Continuing our interviews, part two of our interview with Neha

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our interviews, season of interviews and part two of our interview with We are going to speak more about the recruiting process and what recruiters can do, what they're looking for and how you can work with them, whether you are on the interviewer or the interviewee side of the table, how you can work with them to do a better job of getting the right connection, to get the right person in the right place, not simply filling the seat but actually putting someone in a situation where they're going to be effective and they're going to probably stick around because they're happy with the job they're doing. Their employer is happy with them doing that job. I don't want to steal too much of her thunder, though, so let's get back into our conversation with Nihal, which is a little bit of a segue. It's one of the things I did want to ask you about is that you've you've had a couple of different companies. It's not just the recruiting. And one of them that you did is you've got a sleep consultant company, which in the world of developers, we actually have never heard that word used. That is a group. Developers and entrepreneurs seem to never sleep. So how did you get into that and how does that maybe how are you sometimes? Maybe even do you feel judged by your other company as you're building out all of these things and working hard? Yeah, good question. I actually so I have a pediatric seat consultancy business and the whole mission for that vision for that company was I'm a mom of two, like I said, so I was six and a three year old and I struggled with no sleep when my kids were little and I felt a lot of judgment from society, from my parents, my in-laws and about how like it's common. Like, why do you need sleep? You're a mom now. Like, you're not supposed to sleep. Like, why are you so surprised? And I was like, no, no, no, like, this is not no, like, we're not doing this. So I asked my doctor, who was very thankfully an amazing guide and was like, you can put them on a routine and you can train them, you know, just to sleep better so that you sleep better. And so as we all know, sleep is a bylaw. So we all have a psychological necessity and we all need it, including kids. Right. And so I did a lot of research into that and I, my kids, you know, since they were five months old, they go to bed at seven thirty, they wake up at seven, they don't wake up at night to feed, which means I'm a well-rested mom and a happy mom. My family's well rested and happy and, you know, I'm a happy person. And so as I was doing this with my own family, a lot of my friends and family started asking me like, oh, my gosh, how are your kids doing that? Like, tell us all the secrets. And I was like, it's not a secret. You just have to do it. And so I was like, you know what, I feel like I need to start this other business. And my husband was like, yeah, you should do it like you can help moms. And, you know, the vision here is you're helping not just the child sleep better, but the entire family sleep better so that the family is happy. And I feel like a happy family contributes positively to society and community. Right. And so that's the goal here is we're impacting communities on a global scale by, you know, working with me as a sleep consultant. That's why I started that business. And no, I don't feel judged at all. I feel, you know, I feel very empowered. I'm really happy that I'm able to have a B2B business and then pivot to a B2C business. They're definitely different and they keep me on edge. They keep me wanting to learn all the stuff that's out there. And it really keeps my life exciting and fun. So that goes to you. I mean, you said on your resume, you should have your other things that you do and you sort of like you've filled it up. You said, well, my hobby is actually a business as well. Yep, exactly. Now, one of the things I do want to go back, want to ask about, because you've talked about this and this seems to be an area that, you know, you you have a that you are interested in as well that you pursue. And it's one that we've come back to with a couple other guests as well, is the idea of diversity in tech is because it is a it is something that it's I think it has gotten better that it was definitely a man's world for a long time. And there was even, you know, there were there would be times where it was just like sort of like women in particular were, oh, they don't do math, so they don't do tech. And yet you've seen that. And now you've even seen in recent years, even there are female tech CEOs. And definitely when you go beyond, you know, just sort of like the wasp type of man, as you've seen that there's definitely there's there's certain and particularly certain countries and cultures that very much seem to drive towards technology, that's just sort of the it seems to be that's their their, you know, bread and butter. But how do you go to these, you know, these lesser served areas where there's still there and you can find out, you can see examples where there are people that you may have never thought they would be suitable for tech, but then they they knock it out of the park there. So how do you see where maybe people that are in the business can help others and then also those that are hiring, how they can in particular, how you can hire for the best person for the position and address diversity, but also not maybe lower your standards? Yes, there's I mean, there's so many good questions there. So I'll start as best as I can. So I think the very first thing in terms of specifically communities and, you know, institutions and even employers. Right. So I always encourage them to partake in situations where they can really do a lot of mentorship or any type of skills development program, internships and community outreach based on specifically the diversity statistics there. And this is where data I'm big on data. And this is