Crash Out With Me.
Crash Out With Me is the podcast where we stop pretending we have it all together and start saying the quiet parts out loud. Every episode is a little unhinged, a little honest, and a lot about burnout, work, life, and the moments where everything falls apart just enough to figure out what actually matters.
Crash Out With Me.
Crash Out With Me: Hiring Is Breaking People
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Applying for dozens of jobs, getting ghosted, and watching the same role get reposted can make even the most confident person start to spiral. We feel that tension hard, so we brought on Derek Lars, a talent acquisition leader with 15 years in recruiting, to talk about what’s actually happening in the hiring process and why the job market can hit mental health like a truck.
We dig into the parts nobody says out loud: how “high-volume” recruiting can quietly strip out humanity, why endless clicking through an ATS can destroy your momentum, and what to do instead. Derek shares practical job search strategies that are more efficient and more human, including using your network to reach the hidden job market where many roles get filled before they’re posted. We also talk interview reality. The “two-way street” idea sounds nice, but it rarely feels equal, so we focus on how to ask better questions, name deal breakers, and walk away without feeling like you were just prodded for an hour.
Then we crash out on the messier stuff: ghost jobs, resume collection, aspirational job descriptions that don’t match real work, and employer branding that oversells the culture. We also get into LinkedIn’s engagement-chasing chaos and what it means for credibility and harassment. Finally, we look ahead at AI in hiring, including AI interviews, bias risk, and why candidates should feel empowered to refuse a bot conversation.
Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s job searching, and leave a review if it helps. What part of hiring has been the most draining for you lately?
And thank you for staying through the technical issues, we'll crash out about that next week <333
Welcome And Derek’s Recruiting Lens
SPEAKER_00Takes a second. Okay, we're live. Welcome everyone to Crash Out With Me. This podcast live is really dedicated to the idea that everyone has something that they're crashing out about. Everyone has a thing that is taking up space in their brain that does not work, and we explore that individually with everybody. Today I'm very excited to have Derek with us. Derek, could you tell us a little bit about you?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Absolutely. My name is Derek Lars. I have worked in HR and this for well over 10 years, almost 15 years now. Entirely on the recruiting on side. I had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of thousands of thousands of people as to what their career career motivations are. What makes talent not different.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So what are you crashing out about right now?
SPEAKER_01You know, I know I think from a talent perspective, I you know for me, I've I expect my whole life with mental mental health. I think many. And I think that is one element that has that lacks being addressed in the corporate workplace. And then I think I think I'm talking about that. I feel like you know, you know, you and I have talked a lot about uh how performance is evaluated, judged, and developed corporate place. I think those are those are those are intuitions that I think we have a lot of work to do as a collective.
SPEAKER_00So I would
Job Search Shame And Mental Health
SPEAKER_00love to hear your hot take. Since you kind of brought up mental health and you also brought up talent, I would love to know how you think right now at least the job market's not great. I think a lot of people know that. How do you think that is impacting people's mental health?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I mean, when the job market is going well, I think the hiring process is an extraordinarily humbling experience for everyone. Uh, when the job market is going well, it's just shameful. Uh hearing stories of applying for hundreds of jobs. Hundreds of hundreds of jobs and not giving people email emails. I think that's a good idea. You know, we don't have to master playoffs. These are people that are talented, these are people that have skills that they bring. And as we we tackle very quickly very quickly in in our in our uh in our in our society, there is there is uh I think a lack of lack of humanity as we as we implement it. And and what that's what that's from a requiring standpoint is people are now not feeling heard, we're not we're not feeling seen. And the only the only way that we can actually by actually talking to people.
SPEAKER_00Isn't that the truth?
Networking To Protect Your Mind
SPEAKER_00So for people who are kind of in this space right now, right, where maybe they've been laid off or they're really unhappy or they're at a job that's harmful, but they're not seeing any traction. How do you think people could go about protecting their mental health in a process a process that is so you know, beyond humbling, it's also exhausting.
SPEAKER_01You know, I don't I think I'm not talking to people because when you're finding a job right here in front of the side of the square square, uh you're not interacting with computer, you're not getting back, you're not getting the no that actually fills all of our buckets. And it and it just sounds kind of and it seems like a waste of time on one and find that job. But I think reaching out to your network, having those information. I don't mind to create all the information owners. It sounds weird that they have people tell you like, hey, they that'll be really interesting. That will be really interesting stories expand on that. So it's not just click, click, click, click, submit a hundred times a day. That's that's not natural for humans to be doing, and it's no one that after that after a couple of months, we just start to lose that that healthy mindset.
SPEAKER_00So I know that you've been in talent and leadership for 15 plus years, and so I think when when you've been in it that long, you start to kind of the see the facade fade away a little bit. So what do you think one of the biggest lies that we are told about success is?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I mean, I don't I don't I don't I don't even think it's a lie, but I genuinely think that everything that we hear, people will believe it. But I but I will say that the idea that's the line here that's easy. So I think that that's that's the environment that I've worked in one water where you have to have uh sitting right side there help helping the bell up and work UFD over those things. Uh is not something that is just managed to grass cracking that uh working as a team through complicating our problems.
