Diversifying hiring practices and making the barrier to Applying for jobs easier

Maybe on my end it says it's live.

It's not yet. There we go. Good morning everyone, this is Danielle and Tim with ND Out Loud and we are here talking about— yeah, uh, we— sorry, my YouTube, the sound was on on the YouTube and then I could It's very confusing to hear it 2 places. We're talking about diversifying hiring practices and making the barriers to applying for jobs easier. Because let me tell you, I talk to so many clients about that right now. So many clients about that right now.

Yeah, yeah. You know, so, you know, as a workforce expert, uh, and I brought this up in previous conversations, uh, the numbers are such that employers really have no choice in And going about changing the hiring practices. And even though there's no choice, they're still doing the same old thing. So, you know, and I think it comes— having independent voices like myself and Danielle is a big part of constantly putting the message out as much as we can to employers large and small that they need to start changing and that they need to bring in experts like Danielle and myself to really just help put, you know, just having an outside voice that's an independent voice where there's no bias. There's no, you know, it's just we have the numbers, we have the data to really help them with understanding what they need to do. And like we've talked about in previous conversations, it's not— You don't need to change everything. You just need to tweak how you go about current practices. And so that's about what we're gonna talk about today in terms of other things as well.

Yeah. So diversifying your hiring pool that you're hiring from is a huge need. There's so many people that see, um, something that's very near and dear to me is obviously working with the neurodivergent population is job hopping. Extremely intelligent autistic and ADHD Engineers, specifically, uh, high-level PhD-level type education clients of mine have a hard time because people will see multiple jobs on their resume. And there's a reason for that, because autistics and ADHDers look at a job as a learning opportunity. They, they go in, they learn, they learn in less than 10,000 hours, become an expert at something. And unless a company offers them uplevels or growth or training or something, they get bored and they feel that it's not worth their effort to continue to contribute and not be expanding their knowledge. So they move to the next job.

Yep. And then, you know, statistically speaking, the average time that people have in a job in today's economy, 3 to 5 years. And I mean, back in our parents', you know, our father worked the same job for 36 or 37 years. So like there's obviously tweaks and, you know, like the landscape is different and that's what it is. But the main thing that— the thing in that though is the fact that employers really don't treat their employees very well. And, you know, so you have people bouncing from job to job and the amount of time that it takes to train an employee to get them to a place of knowledge with that particular employer, it's about 18 months. And then basically another 18 months after that, they're gone and onto the next job. So there needs to be a change in the landscape and there needs to be a change in approach. One of the things we've talked about in previous conversations is the idea of developing a culture of disclosure, a culture of just openness of You know what your disability is and what your strengths and weaknesses may be, and how you can kind of tweak your teams to— so you have one individual that's really strong in this particular area, then maybe you need to tweak how that team approaches the overall task by having that one individual take that part that's their strength, and then the other individual has another strength that kind of matches. It's a part of that puzzle piece in which you now have a successful team. Because right now, and, you know, I'll sound like a broken record in saying there is a worker shortage that's currently standing, and it's only going to get worse. And like, worse is kind of a negative term. It is what it is. The landscape is changing. So, you know, there needs to be a change in how we go about approaches. And then, you know, we've talked about in the past about Individuals with disabilities, the unemployment rate among that class is double the national average. So there's something that can be done in terms of really approaching how you go about hiring practices, but then you're tapping into a talent pool that is absolutely incredible.

So there's so much to understanding who is out there to be hired, where the talent is, how to actually hire good talent. Because let me tell you, they're not looking for jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn. They're just not. And when your hiring practices include a 25-step interview process, the interview processes that I've been hearing from my clients and just online talking to people, This is insane to me. When I started working for HP and I got a higher-level job with HP, it was 2 interviews, an interview with the HR person and an interview with my direct manager. End of story. And it took less than 3 weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's, that's interesting. Like, you know, we're, we're in a place where AI has kind of like taken over the world. In many ways, it's a good thing. But taking the human approach out of the hiring practices has been a problem for the last few decades. And we need to get back to the human connection, you know, and just that personal touch. You know, like we've had basically AI, it's not necessarily a new thing. It's become more prevalent and the thing that we're talking about more these days, but AI has been around since the '90s where you would have a 35, 40, 50, 80, 200-question questionnaire of personality profiles, and then it would go through a filter and this application would be thrown out and this one would be put through. And then, you know, the human component is gone. So it's interesting, like, how we're in a place in which we're so AI-centric, but more than ever, we need to have a more personal human touch when it comes to hiring practices.