where we really have to use data to guide us on, OK, what community needs us the most. Right. And then developing those programs around that community to get because I think this stuff starts young, like this stuff doesn't start later. This stuff start can start as early as middle schools, right, where you're like encouraging diverse population to partake in STEM activities, for example. Right. So again, that skills development program or internship and then moving into high school, right. Community outreach. Same with college. Right. And then once you're at college, that's really when people decide what they want to do. Right. So offering them those opportunities early on is really how we're going to shape the world of diverse tech talent moving forward. So I think that's the first point. I think from a recruitment standpoint, right, employers really need to broaden their recruitment strategy. So one of the things I always encourage is, you know, doing women centric job fairs, right, or community outreach programs that really emphasize technology as an opportunity for everybody. Right. And then, again, making sure that your hiring practices are fair, which includes your job description, making sure there's no sexist words on there. You know, there's no bias there. You're talking about a broad range of skills and you're giving people equal opportunity because there is still subconscious bias in all of us. Right. Whether we accept it or not and whether we show it or not, sometimes it shows up. Right. And so in my hiring manager training, a lot of what I teach them is about, like, how do you kind of know it and understand what your bias is? Right. And there's like a quiz that you can take. And then from there, like, OK, now that you know you have this, like, how do you then translate this to when you're hiring for a job? Like, how do you make sure you keep your bias at the door? Right. So that you're actually hiring talent, right. Not just hiring off with bias, because that's really how, like, you know, and a lot of times I'll see this when people are like, oh, my gosh, we need to fill this role right now. And I'm like, OK, what does diversity look like on your team? It's not good. And I'm like, OK, well, then maybe we need to not just hire fast. We also need to hire taking into account how can we hire more diverse people on your team? How can we hire more women? Right. How do we make that work to where you're then also like there's inclusion because your your retention rate goes up, the more inclusive you are and the more diverse you are. It's a known fact. It's scientifically proven, right, because there's more ideas, there's different cultures and it makes for a safe environment. Right. Which I think is, again, another thing that you know, Java, not job owners, employers need to do is like really mitigating unconscious bias, you know, creating employee resource groups, prioritizing diversity, inclusive communication, really employing diversity, inclusion as part of your values and having transparent conversations, whether it's at an all hands on deck meeting, whether it's a company off site and making one of the things you talk about a priority is diversion, inclusive inclusivity. Right. And asking other people ideas on how to increase that, you know, whether it's getting referrals, whether it's, you know, having job fairs that are specific, anything like that, but including your workforce to give you those ideas, because again, we all come from different backgrounds and we all have amazing resourcefulness inside of us. And it's you know, it's the employer's job to kind of pull that out of their employees so that they can really form this inclusive culture. And then finally, I think retention. Right. So any type of flexibility, mentorship opportunities, sponsorship that you can provide for your employees where women feel safe, where, you know, people of different backgrounds feel safe and included, it's going to skyrocket your retention, but it's really going to allow people to feel heard and they're going to feel recognized. And I think that's really how you're going to, you know, just promote just success of underrepresented groups in general. So that's really kind of my two cents on it. I know that was probably a lot, but I'm really passionate about this topic because this is something I coach and coach to people all the time. Well, I think along that one of the things that comes to mind is when you talked about how job postings are written, then one of the things that I've seen that has been is described as as an anti-diversity thing, but it's also an area that I've I've been very strong about in my own postings and in places I've gone is when listed in the job description is degree requirements or even sometimes certification requirements, because that can sometimes lock people out that have have an equivalency or something like that. And I've seen people that are highly qualified, but because they don't have a degree or they don't have the right cert or whatever, there's like that one or two things that that suddenly they've been shut out, almost like me, you know, when you said, hey, you get pushed to the bottom if you include a video because the system doesn't read you. It's sort of the same thing. How have you worked with with posting and maybe also on the on the applicant side to to work around those kinds of things or maybe even work within them to say, hey, you know, I get it that this is what you see is what this position should be. But here's maybe a better way to look at it, that it does open it up to maybe the ideal candidate. Yeah, these are conversations. I actually just had a conversation with one of my clients on Friday about this, and I was like, what is really important to you? Why is this important to you? Right. And so getting to the why. And so a lot of times you'll be like, well, I'll hear people say, well, team parity, you know, the four people that we have on the team have a bachelor's. And so it would be weird