SPEAKER_00I just realized, is your the back of your chair a denim pocket?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. I think it's all and I love it.
SPEAKER_00Uh that is that is so wait, so like is it a functional pocket?
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you could like keep your snacks in the pocket. That would be my snack pocket, for sure.
Reclaiming Yourself In Interviews
SPEAKER_00So, you know, I think one of the things that is the opposite of how humans should be, essentially, right? Is like when you're in these interview processes, you are constantly being perceived, right? You are constantly being evaluated. And I think over time that level of constant perception, constant evaluation erodes our identity a little bit. And so I'd love to hear you kind of talk about when you're in these processes so constantly, how can that impact how you view yourself?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I mean, it's why if you've ever interviewed with me, I I try to put up a very casual interview. I want to have a very uh normal conversation with somebody. Well, I I ask the question that I need to ask in the way that I need to ask them if I can gather the information. But from your your standpoint, I'm in it, I want to set up a system where you didn't even think that I asked you. That would be ideal. I've been I've been doing it long enough where I think that when you're telling me about a time, all of all of us go into a certain mode. Right, right. We go into a performative mode. And I don't want to hear your for me. I'm not sure. I don't want to hear examples that you wrote two years ago or three years ago. I want to get to know you in the moment. Right, right. So it's getting those examples and talking to individual legal leg theory so that I that I can you know help make a sound decision. From from from the other side of that, though, I think I think we hear all the time two-way, two-way street the way interview street. Anybody listening to this think that they've been in an interview where it's honestly you interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you. It's just not. But I think every hiring manager I've ever talked to would like to see a candidate that has the confidence of to make it that way. Right? So muscle your way and ask the questions that you want of that employer, even in a job market like this, because I promise you, if it's not the job that you want, if it doesn't fit what you need, that they've been in fact, six months, so find what you find what your deal breakers are and make sure you ask those questions, have those conversations. So that when you walk away, you don't lay like you were just prodded for 45 minutes to an hour.
SPEAKER_00Random question. Can you still see me? Like you can see my face on the video. You have to see your face.
SPEAKER_01The image that popped up is what's what stuck.
SPEAKER_00Am I still frozen?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Huh, interesting. Okay. I wonder why that is. I'm gonna ask you a little bit more about that topic specifically. So, you know, I know we're sold this idea, right? Like interviewing is a two-way street, but right now it doesn't necessarily feel that way, right? Because the job market is awful. So it actually feels like you are in something akin to the hunger games. And so I guess how can people still get what they need out of an interview process? Even when it, again, it does feel like a competition versus like being able to actually evaluate if a company is right for you. How do you tow that line, knowing at the end of the day, we all need jobs, we all have to be able to pay our rent, pay our bills. So, how do you recognize that? How do you acknowledge like how do people go about doing it that way?
SPEAKER_01I think I think in a lot of ways, I'll just you know, give an example of it all I and B. I mean, I think I think very very generally you have to have interviewing you're doing what I love open right, but there's a lot there. In an in an instance like that, if you don't feel comfortable doing it in an interface, right? You want to make sure that your answer is hybrid manager. I don't get thank you emails at all anymore. I'm 45, so I kind of like it. Right? Right? Give you a fake paragraph and then hit my five minutes. You like your hiring manager or a recruiter to answer to answer. If they are not willing to take the time to answer my questions, you're probably not even willing to give me the time you need in your first 30 to 69.
Turning Interviews Into A Two-Way
SPEAKER_00So that leads me to just this is just like a random question out of curiosity. For those of you who don't know, I also have a background in talent. I really cut my teeth in like headhunting and recruiting 9,000 years ago. But that being said, do you have a favorite question that people who are interviewing ask you? And I don't just mean like, oh, what's your PTO policy or give me, you know, my 30, 60, 90? But like, what's what is the best question anyone has ever asked you after an interview?
SPEAKER_01After an interview? Wow. I mean, I mean, I think I can't pick the one off hand. Oh, that's a great question. The best question I can get are one like this in either either at the end of the end of the interview or afterwards. One's I know you can get like I've read every ILS or every HR company that built out a time question to ask. Some of those are good questions to ask. What's the structure of your company? But I but I've got an answer to that, right? Like those are great questions. Questions to ask. You thought about the opportunity. You thought you thought about what did you like? You might come up with questions. I've never had before, and I've been at the company for X number of years. But it's it's then I guess I want to take away the for you and then with everybody else. There is a question. It is about you coming at a unique way, and and we're looking at a hundred applications. You want to do something that's gonna be unique in every instance. You want to do something that's building over every not listening to remember.
Stop Mass Applying Find Hidden Jobs
SPEAKER_00I love that. So if you were on the other side of the table today, what are some recommendations you would give to candidates who are maybe like crashing out a little bit about the job search? And I get it, right? It is so frustrating to, you know, a job gets posted and LinkedIn tells you like a hundred plus people have already applied for this, and it was posted 12 seconds ago. So if you were on the other side of the table, what are some things that you would do to A, make sure that you're being the most efficient with your time, but also protecting, you know, your heart and your mind.
