about what you should be looking at in a tactical way. And that is data literacy.

unknown 6:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

So when you're interviewing, there's two things that I want hiring managers to really take into consideration for 2026. And one is data literacy, and the other one is AI literacy, and they do go hand in hand. Reality is if the data literacy isn't there, then the AI breaks. Right? Does that make sense to you, Scott? You're my 27x expert here on the show.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

AI is all of the foundation for AI, right, is all about data, right? And it's really important that you right, not just get excited about AI, but make sure you also get excited about bringing data in there that's actually accurate and actionable, right? That it's you're seeing Salesforce make a lot of acquisitions, right, to enhance their products. So it's really key. Data is really exciting, right? It's our way to understand the world, right? So I really love that.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah, it is, man. I look, I'm actually in the middle of my very first Salesforce migration right now. Can you believe that? I mean, I've been doing, I've been working with Salesforce since 1999. This is I've been a part of some um uh implementations at Big Fortune 500s before. And of course, I helped to help a lot of SI partners out there and customers out there to have the best people to help them do it. But this is Salesforce staffing's very first instance of Salesforce. And I do want to do a quick shout out. I want to thank Dave Schwartz, Taylor Williams, and Mike Rowe over at Assemble, A S Y-M-B-L. They are the organization that has really helped me with my Salesforce instance. They've done an incredible job. And I also want to thank, I want to thank Glenn Goodman. He's my data migration guy, a close friend of mine, fantastic solution architect. He's with ProCetra. That's his organization based here in Florida. So I want to just do a little shout out to all of those people for making what is, as everybody already knows, kind of a stressful, it's kind of a stressful thing, switching your software after so many years and trying to learn it and get it dialed in. But everybody's been really patient with me. And I just want to say thank you so much for all of the hard work. So let's talk about um data literacy a little bit more, right? So, what would you say, Scott, if you're trying to gauge how literate someone is with understanding like where data lives, where it moves, how it can break. What kinds of questions would you be asking candidates to gauge their understanding?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

First thing is I would try to vet whether they actually understand the importance of data, right? You you just kind of talk to that a little bit, right? You said, hey, I'm actually doing my first implementation, and then it really comes home. You're like, okay, it's not just about the software, right? But you got to make sure that all the data gets moved and gets moved accurately. And then I think I would dive into asking them about data cloud, right? And see whether they're interested in learning more, right, about how Salesforce is going to be able to bring in all your actionable data, right, right into your program. Data cloud is something that I'm really passionate about. I think it's a pretty good platform, right? They're moving in the right direction, right? And more and more you're hearing that people really need to, you know, be able to move in the data. And I just want to make a little call out. I actually listened to Lights on Data by George. And he goes over a lot of the fundamental principles. And it really helps me to understand, hey, a little bit more, what's so magical about data and why do we need to understand the principles to be able to bring it together and make it actionable?

Tactical Pivot: Data Literacy First

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Sure. So, what is an actual question you would ask? Let's give our audience something that they can ask. Let's say someone's hiring a consultant, like this person's gonna have their hands on the keys to the kingdom. We got to make sure that it's not a bust, right? What would you, what would you have them ask? I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot. We didn't really prep for this, but I am kind of interested. What would you ask to help you understand if someone that you're going to potentially hire understands data in a general way, understands the importance of it, et cetera?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, I think I would start out trying to ask some questions about whether they understand data relevance. Data actually becomes um old really quickly, and a lot of people don't understand that. So I would ask some of those kind of questions. And then I would also ask about making sure that they understand to keep it safe in governance. Right now in the Salesforce ecosystem, we have a lot of security issues, right? My good friend Matt Myers, right, is always pointing out all of the different breaches. So those two things really hit home for me is making sure that you know how to keep it safe, have the right permissions, right, set up, right? And understand that. And then also understand you don't want necessarily all the data there as you're doing your migration right now. You're probably thinking that I don't need stuff from 15 years ago. The world is moving very quick, right? And that you need to know what is relevant, right?

What To Ask About Data And Governance

SPEAKER_00 11:07

And then you need to keep it safe. Okay, very good. Thank you, Scott Stafford. I appreciate that. I was thinking a little bit about um sort of the next thing that I want to make sure hiring managers are clued into. And by the way, if you're not a hiring manager and you're listening to this, that's a good thing. You should understand the perspective of the people that you're going to be engaging with and the perspective of maybe your current boss, your current manager. And that is around AI literacy. And I'm going to get real basic, right? I mean, yeah, there's Agent Forest, there's so much to it. So when I say AI literacy, I just mean basic ability to navigate LLMs, right? To understand why I would use perplexity over Manis, over Gemini, over Chat GPT, over Claude, like what are the differences between these LLMs? How are you using them, right? Honestly, like in what ways would you use them? And then how to find out very quickly if someone understands how to prompt engineer, like in a very reasonable way. Because the reality is, is we've been prompt engineering for 30 months now, longer for many people, but the general public, like Gen Pop, it's about 30 months, right, since uh GPT kind of hit our desks. And it's gotten better at kind of guessing what you're trying to get after. But if you haven't gotten better at how to communicate with it, well, then you're leaving a lot of good information on the table and you're also going to create a lot more hallucinations and bad information, right? In a very big way. So I was thinking it would make sense for anyone who you're considering bringing on the uh the team is to just ask them, give them, give them something to something to prompt, right? Anything. Right? Could be like, hey, um, you know, it could be uh, I don't know, you come up with something, Scott. We've got a new puppy. I'm barely sleeping, so my brain's a little bit dead.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Like a second parent there with a new puppy. I think you could actually just go with that. Prompt something about right how to take care of a puppy. There you go. Yeah, it could literally be like give you some good advice and see how right, how actionable you know, they're able to get that to come out.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

