Shawn Draisey is a recruitment consultant with a wealth of experience growing teams for all types of interesting industries. He's worked with chicken processing automation companies, tire sellers, cannabis cultivators, point-of-sales systems and many other companies through his career - mainly focused on talent acquisition.
For this session of StartWell's Gathering podcast, host Qasim Virjee is joined by Martin Hauck in conversation with Shawn - we hear a wealth of perspective on how to evoke empathy in recruiting and much more.
The Gathering Podcast is a series produced to engage and inform folks working in People & Culture / HR through dialog. You can find more episodes here.
Spend time with this conversation - here's the full transcript
Career transition and people operations in the tech industry.
Qasim Virjee 0:04
All right Martin!
Martin Hauck 0:05
Qasim.
Qasim Virjee 0:06
First up season two, episode one we talked with Shawn Tracy. So what are your takeaways from this conversation?
Martin Hauck 0:14
I was most excited about hearing how Shawn transitioned his career, he was a recruiter back in the day when used to dial up. And he explains it's not going to be useful for right now. But what's most interesting is that he takes all that like hungry, scrappy recruiter mindset and shows you how he's applying it today with the technology that's available. And so yeah, he used to dial for dollars, basically, literally just dialing into corporate numbers, and then just punching extensions blindly and just saying, Hey, can I get a hold of so and so until he got the right person? And
Qasim Virjee 0:49
I think that's an interesting thing in this episode, that kind of like comes out is I guess it's social engineering. That's what we call in hacker culture back in the 90s. We called it social engineering, where you're literally doing whatever you can to figure out organizational structures, how to navigate them, and how to get what you need from a company because the company really is just a bunch of people. So who does what? Who likes doing what and who can you actually communicate with at a company to get what you want from them valuable skills
Martin Hauck 1:17
as a recruiter and any people operations person? Really?
Qasim Virjee 1:20
Absolutely. So Shawn Draisey, first episode, season two of the gathering podcast, listen to the people. evil people in culture, it's time for the devil. It's time for the gathering thoughts. Shawn Tracy, and his me. Thank you for joining us in studio today.
Shawn Draisey 1:49
You're quite welcome. My pleasure.
Qasim Virjee 1:50
It is wonderful to have you here. We have a little bit of career history because you work for one of Star Wars clients. I did. That was an Office tenant in 2018 19. Yes. And have since changed roles, we'll get into your career history. But I'd like to know the backdrop and I think a lot of our audience enjoys hearing the backdrop of you know, how you found yourself in like, people in culture, HR. What? What's that all
Shawn Draisey 2:18
about? How far do you want me we got all day? Yeah, well,
Qasim Virjee 2:20
let's start at the beginning. I mean, like it did you have a passion for you know, helping people. This is something we hear a lot. I'm
Career changes and recruiting experiences.
Shawn Draisey 2:26
going to say yes, that has changed. So if we go way back. I was supposed to be an RCMP. So I went, I wanted to be amount of policemen. I went into recruiting, after I graduated university failed the test
Qasim Virjee 2:45
to fallen off the horse. Yep. Yep. Sorry.
Shawn Draisey 2:49
Nothing we can do for you, buddy. I'm colorblind, believe it or not. So I didn't know that Clive was 21 years of age. So the helping piece or the group dynamics piece, I was teaching kids karate at the time, you didn't
Qasim Virjee 3:03
know that you were colorblind until this until you applied to be mounted police until
Shawn Draisey 3:07
I took the test and I failed to play test, color play test. So Wow. Teaching kids karate was good with the kids. One of the parents this guy's name was Paul Sonoda said you ever thought about social work? No. So I was at a university unemployed didn't know what to do wandering the streets, I guess as a youth as a 20 year old youth. So I applied to get into social work. And I did I became a social worker. I worked young offenders child welfare. I was a corrections officer, believe it or not for some time. Wow. That's got a high burnout rate. Sure. Yeah. So I was looking for something synonymous, akin to social work, career development, presented itself, went back to school. Funny enough, I worked at a hotel at night, put myself through school through the day in career development. Ended up at the federal government doing we'll call it second career stuff, career development.
Qasim Virjee 4:13
So as you're figuring out what your career is, you're studying career development. Exactly. Okay. And then starting to work in career development.
Shawn Draisey 4:19
Exactly. Isn't that fascinating? That
Qasim Virjee 4:21
is fascinating.
Shawn Draisey 4:22
It's so I did that. For three years, I ran a thing called the job find club in London, Ontario, and that is job search or career development, if you will. So I did do a little bit of lecturing at UW Bo Ivey School of Business before it was big. And somebody said, you know, you're really good on both sides of the table, you're good with the employers, you're good with the the clients, you're good with the matching B recruiter. And so the thing is, recruiters get paid a lot more than her We're counselors. So I dove into that. And in the beginning, I was running a manufacturing desk. I was on the back end doing re I was doing sourcing for the account managers. And believe it or not, this was I'm gonna say mid 2000s. Okay, so we were still on big green screens, believe it or not, in the mid 2000s. In the mid 2000s. At this recruiting company, we
Qasim Virjee 5:29
made like a monochrome monochrome. Like I am XTS. Big, big back of all manufacturing full of veggies
Shawn Draisey 5:36
or veggies. Eddie's Believe it or not, so we still had paper files.
Martin Hauck 5:41
That's a challenge.
Business strategies during economic downturn.
Shawn Draisey 5:42
Yeah, exactly. We were some I think some people are still on dial phones. And the big exactly, I'm glad I got the piece with this was I was the sole recruiter or sorcerer in I had the the orders would come in on a big whiteboard. We were running automotive manufacturing, recruiting. So I was doing anything Detroit to Ottawa. tier one, tier two OEM and engineers. You name it, anybody in manufacturing. I was doing 75 to 100 calls per day. So while I was calling in to the dura automotives, this the machine shops in Windsor, Poland, I was just Poland. And I had about a 24 hour fill time where I had to get resumes over to the ATMs to get them into send out and process. So I did that. That was commission only. My first placement was for a Corporate Controller at to come see manufacturing, in London, small motor manufacturing in Ontario for our international London, Ontario, Canada. So I did that. And the funny thing was, this was a group of people that have been doing this since the early 70s. Right,
Qasim Virjee 7:07
so that's really a bottleneck gear, right? So
Shawn Draisey 7:09
that Yeah, exactly. So the guy running the company had been in the game, like when there was no head, like when the head hunting was just, yeah, yep. What's that? Yeah, he had been in the game since the 70s. So
Qasim Virjee 7:25
he knew everyone in the sector.