SPEAKER_01I hear a lot of people talking about how much they spend looking at. Yeah. And I can confidently say that after your first week or more. There's not there's not 30 hours a week of job searching to be good. Especially if you're a bit career, right? So you have a job title, you like know the type of job you want. I don't think it's a day after the first month continuing to randomly apply to every job that's out there. You're not putting quality out and you're and you're not giving quality back. So once you're once you get to that point where the job jobs are exhausted, no level of thing. Don't don't have to just find jobs. There is there's I don't know what the actual number is. I think numbers numbers are being made made up. But I do know that most jobs are filled without ever being posted. They say the number is 70% of the jobs are posted without ever being a good idea. People the leaders know. So take advantage of that. Right now, eight hours a day, you're taking advantage of 30% of the iceberg that's hanging out of the water. Don't find that 70%. Go talk to your network. There are jobs sitting out there that you will never see on the market. And the only way that we have to happen in the market is build your network.
SPEAKER_00So Taryn has a fair point. My favorite is a job posting that was reposted after 500 people applied in the first posting to the same job. I think we're
Ghost Jobs Reposts And Data Mining
SPEAKER_00seeing a lot of that, right? Like people are applying to jobs, they're getting denied, only for the job to get reposted. So, what is your hot take about what's actually happening in the market when that when you see that happening?
SPEAKER_01I think when you see examples, there's there's I'll give you a bad faith example and the good faith example. They're gonna both sound like they're they're bad examples. But the bad faith is just the company's jobs that they're not hiring for. They're they're not hiring for their client. They're just collecting resumes for the bulk job. The good faith effort is a company that is trying to find the right candidate, and maybe their hiring manager is not aligned with what they want. They're continuing to unfortunately they're continuing to go live and crafted either the job description or talk to the team as to what kind of qualifications they want. They're doing they're doing the the pre-work, which they should have done before they posted, while they go live. And that's never great for you as a candidate, but that's a lot of companies don't know what they want until they see applicants and they're like, this isn't what I wanted. And I mean that that's that's just the messy part of talent acquisition.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, one of the things that I think a lot of a lot of people are talking about are like the concept of the ghost jobs, and like jobs that are just being posted with no intent to fill. And so I guess what do you think the actual point of that is for for those organizations?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I mean I just came in. It's it's it's like data mining, and in a lot of ways, I I think there's there's some some element of that when when we live in a society where it's not kind of giving them information. I can't tell you on how many research. And I think in a lot a lot of ways, there's there's there is certainly a benefit uh what can people who you know, you know, you don't have to have that job now. You you you may have to have it in the future. And so again, it's it's very hard for people to find my seat to regard to remember that either humans are looking at the job. But oftentimes processing people that way.
SPEAKER_00Well, and it's funny that Taryn says that because I actually had applied to a job when I was still looking, you know, this is probably like a year ago now, but it was like ahead of HR role. I applied for it, and instead of getting like a response about the role, I got a response from them and that they were building a community of HR leaders, paid, obviously. And I think they were actually just like collecting our emails through a job search, knowing that a lot of HR folks are job searching. And so instead they were like, let me convert you into a paying customer, which like didn't make me want to convert into a paying customer, it gave me the ick. It gave me the ick pretty hard, actually. So for you, if you are now flip the the the mindset a little bit, if you were to give advice to people in your seat about how they could do a better job at seeing people as humans, what would you tell them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean do you mean hiring man? I mean, are you talking about like what can the leaders do to put forth a better faith or like you clarify that a little bit a little bit?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think you know, you made a good point, which sometimes people in your seat, in my seat, forget that the people that we're interacting with are humans, right? Like even if it is just an application, all 500 of those people are people with job with who need jobs, who have bills, who have aspirations, who are exhausted. So, how could people in our seats do a better job of ensuring that we're thinking about the human on the other side versus just our KPIs and our metrics?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know doing your bath in the craft in the process. Isn't just copy and paste it from some other exact thing. What I mean by that is I think it's important for leaders and companies to create an external hiring process that mirrors exactly what they want on the inside on a day-to-day basis. And I think that we have across every industry and every company that I've ever worked with, a process that in most cases doesn't really look at all like the job that we're doing on a daily basis. And so then it's really hard for everybody involved to think that we're everybody's misaligned with everybody. Yeah, so I think that ends up becoming the difficulty. And so taking a step back, even if it's just in your 45-minute to an hour-long interview, and taking 15 minutes of that interview as a leader and just having a conversation with the person. Sure. You can't there are some questions that you can't ask, and I think a lot of leaders use as a use that as an excuse to not have any sort of a human conversation. Like, because I can't ask you if you plan on getting pregnant in the lap next two years. I don't want to ask you about your weekend or you know, when you say you went to the family cabin, you know, continuing down that thread just a little bit just to get to know you as a human. So I think in a lot of ways, some of the trainings that I've delivered to people have caused hiring managers to somewhat move in the other direction and sort of just get the job done.