That's right. Okay, I love it. Now, what you do is you have them just say it to you. Here you are. Like we're on live. I'm looking at you, you're looking at me. I see you, you see me. Let's talk. And I can just say, okay, Scott, I want you to pretend that you're doing voice-to-text prompt. I'm the GPT or whatever it, whatever LLM you're using, and I want to hear what your prompt would sound like. Okay. Now, you can't decipher their answer if you suck at prompting. And yes, Gabby, I will get you a picture of the puppy, her name's Zucca, which means pumpkin in Italian. So the reality is, is you've got to know this. Like, what are the four or five or six things that someone should be doing to write a highly effective prompt to get them really good information and have them do it? If they say, Hi, I'm new to puppy ownership, tell me what I should know, it's not very good, right? It'll be a little bit better if they say, you are a world-renowned dog trainer that specializes in new owners of puppies, right? At least start there, like sort of set the stage. I'm not going to go into all of this stuff because, first of all, you should all know this already. And if you don't get after it, go figure it out. Okay. But you should be definitely checking to see if this person that you're going to give money to knows how to get accurate, clear answers quickly, because it's all right there at our little fingertips, right? I mean, come on. Let's let's figure this out.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

What I love about where you've taken this too is you've shown us both sides of the view, people that are actually looking for a job, and then you're showing it right from the hiring manager's perspective.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

This is really great. If you're going in for an interview, let's say you're coming into an interview with me, and I say, Hey, what's your relationship with AI? And you say, Oh, it's good. I go, okay, well, tell me about it. And like, well, yeah, I use GPT every day. I'm like, great. What do you use it for? And then often what I hear is basically they use it like Google. Nothing wrong with that. I do too, right? Nothing wrong with that. But I'm not hearing like, oh, I make custom GPTs or I'm running projects with hierarchies like this, that, and the other thing, or I'm doing deep, deep research for these reasons using perplexity and so on and so forth. So I'm gonna ask them what that is. I might also ask them, why would you use Claude over GPT? Or why would you use, why would you use Gemini over Claude and so on, or why would you use perplexity? Like if you don't know where to go, that's a that's a challenge. Why are you interviewing in the age of AI and you can't even describe what the differences are? That's like not being able to say the difference between AM and FM radio back in 1982. Like, come on, let's do it. Let's figure it out, right? Okay, let's move on. I want to make sure, by the way, and I love seeing our friends here with their comments. Okay, so what do you think about all of that? The whole like kind of just checking for prompting in 2026 if you're a hiring manager. Makes sense, Scott?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, I actually think it's really important too that you bring this into your own life, like like you did with your dog, right? Don't just think about it from work, but use it, right? Use it for all the different reasons. Understand why you would use one versus the other, right? What's the advantage? Play around a little bit, right? Yeah, I think we're we're in the age, it's not like ChatGBK came on the scene, everybody started there, but there is a lot of different models out there, right? And each one has their own advantage. I also like the way this whole show is going. I mean, you you started out saying, hey, you're gonna actually be able to get a higher premium, right? Hiring managers are gonna need to justify why they're paying more money. So if you think about that backwards, right, you then start to think, hey, I need to be able to demonstrate in that interview, right, what skills I have that makes me more efficient than I was before. And that's really what we're talking about, right? And make sure you take action on it. Don't just do the trailhead, but just say, hey, I'm looking for some, you know, whether information on a dog or something else in your life, and then check out a few different sources, see what comes up. Yeah, do that.