Shawn Draisey 7:27
He knew who so there wasn't so much a big deal of getting clients in. But what this group didn't see is the gathering economic storm coming. So the great downturn hit, you're talking 2008 9008 Nine, so we would have like probably thrown $1,000 on the board in search. In one afternoon, you guys. Yeah. phone started ringing. Wipe, wipe, wipe, hold, hold cancel, off, off, we were running a contingency shop. So most of it was contingency. Some of it was pay up front, a little bit of a little bit of, you know, fee fee up front. Some of the bigger clients will pay, we need a little bit up front that we're going to pay once they get in, we're going to pay the rest in cash. So there was some Retained work. 80% was contingent. So those calls came in and you add $300,000 in business, in process, gone. So I saw this group of business people just implode, just lose their minds. I left that I went to run a desk a full desk at a smaller show up in London. That was in the small to medium sized business. End of things why ran both sides and bleed and this is the funny story. And please feel free to step in jokes. I cut into chicken manufacturing. I got I got into egg business.
Qasim Virjee 9:03
Oh my god picking manufacturing. I love it. I love farming. I manufacture I got into
Shawn Draisey 9:09
to the Ag manufacturing. The other thing you'll laugh tires. So we were hired by Cal tire. And at that point, same company chickens and tires, chickens and tires. That's where it has to clean the fancy hipsters would love that on
Qasim Virjee 9:25
the board of a new restaurant
Qasim Virjee 9:27
chicken
Martin Hauck 9:27
& tires chicken emoji or something. Yeah, so
Shawn Draisey 9:31
I did that and the thing at that point in time I'll say with those staple businesses, if you will, yeah. Because
Qasim Virjee 9:42
of the tires Yeah,
Martin Hauck 9:43
I we're not going anywhere. I
Qasim Virjee 9:44
gotta go places if we got to eat thing, I was
Shawn Draisey 9:47
recruiting general managers for tire stores in southwestern Ontario, between London and Windsor. And there was just these All these outlets that were servicing AG, big, you know, we'll call it snow plow stuff like that like big earthmoving companies. And so I did that I was successful at that. The chicken piece is these were smaller engineering companies subbing to Maple Leaf foods and some of the larger carriers in Ontario at the time to put in robots. Hmm. So that was the big play. Mid to late 2000s was automating chicken plants. Yeah. And I hired defined people to automate the chicken plant those that have that background, those that were in chicken. Yeah. And that was I got it. I gotta tell both of you during that downturn. We did. Well, I did very well. So, you know, I did so well that the owner of this company said, Well, John, we're gonna make you a manager. So I ran the perm team, I had a whole sales team. And we had everybody in this really niche, weird, small businesses in southwestern Ontario. And, you know, I gotta say, I was quoting, we recording 25%. Cut. Yeah. Like there was nothing to it. Yep, no problem. So it wasn't 15% contingent. It was 20.
Qasim Virjee 11:20
We just mean, sorry, you're placing someone for a job and you earn as the person who places or finds that talent, you earn 25% of their annual salary for the face. Yeah. 25%
Shawn Draisey 11:30
of bass. And I was quoting that entire. Yeah.
Qasim Virjee 11:34
So you're like filling these? That's wild. Wow. That's great. What do you think? So? There's definitely the lesson here. And like, nice, right?
Shawn Draisey 11:44
There is and that was part of, you know, why the owner and I had to go our separate ways, because you got to think around that time. There was lots the great recession was very,
Qasim Virjee 11:57
I like to call it the great recession, great diversion political session. Well,
Shawn Draisey 12:01
yeah, we can, we can go that way if you want. But there was lots of nobody knew what was going to happen. It was the end of the world. Now, the funny thing is, as we talked very quickly, that was the birth of blockchain. Yeah. You know, in a big in a big way. Blockchain had always been or peer to peer sharing had been around for a bit. And so Lynn was very big on you gotta niche this, you got to niche that. And you got to run the team. So I was running a team, I was running a desk. And the owner and I didn't see eye to eye because this was a very business focused person. And I was very big on just being very grateful, not only to the candidates, but the businesses that you got to hire, and you got to pay your invoice. There the other piece of contingency, right? Not only do you have to hire, you got to pay us on time. So I would always do visits and say thank you and drop off cards and stuff like that, and, you know, tell a few funny stories. And for whatever reason, she wasn't into that. And I just went, we don't say thank you, you just got to stick the business. So we I just went, That's not a warm, fuzzy. That's not who I am. So we we parted ways. And I went to another shop in London, sort of same thing. And I did agency and I came to Toronto through the design group. So I ended up in London at Allen personnel doing the same thing, engineering, skilled trades are ended up in Mississauga at the design group shop. And I'd been in agency for a bit and sometimes you do well. And then sometimes you get into some of the larger firms where you've got people that have been there for 1020 years. They know everybody, right? I can turn you know, you got a wreck come in, I'm going to turn it around maybe two hours, get this person in, they hire. I take full fee, and everybody else has got birdseed and I had a dear friend of mine that ended up getting out of agency. He was at CIBC, that's how I came away came to one of your things with and he goes oh, yeah, he says, You got to come in house, man. You gotta go in house, Sean. And she's like, it's a different vibe. You gotta go in house. Night. Okay.
Qasim Virjee 14:28
Okay. Continue. I have questions. Yeah. Okay.
Shawn Draisey 14:31
So I did that. I
Qasim Virjee 14:33
have questions. Let's pause here. Okay, so pause, because already, you've talked about some very interesting stuff. Well, I find it interesting because I sit outside of this world, Illumina, right? But
Martin Hauck 14:41
so poultry tire rule.
Shawn Draisey 14:44
By industry, it needs to be I haven't even got into soy beans yet. That's a whole nother topic as
Qasim Virjee 14:50
burgeoning, burgeoning, burgeoning industry, isn't it? It's huge. Okay.
Shawn Draisey 14:56
Huge. Huge intermodal soy beats that's for another day. So
Qasim Virjee 15:03
you're trying to find people for skilled labor, or unskilled labor, perhaps, but just a willingness to work in the yabbies transformation of the chicken farms, the chicken processing plants, the obscure
Shawn Draisey 15:16
industries.
Qasim Virjee 15:17
How do you find those people? Do you do put ads on milk cartons? No,
Shawn Draisey 15:23
but that's good. Like, there's so much I could do with that. But I'm not going to that a lot of that was still. I'm just, I'm pulling. I'm on the phone. But who are you calling? I'm following the competition. So what I ended up doing for this little chicken integrator is I called everybody in southwestern Ontario. I called chicken farmers at their homes. I see. Okay, I would I learned to go into what used to be called that business's phone trees. Oh, you've reached ABC Incorporated. And if you want to talk to Jim Smith, press one. I learned if you go in and you understand the phone system they've got you can get the entire company names and all of their phone numbers. If you just take your time. Yep. So I was going into some of the regional carriers in chicken and egg after hours.