Job Descriptions Versus Real Work
SPEAKER_00So Taryn asks, can we talk a little bit about the the aspirational pieces of job descriptions? As someone who's hired over 80 people, I've rewritten a dozen job descriptions in my career to base them on the actual job. And I think we see that often, right? Like everyone's got like this pie in the sky idea of what a job is gonna look like. And then you get there and you're like, that is nothing of what I'm doing, especially if you're running in the startup scene. So I would love to hear a little bit about you about how job descriptions end up being so mismatched for what we're actually looking for. And I think you touched on it a little bit, but would love to hear a little more.
SPEAKER_01I'm actually in if I'm gonna crash out today, it's gonna be on the topic of job descriptions because and I'd love to hear because I might be wrong. I could be wrong, but I'd love especially the job seekers here to tell me how many seconds they take looking at a job description before they decide to apply. Especially in this world where we're applying a hundred a day. I think the misalignment can be when you're posting jobs where people take less than thirty seconds, which I don't fault them because they've heard for years that recruiters only take eight seconds to look at their resumes. So, how long should a candidate take before they apply to your job? I would say it should be probably pretty similar. I think a lot of candidates take less than a minute to look at the job description. They find a couple of qualifications, the job title, and then they shoot off an application. Hiring managers and HR leaders like myself are obsessed with making sure that every single detail is in that four-page job description that we take about 10 to 15 minutes to thoroughly read and vet out as a candidate that knows nothing about the company. You've got 30 seconds, you've got one paragraph, you've got three lines to hook that person. And I think that's the disconnect in the market. We live in a TikTok social media world where you go to LinkedIn right now, every job is written by a lawyer, and then we can't figure out why we can't hire correctly.
SPEAKER_02And it's because we're not in 2026. Wait, did my audio go on?
SPEAKER_00No, no, you're scared. I was in the process of I was trying to fix my camera, not doing it correctly, but it's fine. I tried. I gave it my all to give you all my face back. It's just not gonna happen. You're just you and it's you, if this is the Derek show today.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I think it's scary for everyone.
SPEAKER_00No, we love that. We love that. I'm about to just take myself off share the whole screen. When Allison asks, when we're down the line participating in the interview process, how can we make it a better experience for ourselves and the candidates? Like, how can we make sure that, you know, for me, as one of my core tenets as a leader is I want to make sure that you leave my interview process feeling like it was productive, even if you don't get the role, right? So, how can we do a better job of ensuring that all of our processes are meaningful to everyone involved?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think Alison, you're you're talking about that from a candidate. Yeah, right? She's talking about that from a candidate standpoint. I think so, yes.
SPEAKER_01I think what I what I would say, I feel like I've already kind of mentioned this, but I I think really, you know, being an advocate for yourself is is going to be very important. This is not what what I see in my role is a lot of people coming in front of myself and in hiring managers and and jumping through whatever hoop is being asked of them. And and that's the structure of the interviewing process, but I think a lot of hiring managers don't want to see that. I think when you don't when you don't showcase yourself and who you are, and you just do what we think you want, it ends up kind of being a blander interview. So I think the best the best experience that you can set up, the best interviews that I that I can remember just in the last six months were ones where the candidate came in and kind of kind of seemed like they didn't give a shit. Like they just came in and they were themselves. They were themselves, they and they put forth their entire personality, and it it kind of creates a match right away. Like it's it makes it really easy for a hiring manager to fall for that person right away. I as far as being on the hiring side, Allison, you know, I think we have to advocate more as HR leaders for what we for what we see candidates craving, right? Like think about all the all the phone screens we do and all the reasons we hear why people leave their job. Or one question that I like to ask, you know, in the in those first five minutes are you know, oftentimes just like you know, when we're talking about their last employer, why they leave their last employer, some of those throwaway questions, how's this your how's the job search going? Like those types of things really expand on allowing them to kind of showcase the side of of themselves, just a human side, before we even get into the interview. And it I think it I think those candidates that end up you know taking a solid five or six minutes out of, and I'll say more, I'll say a solid 15 minutes out of a 45 to an hour long interview to really come and near the interview with their questions, with and not even their questions, with their comments, like, hey, here's what I learned about your company, here's what's important to me is their career. How do you set your team up for success in XYZ? Like, feel like you're holding their feet to the fire as much as they're holding yours. Not sure who is mentioning this, but I will sharing interview questions is not something that I have had a ton of experience in my it's just not I have not been a part of processes that have that have done this. It's it's a top it it's something that I could go just personally either either way on. From a disability standpoint, I think that like if somebody is requesting something from an accommodation and ADA standpoint, I would I wouldn't I would supply those questions. I I would be hesitant to supply all interview questions across the board for all candidates in every role. And one of the I will say one of the reasons that I am not I'm I'm talking about having a genuine conversation, getting to know each other and having genuine conversations. And I think when you provide questions to an in-person interview, that is essentially the purpose of a screening document or the pre-screen or the or the phone screen. I think once you're getting into those in-person hiring interviews, I want to start mimicking as much of the day-to-day of a role as as you can. We're working with that team, working with that department leader. In most of our roles, we don't get the luxury of getting to prepare that much in our role, so I like to see people in their natural environment. Yeah, I think you know, Tara, there's there's certainly something to be said about about that. I think you have a lot you have a lot of change happening and a lot of unknowns, and in hiring, I think it's really easy to just do what you've been comfortable with and what you've known. And that's not I I don't feel like the process that we've all done the last 10 to 15 years is is going to be the same process that we see five to ten years from now. As you see AI start to take over, you know, specific processes within HR and within talent acquisition. I think what HR and leaders are gonna have to do is allow HR to take over some of these automated questions that people could answer through typing it out, and then have that human out. What is the human element that we want from our hiring process and develop that out? So I really think that hiring is gonna look radically different.