AI Literacy And Practical Prompting

Live Prompt Test And Evaluation

SPEAKER_00 17:34

I like it. Okay. So we've covered um a few things that hiring managers uh could do. Let's talk a little bit about some of the things that will never ever really change as a hiring manager because it does not matter if it's 2026, it doesn't matter if it's um 2036, doesn't matter if it's 1926. The reality is we as humans are biased. I've talked about confirmation bias on other shows with Vanessa in the past. I think it stands to reason to bring it up again right now. I was I've been listening to this book, um, I hate the Ivy Leagues. It's actually a sort of conglomeration of Malcolm Gladwell podcasts, and it's a it's fascinating. Like I really like Gladwell. And specifically, he was talking about what it takes to get to work at a top law firm. And it really comes down to how well you can answer 25 questions in 35 minutes on your LSAT. That 35 minutes will determine whether or not you get into one of the top 14 law schools, like Yale and Harvard. And then if you go to one of those places, that's where the top firms hire from, it all comes down to this 35 minutes, all BS, like it's total BS. Like it's the studies show that going to Harvard or Michigan or going to Whittier College doesn't necessarily produce a different quality of um of attorney. Like it's that's the that's what the facts say. It just doesn't matter. But there's this idea of like how to make it easy, how to make it like how do we hone in on the best people first, how do we help improve our hiring outcome, right? By looking at education or looking at total certifications or this kind of thing. And it got me thinking a lot about um something else he was talking about, which was a miratocracy instead of a meritocracy, right? Meritocracy, people know what a meritocracy is, is like, you know, merit earns benefits, period. Like that's basically what it is, right? Or if you're better at something, then you rise to the top. A meritocracy is kind of just a funny way of talking about how we look for people that are like us and then we hire them, right? And that got me thinking deeply about bias and comfort, familiarity, and how we make these massive mistakes in our careers as a hiring manager, as an employee. We do it all the time. I've got a I've got a friend of mine. This person's, I'm guessing, in his 40s, he's middle-aged, very, very smart, very high achieving professional in technology. Love working with him when I have the chance to. I consider him a friend as well. I was talking to him and he's currently employed at a place that is his, he's got the best boss he's ever had. He's paid really, really well. And the company is extremely low on politics. Best he's ever seen in his life. Now he's worked in some high stakes, high pressure environments with a lot of stress, and he is not feeling very comfortable right now. It's the best it could be, and yet he's not feeling comfortable because that's not what he's used to, right? You take the traumatized child and put them in a stable home, it's not gonna feel super comfortable. They're still gonna be waiting for the freaking shoe to drop. Do you know what I mean? Like this is just how human behavior operates. But it's hard for us to break out of that if we're not actually doing what is uncomfortable for us. Right? I think he should stay uncomfortable where there's low politics and a great boss and a lot of opportunity. That's what I think. Doesn't necessarily mean that's what's going to happen, but that's what I think. And I think that we can create for ourselves a new experience of what comfortable and familiar is. Because the reality is whether you're a puppy or a human, we're going to gravitate towards what is comfortable. And that just means what is familiar. And let's face it, familiar is not always great. Who here thinks, let's see uh Some thumbs up if you think that familiar is great. All the time. I'd like to see that. I'm telling you, I don't think it is. And so my challenge to hiring managers as well as to candidates and employees out there is when you feel particularly comfortable with a candidate that you're considering bringing on, I want you to just pause, just take a breath and ask yourself why you're particularly comfortable with this person. I had an interview yesterday with a really neat guy. He and I both rode crew in high school, different, different uh states, but we both rode crew. We had a lot in common. We had a lot to talk about. Does that mean he's the best employee? I mean, he could be a great employee. He probably is a great employee, but I can't let our familiarity with this weird little sport that very few people do, you know, uh sway my consideration of him for a role. Can I? I can't do that. That would be wrong. Can't do that, right? And yet people do it all the time. Now, I I don't do it because I've done this 15,000 times and I know how to say no and I know how to separate it. But for those who've only had 10, 20, 50, or 100 at bats of interviewing people, it's really, really hard. It's like go play golf. All you get to do is practice 100 golf swings before you go play golf. Like ever. It's gonna be hard to hit the ball. Do you see what I mean? So I just really want people to be very careful about this. Just ask yourself the simple question. If you're really comfortable, if you're totally gelling with people, just ask yourself why. Is it because this person's going to perform at a high level and do for the team what the team needs it to do and what the company needs them to do? Or is it because there's some sort of, you know, common ground, instant rapport. Instant rapport does not equate instant results, by the way. Just so everybody knows, it gets conflated. And it's good to like people, but I want people to think too about like you go buy a record back in the days when we would buy a record or a tape, because you heard one song and you like that song, but that song kind of burnt out quickly. And eventually some of the more complex songs on the album are the ones that stuck with you longer. Well, hiring employees is no different than that, right? Just because you don't like the song on first interview, second interview, third interview doesn't mean you don't respect the song or that you won't give it a chance. I want people to give those other songs a chance because the reality is you're dealing with coin flip odds, that's a one in two chance that the person that you feel comfortable with is not going to be in that seat in 12 to 18 months. That's the stats. That's reality. Wake up to it and don't let it inhibit you. Don't let it um interfere with your excellent decision-making skills. And your excellent decision-making skills aren't relying on your gut feel. Gut feel is BS. It's total BS. Guys, it's total BS. Everyone here, unless you're in the last relationship with someone that you'll ever be in for the rest of your life, already know that your gut feel is wrong a lot.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

I can hear that.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Right? I mean, unless you fell in love in high school and now you're with still with that same person 10, 20, 30, 40 years later, your gut feel can't predict the future. It just can't. Right? There was a really funny quote. It's like, uh, I think it was like Yogi Berra said something like, Yeah, predictions are often wrong, especially those about the future. I love that quote. Something close to that. So here's what you do. Okay, let's get down real uh nitty-gritty and practical. And it's this when you really like someone, I want you to pause and say, okay, why do I like them? And I want you to find reasons to not like that person.