Qasim Virjee 16:21
You can't say chicken and I got a little smile. gorse chickens
Martin Hauck 16:25
were fun. It's hilarious. I think RCMP really missed out to be honest with
Qasim Virjee 16:29
right this man is an investigator
Martin Hauck 16:32
perspective, like, how many more crimes would have been solved? They just like checking crimes this like, color blind piece. Right. But Jake, I
Qasim Virjee 16:41
do find this interesting, especially coming from that sales perspective where like, you know, a lot of people well, everyone has mixed emotions about about this synonyms to hear but I see like, you know, Talent Recruitment, as sales. It's a sales 100%.
Martin Hauck 16:57
Right. 100% I caught the tail end of the that wave of like dialing for dollars, basically of like, calling a company. Just talking to the first person you can get a hold of doesn't really matter who and finding a way to be charismatic enough to to get them to point you in the right phone direction, not the digital direction but the telephonic direction. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's a real thing. So
Qasim Virjee 17:23
you're hacking rolodexes, and building your own database of chicken people pretty much to then, you know, ask around who's looking for work. And there's some some good opportunity with this up this thing I got
Shawn Draisey 17:35
going here. And the one thing I want. So on that note, I wanted to pitch to both of you. So what essentially I was doing, I didn't know it at the time is I was market mapping. Chicken per se, pig poultry. Because once I got into it, I knew at least on the manufacturing engineering side, the GM the ownership. I knew the families, I knew the inside scoop, I knew who was going to move I knew was who was applying for federal licensing. So I had that Intel, if you will, that market map of this small niche. I like to say I knew stuff that the owners didn't even know before it happened. Now the other neat thing maybe we can riff on here is we've lost that in some way, shape, or form
Qasim Virjee 18:27
in less. While I guess, wow, it's been a couple, nearly a decade and a half since the Great. Would you call it the Great Depression, the Great Recession depression, since the housing crisis of 2008, and 2009. Yeah. And things have changed dramatically in terms of the digitization of, you know, means of contact of people databasing and the way that people work. So tell us more about your, your lens on how things have kind of become disassociated?
Shawn Draisey 18:58
Well, again, I'll pitch this and please, both you jump in, I get vendors calling me every day. Hey, see, you gotta sit you know, you got this open, and give me five minutes. I go, right, I go hook it up. Okay, Shawn, I got this and this and here's my price. I go. Okay, so two questions. Are you market mapping? If I give you a company and a level, can do you know who is there right now? Can you tell me their name and their number? Do you in Toronto proper? Nope. Okay. Are you using open source? Are you using anything other than LinkedIn? I love LinkedIn. God love LinkedIn. Yeah. But the other piece is LinkedIn is a self updated database. Like it or not. I know Adam Gilbert went into a little bit of, you know, his riff on that, right? There are people on other social platforms, there are people not on any social platforms at all. So as far as me giving you your fee. I need you to do more than say, I'm a good person. I'm on LinkedIn to Sean. And I can guarantee you this. So it's funny because I brought up market mapping at all of my I'll call them tours of duty I've done contract to contract. Kronos was a contract Kronos was the contract. Yeah. And I'm okay going gig to gig. But you ask how it's changed? Or shall we just rather send an email really hope for the best.
Qasim Virjee 20:34
Yeah, and the apathy really sits in there because everyone's on the on the receiving side. So especially post pandemic, right? Overwhelmed with digital communication overwhelmed with inbound. And like, I'm shocked by this all the time, personally. Now, I come from tech, right. So, and I've grown up with email, like I was over the moon in 95, when I started sending emails, I was like, this assignment will do it. I was 15. But um, I was used to sending faxes to my cousin's in Canada when I was living in Kenya. And we'd sent funny faxes to each other like, picture of your face and some stupid message. And my dad would run in my bedroom being like, we got to move the fax machine cost $15. So when email came, it's still like it's solidified in my brain as like the primary means of communicating, especially for new communication. But yeah, we're at an all time low in terms of the receptiveness to email communication for people. And I can definitely see how, yeah, as a means of outreach, it's not great. But has anything replaced it? You know, do the networks do the messages on various platforms actually aggregate as to a new way of doing things or as the stratified chaotic and tropic landscape of communication? Well,
The decline of email communication and trust in hiring processes.
Shawn Draisey 21:53
I think on that note, and again, both of you jump in, I think what it's done is initially to your point, very fun, very novel very nuanced, like, well, this will change the world, right? Again, I remember when email dos email, believe it or not, okay, um, yeah, Canada Post is out of business. So we got we got the same hype all the way through. Yeah, it's nuanced. Yeah. I think what it's done, which is part of my message, when I set up this meeting, is there's a trust issue missing. If all I'm going to do is spam via LinkedIn, or my special email bought stuff, there's an understanding and a trust, there's basic human needs that are void. Now, in attempting to understand somebody, their story, their career path, their fantasies, their fantasies, their what they want to do, because all of that good emotional stuff is still there. And most of the time, we've taken it out by emails. Now, the pieces with the trust is we're going into negotiation stuff. I've been doing level one work with black swan group never split the difference. Chris Voss hostage negotiation piece. I just started a book this week, Dr. Henry Cloud called trust. So there's all of these unspoken things that happen with hiring managers, and with candidates, all the emotional stuff, people really don't want to get into now. Yeah,
Qasim Virjee 23:34
on both sides of the table, people are trying to be a little bit more stoic. And they're kind of transactional. Because
Shawn Draisey 23:40
I don't send an email I can send well, even through interviews, people come
Qasim Virjee 23:44
to an interview, and they don't know what face to put on. And the interviewer may not know, the culture of the organization they're hiring for.
AI's impact on recruiting and the importance of empathy and active listening
Martin Hauck 23:54
The communication style has changed to a certain extent, but what you're talking about, like on the trust piece, and just like the authenticity piece, because I lean that way, as well, like there's all these crazy tools from a recruiting perspective, AI is changed the game, like Canada Post is going out of business, like recruiting is going out of business. Like that's your initial thought, that's your initial fear. I've thought a lot about this. And the one thing for me, even to your point about getting all these messages from people and you're like, do you do mapping, like how do you stand out? Right? And in speaking to, like, the niche part, like that's the thing I think that as a recruiter or any person in with a job right now in talent acquisition is probably a little bit worried about AI to a certain extent, like if they're paying attention, right, you can do so much more. So much faster. When it comes down to I think and I'd love like how did you It comes down to you being able to stand up. And you have to do that in a way that's like authentic. And the second I get in LinkedIn message that speaks some level of authenticity. Yeah. I'm like, Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to spend longer than two seconds on this message. Or if I get a phone call, you know, if if that person manages to, like, say something that says, like, Okay, this isn't like, overly scripted, and it's personalized, I will give it a little bit more time before I shut things down. How did you figure that out? So early? And how should other people figure that out?
