Speaker 1: 0:23

Hello everyone, Welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom, powered by all the MoPros out there. I'm your host, Michael Hartman, flying solo today, Looking forward to getting Naomi and Mike back on at some time here in the near future. Joining me today is Ryan Murphy and Ryan, I know you've got the T in there, so I don't know if you want that included or not.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Yeah, no, there are studies. There are studies done where, if you use a middle initial, people think you're smarter. Ah, and, by the way, yeah, like it's also a good trick if you have your middle initial in LinkedIn, because then you can catch the automated messages, because it shows it's like hello, ryan T. I'm like, oh, you didn't really.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I know some people use the little emojis and stuff to do that Exactly. Yeah, I know some people use the little emojis and stuff to do that.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Exactly, all right. Well, so now you know Ryan T Murphy. Ryan is the founder of Upfront Ops, a company transforming revenue operations by integrating sales, marketing and customer service into a seamless, scalable system. He has over 10 years of experience in RevOps and has led multimillion-dollar marketing initiatives, managed cross-functional teams and developed innovative automation solutions that drive measurable results. Before that, he spearheaded enterprise-wide SaaS integration, scaled marketing operations for a $40 million AR SaaS company and implemented analytics solutions for three $35 million AR tech e-commerce marketplaces. So, Ryan, thanks for joining.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Happy to be here, Michael, and recently very excited, I got a shout out from HubSpot's blog too. So pretty cool stuff. Appreciate the intro.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Nice, all right. Building a brand out there, right, definitely definitely All right. Well, good, well, we're glad to have you. I'm glad to have you. I think this is a good one, given kind of the state of the job market, which is what we're going to be talking about, and we're going to get into some suggestions you have that you've learned over the years from your own experience and through others. But before we get to that, what I'd like to do, I mean I gave the thumbnail sketch of your career journey. I would love for you, I think, because, as I always think it's interesting to hear people's journey, because I have yet to find one that sounds like anybody else's yeah, that's for sure. Walk through a little more of your career journey, like any key decision points, inflection points or people, right, that had maybe an outsized impact on where your career went, and go from there.

Speaker 2: 2:56

For sure, let's kick it off. So, graduated University of Houston, from Texas, by the way. University of Houston, yeehaw, oh, absolutely, howdy, howdy Go. You know I can do the whole podcast like this if it suits your fancy, but no, no, I won't. Um, yeah, people don't believe me when I say I'm from texas because, uh, they're like, wait, you don't have an accent, I don't, I don't get it all right. But, um, lived, uh, 30 years in texas. Graduated university, houston, electrical engineering, which is that's a story for another day.

Speaker 1: 3:26

But yeah, it's hard for us to be talking because I have a. I have a hate relationship with university use and there's no love.

Speaker 2: 3:32

Oh, I do too, actually, that's yeah sure that's another story, but yeah, let's see.

Speaker 2: 3:38

so then, um, first, right out of college, got a job as an electrical engineer nothing to do with marketing ops at all, um, and they put me in engineering. I was designing, I was I was designing like modules that would go into a rack on an oil rig in the middle of the gulf of mexico. I'm like like, who is this helping? Like I'm not, I'm not helping anybody, right? So so I got bored of that very quickly and they um moved me to process improvement. And then, right which, we were in a management rotation program, all the new hires right from U of H, and my next rotation was process improvement, where I learned Six Sigma. I got like Six Sigma certified, all this stuff and implementing initiatives for a 12,000-person global company, right, we are.

Speaker 2: 4:29

One project that we had to do was do a real process improvement, and there were 15 sections of our proposal. In the first, 13, we're defining the problem, analyzing the current state, and then only 14, and 15 was like actually talking about the solution that we proposed, that we proposed. But, um, from there I kind of realized that I really like operations and process and you know things like that and, uh, I I kind of just pursued operations roles, general operations, um, went into marketing, uh, also for a oil and gas company startup and this company I have to say the name of it because it's part of the story, otherwise I wouldn't name drop.

Speaker 2: 5:18

But yeah it's called, it's called. It was called. It's not around anymore. It was called Data Gumbo.

Speaker 2: 5:24

All right, they hired me as an api engineer because they're like oh we, we saw you had a rolling gas experience and you, you know, you know all that. Um, that was fine, you know. But one day, you know, we had an open office experience like a, like a. We were kind of a um, one day I was listening to the sales team talk about the uh web traffic numbers and you know, for this, for the ceo and founder to be on a video feature on bloomberg, like all this amazing pr like like this is taking off. I mean, we got like, I think when they hired me, I was like employee number 23 or something, and then they had just closed series a. So they, they were, they were cooking right.