unknown 25:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Because as soon as you like them, you're gonna sort of shut down from digging in, like, I like this person. Like, I don't wanna, I don't want to poke holes in this. This could be the one. I've already met 10 people. This this could be the one. Don't mess it up. And if you really don't like someone, I want you to work really hard, really, really hard to find out one or two reasons why you should really like them. Don't let go. Don't get sour on them. Don't decide, oh yeah, no, I don't like this person. Right? I really want you to go, okay. I'm not feeling like I like this person. I'm not feeling super confident in this person right now. I'm gonna try something different. And I'm gonna, you know, maybe I'm just gonna say something like, hey, you know what, Scott? We've talked a little bit about your interests and hobbies, we've talked a little bit about mine, we've talked about how you approach work, we've talked a little bit about how I approach work. And I think it's fair for us to just say that they're a little bit different, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah, I think I also see that that what you're saying too is the reflect on the fact that you don't always get, you know, get along with somebody, but I've actually um actually learned the most, right, and been affected right by people that I had to work with. And I go, wow, uh, I didn't actually think I like them, but I actually they affected my life more than ever. And I think that really goes along like when you're a hiring manager. Sometimes you get a team, and your job is to actually refine that team and bring out the best in people, whether or not they're totally a clone of you. You have to understand who they are, right? And then make the best of them. And then the same thing when you're hiring somebody, right? You know, I get what you were saying there. Like there's a lot of people that just mess with me really, you know. I say, hey, I like jogging, I like this. Some people say, Hey, I like this sport, but that I usually learn from people who are not like me.

Timeless Hiring Truths And Bias

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'll I'm gonna tell a quick story about my friend Tom Graber. Tom Graber was on this podcast. He was on the podcast about 12, 13 months ago, and he passed away one year ago. Tom was a very good friend of mine. We worked together at Robert Half. We were both division directors. He went on to um work for some amazing companies, Amazon, Google, and these sorts of places, Apple. And he did some wonderful work. He's one of the smartest, funniest people I've ever met in my life. It was literally like sitting next to Robin Williams every single day of work. I mean, just a brilliant guy. But when I first interviewed him, very first time he came in, and this was in downtown Portland, and he came in and sat down, and he kind of did the um big guy in the room pose. He put his hands on the back of his head and he kind of leaned back and he's like, Well, Josh, you know, I'll tell you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like telling me these stories. And he's that's just like the big, the big uh silverbag in the room, right? And I kind of liked what he was saying, but I was honestly shocked that he got that comfortable that fast in my space. I thought it was a little bit weird. Now he was older than me and he'd been an IT director, but I thought it was really weird, but I thought there was something in him. Now, I could have just been like, dude, I don't know what's up with that guy. And I even had other people interview him and say, like, yeah, man, I don't know. I don't know about that guy. Well, I just told Tom, I said, Hey, Tom, can I tell you something? He's like, Yeah, Josh, what's up? I said, You came in, you sat down. I practically thought you were gonna put your feet up on the table. You threw your, your, your clasped hands behind your head, leaned back. It's like, I don't know, man. It didn't feel like there was any deference. It felt like you were trying to exert some sort of dominant. I just hit him with it straight up. It was like, exert some sort of dominance um when you came to this room. And I I just want to tell you, it was weird. It was just really weird. Did you intend to do that? And he was like, he was like, oh my god. Oh my God, I am so sorry. I totally see what you mean. I can't believe I did that. And then he told like two or three jokes in a row, made me laugh my ass off, and that was it. I was sold on Tom Graber. But what I did is I gave him the chance. I saw this weird thing. I had this instant, honestly, like like, but a lot of dislike up front. And I was just like, yeah, I don't know. But I bit my tongue and then I unbit it and I told him exactly what I was thinking. I gave him a chance to correct what was this not very good first impression. And he is hands down like one of the top three people I've ever worked with in uh whatever it's been, 35 years of working. An incredible, incredible guy. And I'm just grateful that I hit hit it head on with him. And I hope all you hiring managers do that too. And same also for you candidates that are going to be interviewing here in 2026. To give these people that are interviewing you a chance, right? Give them a chance. Okay. All right, that's all I really wanted to say about that. I do want to digress for a couple of minutes. Uh, we're 40 minutes into the hour. And I wanted to touch on two things. First, I want to let everybody know that you can go to thesalesforcerecruiter.com. That's my company. If you didn't know, that's my company. Go to the salesforce recruiter.com and click on jobs, and you're gonna see a number of uh openings that we have. We've got a new one just last night. We're looking for a Salesforce Marketing Cloud slash data cloud pro. This is developer slash light architect level to work for a$300 million company in the Chicago area. It's hybrid, you're gonna have to live there. Okay. Probably not gonna be relocation. But there's the data again, right? It's becoming very relevant. That's right. Um, also, we've got a Salesforce consultant role. It's really an interesting role because you're not, you know, we we want to know that you can build, you know, and configure. That's all great, but really, this is gonna be more client-facing and requirements gathering for a number of different clients in sales service, experience, cloud, Midwest company, fully remote, lovely people. Great job. Great job. Okay. That's gonna be in that 120 to 130, 135k plus some bonus. Um, those are the two jobs that I wanted to highlight today. We've got others on there. Again, the SalesforceRecruiter.com, and then just click on jobs and you'll see these. It's easy apply, just upload your resume and off you go. Okay. All right. Scott, I do before we move on to some other information on today's program, I do want to ask you what's going on in the world of Salesforce? You've got some updates for us.