Shawn Draisey 25:37
Good question. I think that goes back to you know, the funny joke of I wanted to be a helper. And, you know, in when I was a social worker, when I, you know, I was in child welfare, I was in corrections for a bit. I wanted to help without understanding. So to your point, Martin, it's when did that will fit the strategic juncture occur? Understand, first, have a genuine curiosity to size up the situation first, before you make any pitch, just understand and more so on the candidate side of things now than anywhere before it's like, all right, where, again, it sounds like you're looking to move from this industry to this industry. Just curious why. So how can it be done? Take time with yourself and reflect on your own curiosity. Really, just be genuinely interested in curious and somebody else that is not for lack of better term aluminum siding, sales, or used car sales, rather than just a quick transaction. Have a genuine curiosity and just understanding I'm going to go in, I gotta figure I'm going to do with both of you. I've taken level one course work with Chris Voss, Black Swan hostage negotiation stuff. Really simple. First off,
Qasim Virjee 27:13
if I need to flee here we do. Are we doing this?
Shawn Draisey 27:15
Well, we can first
Martin Hauck 27:17
out 500 chickens First off,
Shawn Draisey 27:19
exactly. All right. Give them money. The chickens are dead. Yeah. Your tonality and your voice. Sets emotionally the tone for how we're going to interact. Yep. And that comes in a Foursquare rubric. if you will. Pitch, pacing, volume, and timbre, which is ie the emotional overlay, if you will. That is both hiring manager issue. Candidate issue. Yep. So there's one really, really easy, easy. The other thing is listening. And I thought, come on. I'm a social worker. I did career Dev, I've, you know, I've rescued these kids. I don't need Come on. It's me. Don't you know who I am. And what I've learned this year, especially is my own blind spot. You know, you really want to get a decisive competitive edge look to your own blind spot. Listening. There's a five step listening staircase as per prices, people hostage negotiators. Most of the time I was on the first two steps. I want to listen to you, Martin, because I want to argue with you. I want to invalidate I want to defend, even though you're speaking I've got my answer. I got my rebuttal right now. Yeah, I'm not really concerned about what you have to say or who you are as a person.
Qasim Virjee 28:43
I just like to argue with you. You're waiting till they're done speaking.
Shawn Draisey 28:47
So that stairway to I was on that for a long time. Stairway. One is I harken back to my grandparents, where my grandfather would be behind the paper, my grandma would be saying, you know, we got to do this, we gotta do this. And he go, Ah, so he was there, but he wasn't there. So most of the time, that's
Effective listening and interviewing techniques.
Qasim Virjee 29:08
a very married couple, my friend and say, Hey, this
Martin Hauck 29:11
is gonna be good for both right? Maybe recruiters will benefit from this podcast. People in relationships will benefit from
Shawn Draisey 29:18
it. So you're asking me, the decisive competitive edge, I would suggest Tonin vocality. One, take a look at how you're speaking to move to stare level three. And you're listening for their internal world. So we're not interrupting or Oh, really? Sounds like so you start to label instead of rebut and asking why and how and what sell Sounds like sounds like you're in a rock and a hard place you're, you know, the business has gone out of, you know, your reorg. And you're looking for something else in technology. So you're just hanging labels on feels like sounds like it appears as if. So what do I do for that? That is basic basic, all of my questions, both of you. What's the house? The why is the when's the Where's there written into labels? Because if we take a look at HR, proper ish, HR proper ish, is very good at we'll call it interrogations. Yeah, for lack of better term, I again, I've been in the GTA, I've been interviewed by high ranking HR officials, directors, VPs of HR, love them, traditionalist, why, when, where, how. And if we take a look at the neuroscience, in crisis management, labels, you come in through the side door with the emotional brain, and we're looking to just elicit more info, I just want to get you to talk. So if I'm at stairwell three, and I don't interrupt you, and I am curious about what you're telling me. And I'm just continuing on that. We move to stare level four, you're gonna start to trust me.
Martin Hauck 31:33
Yeah,
Shawn Draisey 31:33
this guy is listening. And what I've done so far, at least at touchbistro, since I've been there, Shawn, I'm interviewing a lot of companies, you are the best person I've spoken to this week, why? I speak a little bit differently, I slow everything down. I would suggest that I'm listening better than my competition. I'm framing better questions at certain points in time. And you have to when people feel understood, that is a core human drive that you're taking care of, as a recruiter, well, you know, search and rescue, call it what you want recruitment, talent, acquisition, whatever the handle is these days. But if you are talking to either an hiring manager, I don't know if I got time to go into that yet or a candidate. If you are validating their story, as is, if you're making them feel psychologically safe, as is, and all they understand me, they get it. What that does from a neuroscience standpoint, that releases a flood of oxytocin. Yeah. And, you know, same thing, if anybody if anybody has good kids out there. It's a basic human drive. So that was a long winded answer to your question. But just the basic, I had to go back recognize my blind spot. Because hey, don't you know who I am? I've done this. I've done that. But I was on that loop of continually.
Qasim Virjee 33:24
If nothing else, I don't know, it sounds to me that like, you know, people typically fall into this trap of confusing intention and means, right? Yeah. So we're very intention focused as humans. So I would see in this sort of role you're interviewing candidates or otherwise, and, and you want to align with their story. And you want to parse that information quickly, especially if you're an external recruiter, and you're running through like, tons of interviews a day different clients, that call and response, you know, kind of performative mandate is, seems efficient. And and I think the intention is to like, try and get, you know, the best out of the answers from the candidates. But absolutely, the means is wrong. You know, you have to take a backseat and you have to let the person reveal themselves.
Shawn Draisey 34:15
Yeah. And, you know, i It's nothing new because people say to me on my team, now all Shawn, you're so good. You're so thank you. I think that's very, it's Barbara. No, it's pure Lefkowitz, it's Lou Adler, it's anybody that has been in that external agency game for a long time. And it's coming back to being curious about the basics of just how you're speaking, and how you're listening. Because the top of that stare level, is level five, or people were and again, we take a look at FBI, CIA sort of stuff. Take a look at the three lives of people. There's their public life. Here's who I present the public your personal life, which is what's going on just under the surface, then there's your private life. You don't tell anybody, but your psychiatrist or your therapist or whoever. And there's a guy called everyday spy. He was a CIA. He's brilliant. I love that channel. Yeah, absolutely. And this is where this comes, see if you notice that no, no, it's very, very fun.
Recruitment and team building strategies.
Qasim Virjee 35:26
We should think of his name. It's funny isn't a great brand of everyday spiker that sticks in your head, right? Yeah,
Shawn Draisey 35:32
it's not his name. It's not his name. But he has an ex case. He was on CIA case. And this is where I got mom for a second. But that's, that's where you get full disclosure. And if we talk about, you know, what happens at offer as a booster mama Andrew Bustamante. Right, exactly.
Qasim Virjee 35:54
He's booster. Fantastic. Exactly. Everyday spy.