Speaker 2: 6:03

So sales guys talk about the web traffic numbers and I'm like man, that is super low, that's super low Like for for this company, for all that buzz is generating. And so I asked my manager. I said, hey, do you mind if I, if I look into this, cause I uh, I've been messing around with like Google search console and you know, uh, google analytics and things like that. So, anyway, I pull a google search. Uh yeah, google search console report on datagumbocom, which, by the way, is a sas company, uses blockchain and all this stuff for smart contracts. Very, very like high-tech, modern web 3, all that, all that stuff. Right, pull the search console report. And the number one term that popped up, or like basically what you had to type into google to get data gumbo to appear on the front page of google, was the phrase best gumbo near me. All right, so google was thinking this whole time they were a restaurant.

Speaker 1: 7:03

Oh my goodness not a sass company, right, because it's like nobody, nobody paid attention to this stuff.

Speaker 2: 7:08

And I brought that to the CEO and he said he's like, wow, I didn't know we needed what, you know how to do. And then they brought in a marketing consultant and then we chatted and then she said something to me in passing. She's like you know, you do really well in marketing operations, really well in marketing operations. And then, and then from there, you know, I just I just um optimize my resume, which I'm so excited to get into because, uh, yeah, because I'll tell you what it was like before, before my big journey, because you know, I I'm in New Jersey now. I'm like right across from, uh, Manhattan. I'm like just one ferry, ferry, right away. If anyone is in New York wants to meet up, that's super cool. Right, I work from home, so anytime anyway.

Speaker 1: 7:52

So so you were at Data Gumbo and then that's right.

Speaker 2: 8:09

Right, right, right. So we were talking about optimizing my resume, right? So when I moved from Texas, or when I moved to New Jersey, which is where I live now, when I was working at Data Gumbo which, by the way, I moved for family, that's what brought me up here, sure, up here, sure, um, the hr person in data gumbo said, hey, if you leave texas, you no longer have a job. I'm like well, why, why not? And and she's like well, we, there's something about the tax laws or something.

Speaker 1: 8:39

I I don't know the technicalities of it, maybe, maybe you do, michael, with your background I do know there's states, different states are different, so there might be something to do with that and yeah, yeah, they're they.

Speaker 2: 8:49

They couldn't keep me employed, so they're like if you move to new jersey, you can't, or like you, you, you have to resign. So I did, because I moved for family, right, I mean, I was sure it was, it was not an option, so that's a big, that's a big inflection point there.

Speaker 2: 9:03

yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I mean I mean, uh, you know, have one daughter. She's four and, uh, I moved to be closer to her in in in New Jersey. Um, she was, she was like six months old at the time, but now she's four. But, um, I'm like man, I am like really kind of SOL here If I'm moving across the country with no income, right, uh, in the middle of a pandemic. This is 2021. All right, I'm like what, what do I do?

Speaker 2: 9:35

So, pulling from my previous startup days where I had a, um, uh, ed tech startup for four years totally different topic um, I know how to use upwork pretty well to find really talented people, which can be, which can be, you know, a topic on its own, but but I, I looked specifically for an HR consultant, um, that companies would hire to for, for, for, like her, to write their job descriptions or something like that. So she was the HR consultant, told her my, my story and she said, yeah, I'm definitely going to help you Name which, which, by the way, she, she's her own independent contractor and does this full-time named, uh, shandy Tucker. So this, this, I learned a lot from her. I learned a lot from other other places and I'm kind of kind of um uh, michael what's the word where you uh gather a bunch of information?

Speaker 1: 10:34

no, you're just like you're sharing what you've learned across the way.

Speaker 2: 10:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's the word. So curated stuff today, really exciting. So one of the biggest mistakes I was making, uh, first, which I met. I met Chandy. We talked every day, we. She spent six months working with me. We two hours on the phone every week for six months while I was getting settled in New Jersey and we were, you know, and I was like Chandy, I need to, I need to find a job like very quickly, cause I already signed a lease in New Jersey. I can't, you know, most people would find that to be backwards, right Like I signed a lease before I had income anyway, because I I verified my income with the old job.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Right, so so you know anyway, I was doing those one click apply jobs which everyone I talked to has like no luck with those. Yeah, I would click on a hundred of them and get zero, like literally zero of anything, like no, no one would respond, um, and now that's all I use is those one click apply and I'll just tell you the. I'll tell you the outcome and then we'll go into how. You know, like, how did it? I can now click with my criteria that that that I that I learned with my criteria. I can click six one click apply jobs and get three interviews. All right, so that's an insanely insane improvement right From from before. So so let me go through the first first part, first tips. So so let me go through the first first part, first tips. What I did, that was so important, was I only applied for the same job title. Why is that important? Because you're someone's resume. They run it through something called an ATS, which I know, michael, you know all about Yep, absolutely, absolutely, and and I've actually never logged into them, I know, I know you've had teams experience with, with that kind of stuff, with what your background is, um, but with that, with the ATS running the show, especially now with AI and things like that. Um, you have, you have to be like, you have to be perfect for the role. You don't have to be the perfect candidate Um, in a way you do, which I'll get into but but basically the first, the first one really is to make sure your resume can stand up to the fire that the ATS is going to throw at it. And how do we do that? So, if you're applying for marketing manager, if that's the job you want marketing manager, um, or, more relevant, if the job you want is marketing ops manager, then you this is not about you applying to demand gen manager or social media manager or email marketing manager. Those are two. Those are totally different roles in the eyes of an ATS, right? So you know the.