Well, and that, that hiring practice of using those stupid forms where you, you submit your resume and then you have to fill out your resume line by line again is one ridiculous— that, that is an issue for most adults. I don't care whether you're neurodivergent or not. Just, are you kidding me? You're wanting me to fill in the same information that you have on a PDF? And It's only the PDF that your stupid system is going to look at, and it's going to kick out because you don't like how it's formatted. You don't like how the file name— you don't like— and the things that these systems don't like are ridiculous. So hiring practices have become so far out of reach for most people because you have to hire a resume expert. Which, if you just lost your job, or Or are looking to increase your job, you don't have time to hire somebody. One, it's expensive. 2, it's a time thing. And, and 3, even they aren't guarantees that your resume is going to get through the stupid scanner. And then you have to apply. I have a client who has been looking for a new job. She has a full-time job. She's stable, but she's looking for a new job because she had— she's in an extremely toxic work environment. And 900 applications is how many applications I've had her fill out. She's done a total of 60 interviews. One interview has been going on for 3 and a half months.

Yeah. Yeah.

One interview process.

Not long ago, I had an Uber driver. I don't remember where I was coming from or where I was going, but the Uber driver was working Uber because she was waiting for 4 different applications for a project management position. That's her area of expertise. She went to school, she got all the certifications, master's degree in the field, definitely qualified. You know, again, I don't know, like some of the mitigating factors in her background, but she had 4 different positions that she was waiting for. And it was 6 months that she had been waiting for these 4 companies to get back to her on a yes and no on whether she would get the job or not. And they were just stringing her along this whole process. So she's now an Uber driver. I wonder how many other people are in the gig economy because of the hiring practices with the large corporate employers.

Oh, so many. Like, I have multiple clients who are, who started their own businesses. I had one client 3 years ago who was trying to apply for jobs, highly qualified, like extremely qualified. But again, they changed jobs every 2 years. That didn't look good on their resume. They were having trouble with that. Ended up starting their own business, and they're now a 6-figure business owner and aren't going into the workforce. And we're seeing more and more of that with millennials and Gen Zers, that they're not even bothering to try to go into the workforce. They try to apply, they apply for a couple hundred jobs, they hear nothing. It's too hard. It's ridiculous. And they're like, I went to school for this. I know how to do this. I'll just start my own business. Which is going to One, that's amazing for our economy. Two, it's horrible for big business.

Yeah, it absolutely is. How many talented people have they lost to the gig economy or entrepreneurship? Which, again, entrepreneurship, it's a great thing. I'm one, you're one. It's good. But, you know, there are just massive numbers of people that need to be with these big employers if they want to continue to grow. And they're the Lord's people. You know, one of the things that I wonder, and I'm just putting a question out there that I don't even know if there's an answer to it, maybe, maybe, you know, I wonder how other countries are approaching this. Is this an American problem or is this a worldwide problem?

This is more of an American problem. I have clients in other countries, and this is more of an American problem than it is in most other countries. Most other countries just don't have this kind of issue, and there are other countries I'm not gonna quote names off here or anything because I'll get it wrong, I'm sure, that they don't have big comp— they don't have big companies. They're just small, tiny people doing the thing like we used to do in the 1800s and not too many big companies. So there are whole entire countries that do that, Africa being one of them. I mean, there are big companies in Africa as a continent, but there are lots of countries in Africa that survive off of all small business gig economy type stuff. And that's what makes their economy what it is. But so I think like the sad thing is, is I, I go back and I consult in corporate and I've done that for years. But doing— getting hired to do even a corporate contract or consulting and stuff, there's a reason why I'm an entrepreneur, because going back to work full time in corporate Is not it. There are so many barriers for someone like me that it's just impossible. It's impossible. And I cannot imagine being somebody that is relying on corporate income and trying to find a corporate job right now, because the process is ridiculous. And I'm dealing with it as a coach right now, helping these people go through the process. And I'm like, yep, I am not. Going after a corporate job ever again. I'm just not doing it.

Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that with my— so the house that I'm living in now, we have lots of dogs, including one that we're visiting today that's a puppy. And my Dwight Gold's hot dog from Rochester, New York had just arrived, and the doorbell rang, so they're all going crazy. So I am so excited that my White Hots have arrived. And So they were on sale, Labor Day sale and all that. So anyways.