Shawn Draisey 35:57
So if I, if I riff for a second here, what's coming out at offer? I'm understanding that offer. I got a couple situations, especially this year. Oh, Shawn, I gotta, I gotta check in with, they're telling you their life. I can't accept this offer to like, talk to grandma, grandma? Oh, okay. Well, it sounds like, you know, again, same thing, your your, you know, you don't go in for the kill the cell you Okay? Where it like? Where does she? Where does she fit in? What do you think her thoughts are? How do you want to play this? And it's just completely it's that curiosity piece again. But once you get to that level five, and you're consistently there, as far as just listening, people will tell you, the hidden, there's deal killers all over the place. Sure. That we often don't think about, and it's understanding that, here's what I'm presenting. But here's what I'm keeping in my vest pocket. And
Qasim Virjee 37:06
again, it's not to be you know, I think what you're suggesting here is to kind of develop a means of more accurately understanding both the motive intention, and even cultural background, right, of the candidates, if you're placing people in roles, to just have the best outcome, as opposed to kind of look for secrets for the sake of that. It's more like where you're entrusted, perhaps by your client, a hiring organization, an organization needs to fill the roles, when you're entrusted with the means of securing them, you know, path to success, and one of their business outcome is, and having, hopefully, team members join their team that not only ensure the success of the organization on the balance sheet, but also the success of team members working with that new person and together as a team. It's a loaded responsibility. I think, from my outsider perspective, a lot of recruiters don't necessarily take on as a responsibility. You know, there's this, we've heard this on on Season One of the show from numerous guests that have talked about, you know, the expected tenure of a new placement, and how, as a stat, they're seeing it as a as an average, reduce. And they're saying, Well, it's a kind of a market factor issue. People used to stick around for five years, then they stuck around for about two now. They're sticking around for about six months. And oh, man, we've got to work harder, or I know what we have to do. To turn those people have a backup candidate ready for when, you know, Jim quits. And I think what you're seeing is actually a counterbalance, which is kind of like everyone needs for the most part, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, employment, they need, you know, a means of, of, you know, earning an income to pay their bills, but also in finding and channeling purpose in life. Right. So if that's a need in our society, then we have to see this HR kind of people and culture, industry as is really kind of needing or I think that nature has to change in terms of how people deal with this idea of building teams. To make them more successful to make them more fun, more connective.
Finding fulfilling careers through self-discovery and personal connections.
Martin Hauck 39:32
I would think what you're touching on reminds me of something that I don't think gets taught in school, which is really finding ways to know yourself. Right, and turn is someone essentially saying this isn't what I signed up for. Yes, yeah. And how much of that is based on? Like a good recruiter Ideally, base level recruiter is just going to be transparent about the environment at the company so that when a person arrives, the job that was advertised, and the job that was investigated, is what the job actually is. And if something happens at the company, because, you know, business changes, and it's dynamic, and we're in a crazy economy, there, the individual is not going to look to the recruiter or the business and blame them for those changes. But if it doesn't match what they were told, then you've got a trust issue, too. Yes. To your point. Yeah. So I think going back to the like, education piece, it's because people don't know what they want. And they're sort of figuring out, especially now more than ever, because you've got sort of glorification of being an entrepreneur glorification of being an influencer. And you're comparing yourself, so like, got kids growing up in this environment that I don't even have like a good sense of where it's just like, bombarded with information and Instagram shorts of like, all these successful people know, like, I gotta catch up, I gotta be better at it. And meanwhile, there's all these jobs, professions and roles out there that are perfectly respectable, perfectly challenging, and are actually like, might be aligned to what they want to do. I don't know about either of you. But it took me a really long time to figure out what I actually enjoyed doing. And it was mostly by accident. I think like,
Qasim Virjee 41:26
July doing, what are you talking about?
Martin Hauck 41:29
There you go? Well, yeah, I mean, we got to do some deep work right now. Right? Like, I don't know,
Qasim Virjee 41:36
entrepreneurialism and running companies and about enjoying yourself not I'm just shit disturbing. But, you know, I think you're right, but I'll say I'll put on my employer hat and kind of contribute a little bit here, where I'll say that I've certainly through recruiters and direct to market, you know, source talent, potential potential talent, that certainly did not have a sense of who they are, let alone what they want in life, right. And that background profile wasn't complete, to be able to then apply themselves to a particular role in an organization 100%. So I don't see that as necessarily a failure on the recruiter who brought me that kind of, you know, the potential person, they certainly did not look deep enough. They certainly also didn't kind of undertake this like, you know, II I driven kind of approach, wherever you want to brand it as this multi step kind of approach to like getting deep with the candidate to look at who they are, and understand what they want. Because you're right, Martin, like people might not express what they want, because they might not be sure of it. But at the same time, there are clues to when you sit down with someone, what drives them, or what the passions are, and how maybe a role could enable the latent one for that discovery in their own persona, right. But at the same time, yeah, when I'm sitting down with him directly, I'm trying to offer them the potential to reveal that to myself, Yes, and you do have to do a lot of cycling, perhaps I find that I spend more time with candidates than I thought I would have to in order to draw that stuff out off in cases. But also that, for me, the fault lies in the the means of triage, you know, like, it's, it's the best candidates that I've ever found, have kind of found us Yes. Right. So they found start well, and they see the connection for themselves. And they're like, that's a place where I can, you know, apply myself because it's so exciting. Like, there, I want people who work for my company, to be driven by what they see. To your point what I'm excited by, because I think that that like breathes through our brand, right? And what the people who are our clients are excited by, because I breezed through the content we produce. And so we try and do that storytelling to kind of like, open that up. And if people connect with that story, then that's great. That's that's a 10 steps ahead of the person who sends me a resume or, you know, an application through some formal channel. Yeah. So it is it's very interesting, but I think that that brings us full circle to this idea that like, though, the Millea may change, and the technology may evolve, and things may become less personal in terms of the means of sourcing talent and finding jobs for the talent. The role doesn't change the need for the role doesn't change. Know, people still need to work and, and still want to feel fulfilled in life through our hopefully,
Shawn Draisey 44:43
I think, you know, to your to both of your point I think there's going to be a lot of you know, we're gonna see where AI takes us. I questioned the hype on that. We just jump into a little bit of critical thinking, because I remember America Online hope canadapost no more of mail.
The impact of technology on work and emotional connection.
Qasim Virjee 44:59
I don't think people Listening to this or watching this other than, you know us understand what America Online is.
Shawn Draisey 45:04
It was an email provider very early when we made the big jump to the worldwide web. Not so long ago.
Qasim Virjee 45:13
Did you know what I mean? On the flutist? The floppy disk?