Comfort, Familiarity, And Bad Decisions

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Yeah, what's really big right in my life, and I want to bring right some big things that are happening. Be right human, be relatable. So, right now, you guys have an opportunity. There is a lot of people, right, in our ecosystem that have done a lot of incredible things. And you have the opportunity, right, to until February 20th, nominate somebody for a Salesforce NBP. And I think this is not just about, you know, helping them, it's also about helping you. When you recommend somebody and you take a minute and say, hey, you know, what has stood out for me in the last year? Who has checked my life? It gives you an opportunity to reflect on that, right? And then to benchmark that and say, hey, that's what I want to do, right? I want to be generous. I want to share my knowledge. So that's happening. And the links for these, I actually put on a little link right off of my uh LinkedIn page. So I have a really nice clickable link for all of these different ones that are happening. And then I know a lot of us, right, want to um be wise with our money. And there's a lot of people are thinking, hey, I'm gonna be going out the TDX. Right now, you can sign up at the early bird special for only$199, right? And that is just an incredible deal, right? It's about ready to jump up. They don't actually define how long this window is gonna be open, they just said wall supplies last. But for me, giving uh virtually right it for you know the price of a dreaming event, right, is an incredible opportunity. So that's something. And then I have my little book here, right? I got it from Mealsoft, and I'm gonna call out a few other really fun things that are happening. If you're in the nonprofit space, right, we do have nonprofit dreaming. It is coming up in Charlotte on March 25th, 27th. And here's a little tidbit. If you happen to be going there, I have a really good friend, right, that would love to meet everybody. Her name is Melissa Hildees. She has a heart of gold. She's fantastic, and she is just incredible. You might have seen me online calling out um Rise with Voice Next Boot Camp. That is happening on March 10th and 12th, 6 p.m. Eastern. And you can sign up for that boot camp on our website, rise with voice.com. There's a link. And then release readiness, right? There is a lot of incredible right material, right? And I put the link right off of my post there of where you can watch some videos. I I love to read a lot of the content, but sometimes it's fun just to you know catch a little energy from somebody. They're excited about the new release, they bring that to you rather than just reading through all of the material. So that's what I think is really excited. And definitely make sure that you guys take a minute, right? Even if you don't nominate somebody, take a minute and think, hey, who has really inspired me? Who has really been generous this year, right? And then right say, hey, that's what I want to do. And then follow through, right? And just nominate somebody for an MVP, right? It makes a difference to them, right? And then it inspires all of us.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Fantastic. Thank you, Scott. I love it. I love it. And I've also just pasted into the LinkedIn chat here a link to last week or two weeks ago, a link to our last episode. You can find it at youtube.com forward slash at Josh Force. One word. Okay. And if you're checking this out on live and you'd like some additional information, we're not wrapping the show up just yet, guys. So I know this sounds like closing credits. Let's get out of here. Be sure to check out the podcast. There's over a hundred hours of content, some of it under the moniker of the Salesforce Career Show, some of it under the hiring edge, some of it with Scott, some of it with Vanessa Grant, some of it with a lot of different friends and guests that we've had over the, I think, four years now or something like that, five years. I don't even remember. It's been a long time. But do check out last week's episode. It's on YouTube. It's about 50 minutes long. It is Salesforce Jobs in 2026, all about the market, and really more about how to protect yourself from layoffs. And that leads me to sort of a topical event. Scott, you'd brought up a little bit about noticing that, oh, yeah, Salesforce just laid off approximately a thousand more people. We're going to hear about that, I'm sure, right? Like people love to talk about Salesforce layoffs, but they don't always talk about Salesforce hiring. So I did a little bit of research, and I could be wrong, but I do believe that Salesforce has actually sort of netted about 2,500 or so more employees year over year. Right. So we had 4,000 layoffs this summer. They're nearing about a thousand or so layoffs in this past uh week, or at least announcing it, or as the article put it, quietly, quietly announcing whatever that means. And I just want people to know, like, no, they're growing. Okay, everyone calm down. Right. They're growing. So, do you have any thoughts on that? Anything you want to share about that, Scott?