Speaker 2: 13:41

The classic advice or whatever, which I don't do, is that they're like oh, customize your resume for every single job, no one has time for that. Like, I didn't have time for that, I needed to find a job immediately. So I found the one job title that I wanted first. Then I used a tool called Jobscanco Love it, love it, love it, love it, jobscanco. I think it's like 40 bucks a month or something If you're, if you're looking for a new role. It's like absolutely essential that that that uses tool, because it's essentially an ATS that you can use as the candidate. Okay, so what you do with it is you, side by side, you paste your resume on the left, current resume Right, your current resume on the left, and you paste the job description on the right. Yep, and then it, it, it does its magic and tells you in a percentage uh, how, how many, uh, what percentage likelihood you're going to get that job based on the resume you currently have. Okay, oh, interesting, okay.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Does it give you, does it give you feedback on what to change? Then, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 14:49

Okay, yep, it'll say oh, you use the word SaaS four times and you should use it six times Like. It gets a really granular with that. And so when I first uploaded my resume for marketing operations manager and I pasted a marketing operations manager job description, when I got off of LinkedIn copy to paste Right, um, my score was like 22 out of a hundred. It was like there, no wonder I was clicking a hundred, one click applies and getting nothing. Because, like, the ATS was like, okay, this guy's 22 out of a hundred. Obviously, we're not going to talk to him, all right.

Speaker 2: 15:25

So once I ran it through job scan, job scanco, and did all the things it was asking me to do, um, I got my score from like, like with my resume because I, I would, I would move words around, you know, use synonyms that would match the job, the job description, and my score eventually went from like 22 or something to like and my score eventually went from like 22 or something to like 60 or 70 out of a hundred, which is more than enough to like. You know, uh, put it in production, right. So, um, that is the first and actually the most important thing is is is that you got to stand, you got to like be ATS ready, and a lot of people are not ATS ready.

Speaker 1: 16:06

Well, it's interesting because this is consistent with advice that I I've heard and I've shared with people who are like when I talk to people who are on job hunt and they want help, like the networking whatever is um, get as specific as you can about what you're looking for, right and so this takes it, I think, another level, kind of another click deeper, in that not only are you being really specific about the jobs or the titles that you look for, but you're then tailoring. If I've got this right, a single resume Right To.

Speaker 2: 16:37

A single job title.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Right, a single job title that you hope and expect will have similar job descriptions Right, right right, right, and usually, and now I mean what's you know?

Speaker 2: 16:47

what's so interesting is that I have a blog on upfrontopscom and one of the most popular blog posts is called roles and responsibilities of a marketing ops manager and according to my analytics, that blog post has the longest engagement time. So I can reasonably conclude that HR managers are looking at my blog post to build their job description, which is wild to me to assume that 80, 90% of the companies with the same job title are going to have very, very similar job descriptions. Sure, which, which I think, I think, michael you, you would know a lot better than I would on that. On that end of things, I think, certainly at um.

Speaker 1: 17:32

I think when you it might vary more as you get to like director and above levels, because that's where you might start seeing things like not always do marketing ops leaders have things like. You know you're managing the budget like kind of in a chief of staff way. You're managing the marketing budget overall right, which is I've had in a director, senior director level role before, but not always right. So there's like but those are. I mean, that's a relatively minor thing that we, or at least it's an important thing from an actual job, but um, uh, it's, it's important for um, like the person who's going for it, but from a job description it's like one bullet point maybe.

Speaker 2: 18:19

Yeah, and I think I think that's really the dividing line. I think you really hit on something great is that. I think that and please correct me if I'm wrong but the the really the dividing line between manager and director is really that, that budget piece.

Speaker 1: 18:34

You think that's accurate well, and I'm specifically talking about not just managing a budget like managing my own budget.