Martin Hauck 45:17
For the Yeah, 40 of them are good. I don't know how they've worded that those were expensive in
Qasim Virjee 45:22
America Online, online. So they it was it was probably the first live demo in CompuServe, or the first walled garden social network that kind of owned the internet experience, right? That was that was a big deal gone through us. But stop before you log out, no, stop before you get out of our gate to the open Internet open and find the best on our services, which we can kind of monetize.
Shawn Draisey 45:46
So my point being the technology is always going to change hence, we've had blockchain blockchain has always been around peer to peer I noticed peer to peer of the technology is there we have ai ai has been around for a bit. Now it's sort of Vogue, if we will quite regal could it change maybe vo mice my suggestion is work life. Recruiting life hiring life is 99% emotional. Yeah, whether we like it or whether we don't. And we're going to try as be as logical as we can. And what I've known since my journey with my blind spots, my own conceit, my own arrogance, there is no machine that can take that away. It's called a human fallibility. And my suggestion would be if you really want a decisive competitive edge, in this, whatever we're going to call it in this understanding people listening, just take a look at your listening level, take look at how you're speaking. And just really sit with your blind spots and your failures because I did not become a success and chicken overnight. Like, that was a lot of failure in the beginning. Same thing with tires, same thing on automotive recruiting, same thing, all the way through. And it's taking time with your failures and understanding. Okay, so there's environmental circumstances, Roger that. And what did I not see? Where am I? Be loving and gentle with yourself? Be curious. And just take that time, as you said, Martin, there's not we don't take a lot of time to be with ourselves to understand, okay, pathways, what do I like? Do I have to get 90 I gotta get 90% honors. big company. There's still that pathway. We're still pitching to people, that myth of don't take time with yourself. Just do really good in school, get a good job, make a lot of money. So there's still that pathway plus influencer pathway, plus start your own gig plus side hustle. Yet at the same time, I have people apply to me that have five side hustles go bankrupt. Okay, so there you go. There's the proof right there. You're not a entrepreneurial type, though. They told me they are. Oh, yeah. But I would, I would suggest, despite the technology. I think most of what we do is 99% emotional. And I think the more that we can come to terms with that, and acknowledge that,
Qasim Virjee 48:42
that could improve with it. I'd love to hear your take on how that is challenged, or inhibited or enabled. Or a mixture of all those by the current, you know, hybrid technological media then, in terms of and there's a few ways to spin this, right. There's this kind of like, people working multiple days a week at home, communicating using digital first tools with the rest of their team. They're so distributed workforce, there's multi timezone, you know, kind of more permanent, distributed workforce. There's video conferencing. Yeah, all of this stuff. So like, yeah. What's your response to that? Or how do you see through the limitations in through 2024 and beyond for for organizations?
Shawn Draisey 49:36
Well, it's interesting because you know, we all got sent home in 2020. March because of something that happened globally. We all got online. I was doing flex stuff with you here. Believe it or not, really guy was doing hot desking with you before hot desking was the thing. And Mike question to everybody is where's you know, where's the emotion? Where are we? You know, where are we losing emotion? Or connection? Where are we gaining emotional connection? There, it's always fun to have be in person. Yeah, it is. And there's advantages to remote there is. And I guess my answer to your question is if we take a look at a macro perspective, what is the goal? Okay, so we got people at the we got people at the South Pole, or at the US weather station at the South Pole, they're remote at the South Pole, they can work anytime they want. Okay. So doing what is the goal? What is the goal? If you got people on Trans Pacific flights doing gigs? Okay, your work? What is what is the goal? And I don't think that we know what the goal is, really, from a business perspective. You got people all over the world working? Sort of, okay.
Redefining work norms in a post-pandemic world.
Qasim Virjee 51:10
What's your goal short of profit, and, you know, short term gain, in terms of efficiency measurement, the extra factors that involve Yeah, justify tenure, and local culture, within organization, all of that stuff, I think, you know, people don't spend enough organizations very rarely spend time actually defining those wants, and what, you know, a template for success is for their people to feel belonging, and empowerment and all of this stuff. So you're right. I mean, without defining those things, you can't know what the best way to create the means to success for your team is and you don't maybe see where the red flags are, in the tools that you use to facilitate work, right.
Shawn Draisey 51:58
Yeah. And I think everyone you know, prior to pandemic hot desking, prior to pandemic, was a thing because the technology was there to allow for fluidity. I'd no longer nine to five, keep in mind that what's happening right now, the back to Office piece, and how we've been living the past 120 years, dates back from Henry Ford, and right, that's right, that's Taylorism, that's nine to five,
Qasim Virjee 52:24
Monday through Friday, Monday, Friday, it was it was a construct of the factory life, they got efficiency. So you
Shawn Draisey 52:29
got eight hours, work, eight hours sleep, eight hours, fun and family. And due to deep inertia of humans. We've carried that we're still carrying that into post pandemic world, we we got people distributed, we got people hybrid, we got people in Antarctica, we got people on planes working. But we're still we're still pulling, you know, 1910 1890 mindset or paradigms. And I think it's worth a discussion. Hence, I, you know, I think I pitch to both, you wouldn't be neat to get some very cool people who you've talked to, into your east wing party room for a half day and just sort of hash this out really, as to what, what do we want to do? What is the goal here for everybody? So yeah, we want to be profitable yet at the same time. By allowing someone to work in and Arctica. Okay, fun, very cool, very niche, very kitschy. So and they last two and a half years, they go to another place that allows them to work at the North Pole. So it's worth again, facilitating conversation. And I would suggest to both of you what we need in GTA Toronto proper, because it's a busy place. I just told you know, it's lots of startups, Martin, but we all know who we know who we know. It's a small, it's a small world. And what would be really cool. Maybe next year a notice pitching this is just there to facilitate these these subprime seasons these Yeah, these conversations.
Qasim Virjee 54:13
Yeah, we've been talking about doing that, actually. And we kind of did that first, like soft test of an event, I guess, last week, and it was a panel, but I think this roundtable format for like, you know, to actually see the discussion happen. In person. Yeah. And then record, it would be fantastic. Get multiple perspectives on a topic per month. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. And it's not just and really dig in, I think a big thing is getting, you know, getting all sides of a table at the table. So people from organizations that are hiring, that have interesting policies on how they tackle these issues, to actually talk about them. Right, and not just a bunch of recruiters saying yeah, this is what my clients should be doing. So I'm Yeah.
Shawn Draisey 55:02
Yeah, yeah. Agreed 100%,
Martin Hauck 55:06
I fully agree with this. We're pulling these, like, nine to five, ancient, you know, the resume hasn't changed since, like Edison or Franklin I forgot, which like, wrote out the first sort of like, recorded popularized resume. So that hasn't changed. Nine to five hasn't changed. And we're in this wild like it took a pandemic for us to embrace the efficiency and benefits of using technology. There's obviously trade offs that you have to make. And those are interesting. I'm curious, like at this roundtable discussion, the question of where do you start first? And how do you go about it?