And that's me sticking my tongue out at my brother. I was just in New York and came back with a few packages, and I have a couple in my freezer, but still. So the hiring practices are so difficult for everyone. I don't care whether you're neurodivergent or not, whatever. It's so difficult, and we do need people to come back into that, or at least be that second level to, to go through. Look, look at the resume. Don't put it through a machine that's going to not like it because it was the wrong color black. Yeah.

Now I'm gonna offer kind of a flip side to this, Danielle, if you don't mind, is, you know, we have a lot of people, job seekers, that are in a place in which they're They're expressing this disdain in regards to hiring practices. I've applied for X number of jobs. I have not gotten any feelers. And like, this is terrible. It's all corporate America's fault. And there's a lot of fault to be put on that side. But one's online presence in today's economy is incredibly important.

Amen.

Yeah. So like, I have a friend of mine, Norma, who I would really maybe would love to have her in on the conversation fairly soon to kind of talk about this. Her punchline, her keywording, and her website in the business that she's in is your resume is not enough. You need to have more than just a resume. Your online presence is important. Your LinkedIn profile is important. How you put yourself out there online is extremely important. So there's a lot of, a lot of people that don't understand that this is a world that we live in now where if you have no online presence at all, it's probably a detriment to your job searching. And then on the flip side, if you do have an online presence and it's not like honed in on a specific So let's say you want to be a project manager or something like that. Your online presence really needs to portray that. So I just want to put it out there that people, no matter what background or what disability that you have, your online presence is important. How you post, you know, just the image that you put out there is a big part of your job search.

Absolutely. No, that's absolutely true. I actually, I had a client, I think, about a year ago, maybe 6 months ago, who hired me to help them, to teach them how to do social media. They didn't have any social media footprint at all. So I helped them set up LinkedIn. I helped them set up Facebook, and I helped them set up Instagram. I taught them how to engage. I taught them what to post. I talked so that they could get a job, and it took them about 3 months, and they found a job by having a really good— and they were actually, in fact, a project manager. They did IT project management for development and stuff. So it was somebody I knew from previous jobs professionally. And we had to set up portfolios, and I helped her create PDFs with her portfolios and case studies and numbers and graphs and charts. I mean, she knew how to do all of this for her job, but she didn't know how to do all of this for herself. And using the projects and success stories and things that you're involved in, employers wanna see that you volunteer. They wanna see that you network. Work consistently. And they want to see you going to conferences. They want to see what you're doing to learn on your own. Stupid. Even those stupid LinkedIn, LinkedIn Learning courses, and they aren't good. We all know that they aren't very good. Yeah, employers like to see it.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you, you are your own brand. So you need to be like, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're looking for that, that next job, that, or that job, hopefully that might be your job, or one of your last ones, you need to develop your own brand. And so that's another— like, on the flip side, it's not just completely on one side where one side has complete fault in the American hiring practices. It's really on the other side as well. So, you know, don't contribute to your struggles in getting that next job that you want, or that dream job, or that individual that is gainfully employed, but they want something better because they're in a toxic work environment, then, you know, now would be time to develop an online presence that reflects the type of job that you want to have.

Absolutely. And, and if you're wanting to learn how to do that, if you happen to be disabled or somebody who has a record, who has drug addiction that will show up, will show up that you've been in prison, any of those things, that is even more important for you to have a huge support of those things in place. Because when you have to disclose those things, especially in my neurodivergent peeps who also happen to be in a lot in the addiction and, and prison and things like that, we need to make sure that all of those, every support tool that you can have, your good networking, your LinkedIn profile, your Instagram, all of things are going to outweigh what might show on your resume or what you disclose in an interview. So all of those things increase when you have a disability, hidden or not, when you have a gap in your resume because you took 10 years off to have kids, a gap in your resume because you served a prison sentence or because you were in rehab or because you job hopped. If you job hop, you want to know what? That job hopping can actually be a huge boost to you if your LinkedIn profile shows all of the learning and the expansion that you've done for yourself and why you've job hopped. There are so many ways around this stuff, but none of it's easy. And again, there are so many barriers to that. You have to know how to do that. You have to know how to do it well, because if you do it badly, that's going to reflect on you too.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it's— I'm glad that you touched on, you know, people with criminal records, because that's a huge talent pool that employers are kind of scared to tap into. And I get like there are certain spectrums of a criminal background where I can understand where employers may not want to touch on, you know, hiring individuals with those types of records. I'm not going to refer to them, but like, you know what I'm talking about. And, you know, we know that as a result of some criminal justice reform that's been happening on a nationwide scale, that there are tens of millions of people that have been brought back into the economy that are those that, you know, had a, you know, they carried a gram of marijuana in their pocket 15 years ago, and now they've been in jail, and, you know, it was a third strike, and, you know, that sort of thing, where they're nonviolent offenders. And, you know, so there's so many people that are— that they've learned skills while they're in prison, because I've seen so many programs out there back in the Northeast, here in Idaho, where I currently live, where people have gotten into registered apprenticeship programs in prison. They've learned certain skills, and now they're ready to contribute to the economy, to be taxpayers, and employers are not really hiring them as as much as they should. So that's definitely a talent pool that I've seen some incredible success stories of, you know, returning citizens, which is the official term these days, that were single moms that got involved in drugs because of an abusive relationship. Now they're in prison, they get out, they want to like be a mother again, but they can't because they need to get gainfully employed, but they can't. So like the training programs are put in place. Well, they are now incredibly successful. So, but, you know, we need to really encourage employers to maybe look into that potential talent pool. I get there are certain roles where you can't, but there are many, many where you can. And so—

