Julian Placino is a Recruiting Professional with 11 years of experience in agency and corporate staffing. He’s been instrumental in advancing the careers of hundreds of technology, creative, and sales professionals around the country. For 7 years, Julian led talent acquisition for Bottle Rocket, one of the premier mobile development firms in the world.
Julian is the Host of the Pathways to Success Podcast in iTunes where he conducts in-depth interviews with world-class performers to discover their mindsets, tactics, and behaviors. He has interviewed company founders, CEOs, New York Times bestselling authors, TEDx speakers, celebrity athletes, and prolific entrepreneurs. Having a passion for helping the staffing industry evolve, Julian founded the Pathways to Success Training Co. which helps staffing companies gain new clients and recruit better candidates through professional development and leadership training.
Possessing a dynamic presentational style, Julian was signed to the theatrical and broadcast division of Kim Dawson, one of the most prestigious talent agencies in the country. He has done acting, modeling, and voiceover work for AT&T, Ford, NFL, American Heart Association, DCCCD, Edward Jones, Hilti USA, ABM Aviation, Orthofix, and more.
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Feel free to stalk 'Experience Design w/ Tony Daussat' on Instagram at @xdpodcast
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As always thank you for listening, and if you enjoy what you're hearing, please share with your friends and co-workers :)
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If you are feeling EXTRA inspired, I would love for you to check out my Patreon page here: https://patreon.com/xdpodcast
#staycurious
Julian Placino is a Recruiting Professional with 11 years of experience in agency and corporate staffing. He’s been instrumental in advancing the careers of hundreds of technology, creative, and sales professionals around the country. For 7 years, Julian led talent acquisition for Bottle Rocket, one of the premier mobile development firms in the world.
Julian is the Host of the Pathways to Success Podcast in iTunes where he conducts in-depth interviews with world-class performers to discover their mindsets, tactics, and behaviors. He has interviewed company founders, CEOs, New York Times bestselling authors, TEDx speakers, celebrity athletes, and prolific entrepreneurs. Having a passion for helping the staffing industry evolve, Julian founded the Pathways to Success Training Co. which helps staffing companies gain new clients and recruit better candidates through professional development and leadership training.
Possessing a dynamic presentational style, Julian was signed to the theatrical and broadcast division of Kim Dawson, one of the most prestigious talent agencies in the country. He has done acting, modeling, and voiceover work for AT&T, Ford, NFL, American Heart Association, DCCCD, Edward Jones, Hilti USA, ABM Aviation, Orthofix, and more.
-
Feel free to stalk 'Experience Design w/ Tony Daussat' on Instagram at @xdpodcast
-
As always thank you for listening, and if you enjoy what you're hearing, please share with your friends and co-workers :)
-
If you are feeling EXTRA inspired, I would love for you to check out my Patreon page here: https://patreon.com/xdpodcast
#staycurious
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:friends. Welcome to the[inaudible] podcast, a show that explores have designed shapes the way we experienced brands, products, services, and our everyday lives. As usual, I am your host Tony Dose at whether you're joining me for the first time or have come back for more. I want to take a moment to thank you for tuning in and if you find value in this show, I would be honored if you took a moment to share this episode, hit that subscribe button wherever you're listening or left a review. It's always greatly appreciated. And with that, what do you say? We just jump right into the interview.