for me to pay somebody what they're making if they didn't have a bachelor's. And I'm like, OK, that makes sense. Like, I understand your thought thought track there. And that makes sense. Right. And so I do that with every single requirement. Like, why five years? Why not three? Why not seven? Like, what is your justification for that? Right. Can we lower it? What if it's a woman and she has three years of experience? Like, is that OK? They're like, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Right. Because I'm like, I'm trying to increase your women ratio here in the business. Right. And I want you to have more women that are working here. And so like we always go back and forth about that. And I feel like it's really about the recruiter to be outspoken about that and not just taking what they give you at face value and pushing back a little bit, pushing back respectfully, but pushing back a little bit on I love that you have these. I want to change these three things. And here's why. Like, what do you think? Right. And kind of getting them to get that say that buy in, so to speak. And then I think that really that communication, that's the first step. Right. Having that communication, being transparent, being on the same page. That's going to then ultimately lead to a hiring funnel. That's going to lead to, you know, more diverse candidates down the line. Right. Because if you don't have these conversations early on and you're just focused on being super stringent, you're not able to break down any walls. You're just going to be status quo and status quo doesn't change things. That's status quo. So that's what I try to not do is I always try to push the envelope a little bit. And I'm like, OK, let's you know, you told me there's five engineers. Like, I want to add two more. Right. How do we do that? How do we make it happen? We got to change some things here. Let's work together. Right. And so kind of going at it that way, I think, helps a lot. Yeah, I think so. As it's like I said, it sends often it feels like it's, you know, not quite an end run, but it's like that. It's saying, hey, OK, you've put the stake in the ground, but hey, maybe we don't need to put it as firmly in the ground or maybe we can we can move it around a little bit. And actually, you just you trigger something else in that comment. Have you seen a difference? And this actually even goes back a little bit to gaps, because I know one of the things that a lot of times an issue in the past with with women is, you know, hey, if you get pregnant and you're going to be out of the workforce for a little bit, even though these days I've known several that are out of quote out of the workforce, but they're still working while they're, you know, newborns and things like that, because you can. And sometimes now, because you can work from two to three a.m. in the middle of the night, because you can get some work done. And then along the same lines has been, particularly in the U.S. I don't know how much this is globally, is that there are job restrictions where you can only be here, you know, 11 months and you have to take a month that you're you're not working and you have to go back to your country and you can renew all your stuff. Are you seeing that those those gaps are being or at least being more accepted generally now? And I think partially just maybe because they have to, but also because people are realizing, hey, that's not as big a negative as maybe they once thought it was. Yes. And I think this is one of those like catch 22 situations, right? When you have more diverse teams and more women in an organization, you're going to automatically have that sympathy. So that's in turn going to lead to less stringent expectations on people coming in. And this is why diversity is important, right? Because if you can, if you have a leadership team, that's more understanding because they themselves are diverse. Then that's what I see is diverse teams are just amazing leadership teams because they understand there's more to life than just work. You know, when COVID happened, we saw mass exodus of women out of the workforce because they had to cancel their kids to school. A lot of people can't just hire nannies. And, you know, honestly, with social distancing, that wasn't even a safe thing to do, right, especially the first six to seven months. Like it was very unpredictable. We had no idea what's going on. There was no vaccine. We were just hearing all these scary stories of people dying around us. And so obviously, women had to stay home, right? I had to come back my hours because my kids were home. And at the time, I had a four month old and a three year old when COVID hit. And so, you know, I had to be their entertainer, their cook, their chauffeur, their whatever, their mom. But I also think that that's why we see a lot of people women taking gaps specifically, or now people are starting to respect mental health. And so I see a lot of people saying, like, I needed to unplug for three months for my mental health. I was in a, you know, startup environment where things got really crazy and I just had to disconnect because I was trying to lose myself. Right. And I just spoke to somebody about that too this morning. And so people understand that situations happen in life. People have kids, people get married, people need mental health days, people want to step away, they want to travel the world. Like there's more to life than just work. And, you know, as people are becoming more aware of that and starting to walk away from this old school way of leadership where like eight to five, you know, just two days off a year. Like, you know, all that stuff is disappearing. Now, could it be better? Absolutely. There's always room for improvement. I'm not 100 percent happy with, you know, the maternity benefits that we have or the paternal benefits. But a lot of companies are making an effort to be better. Right. And so I think that's other other thing. As long as we're making progress