SPEAKER_02I could also be completely naive there.
SPEAKER_01And I think uh I think the hardest part of being any sort of a talent leader and HR leader is you you have I mean it it's easy to hold people accountable to policies internally. You have you have your internal handbook and everybody has to follow the same structure. When you're hiring outside for a department, you want to keep it as you want to keep consistency, but every department is is different in how they're led, how they're managed. And I mean, if I were to be honest, like I have worked, I have worked at places where Department A should have probably have a completely different hiring process than Department X. But it's gonna take a while for everybody to grapple with what that means and what that looks like, and making sure that that would be a fair process within the same company to do different hiring processes because it makes because it just makes logical sense, and you can find a way to still be legally compliant while having different hiring processes. Once you get turned down for a role for those companies that actually, you know, turn down the people that they interview, give feedback. You're not, I mean, the chances that you're burning a bridge after you've been turned down are very small. I it I think that you're doing a a strong service to the companies that you're interviewing with, to send them them an email telling them the parts of their process that just is not working. They're probably not there's a less than one percent chance that they're gonna reach out to you for a job in the future unilaterally, anyways. And I know if I got those types of emails, I would take them to heart. Alison, that's a great question because I think that you would you're you're stepping into HR at kind of a volatile time. You know, you've got you've got AI coming down the pipeline faster than any new technology I've ever seen get implemented across industry in general, and you are in the most human department in every company. So I think my first recommendation to you would be find an external mentor that can help kind of ground you in some of those processes that you might be questioning and you might want to like, I want to change this, but I don't know what how do you know if you're if you're even in the right realm. So if you don't have an external mentor, find that mentor and lean on them in in in this role.
SPEAKER_02For true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh the other thing that I would say, Allison, would be, and I've I've always wanted to do this, and I've never been able to get around to it as an HR leader, but but like take all your VPs and department leaders out to lunch. Because I bet if you just ask them like what they'd like to change about the hiring process, they'd have a lot of ideas as well. And then you can start to kind of grind through like, what's the internal culture already want to change about how we hire? We might be able to get some small wins under our belts and start to showcase, like, hey, this is the future of our hiring process. It's what I did in every contract I was ever on. Because my as a contractor, you only have three months, six months to make a difference. So you find, yeah, you talk to a few people, you find those easy wins that you can get, and then you end up looking like a genius. Why my biggest crash note is I think Madison, I think that has a lot to do with a lot of my career has been doing high-volume recruiting for entry-level roles. And you're not making and breaking your hiring problem on the job description for the cashier at Walmart. And I think that's why there's just a lot of time that can be spent on developing job descriptions. And even as a high-level professional, I will tell you that when I when I apply for jobs, I read the job descriptions for 30 seconds and then I apply. And if I'm doing that, I know that I can't be the only one. And so I think companies spend they they should so if we look at employer branding and just talent acquisition as a whole, I think you should take the amount of time that you spend on job descriptions and the amount of time that you take on brand marketing and flip that within your organization. I think that would be the answer. Your job description should be. I mean, heck, this could be something that I would say you could just throw into AI. You have enough internal documentation to where you should be able to say, here are the four documents that should be able to write a job description. What's the job description? And hopefully AI fills out a job description that that hiring manager hates because now you have some training to do, because all of the documents are showing this is the job description, but for some reason the manager doesn't like it. That those those are the moments where you see misalignment, right? Like I think, and then you've you've gotta you've gotta be able to dive into correcting those hiring managers on their own internal misalignment. I was gonna ask you to rephrase that, but you can't because we uh we don't have a microphone.