Speaker 3:Here we are with Julian Placebo, which this is an interesting interview for me because one, you were the head of recruitment here at bottle rocket when I was doing the process and the first impression you made for the company was unlike anything I'd experienced before and interviewing and I've had so many jobs at sickening. Um, so first of all, Kudos. Thank you for that, I appreciate that. And to you have a podcast and it's called the pathways to success, right? And you know, there's this thing called secret Santa. Um, you don't know who gives you a gift, you, whether you knew it or not have been my secret mentor. Maybe I'll just call you a thank you. Saint Saint Placebo. St Placido. Yeah. So you've really ins, you really inspired me even though they're so different that there is opportunity to expand creativity and just dive into areas that feel unsafe or you're unsure of and just go full force whether you have a job or not and just committing yourself to something. So thank you for that. You're welcome. And you know, I always flatters me to hear things like that and that seems to be something that I'm experiencing and one of the most gratifying things that I do, just just by being open about the things that I'm trying to create and having the courage to live it. Like in public, it seems to inspire others and I think you're doing that for others also, Tony. Well thank you. So before we get too deep into this, give me a little background on you. What's your story? How you got here? Yeah. So my background has been in talent acquisition for the past 12 years. I have a mixed background of agency and also corporate recruitment for the last seven years. I've overseen talent acquisition for bottle rockets where I have been here. Um, and I'm a recruiter, a podcaster, and now I have a training and development company, which has actually set me financially free from having to have a job, which has put me on the path of full time entrepreneurship, which I am on today. And what is the name of that company? Pathways success training company. I named it, I named it after for the podcast. Of course. Yeah. Now for the listeners that are on and have heard me talk to product designers, interior designers, product managers, et Cetera. So far the podcast has lived in that zone. And when I have on a hiring professional or recruiter, um, it's a bit of a head scratcher like, well, what is, what is this about? And there's two things I would say to that. One is, I've said it before, I'll say it again. We're all designers. Yeah. And two recruiters are the first line of defense in crafting and designing the culture of a business. Do you consider yourself a designer in that sense? You know what's really funny is that when I was a kid, I used to draw, I used to sing, I used to dance, I used to make little movies and all these kinds of things that he was as a very creative individual right at that time. And then when I graduated from college, I remember telling myself, Julian, the fun is over. You got to stop being a kid and be a grownup. And in my recruitment career at, that's all I did and I was very good at it and I was very professional. I was a sales guy and built a great career. But around 2016 you know, I was very entrepreneurial as well, trying all these different kinds of things. And the first thing that I ever did that was just for the sake of the love of doing it and not focusing on the money. Yeah. That's the thing that transformed my life because I was desperately seeking a mode of self expression. And that's where the podcast came from. And ever since then I saw myself like an artist. Yeah. And the more that I saw myself as an artist, the more that my life seem to unlock. I was making these connections between the creative world that the business world and I'm now able to create new value in my particular industry that's never been seen before. So yes, I absolutely see myself as a designer. I think we should all think that way. Yeah. And we're taught from a very young age that creativity is about something visual. You know, even like you said, drawing, painting, performing creativity. To me, obviously it has something to do with visual, you know, there's so many other arms to it. It's really unique problem solving. I mean, if, if, if pull it down in some sense. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, hear about a rocket. It was, I was so intimidated by everyone because we have some of the best, you know, engineers and creatives out there, right. Smart people. Absolutely. Absolutely. The best. Arguably the best in the world. Right. And, and because of that, I always like suppressed like any creative ideas that I had. But the truth was communication was my art. The content that a crate was, was my art. Entrepreneurship is my art, right? It is my motive, self expression. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I embrace it. Yeah. I love that Julian. Every, I mean that's the thing is a lot of people feel or felt the way that you did. They feel like there's some chains around them or they're intimidated by people around them. Yeah. But we're all people and we all have that thing. I'm, I have the acting background. I've spoken about it before, but actually I'm introverted and as far as networking goes, I'm terrible. So I thought of this is also a way to help open that up. Um, obviously getting knowledge from all these different people in my field and outside of my field. But it's surprising when I tell people that I have some, uh, introvert tendencies because I did the stage thing. I'm doing the podcast. I'm usually relatively bombastic and parties bombastic is strong. Maybe I'm not bombastic at any rate. Let's talk about the pathways to success. Okay. What was the genesis of that? Uh, podcasts. So it was rocket science. So march of 2016 so here at bottle rocket, we do something called rocket science were for the period of 24 hours, we can build anything that we want provided that we love, whatever it is that we birthed into existence. Right? And I was always intimidated by rocket science because again, people are making apps and you know, virtual reality and stuff like that. And I was a recruiter and I was the sole recruiter for the company. So