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Yeah, I really like how you pointed out quietly, right? It's it's not quietly. We all know what's going on, right? Jobs are changing. We know, right? And some jobs are being transitioned out. But as you you said, net positive, right? You've already gone over, right? It's the AI wave, right? You need to start using it. You need to think about it from both perspectives, right? And then get excited about it because some jobs will phase out. They're we're gonna have a lot of transition. But overall, this is a really exciting time to be alive, right? Lots of opportunity out there.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

It's super dope. It's super dope. I was thinking about like being a kid. And back when I was a kid, you know, milk cost five cents at school, and you, you know, you had uh uh, you know, you could put a dime to make a phone call in a machine. There's a phone on every single corner. We did get 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from. Thanks, Pink Floyd, for bringing that to our attention. But yeah, we were very aware of it back then. And uh, you know, it's such a different, to different life. I love being able to sort of grow up in kind of that tail end of what I don't want to say an age of innocence, but partly, you know, age of low information, right? And uh not to like high overwhelm information, but it's it's pretty dope. I can't wait to get a robot.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

And now the the question I have for you is would you ever get a robot for your puppy? I just saw that. You can now get robots, right, that are pet companions.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Okay. Yeah. No, I'm not hard up like that, man. Good luck with that.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

No thanks. I'm actually with Gabby. I'm really excited to see a picture of this uh new family member.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

But yeah, okay. Let me see if I can. Why don't you talk about stuff? Let me see if I can. Can I just drop a photo in here? Maybe I can. Maybe I can.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

You definitely got to post one right on your um LinkedIn page too, in case.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yeah, I could I could probably do that. I'll do that right now. Here we go. Select more photos.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

I didn't mean to put you on the spot, Josh.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I mean, no, it's okay. Let's do it. Let's check out this little puppy. Let's check her out. Okay, here we go. Adding them. Next. Okay. Okay. All right. Meet Zuka. You know, I want to ask you. Uh, it should just be on my main on my main LinkedIn page.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Oh, she wants them on the podcast. I'm not sure the puppies.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

I don't even know how to do that. Whatever. I don't know how to do that. Um, okay. What's up, buddy?

Give Candidates Room To Recover

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yeah. One question I would like to pose is there's a lot of people that are hearing that negative news. And do you have any tips, right, to help people to reframe things? You've gave us one really incredible tip is yeah, when you're doing an interview, actually, you know, question your own bias, right? And then with that, right now, you'll think about our world. You're hearing job layoffs, and everybody was talking about it. And then you quickly pointed out, hey, there's actually net hiring. Do you have any tips for for people out there that that are listening to the negative, whatever you want to call it, BS, right? To actually reframe things.

Quick Job Board Updates And Roles

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Yeah, guys, negative news sells. I think I said this two weeks ago. Like, you're gonna get all up in arms about what some billionaire, you know, chairman of the board founder says, and forget that they're being constantly followed and scrutinized by news media all over the world all the time. I mean, have some self-reflection. I say stuff multiple times a day that would probably get me canceled. Like that's the reality. Like, I just I do. It doesn't mean that I'm, you know, there's any reason to cancel me. It's just me sort of venting steam or expressing an opinion to a friend or the person I'm talking to actually is understanding the context that I'm talking in, right? Get over it. Wake up. Come on, get over it. Let's uh let's remember how glass our houses are. Do you know what I'm saying? And be a little bit more gentle in understanding of people that have to face uh fame and public scrutiny. Well, you should have thought of that about that before became a billionaire. It's like, you're an idiot. Just you're an idiot. So, one, I would let go of all of that stuff. Two, as far as all of the negative news, again, negative news sells. I just saw, I'm trying to find this one post, this this uh poor fella. Oh, yeah, here