in the right direction, I think that's what matters. And I think as long as we have diverse teams and teams that care about inclusion equity, we're going to continue making strides in that direction. So if you are not making diversity, your hiring goal that it needs to be, because that's really how you're going to see those big changes that are going to ultimately impact communities positively. Now, how have you as you've as you've grown, has that been something that was that from the start was a diversity or did it just sort of naturally happen or how did how have you used that within your own organization or actually, I guess, in your case, organizations? Yes. You know, my organizations are very diverse. We have women and men. We have people from different ethnic backgrounds and cultural backgrounds. And I've designed it that way. Right. Now, I don't obviously ask people what culture or religion or anything. We can't ask those questions legally. But, you know, I am really big on, OK, like, you know, we were just talking about this, like we have too many women on this team, like, let's get another man. Like, let's get another person here. You know, or, you know, this team is really loud. Like, we need someone, maybe a little quieter. So we kind of, you know, look at those things in the interview process. Right. We assess them. Now, skills are also important to me, though. So there's always a balance. Right. Like, there's always a balance of skills and diversity. You can't just throw one out the gate or the other. Right. And so that's another thing. But I, you know, a lot of times what companies do is hiring becomes a triage for them. Right. It's like, oh, my gosh, we need to hire someone now or whatever. I plan my hiring ahead of time. So I give myself time to interview properly. I don't do like we need to talk to two people and then hire one. No, like you can talk to a couple. But if you have a timeline, then it's easier if you plan it. But if you're doing it where it's like triage and you're constantly putting bandaid on this cut that needs surgery, like it's not going to fix it. Right. And so that's kind of the way that I always approach it. It's like, let's kind of do, you know, a big picture, you know, 20,000 foot view of what my company should look like in five to 10 years and then work our way back. And that's really how you're going to build a diverse team. I want to be. Well, we could we could go for quite a while on this one, and I do want to be respectful of your time. So I do want to say that for anybody that has because there's obviously several different reasons that people would want to want to get in touch with you. How are how what are the best ways for them to reach out to you and to talk to you about these things and that they want to they want to get fired up about diversity as well, maybe how they want to continue that conversation. Yeah, I love it. So you can visit me on my website. So it's recruit Gann dot com. So recruit Gann dot com. Gann means knowledge in Sanskrit for because people always ask me what that word means. And then you can also email me at Neha dot Nike and EHA dot N A I K hat recruit Gann R E C R U I T G Y A N dot com. And then you can find me on LinkedIn as well. So if you just type up my name or my company name, you'll see me on LinkedIn as well. So that's another good way to get in touch with me. Excellent. Well, and I will get those those links will be in the show notes for everybody so that they don't have to to scramble through and write those things down. And I just want to I want to thank you for time. This has been great. This has really been informative. And again, like I said, it's for us, I think it's a little bit of like looking behind the curtain a little bit and seeing the other side of of processes that a lot of us have, you know, have gone through and continue to go through and always have a little bit of a lack of understanding of that. So hopefully this has helped people out quite a bit. I encourage anybody to reach out if you if you your company needs somebody to help with recruiting or if you know, if on the other end of if you're looking for a job and need somebody to help out that maybe can can walk you through advancing your career, give her a call or drop her line. So thanks a lot for your time. And I hope you have a good rest of your day. Thanks, Rob. Good to be here. And that wraps up, as you may have already guessed, our conversation with Neha. I will have links in the show notes if you want to reach out to her, if there's any questions you have, any additional information you like, or if you're sitting there thinking, hmm, I may need a recruiter, need to reach out and they can help me in one way, form or fashion, whether I'm looking for a job or looking to hire somebody. I'm sure she will appreciate it and say hi from us at Develop Pnur when you do so. That being said, we are not done with our interviews. We're going to come back next episode and we're going to have yet another. We're continuing this. I hope you're getting even half as much usefulness and information out of these as I am. We're on a pretty good streak here. I think of changing up a little bit, but also it seems like every time we've got a nice little list of some to do's and some some things to consider. So I'm going to let this, you know, sort of steepen this a little bit. You can allow it to ruminate on it a tad as you go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop Pnur podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. Please check out school.developpnur.com. That is where we are starting to pour a lot of our content. We've taken the lessons, the things that we've learned, all of the things that make you a better developer, and we're putting it there. We have a range of courses from free short courses up to full paid boot camps. All of these include a number of things to help you get better, including templates, quick references and other things that make us all better developers.