my discipline was just different than everyone else's. But this idea of doing something that you love to do, it just kept beating me over the head. And as you know, Calvin, who is the founder and CEO of bottle rocket and he really preaches this and he encourages others to do, to do this, to do the same. And I was actually at this place in my career in 2016 where I was, I was kind of frustrated. I loved everything about bottle rocket, but I still felt like there was more that I could give. And I asked myself what is it that I truly love doing? And the fact of the matter is I love getting to know interesting people and I've been interviewing my mentors for years now, so I figured why not capture these conversations and share them with other people. And in March of 2016, the pathways to success podcast was born now produce 144 episodes regular listening audience with to our countries, 60,000 downloads. I got sponsored by focus where I compete everyday. Did stocksy.com um, led me to getting signed by Kim Dawson, so do commercial acting and modeling a paid keynote speeches. And of course I built the training company that replaced my income and sent me on this path. Uh, so becoming a content creator has truly been life changing for me all, I mean that's a list. Yeah, that's a lot of stuff in it all happened because you decided to break that chain to break the intimidation and step out. Yeah. Was it nerve wracking? No, it wasn't. It felt right. And I think that's what happens whenever you find something that you love, it just feels right. Like for me, for example, like I, you probably think I'm full of crap, but still to this day, like public speaking is one of my anxieties. Um, but after like two or three minutes of doing it, I feel like I was doing something I was literally born to do and I felt that way with conversation as well. Right. And that's why when the monetization opportunities started to come to me, I didn't feel sleazy about taking it because I knew I was creating value for others. Yeah. That's huge for me is creating value. 100% okay. So on the pathways to success, you get the top performers in whatever field that they're in and you extract from them their secrets to their success. However, I want to know from you what your secrets are. Like, let's, let's flip the script here. What are Julian Secrets? Because you've 140 episodes. Yeah. Right? Um, what have you used in, now that you're an entrepreneur, how do you manage your time? How do you know what to do, what not to do, et cetera. The one thing that I wish I would've told myself when I graduated from college is that I had to do the hard work of self awareness. I was trying to achieve success according to society's standards. I wanted to look good. I wanted to have a white collar job. I wanted to have x number of dollars in my bank account, all those kinds of things, right? So now I have two perspectives. The entrepreneurial perspective of how does someone become successful in business and also the recruitment perspective. Like I've hired hundreds of people. There is a commonality of what makes an entrepreneur and a job seeker successful. That is self awareness and it's being very clear on your unique gifts, talents, and abilities and how you can create value for other people as early on as you can in life. Get to know the things that you're good at, that you're bad at, the activities that give you energy and the activities that drain your energy. Because once you find this intersection of your natural strengths, your areas of interest and value creation for other people, your life will transform. I want to be, I hope everyone's taking notes. Yeah. That was some gold. It's true. It's so true. It took me a long time to figure that out. And I think a lot of people dive right into self confidence. But it's shallow without self awareness. Yes. The self confidence is, it is the result of being competent at something thing about social media is that I see a lot of people like promoting themselves on social media. Right. And a lot of people are using it for job search. I understand it. Um, but you got to get good at what you do. You have to be a mastery for craft first. You have to produce a real result and then you can go talk about it on social media. Speaking of social media. Yeah. Um, I've been doing this since January. You've been doing it for three and a half years. Yeah. Um, sometimes I feel I'm over plugging myself. Like I'm s I'm saying, okay, there's another episode. Here it is. And I post a couple times about it and I'm like, man, is this just like getting my, like I'm trying to sell something to someone. So how do you overcome that? Is it about the value and being confident in the value you you have and that you're serving? I think it's a few things. I was social media averse before I started the podcast. I didn't know how to use Facebook because to me a lot of times, and this is just my own opinion, it seemed like it was very, it was sort of this vein thing like look how great my life is and stuff like that, but not until I had something of value to share. Then I became very vocal about the things that I was doing and for me I run it through a checklist. Number one I say, am I doing this just to promote myself or am I doing this to be of service to others and if it's to be of service to others, I always post and almost a hundred percent of the time when I create content it is I'm promoting an event. I am promoting another person. Right? But the more effectively I promote that other person, or that other person's thought leadership, first, it promotes me also. That's why I love the podcast medium, right? Because during this conversation here, I win because I get to have my, my conversation here captured on your platform. You win because we're doing this year together, the audience wins because they get to learn the lessons from this conversation that we're having. Everyone wins. It's a beautiful harmony. And I have like, there's the perfect intersection, right? Yeah. That's how I get over it. I think, am I doing this just to promote myself or am I doing this to help someone else? And it's gotta be the ladder. It's got to be a lender. And then on the back end of that, it helps you. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's, that's the whole Emerson quote. Right? Um, Ralph Waldo Emerson says it's impossible to sincerely tried to help your fellow man without indirectly helping yourself. Yeah. That is truth. That's everything right there. Yeah. So it makes me think of personal branding and it's something that you talk a lot about. Yeah. Can you unpack that for me? Sure. Personal branding. So first off, I, I did all of this stuff by accident. And honestly, I didn't even know I was building a personal brand until episode 101 a one a listener reached out to me and said, Hey Julien, how did you go about building your personal brand? And to me, actually personal brand, isn't that something that only likes celebrities? Have you gotta be Beyonce and stuff like that. But what she was referring to was my social footprint because after a hundred episodes I had built this body of work that people could Google me in research and listen to me, it's a, it was a way for people to get to know who I was, what I cared about and what I did without ever meeting me. And to me that is huge equity in marketing and sales and branding, right? Yeah. And that's to me what it is, and to me it starts with self awareness. It's really understanding, you know, who you are, what you value. And I think that's the core of what any brand is. If someone's struggling to discover who they are, which so many are. Yeah. And it could stem from many things like I'm not getting work. Uh, I'm not finding a spouse. I, it's uh, I have a hard time socializing. I think it all builds up in someone's psyche that they aren't enough and it makes them not self aware and rather the awareness they have is negative. You have created that. So how, how might someone come back that go play, go play, go have fun? What are your areas of interests? What are your hobbies? What are the things that you do when time seems to pass by what happens there? You're much more in a creative state when you're doing something you truly enjoy. Yeah. Right? So that is the first piece. Whatever that is for you. Don't worry about money. Don't worry about anything else. Be Selfish. Figure out what that is. Go play. Because the more that you take action, the more clarity you start to get. It's like one step in front of another. Now, the social aspect of that, I've discovered that whenever you truly pursue something that you love to do, you don't have to find other people. You will attract them with people. Have the same interest. That is how you and I came together, right? Yeah. You're an XD person. I was a recruiter, but we had this interest in content creation of we became friends because of this. And look, we're on her. We're were on the show now. This was an idea. I'm so proud of you for taking action and turning these into a thing. You've got an incredible brand. I've seen the, the guests that you've had an on the, on the show now you're going to be doing a lot more things to the community. It's amazing to see that thing. Right? And this is not work for us, right? That's right. So when you pursue your passion, you attract people who are like you. What are you doing right now in your own journey as a business and how do you manage your time in that? So my company is a, it's a strategy consulting company for it staffing firms. So I helped them with business development, strategy, employment, branding, leadership coaching, and also performance coaching, right? That's the company. That's my primary revenue driver right now. And um, over the last six months I was able to secure six figures worth of income retained for a year, which allowed me to quit bottle rockets and then go pursue whatever this thing is, right? So basically I've been able to free myself from time, like here at bottlerock added workload, you know, 50, 60 hours a week now on side of my client. It's like a day and a half, right? So it has freed me up to figure out the rest of this entrepreneurial path that I'm on today. But that's all I needed was time. What is an entrepreneur? I had Patrick Escobar, the founder of Le Madeline on the podcast. Oh yeah. Right. And he says, the word entrepreneur is actually French and it means I create, I you embrace that definition. Never really saw myself as a creator until I started to create myself. When I first my first training product, I sold something that didn't exist that day. I changed as an entrepreneur and I literally turned an idea into revenue and that day I knew I freed myself for the rest of my life cause I could keep doing that. We see entrepreneurs right now on social media. Yeah. They got the cars, they all this stuff around. They have bleeding that a lot of them take pictures of like cash. Yeah. Stuff like that. That's not an entrepreneur. It's exactly what he said. And I've never, I've never heard the French definition before that didn't either. And that just blows me over. Yeah. That's why it's everything. It really is. Yeah. I create and it's just, I dunno, I took me so long to figure out that I was, that we are all creators. Like we can create something out of nothing. And that is an amazing realization once you see the utility in it. So some tangible stuff here, someone is looking for a job. Okay. They're scheduled to get that first call with the recruiter. What tips do you have for them in nailing that first call? It's going to be preparation, understand the company, understand what's happening in the news, get start to get a sense of how their business runs. What are the unique pain points, truly understand what this position is. What are the needs of the role and how can you be a fit for that role? Whenever I coach job seekers, I say the sooner that you can switch gears from being a job seeker to a problem solver, then you're going to start to change. You will already set yourself apart because it's no longer a me mentality. It's a human reality. What can I do for you?