Speaker 1: 18:40

I'm talking about managing the full marketing budget, like being really, you know, the right hand for the CMO when it comes to not just operations and technology, but also like managing the budget. In my experience and I don't think most marketers who might be listening to this would disagree, like most marketers I've met are not very good at managing a budget, um, and there's some of that is to be expected, like I, I I recognize that in marketing ops, when I'm managing managing my budget, I may have a big dollar amount, um, but relatively few transactions, right. You're paying, paying for your right market automation platform once a year. You do a lot of yearly stuff, maybe a couple of monthly things, whereas if you're an event manager event marketing manager, field marketing manager and you're running events, you've got dozens and dozens of small transactions happening all the time for doing multiple events, right. So just keeping up with the administrative part of it is a different beast, but at the same time, I still find that they're generally not great at managing a budget.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Yeah, um, would it actually? You know what I just realized? Would it be helpful to list all the five tips?

Speaker 1: 19:59

Yeah, yeah, while we do that, yeah for sure.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Okay, so the first one we covered, actually I think the first two we used use job scan. Right, like you gotta use job scan. There's like there's no other way. And then the second one is only apply to the job title that you optimize that resume for. If you wanna be social media, if you want to apply to social media manager, marketing manager, demand manager, you got to have three resumes, but you don't have to have a resume for every single company. That's just that's just silly.

Speaker 2: 20:30

And then the third thing, which is um, uh, kind of kind of not very well known. This is really where it gets kind of like insider. In my opinion Never apply, never apply to anything over 24 hours old. We'll go into that one. That's really really, really interesting to me. When I learned that, I was like Whoa. Now another one controversial don't apply to jobs that require cover letters. I'm like I'm not, I'm not going to do it, because I know there's a lot of buzz right now on LinkedIn where there's like oh, I don't accept candidates who use an AI for a cover letter, which is just like why, why, why, in the first place anyway? And then the fifth one is only apply to jobs that allow you to message the recruiter directly in the job post. It'll. It'll show their LinkedIn profile, their photo, and you can click on it. And then you know, um, I always connect with them and I'll go, I'll go through. I'll go through the details on that too.

Speaker 1: 21:30

So yeah, yeah, so this is um, I think just to make sure, like this is you're thinking for jobs and as opposed to other job boards.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Yeah, like, like, like, zip recruiter I. If you want help on zip recruiter, I got nothing for you. Yeah, for sure, I mean, but yeah for LinkedIn. Oh, and then also I got a. I got a bonus tip. I got a. I got a six bonus.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Oh, all right.

Speaker 2: 21:58

So the sixth one is never applied to jobs with more than 10, uh, applicants. Already you can see that at the top of the job post. Um, that's why. That's why I only go to one click apply jobs now, because one click apply jobs remain in LinkedIn, as opposed to an apply button that takes you to a different website. Right that? So the one click apply stays in LinkedIn and then they can. They can see how many applicants there are and and and. If you know all that there's, there's a lot more data when you do the one click applies. That really helps you as a candidate looking for an obstacle.

Speaker 2: 22:34

So, less than so, the. So my filter criteria is this less than 24 hours old, which is super interesting to me, that LinkedIn has that specific filter. Yeah, Less than 24 hours old. It's in the more filters area. It's not. It's not right. Right in front of you. Um, you got to dig, but it's worth it. Less than 24 hours old. Less than 10 applicants. No cover letter requirement. Um-click apply and able to message the job poster. Right, if you follow all those things, you are going to get a 50% click-to-interview rate. Interesting. I've been doing it since 2021. It works every time. It's absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1: 23:20

That's great, it's it works every time. It's absolutely incredible. That's that's great. So this is like right off the top right.

Speaker 2: 23:25

That cuts out a whole bunch of potential jobs if you limit it, for sure okay, like I'll see a, I'll see a job post, like on my phone, I'll get, I'll get alerts and stuff and um, I'll. You know, oh, oh, uh, stripe is hiring a new marketing ops manager and I click and it was posted literally minutes ago and there's like hundreds of applicants already. I'm like nope, next, like it's just, you're never going to. Because, okay, now I think we can go into the. We really went in depth with that, with that optimizing your resume and the ATS one. Do you want me to go in depth into the, the psychology of the, of the?

Speaker 1: 24:04

of the HR person. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I know you and I talked about this and I think it'll be interesting to hear, like the the why and I. And then maybe I have a really specific question about the 24 hour one, like what, what about stuff that gets posted on late, late on?

Speaker 2: 24:24

a Friday or over the weekend, Right? Does it 24 hours still apply, or is it? I mean, I think it, I think it would Um, because I say that, because I um, I don't see a lot of job posts on Fridays, you know, I um it's.

Speaker 1: 24:36

there's someone that I see. I see on the weekends for sure. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Fridays.