SPEAKER_02So I just feel between who I am and what I perform.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think I think a a brand should an employer brand is not a product brand. You're not trying to showcase how like, you know, if if I was working for Jeep in their marketing department, I have no problem with the commercial that shows that Jeep driving up a mountain. And if you think that your Jeep can drive up a mountain, good for you, right? Talent branding is not the same thing. I do not want to oversell what my company is or what my roles are. So I think I see a lot of companies overselling what their brand is. So who I am, big pizza party and look at all this fun stuff that we're doing, but then what I perform is very different. When you're out there doing your branding, you want to be showcasing what the people are going to be doing. And if you're doing that, then you're gonna get the applicants that they want. I would actually say that managers shouldn't. I I mean, I could make the argument that a manager shouldn't write a job description, it should be the colleagues and the individual contributors. The other people in that job description, if you again, the this presumes that you're working at a big enough company to where when you're posting the job, there are other people there that are also doing the job. The the colleagues are the most qualified to write a their own job description, I would say. And I would, and if you then almost unedited put that job description on the market, I bet you get a better, more aligned applicant flow from the individual contributors writing the job description than you would from the middle manager or or the V. I have no experience with that. That's just my my my guess.
SPEAKER_00Can you hear me now?
SPEAKER_01I can.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, I'm back.
SPEAKER_01You got 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_00I don't know what I did outside of losing my internet and then I put it back on. I don't I don't know. Okay. So I was I was getting a little sweaty. You still can't see me, but it is. Oh, wait, I can see you.
SPEAKER_01Wait, I can see you. You're moving around just fine. This is perfect. We're good.
SPEAKER_00Dang, look at me go. Okay. I don't know what I did, but maybe I fixed it. Okie dokie. I am just so everyone knows, I'm very excited I'm buying a new computer this weekend. This one, it's it's it's at the end of its life. It's lived a very good, full life, but it's it's over for us.
Burnout Breaks And Mental Health Weeks
SPEAKER_00So for anyone who is watching this and they're in the job search and they're thinking, I literally just cannot do this shit anymore. How would you encourage them to move through that feeling?
SPEAKER_01That's right. Can you say that last part again? Repeat that.
SPEAKER_00How would you encourage them to move through that feeling? I think a lot of people are just in this, like, I can't do this shit anymore. Like, whether it be for exhaustion or frustration or, you know, it is just the last, the last, this was the final straw, like me and my computer, final straw. How would you encourage people to get past that feeling and either continue pouring into themselves or continue in the job market simply because they have to?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I don't want to give advice, but it isn't financially feasible for people, right? So I I but I mean, if you've been grinding it for two months applying to jobs and it's it's a Monday, if you're like, wow, I did 40 hours worth of work last week and I didn't get nothing for it, like literally nothing. Maybe take a week off. I mean, and and I know that that's financially that's not possible for a lot of people, but if you're just grinding your gears, maybe you need a mental health week. And I don't like the term, I don't know, Madison, if you've seen the term mini, uh mini retirement, like using your like that's the new term of people that get laid off and can't find a job. Hey, use that six months as a mini retirement. I think that's when we take our, you know, this this post-apocalyptic mad max world that we live in, we put cute little turns on it to make it seem like it's not the disastrous, like page capitalism. It's like I don't want to use that term, but if you've been if you've just been not getting anything for weeks, I don't think it's in your mental health to sit for the ninth week in a row for 40 hours because you're first off, you're not applying to jobs that like there's if you've been in the market for months, there's when you re-up the following week, there's only gonna be a handful of jobs that you're actually gonna be interested in. You're gonna exhaust your work in a day or two. So maybe there's some other holistic things, and we're all different. Um what I would do in that instance would be you know, I might either go to a couple baseball games, I might dive into a video game for a couple of days. I'm I'm gonna take some of those PTO days that I always feel bad about taking when I have a job. I have a job right now, so I can take a couple of PTO days. Those are the things that I would do to fill my own mental health. What I always tell people is the first step is to be super self-reflective. Think about what you need right now and realize that you answer to no one. And that's a luxury that we don't get often. And if you can take advantage of it, take advantage of it however you can. And I know that that seems kind of like vague, but it's vague intentionally because we're all different and I want people to lean into their authentic selves.
SPEAKER_00So that actually brings me to a different question, just out of curiosity. What what video games are you playing? That's not the question. I'm I know, I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_01I play a lot of uh I play a lot of sports franchises, a lot of a lot of diving into sports games.
SPEAKER_00So I heard you tell me, I heard you tell me that you feel guilty taking PTO.
PTO Guilt And What To Share
SPEAKER_00And I actually want to dive into that a little bit because I think a lot of us have that, right? We feel really guilty for using PTO, despite PTO technically being a part of your compensation package, right? Like if you leave PTO on the table, you're leaving money on the table. So, how do you think a good way to reframe PTO so that you encourage yourself to take it is like how do you reframe that to yourself to actually make sure you do it?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I you you just answered the question. It's part of your PTO package, and technically, like nobody should be able to tell you whether you can or cannot take that PTO. If you want to call up your boss today and be like, you know what, you kind of pissed me off yesterday in your one in our one on one, I ain't coming in today. That shouldn't be held against you at all. It shouldn't be. Like you have PTO. If you've got 32 hours banked, you get to take that 32 hours. But we all again, it's the just we live in a so I mean it's the TikTok era. Everything is performative now. Like our lives are performative. And so like we feel like we have to like I promise you, I really am sick. That's why I'm taking this PTL. Because I end up, I don't even think that it's the best use of our PTL then, because I don't, I think that, you know, we it's just not healthy. And so I think what I would try to encourage people to do, and it's really easy for me to say this out loud, but just like any benefit in your in your package, you get to take it without retaliation.