Workplace culture and innovation.
Shawn Draisey 55:54
Well, that that would take me and again, I'm, I'm open to riff on this. No, what is the goal? And the reason being is the again, of all my travels. I've been at a couple of startups at tank, they went under, I've been on a couple of operations teams that done, gone, your there's your box, goodbye, right. And I got, I've been studying thing called the Theory of Constraints for about five years now. And it's from a book in the 80s called the gold. Very, very, a lot of very basic systematic organization questions. What is the goal? What is the barrier to achieving the goal? Where are we in relation to the goal? What is the direction and magnitude of change required to move from status quo or inertia to realizing the goal? So I would suggest to facilitate these discussions is, you know, part of this gig is okay. In people in culture, in hiring in search and recruiting. What's the goal? Everybody? Really, we know, from a business standpoint, there's net profit and competitive advantage. Okay. Beyond that, what we have done what we do? What's the goal? What's the weak link? But that's sort of my No, I
Qasim Virjee 57:24
like that. I like that as a kind of, like a basis for all of these discussions. You know, not necessarily as it's a mean, as it ends to itself. Yeah. But yeah, it's so true, man. And we've got we got enough content, so we can just keep talking about worry about the recording bit of it. But But I think, I think it's very interesting, right? Like, like the No bullshit take on this. And maybe this is also worth cutting in to the episode, but like, the way I look at things, right, being a technologist who's done work in all different industries, like so many different industries in my life, and worked on different continents and stuff. I think, you know, everyone, of course, has geo specific blinders on, you know, wherever they are, but especially in North America that we forget about in North America, because this place is so separate from the rest of the world, we have living links through our ethno cultural diversity in this city, to a lot of the world. However, working teams, particularly in the majority of industries of our city, specifically, which are professional services, you know, the banks, and then the insurance companies, all these big institutional enterprises are limited, because they're still for the most part structured by these archaic hierarchies of politic. And without stripping those, there is no way to, you know, undertake, like innovative ways of self empowerment, and, you know, tap the collaborative potential of the workforce and, and even and this is the interesting thing, even invert the expectation of the work life balance to say, You're Judy, first and second, Judy, from accounting. Like that, you know, like, so the thing is, you've got this career history of people working in the machine, and the machine has robbed them, of the potentiality of their being. Yes, I have personally, I have no expectations. I don't go fuck, I don't, I don't have any expectations for those organizations to magically transform into unicorns until like flying butterflies and, and like, you know, alleviate the suffering of their, like papercut handed employees, you know, that I don't care. But what's interesting for me is from the lens of the kind of scrappy startups and the SMBs and the companies that are kind of like have to be in control of their destiny. Yes, and that are out there earning their daily bread. Yes, you hope if they're not pumped with VC capital, that they can Answer these questions, they can start from a small, you know, seedling of want, and grow any plant that they desire. And I mean, I always tell people that are especially bootstrapping to say, well question these things like, what do you want your life to be? Because all this bullshit, the Silicon Valley bullshit of saying, Do you want to lay style business? Or do you want to venture capital funded? Fucking rocket ship, right? Like, lifestyle business should not have any In fact, it should be glorified. It should not have any tar. On its Yeah. varnish. Like, I look at this stuff. And I say, Well, how do you want to live? Because business enables that. Right. And your toils should be Meritus. Yeah. For employees, for owners, for everyone. Like, that's how societies become greater is when people feel fulfilled, and, you know, take siestas, or sit by the Piazza and like, you know, smoke naked and all these things. That was my little allusion to European life. Right. But like, that's, that's the thing that we're robbed of in North America, because I think the built environment is so stoic, right. And it's so like, dirty and gray.
Challenging assumptions and beliefs in the workplace.
Shawn Draisey 1:01:18
Yeah, it's agreed. And it's, we're still pulling that paradigm from the 1800s of 150 years ago. We'll call it from the industrial revolution with with us sorry. Sorry about that.
Qasim Virjee 1:01:34
Might as well we're still recording. Okay.
Shawn Draisey 1:01:38
And that is worth a discussion on its own separate and apart from what we just talked, we go. Okay, so let's get on the table. These paradigms were backpacking with and we've been backpacking for a while. Yeah, yeah, technology is enabling this fluidity or this flexibility. Hands to your point that is a little good, a little bad. We're not sure how you know that the power wobble, we're not sure how to make sense of it yet. And, you know, taking the time to unpack that industrial revolution. Shit. Doesn't work for us. Yeah. But we're, we're still carrying it.
Qasim Virjee 1:02:21
I see so many armchair sociologists say this, Elon Musk, you, asshole. You are so rich, and you're wasting your money. annoying people with x? Why don't you instead end poverty or stop malaria? Or blow up? Vladimir Putin? You know, like, the idea of this kind of throwing stones on the potentiality. And at the same time, I don't see enough people saying, okay, in the face of the threat of AI that will take away triage jobs. Do we see that as a means of firing 20% of our workforce for greater efficiencies at a lower cost? or can that alleviate that workforce quotient to do different cool things? Yes. You know, yes. So like, it's like, there is that whole thing, but like, again, this that's not this is not content necessarily for like, it's not a packaged content for an episode of a podcast, but it's like, the means I think, to push the dialogue in the conversations, especially the roundtables to say like, if we can curate them well enough to have people at the table, that are challenging the status quo of the post industrial complex,
Shawn Draisey 1:03:44
because part of this, you know, again, that Theory of Constraints piece is it's the blind spot pieces, challenge my assumptions, challenge my beliefs. And all that stuff that I was carrying, were just assumptions about this is the way it has been this is the way it could be. So if we take a look at that piece, that industrial revolution piece, that nine to five piece, is that a belief system are those assumptions that have yet to be we'll call them exposed. And in a gentle, loving way challenged because people like to hang on there's a there's an immunity to change, right? So once you start digging in you surface, those assumptions and those belief systems that had been around for a long time, that's
Qasim Virjee 1:04:33
yeah, people get scared.