Speaker 1: 24:42

I mean I, I, I think this is all anecdotal, like I'm I'm trying to yeah, yeah, remember sure it also. Well, we can get to get to the next one I have. I have a question about the um one click apply. But we can get to that when we get there, for sure. For sure?

Speaker 2: 24:55

so, um, yeah, 24 hour rule is so is so important because what's so interesting to me is that linkedin has filters like how long ago it was posted, and the filters say option one is anytime, option two is like a week ago and then option three is less than 24 hours ago.

Speaker 2: 25:11

So like they, they, they, they kind of know. So the reason why this 24 hour rule is so important is because, if you think about it from the other side of the table, you're the one looking for a candidate to do some job, because your boss has asked you to. You know, write a job post and it's like your job to find the best person. So you just spent so long getting the perfect job description and doing all your research, going to the upfrontopscom blog to get all the things you need to put in the job post. Obviously, you've made this perfect job description and you post it and think about it like posting anything else on social media. You're going to check immediately if it's doing well, if it's getting a lot of likes, a lot of attention. Right, it's, it's that, it's that instant um it's a gratification yeah, yeah, it's a.

Speaker 2: 26:06

Yeah, like the, it's a dopamine or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And so you're, you're, if you imagine yourself in the job poster shoes, like they're, they're like checking every minute, right, if somebody has applied to their job. And that's why, that's why um also, and like it applies to me too, right, I mean, I, I post jobs for like little contractor roles for um upfront opscom, like all the time, and I'm I'm constantly checking in the first 24 hours of like all right, who's applied to this, who's applied to this? Now, the 10 applicant role is another really important thing, because once you have 10 people that are interested, you're like, you're like overwhelmed at that point as an HR person. You're like you know, and and you know, I've never been, I've, I've, I've never been an HR uh rep, but this is just kind of it seems. It seems clear to me that that this is just like kind of psychology related in some way.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Um, just to just to see if, like, your hard work paid off because you found the perfect candidate and the applied immediately, or he or she applied immediately, um, and that's that's why, that's why that's that's so important, and then so, yeah, I mean, I suspect just kind of going into the psychology part of it is like it feels like there's something like the paradox of choice that comes into play, right, when I mean, if you've ever been to a restaurant and their menu is 10 items, right, You're like, oh, I'll just pick number seven, Like that one looks like the best one. You're not going to like, you just know there's not. But if you have a menu that has a hundred items, it's like really fucking hard, right, it really is.

Speaker 2: 27:45

It's overwhelming.

Speaker 1: 27:47

And so, uh, I I imagine there's something related to that I also it's. It's interesting, I mean and if I mean because today, I mean I think many of our listeners would, especially if they're out there looking right, they'll see, like you did. Right, you described a post, something got posted and within minutes, if not, you know, within a day, within minutes, sometimes within hours, you know there are 100 plus applicants, which is sort of astounding to me, because the likelihood that there are actually 100 people or more who actually qualify for that particular job yes, I know there are a lot of people out on the market looking, so maybe right now that is true. At the same time, I think this is a good example of why, the more specific you can get, know where you can tailor what you're doing to something specific and really stand out, the better off you're going to be.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Um, because I know on the other side, like where I've been the recipient, usually there's a talent acquisition, an HR person doing initial screening, but I very often find that they, um, they don't really understand these kinds of roles very well, so it's hard for them to it's hard for them to do the screening effectively and they either screen out people who they think don't match because the ATS says something, or they're too loose, so they send people who are like I look at it and I'm going like I don't know, not a fit, right, I can do that pretty quickly, but I tend to spend a lot of time looking at myself and there it's very obviously like people are just posting on just about anything that seems close to anything that they might've done at any point in their life or career Exactly.

Speaker 2: 29:29

Exactly Now. Now, I know that, I know that, um, I know that you had asked me previously about how how important is it to optimize LinkedIn profile and um, super and super important, for sure.

Speaker 1: 29:46

You like I'm going to come back to this. So we didn't cover the. So the 24-hour rule, right? All right, somebody's trying to get a hold of you, so I get the no cover letters thing. The two that I think quickly will end up dropping the number of potential jobs quickly are the one click apply and the be able to message the job poster.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Right, it does narrow it down a lot for sure.

Speaker 1: 30:20

Yeah, because I mean, again anecdotally, it feels like the vast majority of roles that I have seen historically posted on LinkedIn I don't know what the percentage is, I'm going to guess it's 90 plus percent actually go to whatever that company's careers site is right. Job posting site yeah, I mean, I would agree with that. And then I think I've seen more people posting jobs where there's actually somebody who's, you know, the poster or the hiring team. I think LinkedIn now is like who's the hiring team, but still seems like a pretty significant minority.