[inaudible] what is the um, equation that you created? Um, isn't there some the five things or six things you look for? Yeah, so when you said, uh, our recruiters, designers, I think we are, and I learned this from the Great Glen, Kathy, the boolean black belt, but I do this in every screening call. There's seven variables that turn into the right match. It goes by the acronym[inaudible] slow Mac. That's motivation, skills, location, opportunity, money, availability and culture. And when you have all seven of those variables in alignment, you have a right match, not just for Potter Rocca for any company. And for me, I like it to be very systematic. A lot of new recruiters will just kind of wing it and go by gut feel. But this is objective evidence of why this candidate is a fit for your organization. The more prep work you can do, the better. Yeah. And also if there's a way to tangibilize your results, it is one thing to say that you can program in Ios, but it's another thing to point to your apps in the APP store and that's why I think it's so great for the kind of work that we do. Austin Kleon wrote a book called show your work and that's cheapness, you know, because we can, we should. I do too. We should all be able to have a body of work to show it is the end result of your efforts. Like for what we're doing, it's like, Hey, look at her podcast. Check us all out. Right. That's different than saying, yeah, I can pop. Yes. Yeah, I know. What a microphone is. Yeah. Right. So what I am, it got me thinking more about this self awareness and you have to know what you're great at and what you're passionate about. Yeah. And pursuing that with everything in you. Uh Huh. But I think also part of it, you have to know what your weaknesses are. Sure. In order to either strengthen those or avoided like the plague and just go after the stuff that you're great at and hit it hard. Right. So what do you suck at last? I got a lot of things. Uh, I'm bad at math. I'm bad at directions. I don't pay attention to details. I'm really bad with criticism. Um, I'm reluctant to speak up when I'm in an audience. Like when you see me speaking, it's like I, I have another character that comes on. It's like got to do that. Right. But when someone else is speaking and like I'm part of the audience, I'm hesitant to ask a question. Isn't that weird? But, uh, but yeah, those are, those are the things. Yeah. That's the criticism. Bad with math. Just never been technical when it comes to that. Uh, I don't pay attention to details. I'm a big broad strokes, big idea kind of guy. Um, but yeah, those are some of my weaknesses for sure. So for you, do you look at those aside from math because whatever suck at math too. Yeah. So do you look at that list of weaknesses and say, how can I get better at that? Or do you look at your strengths and say, how can I pound into that even harder? I lean towards that one. I figured out what are your strengths and how do we go go all in on that. But I'm very aware of the things that I'm weak at and um, I usually either mitigate it somehow or I outsource it to someone who can do it a lot better than I can. Oh, that's smart. Yeah. Like doing my taxes and stuff. I have an awesome CPA. He was on the podcast. I have a financial planner, Kristen. She's amazing. She helps me out with that. Um, I like to Uber everywhere because I don't like to drive. So yeah, I always get lost pretty easily, so I'm a walking Asian stereotype. Right? Hey eastside. I didn't, I said it's okay. I'm, I'm, I'm diversity. Right? So that's right. Before I do my final question that I ask every guest I want you to just plug away, where can people find you and hit it? I'm very lucky in the sense that I have a unique name. I'm the only Julian placebo that has ever existed. It is spelled j. U. L. I. A. N. P. L. A. C. I. N. O. You can just go to my website, Julian placido.com. You can search that name on any social platform. I'm particularly most active on linkedin. I'm on Facebook, also Instagram, and I'm sure that we'll have this contact information plugged in the show notes, but Julian placebo.com it's interesting you say that. I'm the only Tony dose that really, yeah. Do you have[inaudible] dot Com oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's awesome. That's really great for branding. You know, good thing. I'm not like a Mark Smith or something. Good. Yeah. Okay, so here's the final question. Every guest, what object or thing that you own that's non digital has had the most impact on your life or means the most to you and why? Wow. Okay. That's a personal question. I'm going to give you personal responsibilities. The honest one. It is, it is my Bible. I'm a Christian man and that has been the core of who I am. Uh, for very long time I lived a very secular life, but until I started trying to actually live my life according to some of these principles, uh, my life has become a series of interesting coincidences. So that is my thing. What was the catalyst for changing from secular to pain? And, um, when things, when things are not going right in your life, you start to look for different things that can help you. And this was just the direction that I was pointed to and it has just given me so many different kinds of results. Like my whole life really seems like it's the message of stewardship. When I talked about personal branding, that's 100% what it was.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what I was good at. I didn't know. I never gave myself credit for having specific gifts and talents, but the second that I actually embrace them and own them and use them creatively to help other people, that's when my life started to completely change. And uh, that is, uh, that is a Christian message. Yeah. Yeah. Love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, thank you for sitting down with me you toady or they're inspiring me. Yeah, keep killing it. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. We'll have you on again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it.
Speaker 2:And with that, we will call it a week. I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did, be sure to share it with your friends, family, or coworkers. As always, you can find the show notes and full transcript at[inaudible] podcast.com or stockmen Instagram ad next d podcast. I can't wait to have you back next week, but until then, friends, stay curious. The XD podcast as part of XD media LLC, and it's produced and edited by me don't. Sap hosting and publication of the podcast is through Buzzsprout.