And I think it's antiquated thought process that you just can't hire somebody because of a prison record or whatever, because they're going to be a bad investment. If they got an education in prison, yep, you better believe they're a good investment.

Oh, yep, 100%. Yeah.

If— and women who have gaps on their resumes because they were in an abusive relationship or their husband died or, or whatever, and they have that 15, 20-year gap because they were raising their children, Man, coming back into the workforce is hard. Why are we making it harder for them when some of these women have PhDs and master's degrees and have been helping out their communities, even if they don't realize it, over the last 10, 15, 20 years while raising those kids? They've still been doing the thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this circles back to like, we need to get back to adding the human element into hiring practices because like when you can actually tell your personal story and say, you know, here's why I had this gap. Here's what my— here's why I went to prison. Here are the skills that I now have as a result of all the things that have happened. That's huge. So huge. So yeah. Yeah.

It comes back to willing to diversify. And I think companies are going to be forced into this. Soon. I mean, it really isn't that much further when, when I can't— and I can't believe I— we sit down at— my husband and I sit down and have these conversations and we're like, retirement isn't that far away anymore. Retirement is, oh, it's only 20 years away. And in work history, that's not that long.

No way.

And we need to like start thinking about this. And in reality, because I'm an entrepreneur and my husband does similar things, retirement for me is probably more like 10 to 15 years away, maybe. So Gen X is leaving the workforce.

Yeah.

Boomers are retiring now. They should have retired a long time ago. Don't get me started on that. But boomers are leaving en masse. Then you've got Gen X, a whole other generation, and you don't have as many millennials and Gen Zers to fill Like, I mean, there just aren't enough of them, let alone people who are willing to work the corporate lifestyle because of all the issues that we talked in our last video about, all of the issues with nondisclosure, with no good work-life balance, with bad toxic environments, management styles, all of these things. You've got this and you don't have enough workforce at all.

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's the whole disenfranchisement that we're seeing currently right now, that there really needs to be a major— I mean, first of all, you need to have major large corporations that really put out messaging that they're different, they're going to change, or, you know, here's what we're going to do, because there needs to be some leadership at the top. But when it comes down to, you know, kind of more of a grassroots level of smaller employers that are— and, you know, we're seeing that happen. But there really needs to be a mass change and it really needs to happen now. When you're talking about like diversifying and, you know, like basically that employers are going to be forced into that, that's really happening now. When you think about like, you know, 1.4 million baby boomers that are going to retire every year. between now and 2030, which is— that's not that long from now. We're approaching 2025 right now. So we're 5 years away from that happening. And then when you look at the fact that our generation is retiring 10 to 15 years from now, that means we're only looking at about 10 years after all baby boomers are gone, that the next generation is going to be gone as well. And so that's what we're currently facing. And then on top of this, We know from from a you know now I'm going to kind of like speak as a as an economist that on a worldwide scale China is basically on the downturn. So we know that as a result of the one child policy in the eighties that China is in a place in which they don't have enough workforce to maintain the the level of production that they've been asked to maintain for the world economy that wants. Product to be made in China for a cheap price. So we're seeing reshoring happen all across the world where Chinese manufacturing is going back to countries like Australia. They're going to the European Union. Africa is really kind of booming right now. And American manufacturing is coming back to America from China. So we're seeing like a higher demand for blue-collar jobs where they can— it's not just white-collar, down to the blue-collar with the really, really well-paying union-based jobs in the United States that are coming back. And it's just sort of a thing where the economy is shifting and companies are not really shifting with the economy. And we're in this kind of gray area right now. So the employers that are on the cutting edge are the employers that are going to be okay over the next 10 to 15 years. And the ones that are not are— we're probably going to see— start seeing some bankruptcies with employers that just can't fill jobs and are just sort of flailing. So, you know, come to people like myself and Danielle, we can really have the real conversation with real data. You know, one of the things that I do when I sit down with companies, I work right down to your zip code and then work all the way up to a worldwide scale and see what's going to happen over the next 10 to 15 years and really give you an idea that right within your own zip code, X number of people are going to retire. The, the amount of people that are kind of like moving in, you know, using percentages, and, you know, to give you actual numbers that show you that here's what's going to happen whether you like it or not. Like, it's going to happen. You can't stop it. So here's what you can do to be proactive in addressing this.