Speaker 2: 30:58

So, um, yeah, I mean, if there's thousands of roles out there, like with this criteria, you you might be lucky to come back with 15, but you're going to get, like, if you do all the, you do all the things in which which, by the way, this is super important a way, a way to make sure you get that that interview request is the re like. Let me go into a second like for for a second, why it's so important to, um, uh, be able to message a job poster, because this is this, is it? This is it when you click at their pro, when you click through to their profile and you click through to their profile, you can connect with them. A lot of people just recklessly hit connect and then they move on to the next one. That's no, no, no, You're not done yet, You're not done yet. Always, always, always, always, add a note to the connection request.

Speaker 1: 31:51

And there are so this is how you avoid having to have a premium subscription to LinkedIn. Exactly, you don't need premium. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 32:01

Exactly. And so you need three things you need the exact and I'm talking exact job title in this connection, request, like, if it says director comma, marketing ops, and demand, like you're right, the entire thing word for word, copy and paste, yeah, yeah, uh, so you need the job. So he's like hey, um, I don't know. Hey, suzy, uh, I just I this is my note, by the way this, like this, is what I would write hey, suzy, uh, I just saw you posted a job. Um, I just saw you posted a an open role for director comma, marketing ops, and I believe, like, literally, steal this. I believe I'm the ideal candidate because, and then, right after that, you're going to literally go to the job description and copy and paste one of the first things that you see in under responsibilities.

Speaker 2: 32:57

I believe I'm an ideal candidate because I streamline CRM systems, excited to connect, and you leave your cell phone number, got it. So, so they know you're like a real person. Okay, um, I've never had a recruiter call my cell phone, uh, from that, but, but, but I've had a lot of recruiters message me back after I leave that note. So, so, hey, susie, I saw you posted an open role for director called marketing ops. I believe I'm an ideal candidate because, uh, I've streamlined, like literally copy and paste, streamline CRM systems and set up Marketo, uh, and looking forward to connect uh Ryan and then sell colon, and usually that is like right at the character limit when you do that Cause it's 300, I think is the for sure, yeah, and so it might take a little bit of a little bit of massaging, but but uh, but you can definitely, you can definitely fit all that in there, that's like a that's like a template, that's so important.

Speaker 1: 33:53

Yeah, cause that's so important.

Speaker 2: 33:55

Yeah, because it opens the conversation. I mean, you already have an edge. You already have an edge If you're opening the conversation with the HR person. No one else is doing this. I mean well, except for now, because now a ton of people are going to hear this podcast no-transcript, at least at that point in my career.

Speaker 1: 34:28

One of the things I learned is you are already in a situation like this. If you were willing to just ask people for something and being comfortable with them saying no or just ignoring it right. Ask people for something and being comfortable with them saying no or just ignoring it right, then you're already ahead of 90 of the people because they are too scared to even take that step yeah, absolutely, um and yeah or for sure. Yeah, they are comfortable with it. They don't want to be bothered like. I'm sure.

Speaker 2: 34:52

There's lots of good reasons why people are don't want to do it now, now, real quick, I'll throw this in um, I I kind of glossed over this a little bit, but, but, uh, but you, when we're, when we're talking about your linkedin profile, you, yeah, you definitely have to optimize it, but you have to optimize it.

Speaker 2: 35:08

But, uh, very conveniently, job scan has a linkedin section that will do the same thing that it did to your resume so so, just just just let job scan handle all that, and you'll be golden with that stuff um, do you know, if I know you talked about job scan a couple of times here.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Um, I think I've heard there also some, and I don't know any specifically, but I've heard there are some, maybe custom gpts or other ai kinds of tools that do similar things.

Speaker 2: 35:33

So yeah, I mean it's possible.

Speaker 1: 35:37

I I know that, I know you know what you've used and you like it and it's been successful, right? Yeah, I mean, it's possible, I, I know that, I know you.

Speaker 2: 35:40

Just, you know what you've used and you like it has been successful, right, yeah, I mean, I mean I, I, I'm, I'm like super, super familiar with ai, make ai models from scratch, uh, depending on the uh, depending on the occasion. And you know, this is, this is more than just like a generic gT output or even a specialized GPT output. This actually goes through and like counts all the words and like you know, you say this and they say that and you got to say this and um, it goes it like checks boxes for, like, soft skills and and you know all that. It's, it's, it's designed, it's it's, you know, purpose built for this task.

Speaker 2: 36:15

So so, um, I guess know, I've never, I've never like okay I've never questioned me paying for it, and it was, you know well and I'm not even saying like I think.

Speaker 1: 36:27

I mean I've seen and heard at least people posting about ai tools that do things similar to this yeah not all of them are free, or the free level doesn't really do what you need.