Martin Hauck 1:04:35
So it's almost ironic that as a founder or business owner, entrepreneur, whatever, that you have this drive to challenge status quo for whatever product or service that you're building, but you don't do it at the same time with how work gets done within your organization
Qasim Virjee 1:04:59
because It's such a loaded topic, right? Like it's so loaded, like. Also remember that like, if you're putting a product or service in the market, your customers are subject to whatever their dogmas are, and routines are. Yeah, right. So there's that there's the expectation of labor to perform even present itself. In this way people wanting to work like you, you're dumb shit from candidates mad, dumb shit, talking about this topic of like, you know, enabling people to be themselves and their truest self and how distance then questioning how distant people are from that? And like, can you even as a team or a company enable that? Well, not for everybody? Because a lot of people are too far from themselves to be able to go on that journey. Yes, sorry, can invest in you too expensive? Seriously, like, who? And but so the point is that, like you can have change without a revolution. But you can also be a revolutionary, and not embrace change. The way I look at it, so like, being a startup founder, I mean, there's so much that you're faced with changing and also this is another thing you see it when you work at a startup, right? Where the visionary if they're visionary leadership, they're not necessarily about being leaders typically, there really are. They're trying to do something cool, right? Obsessed with what they're doing, that's cool. Everything around them to do the organization was like someone else figured this shit out. I don't give a fuck. Yeah, yeah. Why do I want to give a fuck about Judy's life? Oh, my God, who is that it? Wasn't she, Martha. Oh, she's Judy. Now, that's not their concern, because they're like, their whole perspective on reality is framed by the product market fit the possibility of what they're trying to achieve. The company side of it normally isn't at least attached to the visionary founder type of person. And that's another convolution of business in the modern era is that like, most startups are actually run by greedy fucks. They're not run by people obsessed with Cool. Interesting. That's, that's a misnomer. Like Silicon Valley purports this ethos of like, solutions can solve society, right? And businesses are the ways to achieve that. But if you really like take all the whatever top invested in companies and their leadership and their, their the founders, and you line them up. They're not going to survive the firing range of cool. Very few, a few of them are actually cool. Most of them are like total. I mean, you've seen this right? With all the like Theranos type people are all like, morally ambiguous, greedy egomaniacs. And you have to be to survive the VC funding cycles and to get something to an IPO and under five years, and like, make a billion dollars, you know, that's,
Entrepreneurship, lifestyle businesses, and VC startups.
Martin Hauck 1:08:02
that was that's the glorified piece, right. And I feel like to your point about the lifestyle business, like, as an entrepreneur, myself, I'm leaning way more to the lifestyle business approach of things. And I think more and more people are Yeah, because the, the veil is off, on one end up what that actually is like, Okay, you're going to get all this money. And it's going to be, you're going to do things with it, you're going to make mistakes. And now you have new bosses, by the way, you signed up for this, if you're a founder, entrepreneur, whatever, and you signed up for all this stuff, and you want to focus on the thing that you wanted to focus on. But because you got all this money you in organically grew and now you have adopted all these challenges and problems you never even actually knew what you were signing up for. Like going back to the like the job description you didn't know, you didn't know that at some point. Because you want to build this big thing. You are gonna have to care about your employee base because you you have new KPIs, and those KPIs are growth and that's tied to the VC and, and kind of going back to like the preference like you, for me, like lifestyles interesting and more appealing at this time because I've seen so much of like the VC startup space and like, I'm curious, like, you've had such a diverse range of experiences and like I was on the industrial side myself like that seems to probably be pervasive like you're you're at that spot now like you worked in corporate you worked up through you know, corporate ladders and now you're more on on you're kind of like okay with being a contractor and you know, being able to take that risk. Some of that comes with privilege and experience and all that fun stuff, but like, there is a true mentality shift. I think it's happening faster for folks.
Shawn Draisey 1:10:02
Agreed. Yes. 100%. And you know, it's interesting. Yeah, I could be here all day, you know, I don't want to go. But I come from an office I come from a long line of police officers, I come from a long line of general contractors, tradespeople. I was black sheep in the family. So they went job to job do with nothing. They started a gig, they had to go out and about and look for next construction project. That was the way it was framed us a long time ago prior to the industrial revolution where you went gig to gig. And I've had a lot of people tell me of all ages, all Shawn, how did you do that once you're afraid, and must
Qasim Virjee 1:10:57
be terrified every day, I
Shawn Draisey 1:10:58
had no big I had a scope. I had a start, I had a finish date. Okay, most of the time, it was a straight shot. See, and all the while I was doing that job I was out and about looking for. next gig, I took a seven week I got a call once out of the blue, I got a text message from the vendor, Sean, we need somebody to come in for seven weeks to take care of the overload for machine shop. Are you down for it? Yep, be there in the morning. And that seven weeks turned into six months, which converted to something else. So there's always luck. There's odds. And there's a whole bunch of things. But if we go back to paradigms, and that might be maybe some of these roundtable questions is we've got a 21st century paradigm, we're still carrying an 18th century paradigm paradigm. We got everything in between. And you go gig to gig, everything's cool. You got a confidence piece. But at the same point in time is that mindset of even though you're doing your job, you're out and about. You're always out and about networking, talking, seeing if there's any gaps in the you know, anything of that sort. And I don't know if you call that entrepreneurship. I don't know if you'd call that crazy. I don't know what you'd call it. But I get I talked to people that want a guaranteed full time job plus pension plus private car plus a private jet at Pearson Airport. And I'm so sorry. We don't do that here.
Entrepreneurship, job security, and the future of work.
Qasim Virjee 1:12:44
Yeah, so, no, it's really interesting. I think we're at this kind of like in North America, we're at this interesting juncture where I think for so long, there's been a cultural dichotomy, right? That's existed between hate the labeling of blue collar and white coat. Yeah. In the 80s, the white collar was at its height. Right. And since then, it's gotten all kerfuffle mainly because of technology, and the breakdown of the top tier earning kind of access to a million dollar plus, you know, annualized, or whatever the fucking number is. 100,000 Plus event, right? Yeah. But like, it's interesting. I think that that's a big that schism in the dichotomy is is a source of a lot of angst and a lot of misunderstanding about even potentiality agreeable, don't necessarily go into a job with an entrepreneurial mindset. So they think of it as this thing where they're parking themselves, then they have anxiety. Oh, I'm only 24. And I don't even know how to put makeup on my face yet. Even though I have a million subscribers on Tik Tok, that want to see how to put makeup on me is that my side hustle, or is being a barista, my main passion and even like there's all this like conference, that was a real person that we had. Yeah, there's all this kind of illusion. Because I don't think people think of a job as something you can apply that themselves through and discover themselves. Right, and be entrepreneurial. That would be like, a job, kids throw different things at you every day, we still have one job for one company and you're still doing different your contractor internally intrapreneurship agreed. Creative Industries understand this. By the way, this is an office problem. If you talk to people in fit, like Bonzo will tell you he's he does films that stuff. And it's like, you're just you got to come together as a team and you're like putting things together and you get when you're a gaffer, you might be holding a boom, I don't know thing and you might be doing some lighting, you might be doing different things. But you're still working on the same, you know, production. Yeah, definitely that that's a different thing that but that is a lot of fodder, maybe for maybe for the roundtable is to unpack the future of white collar, right. Like what does office work mean today? Good and how can you learn from different creative industries you From whatever you call it skilled labor, yeah, this is a lot there. We'll talk more about Cool, cool. Okay, we're done the recording portion of the podcast
Shawn Draisey 1:15:13
because I gotta tell you guys it's been fucking blast. Party time