SPEAKER_00So that brings me to another question. So there's this big debate on the internet. Do you tell your boss, leader, whoever, what you're doing for PTO, or do you just say, hey, I'm taking PTO versus like, hey, I'm going on vacation, or hey, I'm, you know, getting my boobs done, or like whatever the thing may be. Like, do you actually tell them, or are you just like, I'm gonna go, and it's actually not your business what I do?
SPEAKER_02I mean, you don't have any you don't have any loyalty to tell them why why you're taking it for, what you're taking it for.
SPEAKER_01But full disclosure, I don't do that. I mean, I'm it's like I am the most radically transparent, overly apologetic person, and I almost lean into that as a strength because it's either that or it's a weakness. But and I also I working in HR, you know, I've I've always run into people who seem to be adversarial just for adversarial sake. I'm kind of that way, if I'm being honest as well. Maybe PTO isn't the time to do that, like just take your PTO and move on. Like, not everything needs to be a fight, but I'm more telling myself that than anybody else. You you if you're gonna disclose why you're taking PTO at some places, and the more I I would argue the more billions that they have in their revenue, the more likely. I would say don't say it. Submit your PTO request and move on with your day.
SPEAKER_02That's fair.
SPEAKER_01So I don't know because the bigger the company, the more likely you are truly a row in a spreadsheet. And there's no reason to then make that personal because it's not personal from them to you. It shouldn't be personal to you to them.
LinkedIn Culture Harassment And Noise
SPEAKER_00So I know that we're crashing out a little bit. So I would love in our last 10 minutes to kind of crash out a little bit about corporate culture and kind of unpack some of the things that I think maybe we're hearing as buzzwords or things that you're seeing online that you're like, that's absolutely not happening, or that's not real. I know there's lots of arguments around, you know, AI and ATSs and all of these things. So I guess what is something on the internet that you've seen trending lately that you just feel like is, you know, kind of a BS lie?
SPEAKER_01I God, I let me think. I mean, just first off, just the fact that LinkedIn has turned into what it's turned into the last couple of years has definitely been sad because you I mean, all of us on this call remember when LinkedIn was like the premium service to use, not only as a recruiter, but as an executive to go on to find people, as like it was the one stop shop, and um it isn't anymore. And to answer your question, it's because they don't they want to be Facebook now, and so LinkedIn is full of high-level people posting things that I know are just radically inaccurate. I mean, there's no fact-checking. I mean, even Facebook has fact-checking, kind of like nobody's fact-checking posts on LinkedIn, and I gotta tell you, if a CEO is talking about hiring, and it's a one-winded multi-page rant, what they're talking about is inaccurate. It just is like it, it's always a startup CEO that's talking about how somebody came in and didn't grind hard enough in the interview, or you know, they had a typo in their resume, or something from 1984, like not the book, but just from the 1980s. Like some of these rules that are very outdated, and it's more of a show to them as the poster than it is to who they're trying to give advice to. That's kind of what I'm crashing out about on LinkedIn. Like, you really don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00LinkedIn really does want to be Facebook. I had a man yesterday call me a chicken head, and I like didn't even know that was a phrase that we were still using in the year of 2026. He said, Oh, so if I called you a chicken head who is covered in cocoa butter, that wouldn't be offensive. And I was like, Well, I am in fact covered in cocoa butter. Like that is actually a daily part of my skin routine, but super weird thing to say on the internet. I think, you know, LinkedIn has really leaned into the drama a little bit. Like they aren't really good at securing their platform or, you know, I think Facebook does a the okayest job of kicking people off or suspending them when they say wild things. I don't really think LinkedIn does as good of a job as that. I would actually say it like leans closer to Twitter because some of the comments I get are like really wild. And they're like, seems okay to us. That emoji in your name, we actually have problems with that.
SPEAKER_01And I don't know why LinkedIn feels like they want to be any of those platforms. They should have stricter policies around fact-checking, stricter policies around harassment. I think like if if I've I've seen some of the private messages that people get sent on LinkedIn, like you should get banned. Like you're just banned from LinkedIn. If you're trying to hit on people privately on LinkedIn, like you shouldn't be allowed to be on LinkedIn. Like you can you can do that on Instagram, right? Like, but they just don't care. They want the they want the hits, they want the ad revenue. And so any persecution, any engagement is good engagement.
SPEAKER_00I truly get I I posted about this last week. I posted, like, do not hit on me on LinkedIn because I am A, actually not really that friendly in real life. And B, ew, like, ew, stop it. And I had a man who messaged me and he hit on me and then I didn't respond. And he said, Oh, so you don't take compliments well. And I was like, So now you're mad that like this didn't work. And then he blocked me, like pretty immediately. But LinkedIn, all they do is like, you might not want to see this message. Do you want to see it anyway? That's the little like box you get to like protect me from seeing the creepies. So I know we are getting to the end of our time, which again, I'm so sorry for the technical difficulties.