Speaker 1: 36:37

So it's not about the cost, I think, from that standpoint. But anyway, with that I mean you've got one that works Curious on. So we've got these sort of five, six things that you say work well. Have you done any kind of experimentation where you go like I'm actually going to go ahead and follow all the rules except for the limit of 10 10 applicants?

Speaker 2: 37:04

right, and I'm gonna like go, you know, apply to something that has 25 or 50 people already yeah, I mean, I mean I I stretch it a bit if I'm, if I find one that's like 13 or 14 or 15, I'll still apply, if I'm like really strong for the role, um, but but if it once it gets into like the, the, the twenties and thirties and forties, like you don't have a shot, you just don't, cause they're already talking to the first 20 people. They've already set up interviews with them.

Speaker 1: 37:33

Right, so so yeah, and then maybe a similar one like what if it's been more than 24 hours, but you see there's only seven applicants, that's okay.

Speaker 2: 37:43

That's okay, because it means that, I would think, in my opinion, it suggests that there's not a lot of good candidates or not a lot of interest in the role, which, yeah, I mean, I think. Actually, by the way, I didn't even, I didn't even mention this. Linkedin has a filter for this too under 10 applicants. So this is this is like a super like somebody thought of this which is which is super interesting. Yeah and um, but do you, do you want, do I? I have this, I have this idea for the interview.

Speaker 1: 38:19

Do you want me to? Do you want to go into that?

Speaker 2: 38:21

so like how like.

Speaker 1: 38:21

So now you get the interview and what do you? How do you handle that? Sure, yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:23

This is the most important thing. It is so important, uh, because if, without this, you're, you're, you're, you're in bad shape. Um, a lot of times, mostly every time, I know what happened with me. When you get an interview phone call, that screening call, cause that's the first step. You know there's a screening call, you listen to them, ask you questions common, common courtesy, common etiquette you let the, let the interviewer ask you questions as the candidate, I don't do that, and that's super important for one topic, and that is salary. If you wait until they ask you what are your salary expectations, you lost, you already lost. You're going to get the minimum authorized amount and the HR rep is going to have a win because they got you super, super cheap.

Speaker 2: 39:25

All right, so I beat him to it. I beat him to it. And how do I do that? One of the first things I say oh hey, how's it going? I'm so glad you called me.

Speaker 2: 39:35

Yeah, um, tell me about, tell me about your background, or like what to tell me about yourself, or like like whatever. Oh, yeah, absolutely Happy to real, real quick, though, real quick, sorry. Well, you don't have to say sorry, I'm just real quick, I didn't see. I say this word for word, word for word, real quick. I didn't see an authorized budget range for this role. Do you happen to have that information? That's it. I've had someone tell me oh, actually I don't know, you don't know, that's not true. And so when they said I don't know, I literally was just like silent. I'm like there's no fucking way, you don't know Like you, you're the HR person, like come on, and then it was silent for like five seconds. They're like uh, yeah, I think it's 90 to 110 a year. Okay, thanks, anyway, about myself, about my background, and then I'll just continue with the interview. And, um, yeah, you got to beat him to that, to that question, because you could be seriously undervaluing yourself. If you know, the common trap is like oh, what'd you make it your last job? Oh, I made 90. Great, we'll pay you 92 when they were authorized to pay you like 140,. You know like you're right. You know, I know that, um, which, while we're on this topic, I, I had a, um had a.

Speaker 2: 41:01

It was long, long ago before I knew Marketo. Um, I, I had only had HubSpot experience and I had applied to a very large tech company that is very well known. But I won't, I won't name, drop them Um billion billion dollar tech company, easy, easy, and the role was marketing operations manager. And the salary which? Because I'd use that technique, I? I said, well, what's the authorized budget range for this? They said, they said we're prepared to start negotiations at 160 000 a year.

Speaker 2: 41:35

This was like three years ago, four years ago, five, five years ago. Which is like what, right, that was that for a manager. You know dearly that that's, that's pretty dang good. And then, and then there was like a, like a $50,000 stock options, like $10,000 signing bonus, whatever, whatever. It was sweet, all right.

Speaker 2: 41:53

Now they said, do you know Marketo?

Speaker 2: 41:57

And by at this time, it was like like four or five years ago, I didn't, I didn't, and I was honest, it was very honest and I said, um, I I've never used Marketo, but, um, I, you, I'm a, I'm, I have all these certifications in HubSpot and, like, I've seen YouTube videos, it's like almost the same thing.