we go. So I saw this incredible post the other day. He's got 1,264 likes, 216 comments, 378 reposts. Daniel Corbin, account executive, his his deep frustration and frankly fear because he's he's not been able to find a job. Um that's Daniel Corbin, account executive at your Y-E-R-H-R solutions. And he's been in the industry for seven years, applying every day, honestly feeling the anxiety like he never has before, crying every day. He's worried about his ability to support his family. I love his vulnerability. I love that he put it out there. And boy, did did people respond. I responded. I don't know if people like what I said, but um, people respond like crazy. You're open to my network. Hey, apply here, check this out, we're hiring. And, you know, I don't know, man. I feel really conflicted about this because I saw this and I thought, how brave for Daniel to get out there and just put it out there. And my guess is he's gonna get a job because of this post. Like I really do think that he that he's going to get a job. But if anyone approached me to get hired for my team, they approached me in the way that Daniel did. I wouldn't hire him. There's no way I would hire them. Right? Because it's more of like hiring because of someone's having a hard time. It's appealing to their emotional desire of a young man looking out for his family and feeling frustration. That's not a reason to hire someone, I don't think, because that's that's goodwill, that's charity. Um, I'm sure he works hard and I'm sure he's very good at what he does, but I felt really conflicted reading that post because it is absolutely the opposite of what we talked about on our last show, which was to like not get negative about your job search online. Now, apparently it works. So I'm proven wrong. Apparently it works. Even people I know, good people I know, like Jeff Walinsky, were like, hey man, I saw this on Josh's post. Like, check out my network, happy to help. But from where I stand, I think, okay, you're in sales and you're in recruiting. And you're appealing to the masses that you can't find a job. I just think, how good are you at accounting or excuse me, at sales and at recruiting? If that's your strategy to get a new job. Now, I'm not trying to bag on Daniel because I think that what he did came from a real place of heart and desperation. I've been there, I know what that's like. It's so horrible. It's really difficult for recruiters right now. If you are not in the top 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 percent of recruiters, you're probably, you know, not gonna find it easy to get employed. AI is coming for our jobs probably more than the typical entry-level, entry to mid-level Salesforce administrator. I mean, trust me, we feel it. You know, that's why I'm scrambling. Like I'm a recruiting orchestrator. Yeah, I have to be. I'm adapting and rolling with the punches, just like everybody else in the Salesforce ecosystem that wants to survive. Now, I love, again, I love his bravery. I hope I'm not coming across as cold. It's not cold. I think it's a reality, which is you want to, you know, if you were gonna go buy um a car, you go to a car lot, go to two car lots, and one person sells you the car that you want, and another person wants you, you buy a car from someone because he really needs to pay his bills. Well, we're just talking about a car. We're not talking about a$70,$80,000,$100,000 a year based salary job that's gonna go for two or three or four or five or 10 years. Right? Like put it into perspective. When you're making a decision on who to hire, it better be for all the right reasons and not because of your emotional response. Again, we're humans. We're wired to feel this. We're wired to go ooh and ah when we see a puppy, cry at some heartbreaking story, right? Have our heart be overwhelmed when we see someone overcome great adversity and achieve incredible success, which we see a lot of during the Winter Olympics and all of the Olympics and lots of different sports competitions and in personal, personal stories that we see on LinkedIn. So, like we're wired for it. But let's just calm the you know what down and ask ourselves, is this who I want on my team? Like you'll notice through the threads, I don't think anyone was like, you're hired. It's like, you're welcome to my net network or you're welcome to apply. You know, he's already applied 2,400 times, 2,400 times. And I just basically said, look, you're applying to jobs like an uncontrolled machine gun, be a sniper, right? Become a pro at prompting, exercise, move your body, that'll help with the emotions, right? Listen to my show with Scott, you know. There's other things that we can do. I just don't want anybody caught up in this because people, it's coming, and I think it stands to repeat. But one of the things that we talked about last week is to not be shocked when there are layoffs going on. It's rarely, and you know, what you'll see is like, oh, they're hiring 2,000 new workers at this new Tesla plant. It's like, okay, no one cares. But when you hear, oh, Tesla's firing 2,000 people, everyone's like, can you believe it?