AI Hiring Trends And Human Pushback
SPEAKER_00I've never actually worked through technical difficulties on StreamYard in real time before. So really, really appreciate you like staying strong. You are so good at like carrying this entire show on your back. So I am deeply, deeply appreciative. So when we think about the future of hiring, the future of work, what that looks like, what do you think are going to be some trends coming up here in 2026 and 2027 that are either really, really good for us or really, really bad?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think in the in most things, you know, growing pains get worse before they get better. So I I mean, I do think that the hiring landscape is going to look messy and complex. As I mean, I I'm not even gonna button name the company because I'm gonna get it wrong, but there was a there was a tech company early last year that laid off like 10,000 people because they were they were implementing AI. They were the first ones to lay off on AI. They're rehiring a quarter of those people back. That's what the market's gonna be through, probably until 23, I would guess, right? Like as you get your initial your early adopters for AI, then you're gonna have some others implement it. We're gonna have to get past that adoption. What it means to apply for a job, because as a candidate, like you only see the interface that you're allowed to see. And so until until we get past that, I don't know if we can improve it. But I think we're already seeing the remnants of what happens when you over-indulge in a technology, especially when that technology is is needs to be human in its element. And so I think at some point there's going to be a clamoring for human interaction again, especially in these aspects of it that require human interaction. And I think that's when it's people like us that are gonna need to step up and have those plans ready, have those ideas ready to change the game and change it quickly.
SPEAKER_00So I'm back. My internet did the thing again. Can you hear me again? Yeah, yeah. Okay, chooses. Okay, again, RIP this computer. We are we are really on the we are really on the the last legs.
SPEAKER_01So I was just gonna say I think I think at some point industry is gonna clamor again for human interaction, and that's when we're all gonna step up and and and be ready to implement those ideas. And again, I think I think it's gonna depend on what part of AI breaks the system. And I I think it's gonna be interviewing because I don't think interviewing was ever done even close to well, even 10-15 years ago, and now it's just gonna get really bad. The interviewing aspect of of how we pick and select people is just gonna be uh, I think a complete disaster for the next five years.
SPEAKER_00So, do you think that the way we work will look different? Like, do you think the gig economy is gonna have a bigger pickup here while people can't five find full-time roles, they're gonna find supplemental stuff, whether it be through upwork or outlier or whatever the thing may be. Do you think that will shift a little bit?
SPEAKER_01I I think it will. I don't know on what level. I don't know if you knew that there's a website called renthehuman.com.
SPEAKER_00I don't think I like that name.
SPEAKER_01I don't like it either. I spent some time on it last night, but I think that it's a gig economy that's where you know you're you're picking up packages for AI and delivering it to the next phase of the process where AI can pick it up. That's gonna be a level of it. But I I would like to think as an a I would say in the HR space, I am much more advanced on the on the AI track than I think most HR professionals are. And I will tell you, it is not gonna be as efficient as they say it is, and they're there, they're will always need a massive amount of people to sift through the slop. And so train yourself, get ready for what AI does, just like the internet in the 90s, so that when the jobs are out there on HR AI prompt engineering or whatever it's gonna look like, you know, you're you're ready to go.
SPEAKER_00Well, I loved all of this, despite my technical difficulties. And again, thank you for carrying the show on your back this week. It was really the Derek show. I don't know if you've thought about having a live or a podcast yourself, but like clearly you can do it. So I would love in your last.
SPEAKER_01Can I make one more? I need to make one more comment because this user came in. When somebody asks you to interview with an AI and you don't want to, make sure that that company knows that you're not interviewing for them and moving forward with them because you're not interviewing with a human. And we all know again, what what's the number? Like only 72% of what AI spits out right now is factual. And we are seeing how much biases and discrimination is being coded into these processes without humans looking at it again. So yeah. If you don't want to interview with an AI bot, let that company know so that people like me can document that for you.
SPEAKER_00All right, that's all I got, man.
Where To Connect And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_00So, where can people find you, connect with you, learn, continue to learn from you?
SPEAKER_01You should be able to follow your talent expert on LinkedIn. Just uh looks like you just put it down there. So follow me, ask me any questions. I love talking about this stuff. So you'll always have an ear.
SPEAKER_00Any final thoughts or things to crash out about before I let you go?
SPEAKER_01Always be yourself. Don't be who the company tells you to be in the interview. Be yourself in the interview, please.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for hanging out with me. And again, thank you for putting up with me. And for those of you who don't know me, I am Madison. I am the Crash Out Coach. And if you are crashing out and you're trying to figure out how to repivot your life and what to do next, let's talk, let's work, let's get you to a point in life that feels good and a little less robotic. You can always find this podcast on iHeartMedia, Spotify. I'm gonna figure out how to work this together since I didn't talk for half of it. And it's just a Derek monologue, but the people might like it. So you can find us there. And until next time, I'll see you then. Bye, y'all.