Speaker 2: 42:17

Guess who didn't get a call back? Yeah, can't say that, you just can't like that, because, like you, like you said before michael, like, um, you know, sometimes these people posting these roles, especially on the screening call before you get to a hiring manager, like they don't really know the technical end, like you were saying, and so they're just listening to see. If you check off the boxes on the job description, right, and if you don't, okay, on to the next one. We have a hundred thousand people who applied for this thing, yeah, on to the next. You know, so you know? Read between the lines on that one, I guess I'm not. I'm not going to tell you to do anything that's against your ethics or whatever, but no, I I mean I would.

Speaker 1: 43:00

You'd never want to. I mean, this is the danger of using some of these tools to redo your resume, especially like I've seen and heard people who've done that with. Well, I've seen it in just in general, with chat gpt, for example, where it generates stuff that is just made up right oh, totally it right.

Speaker 2: 43:16

It told me the other day that HubSpot had a venue management module. No it doesn't Anyway, yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:25

So if you I mean you you want to be cautious, I mean you, uh, and you are when, when, when, when it comes to shove and they really dig into, like uh, if you say you have Marketoo experience, but you don't like, you've only maybe you've seen it, the logo, and you've logged into a script, you know great, I mean be honest about it.

Speaker 1: 43:46

But yeah, I mean you know, tell the story about how what you've done would be a way that you, like you knows. You know that you would then be able to quickly learn this platform and why?

Speaker 2: 43:57

an example ideally an example of how you did something similar with yeah, and I find I find that hiring, like screening calls and hiring managers, they really love the phrase hit the ground running, they really love that. It's like, oh yeah, um marquetto, absolutely love marquetto, I can definitely hit the ground running. I mean, you didn't lie.

Speaker 1: 44:18

Yeah, smart hiring manager will ask tell me about your experience right.

Speaker 2: 44:26

Yeah, it's tough, it's a tough one, it's really tough.

Speaker 1: 44:29

I mean, I think the key, the thing about asking the question about compensation range or other key things that are, I would say, another good example of something is, I think um, I think this is particularly true of SAS companies is they they they tend to have a hard, a fairly hard requirement when they hire experienced people that they have experience with SAS companies. Now do I think that that's a smart thing to do, because you get groups in? I don't know that that necessarily makes sense. I understand why they do it, so that people can hit the ground running right.

Speaker 2: 45:07

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:08

At the same time, the quicker you can find out. Is there some sort of hard requirement that I absolutely just am not going to meet? The better right. So the comp range is not one that I'm willing to accept. Yeah right if there's if they're just going to say you have to have sass experience, you can't like. I like, like I could make up stuff about like, oh, I did this, that's close. I mean I could do that, but I don't see the point in spinning it.

Speaker 2: 45:36

Well, yeah, it's a waste of your time.

Speaker 2: 45:39

It's a waste of their time yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you're absolutely right, that's kind of like a pandora's box right there and we were like, we're like almost, almost to the top of the hour. So, but but I, I can, I can tell you, I can tell you this, I can actually provide, um, some real, some real value here. Uh, I I can share the letter with everybody, the email, the email that got me an instant $10,000 raise. That's great, yeah, and it's very well written.

Speaker 2: 46:09

You know and this is before AI could do this, but maybe you can optimize it in AI but yeah, it's impossible to use this email if you already have a job. You have to be, like, at the beginning before you accept an offer. You send this email and, yeah, you're impossible to use this email if you already have a job. You have to be at the beginning before you accept an offer. You send this email and, yeah, you're going to get a raise. I sent this email and I got a call from the HR manager. She's like yeah, sure, fine, $10,000 more Went from $90,000 to $100,000.

Speaker 1: 46:35

Sure Like that. Cool, yeah, that's great. So there's a link to that I can send you. Okay, we can. If we can, we can uh share that in in uh show notes or something, if we, if you can send it to me, yeah, for sure, what we do, you do. We are, unfortunately I'm up against the clock here, uh, but we're still gonna need to wrap up. Ryan's been great. I think this is some really practical stuff people can try. It's some degree counterintuitive, which I always I like that. I'm attracted to that kind of stuff. So, but if folks do want to kind of connect with you, learn more, kind of see more sound like you have some stuff where you publish some of this what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 2: 47:16

Upfrontopscom and LinkedIn is just my Ryan dash T dash Murphy. Linkedincom. Slash in slash. Ryan T Murphy, I'll respond. Reach out, I'm a real person, all right.

Speaker 1: 47:28

Terrific. Well, I appreciate it All right. Well, thanks again, ryan. It's been a fun conversation, thanks to our listeners and viewers out there continuing to support us, as always. We listeners and viewers out there continuing to support us, as always, we are interested in your, your feedback and your suggestions for topics, for guests, or if you want to be a guest, you can always reach out to naomi mike. I mean, we'd be happy to chat with you about that until next time. Bye, everybody, thanks.