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Right.

Ecosystem News, MVP Nominations, Events

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Because it doesn't make your feed, man, because you don't want to see all that stuff. You want the sad stuff, you want the bad news. You you do. You do, you know? I mean, once in a while you want a great story. Think about this poor newscaster's mother who's disappeared. I mean, this is a horrible fascinating the news. They interrupt the Olympics for updates on this. The Olympics, the World Olympics, it's updated for the search for one little lady. It's a horrible story. It's emotional, it sells, it keeps people glued to their TV feeds, it keeps people glued to the news. Is it going to change your life? I promise you it will not. It will not change your life at all. It will not affect you. It doesn't affect you. You're interested in the story. The same way we all followed OJ back in the day and every other story like that. You know, so just I just want people to be aware that they are, they have a sympathetic nervous system that is wonderful. That's what brings people together, but it can F you up when it comes to your career. Do you understand? If you don't understand why you're responding in certain ways to people, why you're not responding in certain ways to people who are interviewing you, why you're responding in certain ways to people that you're interviewing, if you don't understand what's happening inside your body, right? You've got a problem. And I said, I said this to my friend just, I think it was yesterday we were talking, the one who's got this great boss and a great job, you know. And I said, You have a feeling in your body, don't you? It's an uncomfortable feeling when you think about what it might mean to stay here. And he said, Yes. Like that's just a feeling. It's not truth. It's literally a cocktail of chemicals that your brain is sending out because it's unfamiliar. It's not the way forward. You'll just get more of the same if you follow those turn left, turn right guidelines that your body is sending out. This feels good. I turn right, this feels bad, I turn left. Right. Good feeling, bad feeling, good feeling, bad feeling. Oh, look where I am. Same freaking place I was last year. What happened? It's like I know. Because you kept making a right and a left and a right and a left, or you just kept making a million rights and you wound up exactly where you were. If you want to get better. And guys, I want to just make sure everybody understands this. We hire the top 10% of people in the ecosystem. We don't hire the bottom 90%. So when I talk about this stuff, I'm talking about it like that. This isn't a show about how to get a job. This is a show, isn't a show about how to hire a person. This is a show about how to hire the best people. This is a show about high how to get the best job. This is a high performance, high, it's not even high stakes, just high performance, high um high standards for employment, for your career, for your life, for the kind of life that you want to have, the kind of team that you want to have, the career that you want to have. Look, this isn't like your average, yeah, this is how you get a job, put this on your resume. That's all good. Other people can tell you how to do that. So when I tell you that your emotions are messing you up and keeping you stuck, I promise you they are. You can Google it, you can chat GPT it, have a conversation, learn about yourself. Get really deep, deep, deep. Because if you don't solve the challenges that are preventing you from being in that top 10% or from having the career of your dreams, or what this young man is struggling with, Daniel Corbin, if you can't really understand what is driving these decisions, then you're you're at a loss. You're not going to be in the top 10%. And I'll tell you something else. Can you tell you how coffee, Scott? I'll tell you something else. The reality is, is like if we keep looking at the market, and I said this two weeks ago, if we keep looking at the market and we think it's the market's fault, we've missed the whole damn point. The market affects us, but how have we adapted? What in the last five months have you done to make sure that you've learned a skill, adapted a skill, improved an ability to interview a improve, like how about look at yourself? Like, you know what? I looked and I realized that I've had X number of jobs in X number of years. And I used to think that it was always their fault. And now I realize it's actually a lot of it had to do, uh, a lot of it had to do with me. Yeah, I'm looking at, yeah, I'm looking at some people here online, and it's like, yeah, a year here, 10 months there, five months there. It's like, that is not the market, guys. That is the you people. That's you. And maybe it's just you don't know how to make a good decision on who to apply to or who to say yes to for a job. That's a possibility. Clearly, you can tell I'm all about personal responsibility, and I know half the world doesn't feel that way. So if this but this really resonates feels funny, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Yeah, I mean, because you're all about your locus of control. I mean, when you were even saying that, I was thinking, is it even right for you people to just go out when they have a negative experience, right? And then shed it out to the world. You're affecting other people, right? Deal with it yourself, right? You know, and then make a change in yourself. Even if the hiring is was really bad at one time, somebody's gonna get a job, right? There's opportunity always in the world when you take ownership, right, of your own decisions, your own actions. And then also just the own the only way you approach life, right? Approach life, right, with with a positive mindset, right? And then be honest with yourself. You know, I think that one person that you said he's probably gonna get a job. Yeah, he probably will get a job, but I'm not sure that he trained himself the right way for life. He's probably gonna get a job and probably lose it, right? Because he has a negative outlook on life.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Look, I I looked, he's he's had a successful career. He's spent four and a half years at a single company during a time when hiring was difficult. So I don't believe that at all. I think he's gonna have a very successful career. And I don't, I the last thing I want to do is ever put kind of some expectation that someone's not gonna do well because they can hear this program or they can connect with all of these hundreds of people that have reached out to him and grow from that. So I have every belief that this young man is gonna do an amazing job. I think he's gonna get a job, I think he's gonna have a wonderful career, wonderful family, and find stability. But you are right that the hope is that he or anyone else like him, I mean, he's a really standout case. You've got to have some cojones to put that out there. I mean, if I put out on LinkedIn that I was crying every day because of my stress around this, like, I don't know. Like, I don't think I would do that. And I I'm fine being vulnerable. And guess what? I've had times in my life where I did cry every day. I, of course, have, right? Like I got through some shit, man. You know that. Like, of course, you know, so I like I want to applaud him for his bravery to do this. And I think it will actually have solved his problem. I don't want that to be a benchmark for everyone else listening to this program, though. I want them to approach this where it's like, you never want to get hired because of your hard story, your hard done by story. You want to get hired because you kick ass and bring value, period. That's it. That's really powerful too, to actually think about it, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:13

What is from your own perspective, right? Like, what do you want to be hired for? Right. And I think I can really resonate. We've all had cry cry time, right? I was actually, believe it or not, talking to Vanessa Grant last night. And she's like, Yeah, I've had some hard times. I'm like, I think all humans, right? The older you get, you go, yeah, you live through some good times and you live through some hard times, right? But it's how do you actually approach those times that makes the difference?

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Yeah. You know, look, everyone should know already that you learn from the hard stuff. You learn from the hard stuff. All right, guys. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this program. I know I can talk a little bit fast sometimes. Sometimes I can rant for a little bit, and sometimes you can take a quote of mine, and I'll sound like a real jerk on the outside. Uh, that's okay. Don't worry about it. Hopefully you got some good nugget out of this program. I can't thank Scott Stafford enough for being so committed. I think he got up at 5 a.m. to make sure that he could skip the snow and get to a place where the internet was good and wasn't gonna get blown out by the snowstorm. That was kind of you, Scott, to do that and to be ever present, ever ready with our listening audience. We'll be back in two weeks. I don't even know what we're gonna talk about, but I'm sure I'll let you know on LinkedIn. If you're not following me now or Scott, please do so.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

Thanks, everybody, right? Being able to have this live and see some questions and react really is incredible. So make sure that everybody keeps asking those questions. And then also, right, thank you, Josh. I'm sure your your knowledge that you're sharing with everybody, right, is making a difference, right? So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Thanks, man. Yeah, and hi to all our friends. It's so good to see Anarog and Gabby and uh see Kay and Ashley and uh Bunting. Uh, I know that you wanted to make it. I'm glad that you did. That's fantastic, and so many others. So thanks everybody for showing up for this live program. Okay, bye for now. Have a good have a great week. All right, thanks again, Scott. Bye for now.