And, and we come in, we do the same. We show you who, who you currently have, how to develop that talent, how to strengthen that talent, how to hire better talent and where to look for that talent. So Tim, what Tim does and what we do kind of combines, and then we will support your talent so that they want to stay working for you, that we are there as a benefit, as part of their benefit package, to help them expand and grow and be better employees. Because you don't want your employees burning out. If your employees are burning out, it's Job is only part of that. Job is only part of that burnout. Home-life balance, time management, planning, all of these things all go hand in hand. And companies can't just offer one piece of it anymore. You've got to look at an employee holistically. And that's where we— and we come in with actual data. We have our own survey where we're coming in and evaluating who you have, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, boosting all of the strengths, increasing And growing weaknesses so that they become less of a weakness, all of these things. And that is so necessary in companies to, one, talk about having that available to people incoming so that they know that they're well supported, because that is why so many young people coming out of college or even getting ready to go to college are already disenfranchised. They do not want to handle it. They don't want to do the thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, like, one of the things I think can be a definite topic for discussion next time is that work-life balance and the holistic approach to hiring as well. I think that's a whole other conversation that we can have. And yeah, so I'm trying to think of one of the other things that I think that we need to touch on, which we can maybe touch on a little bit here, but then when it comes to the idea of tapping into programming that's out there that can help you get people that are potential talent for your company. So like vocational rehabilitation programs, which I know it's a bad rap, but I'm a chair— I'm the chair of the board that oversees my state's rehab program. And I see that, that while it's government bureaucracy and it's some, some fun stuff that employers don't really want to tap into, there is a lot of programming out there that can offset the costs that are involved in hiring people from certain talent pools. And provide whatever technology and accommodations that is needed for that particular employee that you hire. And so there's a lot in that that I think we need to touch on as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And you've got your vocational resources and actually going into the local prison system.

Yep.

You could be part of the change happening for these people while they're still in prison. and hire them directly to you after you've already had them trained on somebody else's dime. You could get them trained and ready to come work for you and not pay a dime for it.

Yeah. And then, you know, so that, that's, that's the kind of flip side of the holistic approach is maybe you need to have a holistic approach in your internal hiring practices in terms of serving your local community by hiring people that are disenfranchised or down or in a place in which they, they need that hand up. And now you have an employee that is so appreciative of the fact that you've given them an opportunity that now they're productive employees for a very long time. So that's huge. Absolutely huge.

Absolutely. So there is so much out there. If you have questions, if you need somebody like us, we are here. We have a passion and a mission to help Disabled communities, neurodivergent communities, disenfranchised communities coming out of prison, drug rehab, all of these things come into the workforce and be productive members and make your company productive. And we're here to support that whole entire process. So if you would like to reach out to us, reach out to us at ND Out Loud, info@ndoutloud.com. You will reach my team and I, and we can absolutely help you. If you have any questions, just ask below the video message. I either Tim or I, we're always happy to answer your questions. Thank you for joining us today, and we will be back next week, and we will be talking about work-life balance and the holistic approach to hiring next week, because it really is— there has to be different practices in hiring, and it's not just the human element, it's a work-life balance, and those conversations need to happen before you're even hiring somebody and be, be part of company conversations and websites and programs.

Yep, and then we'll we're also going to talk about the Buffalo Bills and whatever whatever happens next week.

So we can we can skip the Buffalo Bills conversation. I could care less. You have an amazing day, everyone. If you need anything at all from us, please always always ask. Have an amazing day.